Erika Maxson

ECUI 531
29 October 2018
Lesson 1 Reflection

The first lesson that I prepared and taught to Señoras Poehailos’s Spanish students was on the

Day of the Dead or El Día de los Muertos after putting in 15 hours of observation. I taught the lesson 3

times, first to Advanced Placement students, then to a Spanish 2 class and finally to a beginning

conversation class of two students. Each lesson went differently due to both experience and the nature of

the students.

At first, I had technological glitches due to the incompatibility of PowerPoint (which I use) and

Google Slides (which the school uses). Luckily, I had prepared a plan B and was able to pull up the

presentation as a PDF and the videos separately before I was scheduled to begin the lesson observed by

Mr. Reilly. Beginning with the AP students in period two, I taught the lesson mostly in Spanish with a

few English translations based on their reactions/responses and when I thought clarification was

necessary. Although I think the lesson went pretty well and students were able to grasp the content, every

lesson has potential for improvement. More than likely due to the technological issues that had me a little

flustered to start, I forgot to hand out the viewing guide to go along with the second video. Luckily, the

fact that they were AP students made the viewing guide more of an extra enforcement than a requirement.

Another mistake I made, something I would change for future lessons, is that the second kahoot, the post-

test, should have been in quiz format rather than survey format as the pre-test was. This would give

students extra enforcement of questions they got wrong/right by marking their questions red or green.

While I remembered to use the viewing guide for Spanish 2 in period three, I did have to use

significantly more English with this class. My method of incorporating the language was having the

presentation in the target language and my explanations in both English and Spanish. Along the same

lines, the beginner conversation class lesson was given almost completely in English (as per Sra.

Poehailos’s suggestion) with the PowerPoint in Spanish and specific reference to relevant vocabulary

words. In this class, the lesson was much more conversation based due to the nature of the class. They had
previously watched Coco and discussed the significance of the Day of the Dead so these students brought

a rich (English) conversation to the class and were able to connect easily with the content.

As previously stated, the lesson was delivered via PPT presentation and incorporated two videos,

a pre and post-test kahoot, vocabulary explanations and thought-provoking questions for discussion.

Students were broken into desk clusters of 4 with no classes bigger than 18 students. The behavior of all

students was without problem and nearly all students participated in answering questions (with the

exception of about 2 per class) while all students participated in the Kahoots and watching of the short

videos.

As a teaching, learning and assessment activity, this lesson was valuable in that it allowed me to

incorporate various levels of Spanish into the same lesson to be sure that the students are grasping the

content. Until this point, the lessons I had prepared were for a specific level and not a range of classes. I

feel that the repetitive nature of the lesson, the mixed use of Spanish and English, and the incorporation of

activities to address various learning styles made this lesson successful for all classes.

Possible alternatives and lesson changes I would make when repeating this lesson would include

those mentioned earlier and providing students with phrases and/or words they could use to answer in

Spanish. Even when I asked the questions in Spanish, the AP students would answer in English before me

prompting “en Español, por favor” (In Spanish, please). My goal would be to increase the Spanish

language input (use by teacher) and output (use by students), although that can’t happen in just one

lesson. Because the students are used to a teacher that does not use too much of the target language, I was

challenged to use as much Spanish as I thought the students would be able to understand, something I

hope to become better at judging with experience. This way, I will be working in the students’ Zones of

Proximal Development as described by Vygotsky while applying Krashen & Swain’s Input and Output

Hypotheses.