Sunday, 5 November 2017
Friday, 25 July 2014
Shakespeare
Final Project MSBL2014
- Shakespeare's Padlet, lesson plan and ready-to-download activities included (Fran, Elena and Pilar)
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Reflection
Wednesday 24th of July.
The benchmark you have set for these reflections is very high
and I don’t want to bore you with a deep reflection because I know you have
worked so hard lately.
I know your brain is
crammed up with ideas and guidelines about the projects and the experiences of
your time in Norwich but let’s call our wandering thoughts together in order to
concentrate on our sessions from yesterday.
First of all I want
to thank the Nile teachers and the teachers from Madrid for having shared all
their inputs and knowledge about teaching. Next year, it will be my first year
in Tirso de Molina, a bilingual school in Vallecas and after this course I have
a certain experience of task-based activities and high order thinking skills. I
hope I won’t have to give up Blooms taxonomy due to low level of English and
lack of motivation among the students.
As a matter of fact I will leave no stone unturned to make English and
literature cool and attractive for our beloved young adults.
Yesterday we started with Carole. The title of the session
was “Topics and Language Development”. She gave us 6 words related to
travelling and she asked us to write sentences with them. The words were: travel,
trip, excursion, journey, expedition. We realized that it wasn’t such a piece
of cake as we had thought at the beginning and that we had different opinions
about key points of the words especially with travel used as a noun like in
“travel broadens the mind” and “my travels around the world”. Xavi added the
word “outing” to the list and he recommended us the book: “The bottle factory outing”
Then, Carole showed us a photograph from the Antarctica. We
had to practise visual literacy and express our impressions and feelings about
it: silence, cold, challenge. Then we saw another from Shackleton in two
different moments of his life, we had to guess in which year the images were
taken. We also had to give the reasons for having chosen a certain year. She
gave us slips of paper with the different events in the explorer’s expedition
and we had to establish the right order in groups.
After this, we really had to face facts. Carole proposed an
activity for coordinating skills and we panicked on the spot, even before
listening to details about the activity. She gave us a map with the coordinates
and we had to find out the route the explorer had taken. The language we used
was quite useful for teaching purposes: adverbs, comparatives, modals and some
swear words out of desperation as Fran pinpointed. The bottom line was clear, it
had been a cross-curricular, task-based activity which required high order
thinking skills and patience too.
Carole asked us whether we usually gave out tasks taking
into account the different skills and levels in order to tailor activities
according to the students’ capacity which could be very useful in this case.
She finally gave us a sheet with a whole set of activities
for “Tale of Endurance”: pre-activity, procedure and extension and we had to
debate about our opinion and suggestions. We decided that Carole’s adaptation
had been the best one because it was challenging, cross-curricular, task-based
and on top of that, it implied the use of important words and grammar
structures.
Macu made a remark about the possibility of homework with
dead or living people biographies to practise either present or past tenses.
After the coffee break we had to complete gaps in a text
about Shackleton. We had the missing
words on the other side as scaffolding support but she asked us to do it
without looking at the words to raise the challenge and introduce other
possible words in the gaps.
Our creative task was to design an advert. We had to imagine
a powerful phrase to lure people to
apply for a job to travel on this ship. We talked about conditions,
requirements, qualities, qualifications;the artists in the groups made lovely
drawings. We really got the giggles thinking in sentences like: “have you ever
killed a bear?” among others. When we saw the real ad from 1915, we were
flabbergasted at the sincerity of the advert offering low wages and months of
darkness. It triggered a very interesting and thought- provoking debate about
honour in Victorian times and the kind of people eligible for this job.
She gave us an activity about a list of items we could save
from the ship before sinking and we had to decide priorities and to propose
activities. Fran said we could assign roles to the students, like a doctor or a cook in order to decide the most necessary tools for each of them.
We watched a video clip made by Tim Jarvis which recreates
the voyage made by the explorer, with the same food, clothes and conditions but
with a support vessel as back-up and the duration of 2 months compared to the 2
years of the original expedition. We talked about the differences between both trips.
