last week "literacy lesson"

The second lesson was literacy lesson and the aim of the lesson was responding to short simple questions. The theme of that week was the national day so I asked lots of questions about the UAE and the seven cities to make it link with the objective. Also I introduced the life in the UAE in the past and in the present. I used different pictures on the laptop to show the difference of our life before and now and I tried to elicit the information from the students. It was difficult to the students to learn about past and now in second language however what I noticed that they understood what I was asking about and they were answering however they were answering in Arabic and what I had to do is to say it in English.

What I did for the focus activity was something different than the arts activity that we have done before. They did this time national day card which I prepared it and they had to decorate it. I prepared some pictures that they can stick such as sheikh Khalifa and the logo of the UAE which is the falcon. Also I printed the word " I love ……. " for the low and the medium ability and what they have to do is to write the UAE or copy it however the high ability group wrote I let them to write the whole sentence. Moreover, I let the students to draw the flag and I asked them some questions about what they are doing and what the color of the flag. The whole lesson went very well and they were listening and responding however what I have to change next time is make the 1^st whole section like a conversation between me and the students rather than asking lots of questions. What I used to do is just asking and waiting for the answers and that should come later in the middle of the week to check their understanding. And what I have to do more is to start the lesson talking and discussing in the first two days especially when I want to introduce new lesson.