Hello! My name is Toti. The last day I went to the zoo and I met some new firends. Do you want to know them? O well. See them! (We show the flashcards and children have to say the name of these animals)
the horse
the penguin
the zebra
the frog
the lion
the dolphin
the parrot
the bunny
the butterfly
They like to play. One of them is hidden in this cage and you have to guess who is he by asking questions. Do you want to play with them? Ok lets go! In turns, each child has to ask the puppet some questions like: Can you fly? Can you swim? Do you live in a cold/hot place? Are you big/small? And the questions that they want to ask. You answer the questions with the puppet. When they guess the animal, you show them.
In this video John Kay is talking about Teaching Speaking Techniques while we can see a Primary class and a Secondary class in Thailand . Some items that are important to tech speaking are:
To organise the lessons before start the class is avery important thing to teach with success.
Feeling relaxed is the most important thing to speak for an audience, so we as teacher must try to feel relaxed because the children notice if we are nervous, and maybe they feel nervous too. If children feel relaxed, they participate more.
Making groups: the teacher give them some flashcards with animals to make groups. Children have to talk each other to know in which group they are. I think this technique is a good idea because they can talk in a relaxed atmosphere, they don't feel evaluated. Also, they help each other, so that is very useful to learn.
Giving instructions: teachers must look around to see if their students understands the commands that they give. We have to look out their actions; if they do well, they will understand the instructions. If they don't understand the instructions we will give the instructions again. The instructions must be easy to understand.
Target language: repeat some sentences, be creative and never speak while children are talking.
Useful language: to teach them the normal language and encourage them to use the English in class.
I like this video because I can learn a lot of useful speaking techniques to aplicate them in my future classes as an English teacher.
Teaching
Activities - British Council - BBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Gyd9NEa9M This video has filmed in the same way as the previous video, in Thailand, with the same teachers and classes. In this case, we can see some activities to teach speaking. The most important thing is to be careful with the topic that we choose to teach because they learn better if they are interesting to talk about this topic.
Debate: it can be modereted by the teacher or a student. I like the way that the teacher prepare this, with different flashcards that contain some expressions that we use in a debate. They can understand these useful expressions and practice them. I like too that the whole class participate, some of them agree with the topic, another group disagree and the rest are the audience. At the end of the debate the audience have to decide if they agree or disagree and explain the reasons.
Building dialogues: the pupils, in groups, make predictions about an image and then they compare their predictions with the real situation. We can give key words if we want. So, I think this activity motivate the children because they are able to imagine all that they want and explain to their mates.
Storytelling: the children guess the character that the story is talking about. The teacher uses images to tell the story. As we study in our storytelling subject, the pupils make predictions about the story. I think that is interesting the way that the teacher encourage them to make predictions: with some images about the story that they have to put in order. Finally, they play the story.
Information gap: in real life, in a conversation one person have some information that other person doesn't have, so this is an information gap and it need to practice. They can find the information question each other.
All this activities are useful to do with our future pupils. I can see in this video all the items that we have been studying in Didactics and Storytelling subjects.
In this video Carol Read is speaking in a conference about how to work with children. Teachers have to learn the lesson so hard because children ask a lot of questions and they shouldn't view us doubtfully. It´s very important to transmite culture with the different activities that we do in class with them. Is important too to show them enthusiasm for lerning and doing the activities that we propose because it encourage them to learn better. As a teachers, we have to evaluate ourselves too because maybe there are a lot of things that we can improve for others times. I like Carol´s ideas, for example about punish children. If we punish all the time when they are wrong, they will be afraid about learning english.
Flash!: show the image very fast and then the children guess wich animal or thing is there. It is a good idea to catch children attention.
Slowly, slowly: show the image unvailing slowly what it is.
What´s missing?: stick the flashcards on the board and then repeat the words and the children too. Then, the children close their eyes because the teacher remove one flashcard. After that, they open their eyes and have to guess who is missing.