By the way, Carole downloaded this video clip on the moodle platform. Students could recreate this story.
Our last scheduled activity at the Assembly House was a
lecture by Ben Goldstein about “Building speaking skills”. Ben is a teacher
trainer, he has written course books and he has produced teaching materials
and, as most of us, he has a bee in his bonnet concerning the importance of
spoken language.
We were confronted with real feedback from students who complained
that nobody really taught them to speak English. As writer of course books he
said he was a biased critic, nevertheless, he pinpointed that books simply
focalized in vocalising grammar. He explained that it’s very difficult to
replicate the intrinsic unpredictability and relative complexity of spoken
English in the classroom. We looked at an example of speaking exercise using
present continuous which lacked of personalised practise.
He quoted some theory from the book “English Language
teaching textbooks” by Nigel Norhood.
This author thinks that the spoken language work should reflect what we
know about the nature of writing and tasks should focus on discovery rather
than production. The speaker said he
would concentrate mainly in spoken English and in dialogic pedagogy.
Concerning spoken
language, the real conundrum is how people can get messages across successfully
and as an example we saw through David’s experience, a student in Barcelona. This student was fed up with certain methods
used by teachers, like guessing at photos or comparing images .What he wanted
was to be connected to reality and to have a link between what he was learning
and his real life. Goldstein went through the differences between spoken and
written English with certain irony as when he refers to sentences like: “the
only moment I enjoy is…” defined in grammar meta-language as cleft sentences.
In spoken English we use basic conjunctions like “so” and “but” which are
underrated among teachers insisting in “therefore” and “nevertheless”; certain words can be
placed at the end of the sentence in spoken English: though, probably, still,
almost, even. There are new uses of some words like "so": “the phone is so last
week” or even in" like" used in the progressive form:” I’m liking this book”.
He quoted Thornbury’s principles:
1-
Productivity
2-
Purposefulness
3-
Interactivity
4-
Authenticity
He insisted in the process of awareness-raising,
appropriation and autonomy. He proposed speaking tasks about communication
breakdowns in real life and the solutions to repair them. He stressed the
importance of comparing second language structures with the mother tongue.
He wrapped up the speech with dialogic pedagogy, that is to
say, sharing and processing information, respecting the learner control of
meaning, the learner affectivity and the learner’s individual knowledge. To put
it in a nutshell, the student must take control and must have an insider
perspective rather than an outsider manipulation.
We watched a scene from French film “Entre les Murs” “The
Class” and this reflected very well the ideas exposed by the speaker like the
necessity to keep abreast of new uses of spoken English and the importance of
real world contexts to create the link with the real life.
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
22nd july 2014
Good morning everybody!
Once again, yesterday was a very intense, productive and funny day. As we approach the end of the course (time flies!) it seems there are still many new things to discover!
Claudia opened the morning session introducing the concept of ´literary circles´ and its use in the classroom context. From all her ideas and proposals, I think we all got the feeling that these literary circles are very flexible, open and creative, allowing teachers a lot of variety in organisation, design, grouping, timing, activities, students´ roles, etc.
All this implies a new methodology when dealing with literary texts.
To illustrate this topic, Claudia brought in some of her students´ posters. She explained how she organised different roles giving some examples (the artist, the analyser, the head honcho and the connector) and the activities proposed for each of them. The result was incredible!
Later on, we discussed the use of all these ideas in our classes and realised that developing and mastering literary circles with our students is a complex process because we must not forget that there´s a lot of scaffolding in all these activities and our pupils will need training and guidance on higher order thinking skills. But no doubt, the effort is worth it.
Therefore, we should follow Claudia´s advice: ´Everything takes a lot of time, so start small´ and I would like to add ´Start small and think big´ and never forget ´The sky is the limit´. Thank you Claudia, we really got the taste of it.
After that, we continued talking about the concept of ´flipped classroom´ or ´flip teaching´ (something totally new for many of us), as opposed to the so called ´mainstream education´. It´s a form of blended learning in which students learn new content online by watching video lectures at home and what used to be homework is done in class with teachers, who offer more help and interaction with students. It is certainly a new path we can explore.
