16^th July 2014

Have you got the stomach for a little bit of poetry? Joanne’s opening line introduced the topic of our first lesson, although we first made a detour, by visiting some “memes”. A “meme” is a neologism meaning a piece, both verbal and visual, widespread by the social networks, in an infectious, viral way.  A very famous one that has been circulating for the last two years refers to our profession: “What my Friends Think I Do” shows several pictures caricaturing the way we, teachers, are regarded by our friends, students, student’s parents or society: sunbathing, entertaining, arresting and punishing…  As a warm up exercise we were asked to create in small groups our own mental associations. We seemed to agree: we were nursery assistants for our their parents, who sometimes think a school is a teens’ warehouse; prison guards for our pupils; lion tamers or sheep shepherds, for us; firefighters for our mothers... 

Teachers’ social prestige is a topic we had dealt with the day before in our discussion groups with professionals from other countries: we usually have the impression that our hard and crucial job is despised by society: we are the ones who lacked the entrepreneurial spirit it takes to succeed in life, we are the unambitious ones who have settled down and live comfortably, although modestly, at the taxpayers’ expenses, enjoying excessive holidays. The reverential respect our grandparents felt for their children’s teachers is long gone, and in many cases we are seen as enlightened servants.

As a response to the unfair criticism that we usually have to put up with, sometimes even from our own friends, Taylor Mali, poet and teacher, proposes a hilarious poem/monologue “What do teachers make?” Joanne asked us to predict what the poem was going to be about by answering that question. Some anticipated many of the writer’s answers: “little money, a difference…” We all found the poem inspiring and energizing. After being asked by a cocky lawyer how much a teacher makes (meaning money), Mali gives him a lesson about the essential role we play in society. Building up minds, consciousness and spirits may not be easily quantified in terms of money, profit or revenues, but it DOES make a difference. Like this devastating and everlasting economic crisis is showing us, the countries more dramatically stricken are the ones where education expenditure is seen not as a long term investment, but as a burden.

The afterwards discussion got us into whether or not we should show this video to our students: NO, it seems we are showing off, or revealing a defensive attitude; YES, to see their reaction, how they or their parents see us… The discussion derived into the difference in behaviour and discipline between our Spanish student and the English ones we had observed in our visits to some local schools last week. Silence and order is a must since day one in British elementary schools, something assimilated by the kids. Some of us argued that it is just a cultural matter: we, Spaniards, either adults or children, are simply a louder society and therefore discipline is more difficult to achieve for us. The high levels of noise pollution in Madrid are an indicator that we are a society that doesn't seem to worship silence.

We continued with some reflections about our methodology: Should we make reading comprehension questions? There were considerable arguments for and against, depending on the students’ command of the language.   Should we have as an aim that the students love the text they have in front of their noses? No, but the aim is for them to respect it and reflect about the reasons why it is considered important, whether or not they like it. The lesson finished with an anonymous but insightful quote: “start and end a lesson with the learner”, that is, make it meaningful for them.

After the break we received a very special visit: Sara Jane, a 15-year old teenager who expects her marks and her entrance in the A levels. To have a first-hand witness was a very interesting experience: Her first shy and then increasingly confident answers were very revealing in matters such as bulling management at schools, leisure and free-time activities, everyday life of a British teenager, and aspects of the educational system quite different to ours: their strict dress code, the few homework hours they need,  and the fact that in their A levels they are allowed to study three, and only three, optional subjects, whatsoever. Among the most inspiring things she said, her concept of a good teacher: someone strict but accessible, helping and friendly. The lesson ended with a teen language activity, in which she and Joanne acted out the slang words in a context.

