Christmas is coming with Genial.ly

Considering the blog previously evaluated, I have created a Christmas project this time:

https://learningenglishteachercris.blogspot.com/2020/12/christmas-is-coming.html

GENILAL.LY: Christmas is coming

Shhh! by Julie Sykes and Tim Warnes and the Gingerbread Man by Lesley Sims are perfect books for reading at this time of year (christmas). It’s a classic fairy tale about a Gingerbread Man’s escape from various pursuers and his eventual demise between the jaws of a fox. Through the different activities proposed, students are expected to acquire the necessary skills to understand, speak, interact, read and write, about Christmas from an active and practical perspective of the acquired learning, emphasizing oral skills over written skills following the natural order of the language.

I propose activities and tasks that reinforce communication, such as: creation of real contexts, active listening in different contexts (audios, videos, ...), reading different types of texts writing words or short phrases from models to communicate with others in order to achieve different purposes (inform, talk about their tastes, preferences ...) In this project I am going to carry out a role-play in which the following elements will be essential:

Relationships: creating a friendly atmosphere.

-Physical environment: Some ways in which the classroom can be rearranged for drama activities are stacking tables and chairs against walls, leaving a large space in the centre; forming a horseshoe seating arrangement, leaving a large space in the centre; putting the desks and chairs at the back of the class, leaving a space for the “stage” at the front; making them sit in groups…

-Warm-ups. Our pupils may benefit from drama warm-ups such as games, songs or chants which are related to the main activity, creating expectations and arousing interest.

-Goal orientation. Our pupils will be given a time limit within which they must achieve a goal, which will also be motivating for them.

-A background role for the teacher: The teacher is not the centre of the class but must act as manager and facilitator; pupils will have to learn from each other and learn independently and autonomously.

- Vocabulary: christmas tree, gingerbreadman, snowman, presents, bell, candy cane, reindeer and decorations

- Grammatical structures: Where is/ are… It is in/ on/ under/ next to

- Key competences: Competence in Linguistic Communication, Learn to learn, and Social and Civic competence.

- Final product: theatre play “Christmas is coming” and prepare the setting and decorations for the performance.

Interaction: evaluating two blogs

 

Hi

After visiting different blogs I made an investigation and today I would like to evaluate two blogs, so for that reason I have created this blog entry. 

First blog: https://learningenglishteachercris.blogspot.com/

First of all I would like to say that I like the organization of this blog, however I would  include the blog information of the side of the blog and at the same time have a better distribution of the content but in general the organization is ok. Additionally I would like to say I like the activities that Cris made with her students to work Chrsitmas, she inlcluded a Christmas song and  a lyric video.

Also I have to say that the door decoration is amazing, Christmas is one of my favourite period of the year. We cannot forget that Educational Breakouts are so good.

Second blog:  https://ourvirtualenglishclass2020.blogspot.com/

This second blog is organized in a different way because you have the information in two columns, apart from that the blog entry about reading habits is so interesting and I really like the section about the classroom routines. On the other hand I would like to say that the blog is incomplete but is interesting and nice.

Project: Wild animlas, monkey puzzle story

This is our Genial.ly project:

MONKEY PUZZLE 

Hi

This time we are going to work the speaking skill with a Genial.ly presentation that has been done in our year 3 class. We are going to use the story 'Monkey Puzzle' by Julia Donaldson. 

1. PLANNING GROUPS.

Cooperative technique “The words game”:

To review the fundamental ideas of the task we are going to work in cooperative groups. The teacher says a word or writes it on the blackboard, and each group has to say a sentence that expresses that word. The spoker student  of each group will be in charge of saying the sentence that has been agreed upon in your group.

- Organization of the groups: are distributed in groups of four/five students.

2. CHOOSING THE TOPIC AND THE ACTIVITIES.

The following speaking projcet is focused on wild animals that we can find in the jungle or the zoo. Students will learn basic vocabulary related to wild animals and can recognize their characteristics, while practicing grammatical structures. Through the proposed activities, children are expected to develop understanding and develop language skills (listening, speaking and interacting, reading and writing).