To finish this session, we thought about how to use CLIL activities (like the ones we did in the castle museum or in the market) with our groups back in Madrid. Claudia suggested a good idea: exploiting visual tours through different settings in English! This resource is cheap and we only need a computer and the internet.
After the coffee break, we had a lot of ´British humour´ with Johanna. We learnt new vocabulary, expressions, jokes, phrasal verbs, etc. She displayed a lot of activities that we can also use in the classroom.
By the way, do you know what is the longest word in the English language? If you want to know the answer to this ´comic mystery´, please, post your ideas on the blog. To help you I will post some clues on.
In the afternoon, Johanna let us discover new strategies to work on language through literature. Firstly, we talked about writing and receiving letters, something that nowadays seems to be old-fashioned. Then, she used some letters from a novel titled ´The Queen of the Tambourine´ by Jane Gardam. Through these letters, we focused on linguistic aspects such as emphasizers (´do´/ stressing ´be´) and politeness, paying special attention to softening expressions (modal verbs, etc.). It was a different approach to exploit linguistic issues from a literary text, something very useful if we want even our low level students to be involved actively in the classroom.
And to finish, I would like to mention a quotation that summarizes my feelings about the activities developed yesterday: ´Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn´.
Once again, yesterday was a very intense, productive and funny day. As we approach the end of the course (time flies!) it seems there are still many new things to discover!
Claudia opened the morning session introducing the concept of ´literary circles´ and its use in the classroom context. From all her ideas and proposals, I think we all got the feeling that these literary circles are very flexible, open and creative, allowing teachers a lot of variety in organisation, design, grouping, timing, activities, students´ roles, etc.
All this implies a new methodology when dealing with literary texts.
To illustrate this topic, Claudia brought in some of her students´ posters. She explained how she organised different roles giving some examples (the artist, the analyser, the head honcho and the connector) and the activities proposed for each of them. The result was incredible!
Later on, we discussed the use of all these ideas in our classes and realised that developing and mastering literary circles with our students is a complex process because we must not forget that there´s a lot of scaffolding in all these activities and our pupils will need training and guidance on higher order thinking skills. But no doubt, the effort is worth it.
Therefore, we should follow Claudia´s advice: ´Everything takes a lot of time, so start small´ and I would like to add ´Start small and think big´ and never forget ´The sky is the limit´. Thank you Claudia, we really got the taste of it.
After that, we continued talking about the concept of ´flipped classroom´ or ´flip teaching´ (something totally new for many of us), as opposed to the so called ´mainstream education´. It´s a form of blended learning in which students learn new content online by watching video lectures at home and what used to be homework is done in class with teachers, who offer more help and interaction with students. It is certainly a new path we can explore.
To finish this session, we thought about how to use CLIL activities (like the ones we did in the castle museum or in the market) with our groups back in Madrid. Claudia suggested a good idea: exploiting visual tours through different settings in English! This resource is cheap and we only need a computer and the internet.
After the coffee break, we had a lot of ´British humour´ with Johanna. We learnt new vocabulary, expressions, jokes, phrasal verbs, etc. She displayed a lot of activities that we can also use in the classroom.
By the way, do you know what is the longest word in the English language? If you want to know the answer to this ´comic mystery´, please, post your ideas on the blog. To help you I will post some clues on.
In the afternoon, Johanna let us discover new strategies to work on language through literature. Firstly, we talked about writing and receiving letters, something that nowadays seems to be old-fashioned. Then, she used some letters from a novel titled ´The Queen of the Tambourine´ by Jane Gardam. Through these letters, we focused on linguistic aspects such as emphasizers (´do´/ stressing ´be´) and politeness, paying special attention to softening expressions (modal verbs, etc.). It was a different approach to exploit linguistic issues from a literary text, something very useful if we want even our low level students to be involved actively in the classroom.
