HIGHLAND GAMES

In 5th grade we are working on clothes and the materials in which they are made of. In a text from the book we use the KILT was mentioned (that Scottish skirt that it seems to be funny for students). I tried to go deeper into this cultural piece of clothing and this video came across in my searching. They are very fascinated by the Brisith culture so I take advantage of that and give them the opportunity to practice listening. 

The objectives for this lesson were:

    - Review the vocabulary of clothing and materials.

    - Learn about special clothes and special ocassions.

    - Learn about the Kilt and Scottish culture.

The sequence of this lesson was:

1) RUTINE: I always ask one student to write the date on the board and review the vocabulary with a very simple game in which they show a flashcard to two classmates and the first one to say it correctly is the winner.

2) CONTEXTUALISE: I ask them about clothing and materials in a different way, introducing the structure: What is ... made of? so they recognize it. I ask them if they dress the same for school or a wedding and we planned a brainstorming of different clothes and events. So it is the moment to introduce the Scottish kilt and ask them what is it and where you can wear it. 

3) VIDEO: I put the video and they answer the questions on their notebooks (I would have used the laptops but the materials is not very well prepared for the task). I put the video twice.

4) REFLECTION: Then I ask them what they have learnt about the Highland Games and what parts were more interesting for them. Then, I try to make a reflection about their own learning process with questions like: What part was more difficult to understand? And what part was the easiest? 

As I knew, they loved the topic and the most difficult part was the task for them. I enjoy simply telling them how fantastic it is the culture of this country and I would like to think that they enjoyed listenin about it and asking me questions about the kilt, the trunks, the hammers, and the dancers!

For next time I would like to use the laptops because this activity will be adapted to each one learning pace. Besides, it is always motivating use headphones in class!

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.