telling+the+time+4C

Thursday 18 th of March. Topic: Telling the time:

4C is my most difficult class. That day, they had been awfull. Mrs B, the teacher who is normally working with me was not there and the supplied teacher was lost. Because I am just an assistant, I do not have any authority upon them, Mrs B is the one who fixes the bounderies. I had planned a lesson with an interactive clock on the smartboard. However I always use Mrs B's computer but because I was not told that she was not there I found myself with no computer. I asked a child to borrow his but there was not the smartboard program. I had to draw a clock on the board and changed its arms when I needed it. Of course, we lost a lot of time and the children got even more excited.I then tried to teach time, without a lot of success. I drew the time on the board and I asked: Quelle heure est-il? They had to answer: il est ....

However they were very agitated and I had to stop every two seconds to ask them to stop talking. I did not manage to create a good learning atmosphere. I think my lesson was borring but nothing worked.

We managed to practise o'clock and half past. Some children got it very quickly while other were playing or talking to each other. I kind of gave up and focused on the one who were listening. I am aware that it is not the best thing to do but I was lost and desperate..

Then we only had 10 minutes left and we did the little test. They had to draw the arms in a clock. But to make it more complicated I numbered the clock and said: In the clock numéro 5, il est 2h.

The results show that the class is divided into 3 groups:
 * 1) the excellent children who always have good resuts
 * 2) the children in the middle who are not too good and not too bad
 * 3) the others who never get it. I do not know if they do it on puporse but I guess that they have decided that they do not like frencg and they do not even try.

5 girls made only one mistake. In clock number 3 they had to draw the arms pointing at 11h30 but they drew them pointing at 1h30. They may have not listen carefully enough because it is true that the sound 11 can be confusing. It also proves that their mistakes deal with their knowledge of the french numbers more than with telling the time. I would also add in this group two pupils who made two mistakes. One drew the time of clock number 8 in number 5, again her mistakes involve number because the time was right. The second child, the only boy, made a confusion with half past and o'clock twice. Those five always have the best results.

Then, I put the other in my "middle group" because their results are not regular. Four kids made 3 mistakes, most of the time their mistakes concerne half past. Seven kids made 4 mistakes which is not bad at all. Five pupils made 5 mistakes. Like always most of the children are in this group, they are not excellent but I am not worried about them, they made mistakes because they were not focused. I hope that they will get better. I think they got the lesson but they need more time to be confident enough. They are not as quick as the first group

And now, my last group. This one worried me because the children are the ones who never listen during the lesson and they always have the worst result. Two children made seven mistakes out of ten. Three children made eight mistakes, and one made 9 mistakes.

Most of the children made a confusion between clock number 5 and clock number 8! I cannot explain why but as I was marking their test, I though for a moment that I might have something wrong. But then I realised that some got it right so it might no be my fault. I am confused by this mistakes, clock number 5 and clock number 6 have been wrong 17 and 22 times which is huge. Then we find clock number 9: il est 3h30, wrong 23 times. I cannot explain why but they kept writting all kind of time except this one. Clock number 3: il est 11h30 has been mistaken 18 times but most of them draw 1h30. They have been confused by the pronunciation of these numbers. 6h30 has been mistaken 11 times... However il est 4h has been wrong only two times. Each time they were asked to draw o'clock time they made less mistakes. Next week I will focus more on half past. I had planned to introduce quarter to and quarter past but I don't think that I will do it.