The afternoon lecture by Sandie Mourao in the Assembly house was especially stimulating for me because of my interest in visual arts, illustration and drawing. “Pictures, words, and the gaps between” dealt with picturebooks, a concept linked with the graphic novel, although usually aimed for the youngest students. By means of pictures, other contents can be conveyed as a side-effect: kids can see how characters look different, and yet equal, from each other. Mrs Mourao showed us extremely creative examples, such as “Wolves”, a book inside of a book with three different endings, or a cumulative story called “the House that Crack Built”, about the consequences of drug abuse. Twelve of us acted it out, reading a line each, and creating a hip-hop effect. A mutually enriching connection between words and pictures can create something new, proving that in art, literature and education 1+1=3.

Reflection on July 15th

We are already past the halfway point of the course and there’s still a lot to be done and to be learnt.

We all loved to see Carole back in the classroom as we found last Friday’s lesson on Van Gogh really inspirational. And the same applied for yesterday’s lesson.  To start with, Carole presented us with some little whiteboards and markers and asked us to write something that we recalled from the previous lesson, either a word or a sentence. Then she arranged us in a circle and asked us to hold our boards up so that everyone could see our sentences or words and ask questions related to them. This proved a nice warm-up activity and a good refresher strategy as well. I think everyone fancied the idea of the little whiteboards for classroom use (our students are bound to love it) and some of us started speculating about prices and all that. If we order in bulk, we might get a discount! Maybe we should ask for a quotation.

This activity provided the springboard for a thorough analysis of the Van Gogh lesson. We completed a grid in which the activities we had done in that lesson were described in terms of their aims, the level of cognitive demand according to Bloom’s revised taxonomy and the language support provided by the teacher. In this respect, it was interesting to consider the language that our students might need to work on before doing the activities. In general, everyone seemed to agree that some additional help would be needed including work on language bits such as vocabulary related to painting, verbs of perception, agreeing and disagreeing and so on.

To wrap up the lesson, Carole gave us with two follow-up activities, and we discussed how they could be exploited in the classroom. Ideas included running dictation, and some interesting variations were suggested in terms of groupings, roles of students and turn-taking. The song by Don McLean was also very successful, and some of our colleagues could be heard singing the song to themselves in high spirits (Any guesses?). The song was the last activity and also the cherry on top of the cake. This was our last lesson with Carole and we all gave an enthusiastic round of applause to her.

After the coffee break, we had the Nile Cultural Exchange session. In groups of four or five teachers of different nationalities, mainly French, Swiss and Spanish, we discussed a number current educational issues, in particular with reference to teachers’ working conditions, provision of ICT resources and other facilities, the curruculum and so on. Then, back in our classroom, we had a little feedback session in which information was shared and similarities and differences between educational systems in different countries were pointed out. After the lunch break, Claudia  gave us some time too to comment on what we had learnt, and also made some flattering comments about our level of proficiency in English. We had this little moment of blowing our own trumpet that we all liked so much.

Before starting the lesson, Claudia brought us this new material she had just been sent. The Thinking Dice are perfect for getting your students using their higher order thinking skills.  In Claudia’s session we worked a little bit more on poetry, and this time we focused on imagery, including visual, auditory and touch images. We started off by listening to a video of a performance of sonnet 29 by Shakespeare, and then we moved on to poems on swimming and on baseball. Claudia provided us with the reference of the material she uses, and you can find it here if you are interested. Once again, Claudia insisted on the idea of not killing poetry, and providing a little dose at a time. Our last afternoon activity was an Edgar Allan Poe mystery, The Purloined Letter. Two groups had to perform the play for the third group, and these had to discover the mystery. Both performances were well received by the public, and actors and actresses tried their best at delivering their lines, but fortunately this is not how most of us have to earn our living!

On a completely different note, our Touchable Dreams evening session gave us an idea of the symbiosis between poetry and music. We all enjoyed the music, the poetry and the performance. 

Reflection 9th July 2014

On Wednesday 9th July we were so lucky as to visit 2 secondary schools in Norwich: Notre Dame, a catholic school, and City of Norwich, an academy. I was in the group who visited Notre Dame. When we arrived, we were divided into two groups so that we could join two different lessons (French and Technology) and some students showed us around the school. Then, we had the chance to speak to two teachers at the school who very kindly answered all the questions we had for them.

