As part of our current topic Healthy Eating, the children carried out a survey to find out what foods other students in the school eat and how often. At first I asked the children if they knew what a survey was in Spanish (encuesta) but they weren't sure what one was, so I explained that it consisted of asking people questions to find out information. We were going to ask questions about food to see if the students in our school were healthy eaters or not.
As the children had not come across a survey or questionnaire before, I gave them some sample questions and the class decided that they would be good questions to ask. I divided the children into groups of three and asked them to come up with five questions about different foods e.g.
Do you eat fish? Do you drink milk? Do you eat vegetables?
We then drilled these questions with a chant:
Do you eat fish?
Yes, I eat fish!
Do you drink milk?
Yes, I drink milk!
Do you eat peas?
No, no I don't!
The children really enjoyed the chant, and we did several versions with different food items and with different dynamics such as teacher vs whole class, girls vs boys etc.
By this point they were all able to ask "do you" questions with no problems. I gave them a worksheet in groups with a table. In the first column they had to choose the different foods they wanted to ask questions about. The second column was to record YES or NO and the third column was to write down how many times a week.
In the following lesson, we practised asking questions to find out how many times a week people ate different foods, and the possible answers (one, two, three times, every day). I didn't want to complicate things to much so I avoided teaching ONCE, TWICE. We were then ready to go and ask the questions.
We went to another class and each group went to ask different people. Because the other class were teenagers, I allowed the groups to stay together to ask their questions. The children said they enjoyed asking questions to the other class and asked to do it again! So I said they could go to another class in the following lesson. This time the groups split up and asked questions individually.
The next stage was to compile the results. The members of each group got together and added up all the YES answers to form a total number of people that eat each food. When they had done this, I showed them an empty bar chart and started to complete it with examples that the children gave me. When they were clear about how to make a bar chart using their figures, each group started work.
In the final lesson, the groups finished their charts and then presented their results to the class, saying:
Eleven people eat sweets. Nine people eat carrots. Twelve people eat chicken.
Each group compared their results with those of the group that was presenting, telling the class of any differences.
The children really enjoyed this project and I think it was because they were really using English to communicate with other people. Conducting a questionnaire and compiling the results is a challenging task for this age group but they seemed to relish in the fact that they were doing something new, that they had never even done in Spanish. They all managed to ask people questions with only a little prompting, and they were all able to work in groups to produce the end results. All in all, a successful project!
Showing posts with label very young learners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label very young learners. Show all posts
Monday, December 5, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Children's Book Week
I didn't know the book "Charlie Cook's Favourite Book" (which you can see here, Jackanory style) but it seemed a great way to introduce different types of books and the topic of "My Favourite Book".
I thought the story video would be too difficult for my class, so instead I followed Jo's advice and concentrated on some of the images from the story. I introduced some key vocabulary and we talked about whether we liked different genres of books or not.
As I don't have a copy of the book, I made this presentation so we could guess what each book on Charlie's shelf was about.
Charlie Cook's Favourite Book
It was then time to think about our own favourite books. One of the girls had brought in a book she was reading (I had asked them to but the others had forgotten!) and I asked her what is was about. I then wrote a simple text on the board with hints to remind the learners what information they would have to include.
My favourite book is ........................ by ........................................
It's about a .................. (who?) who ........................................ (what?) in ........................... (where?)
It's very exciting/interesting/funny/mysterious etc
We completed it with an example and then the learners wote down the text and thought about their favourite book. They are to post their work on our class blog.
Blogging with Kids
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| By KristinaB |
This year I decided to set up a blog for my class of eight to ten year olds. Now I think a bit of background information is required here. Firstly, we do not have interactive whiteboards or projectors in the classroom. However, I have a laptop and wifi access. This has proved to be sufficient to show the learners how to access the blog and to answer any questions with a quick demonstration. In this class there are ten learners but I think even with larger groups you could show them how to use the blog a few at a time and allow them to practise in small groups while the others are working on something else. My main point here is that you don't need lots of equipment to set up a class blog. The main requirement is that the learners have computer and internet access at home.
I wasn't sure how willing the kids would be at first. This is the group I wrote about last month who were having some problems with their attitude towards each other and in particular to one boy. They are in the third and fourth year ar primary school and come to English lessons twice a week after school. For this reason they are not used to having to do homework for me - they have enough of that from school. When I introduced the blog, I didn't use the word "homework" but focused on how they would be able to write what they wanted, from time to time having specific tasks to do. This is in fact not true, at least not yet - I have given them a task to do every week, but until they get used to blogging I think this is a good idea. One of the girls already posted an entry about what she was doing that weekend and I think some of the others will follow suit when they have got used to the platform and how it works.