This project is related to the area of natural sciences and art and crafts. In addition the children will be able to complete their portfolio so that they can add their experiences throughout the lessons.

Vocabulary: Butterfly, monkey, elephant, snake, spider, parrot, frog and bat.

Characteristics: Feathers, wings, slither, beak, small, fat, slimy, hairy and furry.

Grammatical structures: Present simple + Have got (It´s got /It hasn´t got).

3. MAIN GOAL OF THE PROJECT.

I show them the cover of the book and ask the students what they can see on the cover. We will discuss the cover of the book and the drawings it contains.

I read the story of the book and at the same time I teach them the flashcards. Later we will watch a video that will allow us to develop the skill of listening.

Speaking game "Flash and slowly slowy": 

-Flash: To get the student´s attention I will say “Everyone looking this way please, are you ready?” Then I will show them the flashcard very fast, once that children identify what´s on the flashcards: It is a snake!, Yes, very good.

- Slowly slowly: This time I am going to cover the flashcard that I am going to use and gradually I am going to reveal the picture. Children identify what´s on the flashcard as soon as they can recognize it: It is a bat!, Yes, very good.

Project:  my pupils are going to present their final products, additionally I am going to bear in mind their abilities and their personal characteristics. But then they will be evaluated by their classmates.

They have done their own presentation in groups  thus they will have to explain the rest of the class the wild animals and talk about the most important features.

4.TIMING

Pre-task	Lesson 1	Vocabulary
Task/Planning	Lesson 2	Vocabulary and Practice
	Lesson 3	Grammar
	Lesson 4	Reading: Phonics
	Lesson 5	ICT lesson
	Lesson 6	Writing
Report	Lesson 7	Presentation of the final product Evaluation and Portfolio
Practice	Lesson 8	Practicing the Genial.ly project

5. DEVELOPMENT

Our Genial.ly project is designed as a  unique reading project for the whole academic year. Throughout our integrated didactic units, every task will contribute to the development of the annual project we have worked through several popular children’s books, all of which are well-known and have become household stories in the English-speaking world. We will use these stories as a starting point to allow us to build on lexical, structural and cultural aspects of the language. For this reason, we will  devote a certain amount of time to reading the stories and getting to know them.  

6. EVALUATION

The main technique that I am going to use in my lessons is the observation, but I will use the evaluation contexts to evaluate the indicators. Each evaluation criterion has one or more indicators that we will be evaluate in every project using the instruments. Also, we have to say that interactions, final product, ICTs and cooperative work will be essential or priority.

Self-evaluation: Self- evaluation will be carried through the European Language Portfolio ,a document in which those who are learning or have learned one or more languages can record and reflect on their language learning and intercultural experiences. It has three components: Ø  - Language passport,  Language biography and Dossier. I have designed my own portfolio of languages so that my children can include information about them related to the languages they are able to speak, and also it is a good instrument to keep a record of languages and the different levels in my class. Another important aspect to mention is that I am going to fill-in the portfolio in class with my children in the last lesson of each unit.

Co- evaluation:. This evaluation can be very useful in recognising the effort and the achievements of other students. We will do this evaluation in the moments that are required, an example of this is when they work cooperatively or in pairs.

Evaluation of the Teaching Practice: In relation to the assessment of the teaching practice, I will have the opportunity to reflect on my teaching practice with the aim to improving it. I will rely on self-monitoring and the student´s feedback on teaching (questionnaires and interviews) to evaluate my teaching action.

See you :)

Storyjumper: Colourful emotions

Colourful emotions: https://www.storyjumper.com/book/read/94711656

As my students struggle to express themselves and their feelings, we have created a story to work on emotions in class. Additionally we are going to work different cross curricular and interdisciplinary topics like team work, equality and ICT to develop pupils' emotional intelligence.

Attention to diversity: heterogenenous groupings, individualization, monitoring and cooperative techniques. We are going to use a tool called Storyjumper that is amazing to create storybooks, my students have created an Emotions Book with my help in class because they are in year 1.