The first thing I noticed when I went into a classroom was the huge amount of material resources available, including a computer, an Elmo camera, an IWW and lots of classroom furniture including coloured drawers easily accessible for the students. There were IWWs in every single class. However, what striked me most was not the material resources, but the human resources. As the students were touring us around the school we could actually see most of the teachers using the IWW.

The group I was in went to a technology class where we found 4 teachers and 21 students. Well, let me explain: there was the Technology teacher who explained the lesson and assisted the students. There were two technicians who also assisted the students and who made it possible to divide the class into two groups (although they normally just have one technician) and a support teacher for a hearing impaired student. We were in heaven! I really like the idea of support teachers going into the class with the students and helping them there. The support teacher not only helps the student s/he is assigned to. Just having two adults in the class immediately helps with behavioural problems. Students who have any disability, Special Needs students and immigrant students who do not master the language may have a support teacher.

When we had the chance to speak to the two teachers at Notre Dame we inquired about the Modern languages lessons, as we were shocked at having students doing a listening or reading a text in i.e. German and answering comprehension questions in their mother tongue. The German teacher said that that was the way their GCSE exam was, so they were preparing them to pass those exams. Thus, we can see how the external exams are based on comprehension and not on production. Nonetheless, what I like about having the exams at the end of the 4th year of secondary school is that their curriculum sets the contents for the external exams, not for every year of secondary school as they do in Spain, so teachers have 4 years to organize and cover those contents.

Finally, teachers were on strike on 10th July for different reasons, one of them being the Performance Related Pay which is due to start in UK in September. According to this, if a student gets a B in their 11 Plus test and then they do not do as well in their GCSE tests, the teacher will see his/her salary reduced. It is unreal and unfair not only for the teacher but specially for the student to have a system exclusively based on results. What governments do not realize is that we, teachers, do not work with statistics or production numbers. We work with people, persons who are in front of us every day, who have lives that may or may not be easy. They should realize that a student is not an unalterable construct, who once good at Maths will always be good at Maths.

When teachers evaluate students work they take into account the whole process, the students effort, the progression from the beginning to the end of the year, their attitude in class and towards the subject, not only the exams’ results. If we were only to consider results, what grade should we give the politicians who still haven’t found a way out of this economic , social and political crisis? Should they have a performance related pay? I would rather think there could be an effort and responsibility related pay.  

REFLECTION ON 8th OF JULY.

VISUAL LITERACY by Claudia Rey.

First of all, what do we understand by Visual Literacy? Most of us agreed that V.L. is the ability to produce meaning from images. Observes have to be able to anlyze the history, the culture, intellectual components or ethical, aesthetic...Since observes are our own students, we  need to select the image taking on account several issues such as age, knowledge, background... Image should be meaningful as well as challenging to produce communication.

JAMIE KEDDIE, an expert on V.L., turns the cake up-side-down. `Every picture does not tell a
stoty´.
`We are the ones who create the story´. To proof his definition we watched  a video by him: `Brilliant toilet´.

VISUAL DIAGRAMS can be used in many ways during our lessons and for different purposes: grammar, Literature, vocabulary, events, .. Very useful the list of visual organizers together with a graphical representation of all.
We ended the season with Claudia by doing a Mystery Log activity, based on some pictures from the Norwich Castle Museum.
We also had a task for the following visit to an English school. Would we be able to recognize the five skills- Group Work, Bloom´s Taxonomy, CLIL, Critical Thinking and Visual Literacy- we have been working on?

SPELLING MYTHS AND ENCHANTMENTS by Johanna Stirling.

Very interesting to try from the cauldron of the History of English Language and taste its potful with all  kinds of different ingredients: Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Latin, Norman French, Printing press, Dictionaries, more French, Latin, Greek, other languages. Some History is GOOD for our students.