You can imagine how surprised I was when the very day I gave the homework some kids had already posted their answers! I set up the blog on 21st September and showed it to the class, and I wrote an introductory post which they dictated to me. The following week I set a task - write about your favourite outfit. On that weekend every single student wrote an entry and what is more, they started to comment on each others' posts! Some started by saying hello on our introductory post and then commenting on other people's work. One of the reasons for this is our "Kindness and Respect Box" into which a marble is placed every time somebody does or says something nice to a classmate and the children decided that the blog was a good place for this.
Some of the comments they have made are:
"So good description"
"Wow, your outfit is very beauty!"
"A very good description!"
"Excellent work, goodbye"
There are now 28 entries (so far I have set three tasks, the last one just yesterday) and over 50 comments, some of which are mine. I use the comments to recast some of the learners' errors. However, these kids are not used to writing in English and their work is full of strange spellings and a lack of grammar. I plan to go over some of the more common errors in class, but I'm not too worried about this because they are still young and one of the objectives of setting up the blog was to motivate them to use English outside the classroom.
All in all I am really pleased with the results - the kids are very enthusiastic and love writing and reading each others' comments about their work. The platform we are using is called Kidblog and is designed specifically for primary aged children. You set up a page for your class and then each member of the blog has their own individual page. It is very intuitive and easy enough for children to use without help, once they have been shown how to use it.
Give it a try!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Imaginary Trips - Let's go to the fair!
It's Feria time again and I thought I would link to last year's post in which I outlined a way of encouraging (very) young learners to talk about the fair.
When creating my own lesson ideas for young children I always try to provide a variety of activities that include movement and drawing or colouring, in order to change the dynamics - after a noisy game that includes running around, an arts and craft activity can be ideal in order to lower excitement levels and successfully sustain a quiet period during the lesson. I also try to make the lesson multi-sensory, which means using senses other than sight and hearing (which are the predominant senses used in an English lesson), such as touch and smell. This may mean bringing in real or toy objects for the children to handle.
In the lesson above, I used pictures to present the vocabulary, but another option would be to play recordings of the sounds as well. There could be a horse trotting or galloping, fireworks going off, "sevillanas" music, the sound of a rollercoaster, the siren of the dodgems etc. Using the sense of smell can be more difficult to organise, but you could try to bring in some typical foods of the fair, such as candy floss, caramelised nuts. Taste would be a better option maybe - you could have a blindfolded tasting session of toffee apples, candy floss, lollypops, crisps or whatever else is typical. Try not to give them too much sugar though!
With young children I always try to tap into their imaginations, as they have not yet begun to doubt their own creativity. Children left alone will naturally start to play and imitate situations they have seen in real life or on TV. All little girls have played "house" and all boys "cops and robbers" or "cowboys and indians" and we have all pretended to be superheroes like Batman or Superman. Children know that these games are not real, but this doesn't stop them from having fun - in fact, it is much more fun to be a superhero than a 6 year-old boy!
I really believe we should be taking advantage of this in the classroom. Too much lesson time is spent on drilling with flashcards or large pictures - I'm not saying this is bad, but the same language can be "presented" and practised in a much more fun way. Instead of having the children sitting at their desks pointing to flashcards around the room, take them on a pretend bus to wherever you want to take them (with animals you can go to the zoo or the jungle), in this case to the fair. Put them in a line holding hands in twos, just like on a real school trip, and point things out to them. I usually have the pictures of the vocabulary placed around the classroom and I point to them, saying "Ooh look! There's the big wheel! Can you see it? It's very big! Shall we go on it?" In this way the children are being exposed to a lot more language than if you just say "big wheel" and they point to or touch the flashcard. You can involve the children even more by asking them where they want to go next. All this makes it more special - the children can really imagine being at the fair!
I have done similar "physical" visualisations with the topics Autumn, Winter and Spring, as well as Animals. We pretend to do lots of the activities we associate with those seasons, such as making snowmen or jumping in puddles. The children have lots of fun and just as importantly, all the children have the opportunity learn, whether they remember more things they have done, heard, drawn or written. In short, this kind of lesson is VAK because it includes activities that activate the different senses and therefore encourages learning from all types of learner.
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| At the Fair by Dominic on Flickr |
When creating my own lesson ideas for young children I always try to provide a variety of activities that include movement and drawing or colouring, in order to change the dynamics - after a noisy game that includes running around, an arts and craft activity can be ideal in order to lower excitement levels and successfully sustain a quiet period during the lesson. I also try to make the lesson multi-sensory, which means using senses other than sight and hearing (which are the predominant senses used in an English lesson), such as touch and smell. This may mean bringing in real or toy objects for the children to handle.
