Journal #1

Today's session with seven graders was related to the abilities to use can and can't. At the beginning of the session I show them some slides with people rolling their tongue, crossing their eyes, holding their breath for 30 second and other strange faces. While I was showing them the slides I ask them if they can do those things. Some cases said only yes or no, others said I can or can't or others "no puedo teacher". This part was really joyful because they tried to do all the gestures which they were seeing. Then I asked them about their abilities to the music, sports, study or different activities which they answered me just yes I can or can’t.

After that, there was a short reading related of the abilities of some students at school. During the reading exercises some students explained to others what do they can or not do. In some cases students used English but in most cases they used Spanish to said something like “Mike no puede tocar ningun instrument pero Cindy puede tocar el violin” in order to verify the information.

I have to mention that although I had planned to explain the use of can and can’t in a specific way I immediately change this activity. During this part of the session I had not explained how to use can or can’t to express their abilities. Students just deduce that can or can't is used to express their abilities. At the end there was a short game with some yes no questions. They saw a picture, of an animal and I asked them for some things that they can or not do. If they choose the correct answer there were some people celebrating but if this was incorrect there was a sad face.

After the classes I could notice that there are some ways which students can understand what we want do explain them using different kind of strategies and activities without bore them only with the grammar part.