Power teaching involves basically active learning as loud repetitions and a lot of interaction teacher- students and students-students.
It is devided into 6 stages, which are:
1. Class-Yes, which is the technique that helps us as teachers to get the students attention, in such as simple way as asking them: -Class!, and immediately students respond: Yes? That way students show the teacher they’re in and paying attention.
Sometimes the teacher may change the way he says it and students then, are suppossed to imitate the teacher and match the tone and intensity of what he says. It sounds like a lot of fun huh?

2. Classroom rules, which are set the first day and are about how to behave and what to do, so the class can go in a good way and that it turns out to be easy for the teacher to manage.

3. Teach-okay. Stage in which students interact one to another and learn the most. It is divided into 2 parts. In the first part, students are told by the teacher some topic or new language. After that, in the second part of the stage, the students tell other student (in pairs or groups) what the teacher first said.

4. Score board. Is the stage where the teacher records  the students’ behaviour during the class.

5. Hands and Eyes. This stage occurs when the teacher needs the whole attention from his students. The teacher asks the students to remain sit and silent, only paying attention to him.

6. Switch. This is the instruction given to the students so that they change roles. (at the end of Stage 3 *Teach-okay)

I had never heard of  Power teaching, or brain teaching , as it is also called. After watching some videos about it on youtube I was amazed.
Definately I would have loved to have a class like those when I was a kid! They  are so fun and energetic. Everyone has a role and that way they’re all  involved and  everybody interacts.
A -power teaching- classroom is also a managed classroom because of the  settled rules , and as the students love making noise, feeling challenged, moving and having the “power”, they will definately love feeling like the teacher while teaching to their classmates and of course learning and activating their brain. Easy: They love what they do, they won’t get bored neither distracted. They’ll follow your rules. Don’t you think so?
Power teaching is the learning strategy I’ve liked the most, so far and I’m sure that I’m going to use it as soon as I become a teacher in the real world, I can’t wait.

Class Management
Once upon a time there was this kid, her name was Cold Sophie and she was on her last highschool year.
Cold Sophie used to have one of those teachers who used to think she was  perfect and never made mistakes and the students didn’t know anything.
The teacher used to explain everything only to one or two people, the ones that used to be her favourite students and the rest of the group just had to go and learn the way those students did.  It seems to me that she hated her job as a teacher because she didn’t know how to explain something when there was a doubt, besides she used to get desperate and angry because ” we weren’t paying attention and that was why we had doubts”, she used to say.
One day the teacher arrived “not happy” to the classroom  and explained something new to us. Once again, as the few favourite students understood, she kept on explaining another thing. One of my classmates asked her to repeat a part of an accounting operation and the teacher tried to explain it to us but then another student asked her to repeat it.
She got angrier than she was when she arrived to the classroom and tried to explain it again.
Two of my classmates and I asked again some part of the operation we couldn’t understand and she started explaining the whole thing again except for the things we were asking for.
Then I tried to explain to her that what she was explaining was not what our doubts were and she started yelling that we never paid attention and that we wanted her to feel embarrassed and that our grade was going to be lower and she wanted our parents to have a talk.
That was the moment I started explaining her that  we were paying attention and that she only used to explain things to some students  and  she didn’t care about the rest of the class and  that it wasn’t our fault if she had had a bad day.
I know I shouldn’t had told her anything  but by the moment I stoped talking, her face got kind of red and she started yelling more and telling me I was going to become a loser in life and that I  had been very disrespectful to her and she was going to tell the principal about my attitude and asked me to go out of the classroom. After that I stayed quietly  in the classroom and started picking up my stuff.  The teacher kept silent and started yelling again: What are you waiting for?  Do you want me to help you to go out?  I answered:  im picking up my stuff. And she said I dont care, just go out I don’t want to see you here  and said again… what are you waiting for? I finished packing my stuff  and left the classroom.
3 or 5 minutes later the class was over and she was as angry that she didn’t explain anything to the group.  That day we spent a lot of time “discussing” and she didn’t explained again those doubts we had. We had lost time and all  that was wrong in the exam but the next time she made an effort to be patient and explained all things clearer.
She never talked to the principal about me and I didn’t get  into trouble. I’m lucky because I really was disrespectful to her.
Of course fighting in class is only a waste of time because hardly people change their points of view.
I had a  classmate who  used to back talk to the english teacher when he really was doing something bad like playing with his cellphone, laughing, talking  or bothering someone, he and the teacher used to discuss  for nothing, besides the time lost his grades went lower and later the teacher used to blame him for every laugh and noise in the classroom, so it makes no sense in confronting the teacher, it only affects you as student in a lot of aspects.
The article of Fred Jones is great and I loved the part when he says