In the lesson above, I used pictures to present the vocabulary, but another option would be to play recordings of the sounds as well. There could be a horse trotting or galloping, fireworks going off, "sevillanas" music, the sound of a rollercoaster, the siren of the dodgems etc. Using the sense of smell can be more difficult to organise, but you could try to bring in some typical foods of the fair, such as candy floss, caramelised nuts. Taste would be a better option maybe - you could have a blindfolded tasting session of toffee apples, candy floss, lollypops, crisps or whatever else is typical. Try not to give them too much sugar though!
With young children I always try to tap into their imaginations, as they have not yet begun to doubt their own creativity. Children left alone will naturally start to play and imitate situations they have seen in real life or on TV. All little girls have played "house" and all boys "cops and robbers" or "cowboys and indians" and we have all pretended to be superheroes like Batman or Superman. Children know that these games are not real, but this doesn't stop them from having fun - in fact, it is much more fun to be a superhero than a 6 year-old boy!
I really believe we should be taking advantage of this in the classroom. Too much lesson time is spent on drilling with flashcards or large pictures - I'm not saying this is bad, but the same language can be "presented" and practised in a much more fun way. Instead of having the children sitting at their desks pointing to flashcards around the room, take them on a pretend bus to wherever you want to take them (with animals you can go to the zoo or the jungle), in this case to the fair. Put them in a line holding hands in twos, just like on a real school trip, and point things out to them. I usually have the pictures of the vocabulary placed around the classroom and I point to them, saying "Ooh look! There's the big wheel! Can you see it? It's very big! Shall we go on it?" In this way the children are being exposed to a lot more language than if you just say "big wheel" and they point to or touch the flashcard. You can involve the children even more by asking them where they want to go next. All this makes it more special - the children can really imagine being at the fair!
I have done similar "physical" visualisations with the topics Autumn, Winter and Spring, as well as Animals. We pretend to do lots of the activities we associate with those seasons, such as making snowmen or jumping in puddles. The children have lots of fun and just as importantly, all the children have the opportunity learn, whether they remember more things they have done, heard, drawn or written. In short, this kind of lesson is VAK because it includes activities that activate the different senses and therefore encourages learning from all types of learner.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Consequences
Another activity that older children love is the traditional consequences game. It's very old game and there's nothing new about it, but I think it's worth reminding ourselves of some of the older activities that get put away and forgotten about. The only materials required are a piece of A4 paper and a pen for each student. The activity is carried out in lockstep and practises listening and writing. It is very simple and can be adapted in many ways to suit your purpose and the level of the students. As in Flash the picture, this activity allows each student to work at their own level - starting off very simply but allowing more detail from faster students. One of the best things about it is that the learners see it as a kind of game, but really they are doing a writing task!
The version that I did last week with my teenage group and with a group of ten-year-olds is one found in the same book as Flash the Picture:
It is called Fake Biographies and in it the students each write a piece of information about an anonymous member of the class. The procedure is as follows:
1) Give each student a piece of paper and tell them to write at the top "My name is ..." with their name. They should then fold the top of the paper back twice, so that the name is hidden. I also do the same - students love it when the teacher takes part in something a bit silly, too.
2) Take in all the papers and randomly give them out. They are not allowed to open the paper!
3) Say "I am ... years old" and the students complete it with ANY number. It is important that from now on, the students use their imaginations. Encourage them to be inventive and even slightly outrageous - this will make for funnier results.
4) Carry on doing the same, making up a new piece of information each time. This will, of course, depend on the age and level of the learners. Some of the "questions" I used were:
I was born in... (place)
I have ---- brothers and ... sisters.
My favourite TV programme is ....
My favourite singer is ...
In my free time I like to ....
Last year, I went on holiday to ....
I met ... and we ....
You can also ask actual questions if you think the students are capable of writing complete sentences by themselves: What's your name? How many brothers and sisters have you got? What's your favourite TV programme? etc
5) The students then opened their paper and read the description. I got them to copy out the information onto a piece of paper as a paragraph. They had to correct any spelling or grammar mistakes as they did so.
6) They then gave the biography to the person whose name was at the top and each student read theirs out to the class. They also had to say if anything was true.
We have also played the same type of game with a story (as in the orginal consequences game) - this is always good preparation for story telling and writing. You start with a main character, introduce another character, and go on to write about where they went, what they did and said and so on. I usually do this with introductory sentences such as:
His name was... He was... years old. He was from ... He was .... (physically).
Her name was... She was ... years old. She was from ... She was ... (physically).
They met in/at .... He said "..." She said "...." They went to .... In the end they ....
This kind of activity can be used with any age group and level from elementary upwards. For younger children or beginners, you could pre-print out the beginnings of the sentences for the students to complete.