And to finish, I would like to mention a quotation that summarizes my feelings about the activities developed yesterday: ´Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn´.
Saturday, 19 July 2014
REFLECTION ON 18th JULY SESSION
“A teacher who loves learning earns the right and the ability to help others learn.”
― Ruth Beechick, An Easy Start in Arithmetic
Hi everyone!
Before starting with my reflection I've decided to include a quotation that explains a little bit why we are teachers, why we are here and where we are heading...
Yesterday, we first had class with Claudia and as usual she anticipated what we were going to do that day which is something that I'd really like to start doing with my children (yes, they're twelve and thirteen- year-olds, but I like to call them "children").
We had a little chat about the mystery activity and drama techniques that we could use in the classroom. I like the idea of not unveiling the ending so that we are increasing our students' motivation to discover it themselves. Right after that we were introduced into a discussion about our own regional curriculum and whether it is flexible or not. As everything we do in our lessons is linked to prior activity, the six heads of department that didn't take part in the mystery dramatisation would be the "scribes" and would jot down all sorts of ideas that might come up. So, my six colleagues were mingled and after some minutes of talking they shared with the rest of the group quite a few things that are worth being pointed out:
-It's a flexible curriculum and nobody is strictly controlling what we teach or what we don't teach. To a certain extent we are free to choose the books we want our students to read.
-Grammar is not so flexible BUT cross-curricular contents and vocabulary can be coordinated with other departments.
-We, teachers have the feeling of being juggling all the time, since the Comunidad de Madrid is very demanding and wants us to be teaching literature, preparing our students for official exams and many other things...
I´d like to highlight Elena's contribution because what she said is something that I hadn't thought of until she mentioned it: the curriculum in our community is the same that we all had at university. It is extremely ambitious and of course our students are not mature enough to read certain books. I have the strong feeling that we are not doing things well in Madrid. NOT because of us (we are all putting our heart and soul into this project) but because of our "beloved politicians and legislators" who are not teachers and don't have a clue of our students' level and needs.
Although this activity has been especifically designed for teachers, I really liked the way Claudia organised it and it's a technique to be used in our class whenever we prepare a debate around a topic.
After this, we were given a handout about food in Britain. The exercise was simple as it consisted in reading a series of statements and decide whether they were true or false. This is a good anticipation guide for pre-teaching a topic. It makes you think and therefore it arouses your curiosity. The activity is later completed with a text. A piece of non-fiction that contains facts and figures but it turns out to be a very usable text since it can fit many levels, the statements are short and clear, cross-curricular contents are present (Maths, Health and Safety, culture) and then it may lead to higher order thinking questions (one of the key elements in this course). Claudia brought the session to an end by "challenging" us with a market quest, a little bit of movement and exchange with the locals which is always nice, especially with this weather. This quest made me think of the possibility of incorporating CLIL activities whenever my students go on a trip (not necessarily related to my subject but to other subjects too).
After the lunch break we had class with Jo and her "How-to-be-British lesson" another fantastic idea to introduce culture and stereotypes. We started completing a copy with certain pictures and statements that depict British stereotypes such as wearing eccentric clothes, speaking other languages or feeling proud of being British. As soon as we finished we moved on and watched a video in which people were interviewed about their image of the UK. Most of them highlighted aspects like the diversity and respect for the individual, beautiful green landscapes, a long and rich history or tea. I also love these things about Britain. Our next task was to learn a bit of slang for a bit of fun and so it was!! We had the chance to learn expressions such as "get your knickers in a twist" or "Bob's your uncle" (my favourite ones). Slang is the toughest part to teach in a foreign language, it is demanding. You need to be updated constantly and it tends to change fast but at the same time it is a great activity to be done with students as they are learning real and useful language.
Just to finish off the day we dared to try one of those citizenship tests that British students have to take at school and I'd say that we are pretty much British. Amazingly I got 87.5% and made me think that I know more things of British history and culture than of my own...FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
BTW: I can't publish this without saying how FANTASTIC the "Nile's got talent" was and how the Spanish team absolutely NAILED IT!!!! Congrats to Xavi, Jaime and Patricia? (the Primary teacher) and of course all the teachers who contributed because all of them made us have a WONDERFUL evening!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: "God Save the Queen" and remember that "This course is sponsored by Comunidad de Madrid".
