Journal entry 3

What was to be covered during this 3^rd lesson was clearly explained at the start.  It was also good to hear that we would cover the final point – asking each other questions about our likes/dislikes “if there was time - depending how things go.”  This immediately put me at ease and made me feel as though I could ask questions if I needed to, which I don’t always feel I can in my other languages.

                We started by going through the homework from last week and checking we had conjugated the verbs correctly. This was very useful as it made sure we understood the basic present tense and it would have flagged up any issues to the teacher.

                We then started using the handout we were given and went through the answers from the listening homework. Having the script in front of us whilst listening was beneficial as we could follow exactly what was being said and it was helpful to hear the pronunciation with the words in front of us.  Being able to pick the answers out of the dialogue was good as seeing them written down in front of me I was able to find most. We will be able to use the dialogue at home to re-listen and understand it better.

                We then did a round robin asking how the person next to us was and before we did this we had looked at new and different ways to ask/answer the questions.  This was good as it built on what we had done last week.

                The text was then then used to pick out ways of saying things, which helped show is that sometimes there is more than one way to say something in Dutch. It made me realise I could recognise a lot more that I thought when I have it written in front of me.

                Following on from this we started talking about hobbies and the examples in the handout of ways to say you like/love something. We were asked what vocabulary we wanted so that we could get the words we need to complete this week’s homework.

                The lesson concluded with the formation of questions. Using the handout it was explained the 2 different ways to form questions – the yes/no questions and the WH questions and we did the exercise on this in the handout.  

                Overall I thought it was beneficial that all the paper materials that we needed were put into one handout and we were not given several different bits of paper, which can happen. Although it was presented as one handout, it was clearly split into different parts which were followed in order.  I believe that the class was ran building up on what we have learnt in our previous two lessons. Everything that we have been taught has been reused at some point which shows we are being taught ‘relevant’ things.

I think that the different stages and activities were used to break up the lesson into different stages, to keep the students interested and each activity was to put into practice what had just been covered by the teacher. It also made it a mixture of teacher talk time and student talk time. I also think that it was for the teacher to check and see if we understood what had been covered as there would have been no point her moving on if not. I think that it was broken up as lessons can become very boring if they are not varied, especially grammar ones. I think the materials were chosen for our level of Dutch, but a little harder so that we are pushed and so that we can build up out knowledge logically. Now in theory with the materials that have been used we could have a basic conversation with someone in Dutch! 

Journal entry 2

The second Dutch lesson was structured differently to our first, which was bound to be slightly different as we are now coming into class having had some exposure to it.

The lesson started with a recap of what we had covered in the first lesson. We were asked to individually write down the Dutch for 5 phrases. All the class were involved in giving the answers and as a combined effort I think we were able to come up with all the answers! I felt this was a good exercise to do as it refreshed what was previously covered, which disappointingly does not happen often with the languages I study. It was also beneficial to hear the pronunciation again.

We then asked and answered questions in a way that was new to me. Instead of us working in pairs or the teacher going round asking people individually, we went round the class each answering a question that was asked by another student and then asking the person next to us the same question. We did this with a few different questions and in different orders.

                The present tense was also covered which was explained by our teacher, but we did have a practice at conjugating.

I thought the teacher and student talk times were perfectly balanced for this lesson. The student talk time was varied too, from all offering suggestions for the initial exercise, then a round robin question and answer session and then working in groups of 4. I found it thoroughly enjoyable, all activities varied and I got a lot out of this lesson.