Another version, good for higher levels, is to mix sentences with drawings. Each person writes a sentence and passes the paper on. The next person reads the sentences and draws a picture illustrating it. They then fold the paper and pass it on. The following person can only see the drawing, and must write a sentence summarising the picture, and so on.
One of the good things about it is that everybody wants to listen to each other (something very rare with teenage groups!) at the end, and everybody ends up laughing - it's a real feel good activity that's perfect to use at the end of term when something more relaxing is required but you don't want to just play games all lesson. Highly recommended!
The version that I did last week with my teenage group and with a group of ten-year-olds is one found in the same book as Flash the Picture:
It is called Fake Biographies and in it the students each write a piece of information about an anonymous member of the class. The procedure is as follows:
1) Give each student a piece of paper and tell them to write at the top "My name is ..." with their name. They should then fold the top of the paper back twice, so that the name is hidden. I also do the same - students love it when the teacher takes part in something a bit silly, too.
2) Take in all the papers and randomly give them out. They are not allowed to open the paper!
3) Say "I am ... years old" and the students complete it with ANY number. It is important that from now on, the students use their imaginations. Encourage them to be inventive and even slightly outrageous - this will make for funnier results.
4) Carry on doing the same, making up a new piece of information each time. This will, of course, depend on the age and level of the learners. Some of the "questions" I used were:
I was born in... (place)
I have ---- brothers and ... sisters.
My favourite TV programme is ....
My favourite singer is ...
In my free time I like to ....
Last year, I went on holiday to ....
I met ... and we ....
You can also ask actual questions if you think the students are capable of writing complete sentences by themselves: What's your name? How many brothers and sisters have you got? What's your favourite TV programme? etc
5) The students then opened their paper and read the description. I got them to copy out the information onto a piece of paper as a paragraph. They had to correct any spelling or grammar mistakes as they did so.
6) They then gave the biography to the person whose name was at the top and each student read theirs out to the class. They also had to say if anything was true.
We have also played the same type of game with a story (as in the orginal consequences game) - this is always good preparation for story telling and writing. You start with a main character, introduce another character, and go on to write about where they went, what they did and said and so on. I usually do this with introductory sentences such as:
His name was... He was... years old. He was from ... He was .... (physically).
Her name was... She was ... years old. She was from ... She was ... (physically).
They met in/at .... He said "..." She said "...." They went to .... In the end they ....
This kind of activity can be used with any age group and level from elementary upwards. For younger children or beginners, you could pre-print out the beginnings of the sentences for the students to complete.
Another version, good for higher levels, is to mix sentences with drawings. Each person writes a sentence and passes the paper on. The next person reads the sentences and draws a picture illustrating it. They then fold the paper and pass it on. The following person can only see the drawing, and must write a sentence summarising the picture, and so on.
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| By evalottchen on flickr |
One of the good things about it is that everybody wants to listen to each other (something very rare with teenage groups!) at the end, and everybody ends up laughing - it's a real feel good activity that's perfect to use at the end of term when something more relaxing is required but you don't want to just play games all lesson. Highly recommended!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
THE BEST ACTIVITY IN THE WORLD... EVER!!!
Ok, before you all start accusing me of outrageous lies, this ISN'T the best activity in the world. Those of you who were in Britain in the nineties (and noughties) will recognise the title as a take on the countless pop music albums that appeared, named The Best ... Album in the World...Ever!
The activity I'm going to share with you is certainly not the best in the world, and it's probably not very original either, but it is one of the easiest activities to set up as well as being suitable for a wide range of levels and age groups.
The main focus can be changed to suit level and needs - in this case (and the most obvious) I have used it to practise superlative adjectives. All you need are lots of small pieces of paper (Post It size is good), enough for each student to have one for each question. You can prepare the questions in advance or make them up as you go along.
Here is the procedure, as I carried it out with a group of ten to twelve year olds who had recently been looking at superlatives. It is carried out in "lockstep", but if you prefer you could write the questions on the board or on a handout and have everybody work at their own pace.
1) Hand out the pieces of paper.
2) Tell the students that you are going to ask some questions, and to write down their answer to each question on a separate piece of paper.
3) Have somewhere the students can place each paper as they complete it. Alternatively, have students number each paper, so that later it is easy to tell which question it answers.
4) Ask each question. The students should write down their OWN PERSONAL answer.
Sample questions:
Who is the best footballer?
What's the most interesting school subject?
Who is the most beautiful woman?
Who is the best singer?
What's the funniest TV programme?
Who is the fastest motorcyclist/F1 driver?
What's the most difficult school subject?
What's the nicest food?
What's the best book?
What are the coolest clothes?
What's the most dangerous animal?
There are plenty of alternative questions but these are some the ones I posed because we had been looking at these particular adjectives. With higher level groups you could use a wider variety of adjectives.