Magic eyes: with six flashcards, that are sticked on the board with an order, repeat the words with the children with a rhythmic way. Then remove the first flashcard and continue with the repetition of the words. Remove each time one flashcard but continue with the same rhythmic words. I like this activity because it develops their memory.
Lip reading: children have to guess the animal that the teacher say without any sound. This activity is good to improve their attention.
Flashcard riddles: children have to guess in which animal is thinking the teacher following some clues. This is interesting to encourage children to think and to improve their vocabulary.
Flashcard groups: give a flashcard for each group and give commands for one group. First give the instructions and then say the animal. This is a TPR activity that is useful to review some vocabulary. They like move a lot, so this is a funny exercise to do in class.
Hand on heads: divide the class in two teams. Give to each group three flashcards. When they hear one of their animal, they have to put their hands on their heads. We can say the animals faster to make funnier the activity.
Flashcard chain: in a big circle, pass the first flashcard to the one who is in the left hand and ask a question and he/she must answer the question. Then this one has to pass the flashcard to the next partner with the same question following the same structure. When the flashcard has passed for some kids you introduce another flashcard and so on. When all the flashcards return to you, the activity has fisished. I like this activity because pupils can practice the language.
Kim´s game: stick 12-15 flashcards from different topics on the board. Then give children a minute to remember the flashcards. After that remove all the flashcards and ask them to work in pairs and try to remember as much as they can. Is a funny activity to improve their memory.
In conclusion, flashcards are very useful and practical to learn a second language. They offers teachers a lot of posibilities to work with chidren and practice vocabulary
In this handout we can read about the importance of learning through stories andlearning through drama.
Learning thorugh stories is interesting because children can improve their ability to understand, predicting, guessing, retell and even create their own stories in English. Also, learning through stories is very motivated for them. As a teacher, is important to vary the kinds of stories because children can learn more and more if we include, for example: tales, fables, myths, legends, rhyming stories, stories from other cultures, stories that contain different content of the curriculum, and so on. About telling stories is important that children take part in the story because is easier for them to understand the story. Is necessary to follow the three stages of before, while and after when we plan story-based lessons.
Learning through drama is also intersting because they can make connections between language and corporal expression so they can associate actions, words and meanings. With drama ativities they can learn a lot of vocabulary in a funny way. This type of activites help them to be more self-confident.
It is advisable to combine storytelling with drama.
Then there are a lot of stories and drama activities (32) that we can use with children, all of them are very interesting but I'll highlight the activities that I liked the most:
4.1 Words in the story, 4.2 Picture the story and 4.3 Picture books covers: all of these activities consist in make predictions about the story watching some words that appears in the story, one picture of the story or the book cover. In all of them, the teacher must encourage children to make predictions about the story asking them.
4.5 Finger stories: I love this type of acivities because I think that they motivate children. In this case, the story that the author chose is Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle. The following video show this story:
As we can see in the video, the children are very concentrated in the movements and they have had a great time! So this is a good idea to imrpove their vocabulary as well as their kinestesic intelligence.
4.9 That´s no right!: this activity consists in change a familar story. When the children hear something worng they must say That´s not right! and explain the reason for this. For example if we are telling the story of Snowhite, and we say: Snowhite met five dwarfs... the pupils may say: That´s no right! Snowhite didn't meet five dwarfs, she met seven dwarfs. So I think that this activity is good to improve their memory, to practise some structures and it is funny for them because they like to correct the adults so much!
4.15 Build a story and 4.16 Film of the sory: this type of activity is for higher levels (10-12 years old) but I like this because they create their own story so it is good to develop their creativeness as well as their writting skills. In the second activity they must change some things about a well-known stories so it is very funny.
4.19 Freeze!: this is a playful activity that young children love to do. They like to imitate animals and move at the rhythm of the music or another sound. When the teacher says freeze! they have to stop like an statue and remain still for a while. Children can improve or review some vocabulary and practise self-discilpline and self-control. I think that is a good activity to introduce them into drama.