“It takes one fool to backtalk.
It takes two fools to make a conversation out of it.” It is totally true!
As teachers we just have to be patient and have a smart mouth( think before talk)  and of course learn to be quiet. Silence is just the best weapon against threads.  To control others I think we must be able to control ourselves first, don’t you think so?

Bloom’s taxono-what?
Bloom’s taxonomy! What is that?
As someone I know  says: Once upon a time there was a guy named Benjamin Bloom who decided to classify the different educational objectives and cognitive skills   into levels. Each level has an aim and a purpose, which means that students are supposed to have achieved different goals as they finish each level.
Bloom’s taxonomy has 6 levels which are:L1 Remembering (Knowledge) , L2 Understanding (Comprehension), L3 Applying, L4 Analysing, L5 Evaluating and L6 Creating.

So as you all may know Sofía Frías is on her way to becoming a teacher, and as everything that is worth doing in life, it turns out to be a challenge.
Yup. Step 1: Pass the Teaching Knowledge Test Module 1.
Module 1, in my opinion was totally interesting. I think it is just like the basis of what a teacher MUST know and dominate to be able to teach.
It is divided into three parts, which are:

Part 1: Describing language and language skills. This part covers units like grammar, lexis, phonology, functions, and of course the four skills in language, which are: reading, writing, listening and speaking. The basic things a teacher should know almost by heart because of their importance into the classroom.
Just imagine how a teacher would feel if some student asked him a question about a grammar form or a noun and the teacher had no idea of what to say as a reply.
I think it is really important to know the grammar rules in order to be able  to explain them to others as well as lexis, and everything it involves.  Or what about phonology, that was my less favourite part because it was difficult to me, but it is really important to learn it also, to teach pronunciation and of course help students to develove their speaking skills. In “the four skills” I learnt that each skill is integrated of skills, which we name subskills. Those, are usually developed by the student unconsciously, what makes it for me totally interesting.

Part 2: Background to language learning. This second part is mostly about the learner, how to motivate students, the different ways of learning, Learner’s needs and characteristics, the differences between L1 and L2, The role of error and different types of errors and approaches to language teaching.
It is fascinating  because as teachers it gives you the information to understand students and makes you think about your them, about their feelings and their view of your teaching.
What I learnt from this part is that we can learn from our students too, and we have to treat them  in order to make them feel good, so they enjoy the learning experience.

Part 3: Background to language teaching.  This thirth part from module 1 has only 3 units, which are related to introductory activities, practice activities, tasks for language and skills development and assessment types.
These are techniques and different methods of teaching before starting the class during the task and at the end.
Includes intrudoctory activities, which can be done even to make students feel confortable, like for example the Ice Breakers or Warmers.
This unit also talks about the different approaches to teach a task so students can learn or practise by doing different activities which can be controlled by the teacher or free.
Each activity has an aim of course, and it’s really great and interesting how they work and help to develope the students skills and learning. It also talks about how to evaluate them, before, during and after, so we can know what they already know, they can  practise the most and they show us what they accomplished.

These are the three parts of module 1 from the TKT.
I loved this first module and I’m very nervous of taking the exam because it is a lot of information to remember, although most of the concepts are just common sense and it makes me feel a little bit better.
The thing is that I really wish I can be a good teacher and I’ll do my best effort to reach my goal.
Good luck everyone and seeyou here with Reflections from module 2.