5) Everybody should now have answered all the questions. Collect in the anonymous answers. Younger students often like to fold up their papers, like in a secret ballot.
6) Announce each "nominee" and elicit the category. For example, "Maths, Science, English, History. The category is ..." (most difficult subject) and then announce the "winner". (The winner is the answer repeated the most times. If all the answers are different, or there is a draw you could have another vote.) My class wanted to take it in turns to come out to the front and read out the nominees. I would then say, in a grand voice, Oscars style "And the winner is..."
And that's it! My kids really enjoyed this activity and even asked to play it again the following day with different questions. With older students and adults you could use it as a basis for discussion, a way of practising expressing agreement and disagreement, language of persuasion etc.
 | |
| Some fantastic songs from some of the best "indie" artists of the 90s |
The activity I'm going to share with you is certainly not the best in the world, and it's probably not very original either, but it is one of the easiest activities to set up as well as being suitable for a wide range of levels and age groups.
The main focus can be changed to suit level and needs - in this case (and the most obvious) I have used it to practise superlative adjectives. All you need are lots of small pieces of paper (Post It size is good), enough for each student to have one for each question. You can prepare the questions in advance or make them up as you go along.
Here is the procedure, as I carried it out with a group of ten to twelve year olds who had recently been looking at superlatives. It is carried out in "lockstep", but if you prefer you could write the questions on the board or on a handout and have everybody work at their own pace.
1) Hand out the pieces of paper.
2) Tell the students that you are going to ask some questions, and to write down their answer to each question on a separate piece of paper.
3) Have somewhere the students can place each paper as they complete it. Alternatively, have students number each paper, so that later it is easy to tell which question it answers.
4) Ask each question. The students should write down their OWN PERSONAL answer.
Sample questions:
Who is the best footballer?
What's the most interesting school subject?
Who is the most beautiful woman?
Who is the best singer?
What's the funniest TV programme?
Who is the fastest motorcyclist/F1 driver?
What's the most difficult school subject?
What's the nicest food?
What's the best book?
What are the coolest clothes?
What's the most dangerous animal?
There are plenty of alternative questions but these are some the ones I posed because we had been looking at these particular adjectives. With higher level groups you could use a wider variety of adjectives.
5) Everybody should now have answered all the questions. Collect in the anonymous answers. Younger students often like to fold up their papers, like in a secret ballot.
6) Announce each "nominee" and elicit the category. For example, "Maths, Science, English, History. The category is ..." (most difficult subject) and then announce the "winner". (The winner is the answer repeated the most times. If all the answers are different, or there is a draw you could have another vote.) My class wanted to take it in turns to come out to the front and read out the nominees. I would then say, in a grand voice, Oscars style "And the winner is..."
And that's it! My kids really enjoyed this activity and even asked to play it again the following day with different questions. With older students and adults you could use it as a basis for discussion, a way of practising expressing agreement and disagreement, language of persuasion etc.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Our Very Own Superhero!
As some of you may know, I have been experimenting this year with a CLIL approach in one of my classes. I wrote about my reasons for doing so on Ken Wilson's blog. Our latest unit of work has been on the topic of heroes, and over the last couple of weeks more specifically on superheroes. When we began discussing the topic in the first lesson, the children automatically started naming superheroes. I wanted them to understand that we have real life heroes in our society who do not have special powers and magic swords, so we first looked at heroes in our families and their characteristics; and in the following lessons, heroes in the community. This gave us the opportunity to look at vocabulary for several professions, as well as reinforce some of the postitive characteristics that we may associate with heroes.
This was all very well, but the children are six years old, and what really interests them is superheroes! So, we moved on from more traditional heroes to Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four and so on. We discussed what makes a superhero and what powers he/she can have. We reviewed vocabulary such as climb, run and fly, and I introduced new phrases such as "seeing through walls", "invisible" and "super strong".
Each child then had to design their own superhero. They drew a picture of their hero and his/her powers and gave him/her a name, and in the following lesson they presented him/her to the class. We then had several rounds of voting to choose our favourite superhero. This character would be the protagonist of our very own superhero comic book!
We ended up with a character with several powers - he can fly, he can climb walls and he is super-strong! We then made suggestions for his name, and another voting session until the unanimous decision was to call him Spiderman. I must make it clear that this is not the Spiderman, but our very own character with the same name. I then told the children that in Spiderman's city, there is a big problem. We disussed various suggestions as to what the problem could be, and we ended up choosing a tsunami (even six year olds watch TV and see the world's important events). I divided the board into ten sections (there are ten students in the class) and we began to decide on how the story would develop. As the children are learning to read in Spanish, but not yet English, I tend to shy away from the written word and use pictures, at least until they are familiar with the vocabulary and its pronunciation. I drew a quick sketch of each event in the story as we came up with the ideas. Each child had one page of the story to draw. They had to try to copy the original drawing (that I had copied and whose colours we had chosen as a class) so that the story has continuity.