― Ruth Beechick, An Easy Start in Arithmetic
Hi everyone!
Before starting with my reflection I've decided to include a quotation that explains a little bit why we are teachers, why we are here and where we are heading...
Yesterday, we first had class with Claudia and as usual she anticipated what we were going to do that day which is something that I'd really like to start doing with my children (yes, they're twelve and thirteen- year-olds, but I like to call them "children").
We had a little chat about the mystery activity and drama techniques that we could use in the classroom. I like the idea of not unveiling the ending so that we are increasing our students' motivation to discover it themselves. Right after that we were introduced into a discussion about our own regional curriculum and whether it is flexible or not. As everything we do in our lessons is linked to prior activity, the six heads of department that didn't take part in the mystery dramatisation would be the "scribes" and would jot down all sorts of ideas that might come up. So, my six colleagues were mingled and after some minutes of talking they shared with the rest of the group quite a few things that are worth being pointed out:
-It's a flexible curriculum and nobody is strictly controlling what we teach or what we don't teach. To a certain extent we are free to choose the books we want our students to read.
-Grammar is not so flexible BUT cross-curricular contents and vocabulary can be coordinated with other departments.
-We, teachers have the feeling of being juggling all the time, since the Comunidad de Madrid is very demanding and wants us to be teaching literature, preparing our students for official exams and many other things...
I´d like to highlight Elena's contribution because what she said is something that I hadn't thought of until she mentioned it: the curriculum in our community is the same that we all had at university. It is extremely ambitious and of course our students are not mature enough to read certain books. I have the strong feeling that we are not doing things well in Madrid. NOT because of us (we are all putting our heart and soul into this project) but because of our "beloved politicians and legislators" who are not teachers and don't have a clue of our students' level and needs.
Although this activity has been especifically designed for teachers, I really liked the way Claudia organised it and it's a technique to be used in our class whenever we prepare a debate around a topic.
After this, we were given a handout about food in Britain. The exercise was simple as it consisted in reading a series of statements and decide whether they were true or false. This is a good anticipation guide for pre-teaching a topic. It makes you think and therefore it arouses your curiosity. The activity is later completed with a text. A piece of non-fiction that contains facts and figures but it turns out to be a very usable text since it can fit many levels, the statements are short and clear, cross-curricular contents are present (Maths, Health and Safety, culture) and then it may lead to higher order thinking questions (one of the key elements in this course). Claudia brought the session to an end by "challenging" us with a market quest, a little bit of movement and exchange with the locals which is always nice, especially with this weather. This quest made me think of the possibility of incorporating CLIL activities whenever my students go on a trip (not necessarily related to my subject but to other subjects too).
After the lunch break we had class with Jo and her "How-to-be-British lesson" another fantastic idea to introduce culture and stereotypes. We started completing a copy with certain pictures and statements that depict British stereotypes such as wearing eccentric clothes, speaking other languages or feeling proud of being British. As soon as we finished we moved on and watched a video in which people were interviewed about their image of the UK. Most of them highlighted aspects like the diversity and respect for the individual, beautiful green landscapes, a long and rich history or tea. I also love these things about Britain. Our next task was to learn a bit of slang for a bit of fun and so it was!! We had the chance to learn expressions such as "get your knickers in a twist" or "Bob's your uncle" (my favourite ones). Slang is the toughest part to teach in a foreign language, it is demanding. You need to be updated constantly and it tends to change fast but at the same time it is a great activity to be done with students as they are learning real and useful language.
Just to finish off the day we dared to try one of those citizenship tests that British students have to take at school and I'd say that we are pretty much British. Amazingly I got 87.5% and made me think that I know more things of British history and culture than of my own...FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
BTW: I can't publish this without saying how FANTASTIC the "Nile's got talent" was and how the Spanish team absolutely NAILED IT!!!! Congrats to Xavi, Jaime and Patricia? (the Primary teacher) and of course all the teachers who contributed because all of them made us have a WONDERFUL evening!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: "God Save the Queen" and remember that "This course is sponsored by Comunidad de Madrid".