How can we do something in a good way if there ain’t nothing making us wish it?
Simply as that! That’s why students most of the time don’t want to go to their language classes and are not interested in learning.
Young students for example, they don’t care whether they are enough prepared for the future or not. They ignore the opportunities that knowing a second language involves.

Young teenagers only want to party and hang out with friends and kids only want to play and spend all day doing it. Then they’re forced to go to some classes by their parents without reasons, or maybe not enough or the correct ones for them.

Older teenagers and adults have their own goals and they don’t need any reason  nor an advice from anyone for going to learn a new language or do some extra activity. They already know what the advantages are and how much effort they need to put to reach their goals and succeed

How does a teacher give goals to the ones that don’t have them and are sunk in a non-happy life as learners?
Easy, in one word: MOTIVATION

How do we motivate students with no goals to achieve ?

In my opinion children are the most difficult to motivate because as teachers we can encourage teenagers to  think about their future, because it’s closer.  Tell them all what they can do with knowing a second language. We can explain to them that they can get a good job once they graduate, they can travel and be able to comunicate with people from other places, they can go for an exchange to study, understand songs, movies, books, magazines, talk and express themselfs  in more than 1 language. It sounds interesting and they will be motivated.

Motivation of course would increase if we do activities in class like penpals, a class blog, whatching movies and other ones  related to share culture all around the world.

Children otherwise, they are forced by their parents with no reason and as learning becomes an obligation, they don’t like it nor enjoy doing it. They are unmotivated!

How can we motivate them?

As children are growing up, we have to encourage them to feel secure about themselfs and to have autonomy to be enough prepared  for “tomorrow”.

What can we tell them or do to make them wish the learning experience?

I think we should include cartoon movies and magazines with their favourite tv shows or characters.  Games such as guess who or scrabble. Things they enjoy doing!

Then, explain to them all of the advantages that it involves and share our own experience in real life with them, so they can figure out how important and valuable is what they’re doing and how is it going to help them soon.

I just loved the activities related to watching videos for practising speaking and listening skills and subskills that Ian James recommends on his blog.

The first thing that came into my mind were those videos from the Fine Bros youtube channel called “Kids React” where some viral videos are shown to kids and then they answer some questions and discuss about the video they just watched.

I’m a huge fan of Kids React videos, but I had never thought of teaching english with them until I discovered that Ian James  recommended one of the “kids react”  videos as an activity for the class.

Now I find it very useful because  students get distracted from all of the boring and old fashioned activities from the book and work with something that surely they will love.

The activity using these kind of videos would be doing the following:

First the students are going to try predicting what the video is going to be about with only knowing the title.

Then they will watch the original video and after doing it, the teacher asks  them the same questions from the “kids react” video and some extra questions formulated by himself.

Students will discuss their answers and then they will watch the” kids react” video.

Finally they will compare all of the reactions and share their ideas and points of view about the video they just watched.

Here is a “Kids React” Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAqiYhPqXts

Check it out! What do you think about it?

For me, doing those kind of activities make funnier and easier the learning part and it’s something different than everything we are all used to do.

Here is this excellent tool which is  http://rubistar.4teachers.org/.

This is a web page where you can create a RUBRIC but what is a rubric?
When my teacher first told me the word rubric I had no idea of what would it be, I thought of a rubik cube, but after researching it, I am amazed.

A rubric is the way teachers can evaluate their students, grading different aspects of whichever activity in any area or topic .

I found RUBRICS very useful because as teachers they help us to grade in a very simple and effective way using a well designed general  judgment in any skill as reading, writing, math, science, arts, behaviour etc.  Moreover it provides the students (and their parents) the reasons or facts of why they got something right or wrong and why they got the grade they have. That way they get encouraged and can develop their skills and qualities trying to do it better afterwards.

Definitely I will use rubrics as soon as I become a teacher. I think it’s great for the class development.