In the next lesson, I told the story (I had written one short sentences for each picture using language they would understand) several times, with the children's help. We played a couple of recognition games where I would read out a sentence from the story and they would have to find the appropriate picture. I gave each child the sentence describing their part of the story on a piece of paper. I went round drilling individually, and then they practised their sentences in pairs, with me helping and prompting. Their homework was to practise their sentences ready for the following lesson.
In the final lesson of our Heroes topic, I uploaded the photos of the pictures to Voicthread and recorded each child saying his/her sentence. We now have our very own comic book - on paper in the classroom and in digital format online. I have embedded the slideshow into our class wiki so that the parents can see it. The children had great fun in the whole project - they actually really enjoyed learning their sentences and then recording them and listening to each other's voices on the computer.
Here is the finished product. Be patient as the voices can take some time to load. I hope you like it!
This was all very well, but the children are six years old, and what really interests them is superheroes! So, we moved on from more traditional heroes to Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four and so on. We discussed what makes a superhero and what powers he/she can have. We reviewed vocabulary such as climb, run and fly, and I introduced new phrases such as "seeing through walls", "invisible" and "super strong".
Each child then had to design their own superhero. They drew a picture of their hero and his/her powers and gave him/her a name, and in the following lesson they presented him/her to the class. We then had several rounds of voting to choose our favourite superhero. This character would be the protagonist of our very own superhero comic book!
We ended up with a character with several powers - he can fly, he can climb walls and he is super-strong! We then made suggestions for his name, and another voting session until the unanimous decision was to call him Spiderman. I must make it clear that this is not the Spiderman, but our very own character with the same name. I then told the children that in Spiderman's city, there is a big problem. We disussed various suggestions as to what the problem could be, and we ended up choosing a tsunami (even six year olds watch TV and see the world's important events). I divided the board into ten sections (there are ten students in the class) and we began to decide on how the story would develop. As the children are learning to read in Spanish, but not yet English, I tend to shy away from the written word and use pictures, at least until they are familiar with the vocabulary and its pronunciation. I drew a quick sketch of each event in the story as we came up with the ideas. Each child had one page of the story to draw. They had to try to copy the original drawing (that I had copied and whose colours we had chosen as a class) so that the story has continuity.
In the next lesson, I told the story (I had written one short sentences for each picture using language they would understand) several times, with the children's help. We played a couple of recognition games where I would read out a sentence from the story and they would have to find the appropriate picture. I gave each child the sentence describing their part of the story on a piece of paper. I went round drilling individually, and then they practised their sentences in pairs, with me helping and prompting. Their homework was to practise their sentences ready for the following lesson.
In the final lesson of our Heroes topic, I uploaded the photos of the pictures to Voicthread and recorded each child saying his/her sentence. We now have our very own comic book - on paper in the classroom and in digital format online. I have embedded the slideshow into our class wiki so that the parents can see it. The children had great fun in the whole project - they actually really enjoyed learning their sentences and then recording them and listening to each other's voices on the computer.
Here is the finished product. Be patient as the voices can take some time to load. I hope you like it!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Five little ducks.. erm pigs...erm... whatever!
As I was getting ready for work yesterday, I made up a little song. You may be thinking that I get inspired whilst doing some rather mundane activities like doing the shopping or getting ready for work, but to be honest, since these activities are not mentally taxing, I can allow my mind to wander and this is how I come up with ideas. (I suppose I'm not a very methodical kind of person).
My six-year-olds and I are looking at the story of The Three Little Pigs and I thought singing a song about them might reinforce some of the language we have seen. Now, finding it difficult to remember and sing a song in class with an original tune, most of the ditties I make up are sung to the tune of another, more traditional, song. In this case, the "little pigs" fit in very well with the "little ducks" in the song Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day (over the hills and far away...). Everyone know that one? Here are the lyric to my piggy version:
My six-year-olds and I are looking at the story of The Three Little Pigs and I thought singing a song about them might reinforce some of the language we have seen. Now, finding it difficult to remember and sing a song in class with an original tune, most of the ditties I make up are sung to the tune of another, more traditional, song. In this case, the "little pigs" fit in very well with the "little ducks" in the song Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day (over the hills and far away...). Everyone know that one? Here are the lyric to my piggy version:
Three little pigs left home one day
Said "Bye Bye" to mummy and went away
Pig number one built his house of straw
Wolf blew it down and it was no more.