Thursday, 17 July 2014
Recap July 17th
Allan Pulverness started his class yesterday asking us why we teach literature. For a couple of minutes we thought about it and shared our ideas with the person sitting next to us. Then some of us expressed our points of view in front of the class. This is something that I do with my students too. I like to give them something to think about when we start.
After that Mr Pulverness proceeded to show a powerpoint in which he showed us how to teach literature in a way that is attractive for our students. He insisted in the idea of the many grey areas that we may find when reading with our students in class and he also pointed out that in many cases we will be unable to provide our students with correct answers because quite often there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to reading. He also expressed his disbelief in multiple choice questions. Which is something I am going to have to think about since I quite like them.
After that we read a Raymond Carver short story and a D H Lawrence poem. We were pretty much free to choose the way in which we were going to approach our texts, and that is something that I also intend to do more and more with my students. I plan to give them a wider range of activities to choose from.
I really liked the way in which Mr Pulverness finished the class giving us the chance to write a reaction to the poem or the short story...if we wanted to because we are free to do whatever we want about it since it is not mandatory to write anything. That is again something that I normally do with my classes and it is rather surprising to see how many students actually want to write voluntary compositions.
After the coffee break we had drama class with David Farmer.
Some of us are naturally born actors and Mr Farmer knows exactly how to get the best of us. we did some exercises that I see myself doing with my students in "Ampliaciôn de inglés" in the not too distant future, ie, next year.
I loved the Stop/walk/clap exercise (simple and effective, a fantastic warm-up). I liked the Whoosh game very much too and the way in which he taught us how to teach Shakespeare with the "Twelve lines spoken by a character" exercise, that I am planning to use next year too. The "Traditional South American story" was fantastic, probably my favourite exercise of all.
Time flew and it was time for our lunch break
When we came back with spent two hours with Claudia Rey working on our projects in the computer room. It was hard work, but we all made progress.
Allan Pulverness started his class yesterday asking us why we teach literature. For a couple of minutes we thought about it and shared our ideas with the person sitting next to us. Then some of us expressed our points of view in front of the class. This is something that I do with my students too. I like to give them something to think about when we start.
After that Mr Pulverness proceeded to show a powerpoint in which he showed us how to teach literature in a way that is attractive for our students. He insisted in the idea of the many grey areas that we may find when reading with our students in class and he also pointed out that in many cases we will be unable to provide our students with correct answers because quite often there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to reading. He also expressed his disbelief in multiple choice questions. Which is something I am going to have to think about since I quite like them.
After that we read a Raymond Carver short story and a D H Lawrence poem. We were pretty much free to choose the way in which we were going to approach our texts, and that is something that I also intend to do more and more with my students. I plan to give them a wider range of activities to choose from.
I really liked the way in which Mr Pulverness finished the class giving us the chance to write a reaction to the poem or the short story...if we wanted to because we are free to do whatever we want about it since it is not mandatory to write anything. That is again something that I normally do with my classes and it is rather surprising to see how many students actually want to write voluntary compositions.
After the coffee break we had drama class with David Farmer.
Some of us are naturally born actors and Mr Farmer knows exactly how to get the best of us. we did some exercises that I see myself doing with my students in "Ampliaciôn de inglés" in the not too distant future, ie, next year.
I loved the Stop/walk/clap exercise (simple and effective, a fantastic warm-up). I liked the Whoosh game very much too and the way in which he taught us how to teach Shakespeare with the "Twelve lines spoken by a character" exercise, that I am planning to use next year too. The "Traditional South American story" was fantastic, probably my favourite exercise of all.
Time flew and it was time for our lunch break
When we came back with spent two hours with Claudia Rey working on our projects in the computer room. It was hard work, but we all made progress.
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