Colombian Hello my friends

My name is Lucero Villamil, I am at El Bosque University and I am studying the Post-Graduate Progam on Bilingual Education-English. I work in Reuven Feuerstein School in Bogota, Colombia. I am Third Grade Homeroom teacher and I love my 33 beautiful children. Today the weather is lovely. I feel really happy today because today it is the last class and it has been a wonderful experience to share with people with different educational backgrounds.

I Can Almost See my Image on the Mirror.

About Me

I teach Social Studies in First , Second and Third grade in a bilingual school. Before I started to work there, I had the opportunity to choose between teaching Math or Social Studies. I choose Socials because I consider myself clever at it. I think that it is more enjoyable to teach Socials Studies than Math because I relate the knowledge I have with the former, with useful reflections that I can generate on my students.When I started reading about the strategies of "Preview-Review", I thought that indeed it was necessary in a subject like Math taking into account the complexity it offers, but I think it evidences a very personal point of view due to the difficulties I have had with this subject.

My Way

Then I read about the methodology of "Preview-Review" applied in Socials classes and it made me recall my own work at the school.The Social classes I teach are based on a book that concentrates on Colombian Culture. Through the memories of my classes I have found some similarities with some of the steps of "Preview-Review" methodology.The procedure starts by introducing the topic in English in order to check the level of comprehension that students have. According to students' needs there is a phase where English might be used to give the explanations. A similar situation happens to me. Some weeks ago, I was teaching the topic "Productive Activities in Colombia" and I started giving them the key vocabulary. After that, they read short texts that I had to adapt previously in order to cover the specific content that the course required.

And It Worked

Students supported their comprehension in on pictures, stories or games. Then I reinforced the concepts by giving them more detailed reflections in Spanish. In this way it is easier for them to make sense of what they are learning at a specific moment. I consider that without knowing much about this methodology, I am getting closer to it by applying some basic steps taht I think suit to my students' needs and that make me feel proud of my particular teaching style.I have noticed that they feel more confident about the topics in English because they have had the opportunity to deal with them in Spanish. Now, talking about the possibility of working with another teacher, I think it would become a good resource because of the concentration of each one of the teachers, on the key steps of the methodology. So far, I have done it by myself, for example the task of adapting the material for them taking into account their level, needs and learning styles.