Two little pigs left home one day
Said "Bye Bye" to mummy and went away
Pig number two built his house of sticks
Wolf blew it down and it fell to bits.
One little pig left home one day
Said "Bye Bye" to mummy and went away
Pig three built his house from bricks of clay
and the three little pigs could play all day!
What do you think? I haven't tried it on the children yet but I think they'll like it. I doubt I'd make a career out of songwriting but it suits my purpose alright! Feel free to use it if you are doing something similar.
And if you've been singing along while reading this post, I bet you won't be able to get the tune out of your head all day!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Precious Moments
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| It may not look much, but with a lot of dedication and care it will become something wonderful. |
On a day when some classes seem like an uphill struggle, when it appears that some students are just trying to make life more difficult for you, when you find it impossible to get the to children stop shouting and sit down, and all because it is raining outside; there sometimes comes a glimpse of light in that dark, heavy ambience; a ray of sunlight or a rainbow to brighten up your day.
This happened to me yesterday. Not that my previous class had gone badly, but the bad weather along with the ever-present challenge of trying to help some students to learn had started to get me down slightly. It is November, one month til the Christmas holidays and just over two months since the new term began, when things have settled down enough for people to start complaining and demanding things from you. Demotivation starts to creep in to the souls of learners and colleagues. There is a reason why in the UK they have a half-term break!
Then, a six-year-old changed everything.
With this particular class I decided to take a kind of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach. I spent the summer designing a course for them, and I am working on the finer details as we go along. Really, what we are doing is learning about and doing lots of different things, of the domains of various school subjects. We learn about living creatures, do projects, make things, do experiments, listen to stories and so on. Yesterday, we were discussing the story of The Three Little Pigs. I hadn't yet read them the story, but as it is a well-known tale in Spain too, we were discussing what the children knew about it. Of course this was being done in Spanish - the children have very little productive English at this stage- and I was providing them with some vocabulary trying to encourage them to use it. This meant that their Spanish sentences explaining the story went something like: "Pig construyó una casa de paja". I could see Lucía was thinking about something, and when she put up her hand she said that she had something to say in English.
Slowly, but confidently, she exclaimed:
"The wolf up the house!"
Well, this was something new! A six-year-old trying to make a full sentence in English. On her own. With no encouragement or elicitation. I was taken aback. Of course the sentence needed a verb for it to make real sense, but her sentence had meaning and could be easily understood. Lucía was communicating in English!
And she knew exactly what she was saying because she made a gesture for "up" so that we would know what she meant. For me, this is a really important step for Lucía. I have been exposing the children to more English than they are used to, in the hope that they will eventually understand me and pick up some of it themselves. I focus on important vocabulary and repeat it a lot while we are doing things, and then wait for them to use it without being prompted. It takes such a long time for this to happen usually, and so I was shocked to hear something that included new vocabulary along with vocabulary we learnt in October, and in a coherent sentence.
My reaction may seem over the top, but I almost had tears in my eyes when this little girl said what she did. I felt so proud! I praised her effusively for her efforts. It gave me the feeling that maybe what I am doing is working, maybe this way of learning is effective.
Thank you, Lucía. You really made my week!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Fluffy Friends
Lenny the Lizard, Kitty the Cat and Robbie the Rabbit are my faithful furry friends. Lenny has been around the longest, Kitty was a favourite at the nursery school I teach at, and this past year we have adopted Robbie as our classroom pet.
Now unlike Leahn at Early EFL I am no animal lover. I would rather avoid most animals (except perhaps cats, but even then it depends on the cat!) so the pets I am referring to are of course, puppets. I am going to talk about how I have used these puppets over the years and also suggest some newer ideas I have for exploiting them in class.
This is Lenny. I actually thought he was a crocodile when I found him, but the children said he was a lizard and gave him his name. He was the first puppet I took to the nursery school when I started teaching 3-5 year olds there a couple of hours a week. Lenny is a fun puppet to use, as children find lizards and other reptiles quite interesting. He's very playful and loves pretending to bite small hands!
This is Kitty. She is a well-loved member of the English class. She came to the nursery school for four or five years before she got too big and decided to go to school with the older children. I named her after the "Hello Kitty" craze, because I thought it would be an easy name for the children to remember and it is easy to pronounce. The children love to give Kitty a hug and a kiss, although some cheeky monsters sometimes pull her tail! Kitty has a surprising past, which I tell the children in our Hallowe'en lesson. Kitty used to belong to a witch! I never met the witch so I ask the children if they think she was a good or wicked witch, usually with mixed responses!