Is English spelling chaotic?
Only 20% of the  words are irregular but these are the most common.
The great majority, nearly 50%, belong to the Phonololical system. The rest are sorted in other systems such as: Morphololical, Graphonic and Etymological.

Six steps for spelling: learning and teaching

1. The look-say-cover-write-check-spelling chart.  Excellent!
2. Rules as a general reference and pattern.
3. Multiple choice= the seed of doubt. Shapes of words better, or spelling gym.
4. Testing is NOT teaching. Always taste the words in context.
5. Homophones should NOT be taught together at early stage . Later they can be useful.
6. Technology. Is it ruinning spelling?

Thank you Claudia and Jo for your generosity. We are learning a lot.

REFLECTION ON FRIDAY 11TH  JULY 2014

By Anabel López

Friday the 11th was a great day. We met two new course tutors, Carole Robinson and David Farmer and we enjoyed our visit to the Castle museum with Claudia in the afternoon.

 During the First Session, Carole developed a superb lesson on CLIL on one of my favourite painters Vicent van Gogh. She used a nice way of awakening us introducing ourselves as we threw that tiny rubber duck, which was later on used to catch our attention and indicate time was over. I am considering to use one of them in my classes.

She explicitly mentioned her objective at the beginning of the lesson, what we should focus on for our next session, which was scaffolding and critical thinking.

As I was doing my reflection for today, I can firmly state that her lesson was a perfect example of scaffolding, starting from the  lower order activities, which were more procedural at the beginning, with our own dictation of words of the vocabulary that would lead us to the presentation of the topic. As if we were building a skyscraper, each step led us into more complex activities followings Bloom´s taxonomy, ending with the HOTs or higher order thinking activities, which develop our critical thinking. We worked  the four skills in the language, the activities were task-based and they were student-centred. We also worked individually, in pairs, in a small group and as a whole class.

After the presentation stage, we should reflect on our self-awareness as learners and decide whether we were visual or auditory, splitting the class in two groups. The visual group watched and discuss the documentary  Van Gogh - In His Own Words - YouTube and the auditory group, listened and discussed. Then we watched and listened together.

I consider I should previously do more activities with my students to help them develop this self-awareness of the kind of learner they are, a concept that was also mentioned in the lecture by Anne Margaret  Smith, so that they can take advantage of their own learning process and that can help us design our activities.

Finally in the last stage we had to choose our favourite quote from a list of Vicent van Gogh´s  in the documentary and interpret what he meant. A clear example of critical thinking, going beyond his words. My group and some other people chose this one.

" Love many things, for therein lies the true strength. And whosoever loves much, performs much and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."

I consider we can use this procedure to any topic and level.

 

The Second Session was Drama and language Learning by David Farmer.

From the very beginning we knew it was going to be fun when we moved away all the tables. We were given lots of games and activities that we can use with our students,  no matter what their linguistic competence in English is, everybody will enjoy the activities and I feel they can be really motivating  for those disruptive students whose level of English is a little bit lower  than the average in the classroom.

I would include the activities in three blocks, those games of attention, such as the 1,2,3 and its variations, games for practising vocabulary or different categories and a specific grammatical structure, for instance the `The sun shines on someone who...´ or `What are you doing?´ And finally the third group those of miming and Freeze Frame or Tableâu, which in my opinion are great to be especially used for our literature lessons. It is a wonderful way to make literature alive.

Third Session

We continued the afternoon doing `Mission Possible´, another way of preparing activities at a different stage of complexity and abstraction LOWs and HOTs as regards Bloom´s taxonomy and enjoy the Castle Museum, which is one of the jewels in Norwich. We can prepare similar didactic units enjoying any museum in our city, working  this virtual literacy and then later with  realia. 

 

A new approach to grammar

If you are interested in David Crystal's new and fresh approach to grammar lessons, you should read this article published today in The Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2014/jul/11/mind-your-language-grammar-day

NORWICH CASTLE FIELDTRIP 2014