ALL ABOUT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH

In 5th grade we were working on famous scientists, artists, inventors, musicians, … We were learning how to write a short biography using verbs in past. That was a very hard work because they met irregular verbs for the very first time and memorizing them was not a good surprise.

As we finished the unit last week, I take advantage of their curiosity and this activity as a very good review of the topic. I chose the Queen Elizabeth II as they are always asking me about her and the Prince Philip, so I wrote a text in which her life was explained (I modified some verbs and expressions for them to make it easy to understand).

My learning objectives were very clear and simple:

    - To review the Past Simple (regular and irregular verbs).

    - To review the principal points of a biography.

    - To read cooperatively.

    - To use the dictionary as a learning tool.

I decided to use the cooperative strategy: RECIPROCAL TEACHING.

It consists of working on a text in groups of 3-4 people. The teacher gives the material to them and divide the text in different paragraphs to be read for each member of the group. In my case, I decided to divide the text in paragraphs, but they were read by each group instead of each member (COVID-19 measures, I guess). Then they share what they read to the rest of their classmates and everyone has a general idea of the whole text.

The whole lesson started with setting them up in groups of three (and one of four) that I chose as I prefer to mix everyone up a little bit more (they have to work with everyone in the class!). Then I told them that we were going to read a text about Queen Elizabeth and doing a TimeLine about her on the computer.

** Here I have to do a little explanation about the laptops in my school. I tried to use them for the final task in other units and it was a disaster. They are not ready; they have a very slow working process, so students were waiting more than working in my class. That is why I decided to use the whiteboard and only one.

Then, I told them which paragraph they had to read, and they started to work immediately. When they finished, each group came to the front of the class and summarised the paragraph for their classmates in a mix of English and Spanish. Finally, we answered all the questions about vocabulary and doubts about the text. Each group decided which parts of Elizabeth’s life were important to be in the Timeline.

When everything was done, we started with the TimeLine in which each group wrote the sentences... As you may see, writing is not one of our best skills, we are still working on it!

LINK TO THE TIME LINE

Everything I have done can be improved. This lesson is not an exception. My difficulties were, especially, the computers. It is difficult to rely on the technology when it is not updated and work well. That is our principal problem, and the solution is not easy, but we are trying to acquire new equipment. 

On the other hand, I have to give more motivation and reasons for reading the text because sometimes I feel like I am punishing them with the reading altough the 75% of the students really want to read it.

The app is interesting as they organise the reading and develop the SUMMARISING strategy. I think of using it as a final task because I helped me to review the past simple as they had to write sentences about them, they worked cooperatively as they had to agree with the information, they used a new tool to organise a biography and its importants points.

Summing up, this tool gave me the opportunity to "update" reading and a new strategy for my students to develop learning to learn.

BIG THINKERS, READ!

Reading, for me, is one of my favourite skills to teach because it gives me some time to rest my throat! Actually, it is because I love reading and teach vocabulary, as this is the best way to learn new words from the context.

I learnt many strategies that are involved in the reading process and I try to develop the best strategies for each group of students (I teach English in a “small” school, so I have from 3 years old to 6^th grade). Furthermore, I have in mind different strategies depending on the grade they are and the type of text they are going to read.

In my lessons, I plan Storytelling in which I start giving a purpose, a motivation, a reason for which my students pay attention and enjoy the reading. I do this with the little ones and I always hide the book in my bag and ask them if they want to see what I brought (clearly the answer is YEEEES TEACHEEER!) They always want gifts and surprises, so I use the Paddington Bear as a motivation and he is who sends me all the “presents” and they love it. In this process, I also use predicting in which I ask students to tell me what they think is going to happen in the story using simple questions (sometimes I translate them, but I always repeat it in English after that).

Then, for the big ones, I try to use different texts and presentation ideas. For example, I help them bolding the key words from the key vocabulary we learnt (especially for the first cycle students to help them to understand what they have to look for in a picture or understand the sentence: It’s got feathers). I always teach the vocabulary and the structures orally first so when they read the text they perfectly understand the meaning (“There are two cows… Claro teacher, tengo que dibujar two cows”).

Finally, for the very big ones, I use other strategies that are more complex such as scanning and guessing word meaning. I like to “draw” on the text, so I ask them to take coloured markers or pencils and underline!

“PLEASE, read the questions first and then underline what you think it is important… Then use a colour to underline in the text where you think the information is!!! C’mon!”

It is not a teaching as guided as it is with the little students because it is more autonomous but it is still necessary and important to develop this skill to help them becoming better thinkers!

 THE PLEASURE OF READING

Reading is so valuable in so many ways that help us to become better communicators and thinkers. However, it is easy to find opinions such as: “reading is boring, and it isn’t worthy to spend time on it” and, very often, I ask myself why this thought is very popular.

From my point of view, reading is a very important part of the culture which spread history, literacy, numeracy, other experiences, thoughts, convey emotions… Unfortunately, I didn’t have a reader model when I was young, so I found no pleasure on it until I was so bored that I was attracted by a book and I started to become a reader.

I decided to choose this picture because I think that parents (or a model) are important in this reading development. It takes time to get used to reading and to find the genre or the type of text you like. It's our responsibility to help students and children showing a great variety to them to choose from. I loved the teens science fiction books as The Hunger Games. It gives me the opportunity to see the strengths of young people fighting against the adversity and big problems.

When I decided to start reading in English, I did so with “Divergent” which I read completely in English for the very first time. I didn’t read it in Spanish before or any idea of what it was about. I felt so proud of myself that I read three more books related to this series written by Veronica Roth. Now, I am reading “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin as I feel more mature now.

I continue reading en Spanish, especially with my Kindle, but I still enjoy the smell and touch of the paper in my hands. This pleasure is what I want to convey to my students in class.

WELCOME TO OUR 

NEW ENGLISH BLOG!

Good news... 

We officially open our English blog for the very first time!

As you may know at the beginning of this school year I wanted to offer good tools for English learning and motivated and happy students. So I decided to include in my English syllabus all the digital and technological learning tools I had. 

I decided to go deeper into this wonderful world with so many opportunities... and here I am! Summing up this blog's aim is mainly focused on collecting my learning process about the creation of innovative materials for my English lessons with the help of ICT.