DIDACTIC TRANSPOSITION: First minutes will be devoted to the classroom routine and warm up activities: doing the register, weather, date, feelings…

Stage 1: presentation of the vocabulary about feelings and emotions with flashcards and songs.

Stage 2: 'Colourful emotions' we start with the book and we use the song 'If you are happy and you know it'.

Stage 4: Simulation 'How do you feel?' in pairs they have to represent an emotion and the other student has to guess the emotion.

Stage 5: We are going to play a game called 'Susan says' instead of 'Simon says', for example "Susan says, we are sad (we make a sad face together).

Stage 6: we finish the "Colourful emotions" and we present the book in class.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. To recognize daily aspects of immediate context in a common conversation such as basic questions.

2. To participate in short conversations and easy dialogues with their partners.

3. To understand the meaning of texts and recognizes a limited repertoire of lexicon as well as basic spelling in texts.

4. To write brief messages on common topics using appropriate communicative functions according to the type of text (emotions)

We have used the book created to link all the emotions that we have worked in class, apart from that I would like to say that my Year 1 students really enjoyed the activity because they have been involved in the creation of the book, however as we all know in the same class we have a variety of paces that have been considered. Next time we will use Storyjumper to create a tale about family members.

METHODOLOGY:  Tasks, learner-centred, cooperative work, ICT.

Resources used in this writing activity with ICT: flashcards, songs, Storyjumper, laptops, realia and worksheet.

CONTENTS:

- Reproducing and writing short, easy sentences in printed or digital formats.

- Producing clear written messages considering the models provided.

- Using basic communicative functions: opinions, feelings.

- Identifying and using vocabulary related to feeling s and emotions.

- Reproducing and starting using basic graphic patterns and punctuation.

- Using basic syntactic structures to produce short texts: quantity...

- Caring about the layout of written texts (order, clarity, cleanliness).

To conclude, I would like to say that the role of co-evaluation and self-evaluation has been essential during the creaion of the book. I hope you like our 'Colourful Emotions' tale.

Working the listening skill with Edpuzzle

 https://edpuzzle.com/media/5fce0444a0d19b412e1bb0f7

Hi everyone.

Today we are going to work the listening skill with Edpuzzle. Listening to a foreign language is hard work, especially for young children and we must not forget that it is not a passive activity as it might seem and may make students feel anxious or discouraged. 
We are going to use an authentic video to work the parts of a house. The main activity is a videos explaining the parts of a house, to be more specific a tree house. I have taken the video and I have adapted the content to my students. For that purpose I have use a website called "Edpuzzle" and it provides a lot of possibilities to edit the video and include questions, so for that reason is important to listen carefully to answer the comprehension questions.
As we are working the topic about parts of a house, and at the same time my students are studying typs of houses in Social Sciences. So I coordinate this topic with the class tutor.
Type of skills that we are going to work in class:
- Perceptive (ear-training): Recognizing and discriminating sounds, using intonation patterns, variations in stress…
- Language Skills: Identifying individual words and groups, discourse markers,relations within sentences and parts of the text.
- Comprehension Skills: using previous knowledge: interpreting messages, extracting relevant points 


LESSON PLAN WITH EDPUZZLE
Stage 1 activate knowledge: look at the flashcards to work the vocabulary. What is it? It’s a house. Ask students to look at the house, then we try to memorise the vocabulary words.
Stage 2: we present rooms in the house: We work on edpuzzle to adapt the video and check meaning and pronunciation. 
Stage 3: we present objects in the house through the video that we have adapted.
Stage 4: we practice the vocabulary with the video and the comprehension questions, the video help us to carry out the processes involved in listening.
Stage 5: we produce a poster in which the vocabulary of the house is represented considering the video and all the comprehension questions.
Stage 6: post listening activity doing a little and short role-play to work on listening and speaking.

Last but not least, I would like to remark that during the teaching and learning process we have had the opportunity to enjoy a motivating tool to work with a video that has been adapted to the level of the students. They love working with authentic topics and participate with role-plays, dialogues...

Next time I will use Edpuzzle to work the family members. My students really enjoyed the experience.