Finally, we have Robbie. Robbie has been accompanying me to the nursery this year. He is actually from Robby Rabbit course by Macmillan and I decided to keep his name. Robbie's ears are a great source of enjoyment for the children, as they get bent in my bag and every day he looks a bit different! Robbie is very soft and the children love touching him. I made up a song that we sing to Robbie every day. It goes like this: (tune similar to Twinkle Twinkle)
Now unlike Leahn at Early EFL I am no animal lover. I would rather avoid most animals (except perhaps cats, but even then it depends on the cat!) so the pets I am referring to are of course, puppets. I am going to talk about how I have used these puppets over the years and also suggest some newer ideas I have for exploiting them in class.
This is Kitty. She is a well-loved member of the English class. She came to the nursery school for four or five years before she got too big and decided to go to school with the older children. I named her after the "Hello Kitty" craze, because I thought it would be an easy name for the children to remember and it is easy to pronounce. The children love to give Kitty a hug and a kiss, although some cheeky monsters sometimes pull her tail! Kitty has a surprising past, which I tell the children in our Hallowe'en lesson. Kitty used to belong to a witch! I never met the witch so I ask the children if they think she was a good or wicked witch, usually with mixed responses!
Hello Robbie, how are you?
Fine, thanks. How about you?
Let's speak English today
Let's speak English today
Hello Robbie, how are you?
Fine, thanks. How about you?
(Choral), FINE THANKS!
The puppets allow me to use English in a natural way, that doesn't intimidate the children. The puppets don't actually speak themselves, but I talk to the puppets and formulate the questions the children want to ask. Depending on the topic we are covering, I may ask the puppet about his/her favourite food or colour. When we are learning the names of clothes, the children tell me what the puppet should wear and we dress him/her in paper clothes. We have a "Good morning" and "Goodbye" routine where we greet/say goodbye to our puppet. On the odd occasion when I forget to bring him the children always ask about him, so I tell them that he slept in or went away on a short trip.
For young children puppets can be a way of connecting to English and it helps them understand that there are people who do not speak their own language and to communicate with these people they need to do so in English (or whatever language you are teaching). Young children don't really know what a country is and it is hard to explain, they often think that England must be a few kilometres away, which is the furthest they have ever been. Having a puppet that comes from another country (or planet!) and speaks another language can help with this.
However, I have not only used puppets with very young learners. Sometimes I get one out with older children, which they actually quite enjoy, as long as you take care to make sure that the activity is not seen as too babyish. For children with more English, you can do the following activities:
There is another kind of puppet that I also like using to create stories. These are finger puppets. I have a set of around ten, where each puppet is a different character. We have a royal family, a wizard, a dragon, an owl, a jester and a baddie (not sure exactly what he is so I call him the baddie!). These are great for dramatising stories. You can make up a story or get the children to make up and write (if they are older) their own stories which they they recreate with the puppets. Finger puppets are also brilliant for short dialogues, even with beginners.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other possiblities for using puppets in the classroom, and these are just a few. If you have any good ideas, post them in the comments section.
For young children puppets can be a way of connecting to English and it helps them understand that there are people who do not speak their own language and to communicate with these people they need to do so in English (or whatever language you are teaching). Young children don't really know what a country is and it is hard to explain, they often think that England must be a few kilometres away, which is the furthest they have ever been. Having a puppet that comes from another country (or planet!) and speaks another language can help with this.
However, I have not only used puppets with very young learners. Sometimes I get one out with older children, which they actually quite enjoy, as long as you take care to make sure that the activity is not seen as too babyish. For children with more English, you can do the following activities:
- Introduce the puppet as an alien from another planet about whom they must find out as much information as possible by asking questions. (Works great with the puppet from OUP's Galaxy course)
- Introduce the puppet as the main character from a story (you can make up your own story or adapt one that exists) that the children will later act out using the puppet.
- Show the class the puppet and ask them to write about it, choosing a name, age, sex, nationality, hobbies, likes/dislikes etc.
- Students make up dialogues in pairs which they then perform using the puppets.
- Ask each student to create a profile for the puppet. They can take a photo of the puppet, dressing it up with props as they require, and add it to the profile. This could be done on computers if they are available.
- Again, if the internet is available, use an audio recording program for the children to talk about the character they have invented for the puppet. You could use Fotobabble or Voicethread to do this. All you have to do is upload a photo of the puppet and the students record themselves talking about it.
- Games like pass the puppet (like pass the parcel) where you play music and the puppet is passed around until the music stops, when the student holding the puppet has to say a sentence about it e.g. "He's black and white", or "He eats carrots". This can be a fun way of revising vocabulary.
- For classroom management issues, make one child resposible each day for the puppet. The child is also responsible for other duties such as handing out books and pencils. You can allow the child to take the puppet home (for younger children), and this can lead on to a discussion of how to look after a pet.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other possiblities for using puppets in the classroom, and these are just a few. If you have any good ideas, post them in the comments section.