4.23 Story statues and 4.24 Still images: I like this kind of activity because the children have to express with their body some actions that characterize some characters of the story and they have to guess. With this activity they develop their imagination and their body expression.
4.26 Act out a story with puppets: children can make their own puppets, so it develop their cretiveness and their fine motor skills , and then they use them to performance a story. I think that this activity is very useful to make children more confident.
4.32 Class play: I like this activity because the whole class participate as a big group and children usually like to act for their families using different fancy dresses and making their own decorate.
In conclusion, I like this handout because there are a lot of types of activities to do with children in class. Some of them are for Primary but we can adapt for very young children. Also, the ativities are detailed and there are differents comments and suggestions to complete the activities.
The bus won´t go and others
In this handout we have four short stories with three activities each one: The bus won't go:
I like this story because children can learn about the different types of transport in a funny way because in the story and the activities the children can make the different sounds that the vehicles do. The proposed activities are interesting because they can practise numbers, develop their memory (because in the second activity they must correct the mistakes) or improve their communicative skills since they have to give different reasons about the use of the different vehicles. The pig pot:
I like this stpry because uses a lot of vocabulary about animals and different adjectives. The activities for this story includes role playing, so the children can performance this story even for their families. They can make invitations, so this is very motivate for them. The balloon:
This story is good to practise the names of shops, the physical features of their country (hills, rivers, mountains,...), different feelings (frightened, happy, bored,...), to express hopes,... The activities are good because they suggest to adapt the story for our class (the main character can be a child of our class, use the hope expressions to talk about the weather, to develop their knowledge about their town, their country and the Earth,...), make predictions about the story and telling the end of the story.
Mr Morgan´s music shop:
This story is connected with the first story because it uses the same sounds for the different vehicles. I like this story because it uses different sounds that we can hear in a music shop, on the street and in a farm, so we can have a great time reproducing this sounds with the children. The proposed activities invite us to make sounds and clasify them in noisier and quieter, to make maps and use them to see the progress in the story.
In the
storytelling subject, we had to tell a story, without
read. For this activity, I decided to create a story for my own instead of
learning a story. I prefer this because I can remember better what it happens
in the story. The story that I created is the following (the cursive text are the questions that I ask to my mates): Dani is a child. He is 4 years old. He is excited because he is going to go to the zoo with his parents. Do you want to go to the zoo with them? Ok lets go! At first, he see the monkeys cage. What sound do the monkeys? Well done! -I like the monkeys!They are very nice!- say Dani. -Yes! Look at them, they smile us!- say his daddy. -Wow! Look there, the lions!-say his mum. -Grrrrrrrrr the lions are so fierce! Grrrrrrr- say Dani Then they continue the way and they see the kangaroos -Jump jump jump! I like jump as a kangaroo!- say Dani (jump while say this) Can you jump like a kangaroo too? Oh right! They continue but... -It is very cold!- say Dani (put a freeze voice and move the hands like if you want to warm) -Yes it is! -We are in the penguins cave.They need the cold to survive- explain mum. Finally, they go to see the dolphins show. Do you want to see the dolphins show too? Ok, lets go!!! (Move the dolphins like they are swimming and dancing) -Woooow! Look the dolphins, they swim very well! -Yes and I like the jumps over the water! -And look the way that they are dancing! -They are so funny! Dani had a great time, so he goes home singing this song: Today we went to the zoo, to the zoo!! Today we went to the zoo, to the zoo!!! He will never forget this day.
To tell the story I used different images that
I was sticking to the board with blue tack, when the character was appearing in
the story.
I think the way that I tell the story is a
good way because I include my mates in the story, they went with the characters
to the zoo and they can sing the final song. Also I changed my voice to do the different characters.
Once more, I tried to tell this story to
the children with whom I work but including the movements and sounds of animals
while we were advancing along the "zoo" that I created for them with
toy animals. The children had a great time with this story because they took
part in this, they felt as if they were actually at the zoo.
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