Debates...

First of all I want to say that this experience with debates was great. I really believe that I learn a lot, not only in terms of English but also in terms of looking information on the web.

About the first debate, I think that the group which was in favour of “professionals being teachers” did something good. They showed some examples of professionals who were not educators and that taught at schools or universities anyways. They not only taught but they were great teachers and they are remembered nowadays because of that.
The group who was against used a lot of bibliography to support their arguments. They quoted many famous educators and writers who are specialists in “how a good teacher is supposed to be”. I believe that to support your arguments with theory is crucial when you are on a debate. On the other hand I believe that they could have improved the way they present their ideas. They read too much, it was notorious that they learnt the information by hard.
I think that the first group won, because they were able to prove their point not only with theory but with concrete examples.

About the second debate I can say that it was a bit strange. We committed a mistake and because of that we couldn't debate as we were suppose to debate. We were in favour, and I believe that we did pretty well. We were capable of defend our arguments with more valid arguments. At the end I believe that we won because this new bill will help not only adults but also young people who are not participating in politics. In my opinion we (the ones who were in favour of the new voting law) need to improve our English. When we are presenting orally we often make more mistakes than when we are writing an essay.

Finally what I would like to add about my topic is that this new bill will be useful for all of us. The ones who say that are not interested in politics perhaps is because they are not inform about this. This new bill will give everyone the chance to participate when they want to. People will choose whether to vote or not to vote.

Classroom designing: What a challenge

If we think about how a city should be design in order to be balanced, we automatically believe that we have to mix bad neighbourhood with bad neighbourhood and that will be it. As Jane Jacobs says in her article “The death and life of great American cities” “When two or more such hostile islands are juxtaposed the result is called “a balanced neighbourhood” (page 1) People think that to create a balance, the only thing that you need is to mix what is not working, but the only consequence of that are more bad neighbourhood.

This also happen in a classroom. Teachers commonly believe that if they sit one girl and one boy together they will not misbehaved, and they will have the control of the class.
Malcolm Gladwell in his article “Designing for working” explains the importance of organizing an office. He says that the distance between people is important when you want your workers to communicate. The ones who sit near talk more that the one who sit far away.

I believe those points can also be used to design a classroom. I have some rules when we talk about class organization. First of all it is important that the students feel comfortable with their classroom; it has to be well illuminated and well ventilate. The student’s desks have to be in a position in which everyone can look to the teacher and to the white board with no problem. An important thing for me is to decorate the class in order to get their attention. You can play with colours, pictures, etc.

In my opinion those are the basic principle in order to have a comfortable classroom and an appropriate environment to teach.

Classroom: Tips and strategies

How to critized something that most of the new teachers haven't experienced yet? Most of them are always asking themselves about class management, due to the fact that they can not find any good answers, and now some answers can be found in this article.

This gives pieces of advice about how to have the control of the class in a good way. It explains how inexpert teachers commit mistakes when they are trying to get student’s attention. On the other hand we have experienced teachers, who are able to control many difficult situations in order to accomplish their objectives in the classroom.

Tips like: "Do not begin the class if any student is talking", "explain to the students what the class will be about", "not to do what you do not want the student to repeat from you, for example": Speak out loud, be disrespectful with the students, not listening to them", are some example of what teachers do not want in their classrooms. Never has been this article been so interesting or useful for teacher and people in general. It is people and not only teachers who this text is focused on.