"50x15" with year 6 05.02.13

During the last sessions I've been teaching the past of the verb to be in year 6. On the first lesson I taught the grammar structures: affirmative (I was, I were...), negative (I wasn't, I weren't...) and interrogative (were you...?). Then, we practised this grammar thanks to some exercises from the book. On Tuesday, I decided to prepare a very famous a motivating game to keep learning and to consolidate the grammar in a different and funny way: 50x15. This game consist in asking a question and offer four different answers, then the participants must choose the correct option. In this case, I wrote an incomplete sentence and children had to select the word that matched in the gap. Here you have an example:

To play the game I divided the class into four groups formed by students with different English level. Then I gave very clear instructions: all the groups had to answer all the questions and they should write the correct option on a sheet of paper. After writing their answers on the paper, I took a look around to check them and I showed the appropriate option. The teams that guessed right won a point.

I saw the kids enjoying the game and very motivated to guess the correct answer. They were very concentrated and although some of them cheated and looked into the book to answer correctly, they did a good job. I also think that this game was very useful to see the verbs in real sentences and kids had to understand the whole meaning of the question to say the word so it wasn't just a mechanical exercise.

I think that I controlled the situation when kids were playing and I tried to manage the group in the best way. When kids were so noisy I stopped the game and until children didn't realised they were behaving badly and then they paid attention again, I didn't continue playing. I also have to say that I explained the most difficult sentences. For example, there was a question that nobody got right so I stopped the game for a while and I told why it was the correct option. 

Class observation 04.02.13

Yesterday afternoon I came to school to put in practice some games with year 3 students. The games didn't take the whole session so I could observe how my tutor acted in class, which was her methodology, the activities she proposed, how she dealt with kids, etc.

My tutor has a traditional style of teaching and she follows the book structure to create activities but it doesn't mean she is a bad teacher or that kids don't learn English. As I could observe, she always prepares extra activities apart from the ones in the book and children like to do these kind of exercises. For example, I have seen two similar tasks in different classes which consist in describing pictures or drawings. In year 3, students drew a wizard and a castle and then, they talked about them in front of their classmates. Thanks to this activity, kids learn and consolidate new vocabulary as broomstick, hat, cape, tower, flag, etc. and they did it in a different way. With this methodology students felt also very proud of their crafts and they made an effort to do their best drawing a painting beautiful wizards and castles. Apart from describing the drawings in an oral way, they also wrote some sentences, so they practiced grammar as well. For example, kids used the structure "It has..." + the new vocabulary they learnt. I could observe the same kind of exercise in year 4 but in this case, children wrote their descriptions about their favourite animals. 

It should be also pointed out that the teacher decided to show all of the kids' writings in the corridor so the rest of the students could observe them and check how hard they had worked. Here you have the children's creations:

Today I have been observing a year 4 lesson. First of all, kids have corrected their homework about food and drinks. For correcting the activities we use the digital board because Surprise! book has a very useful resource to correct homework in an interactive way. Then, my tutor has told the story of a witch with the help of some flashcards. Although the story was in the class book and she could just turn on the audio, the teacher has decided to interact with kids and use her voice to tell the story. While she was talking about the witch she had asked some questions to students in order to improve their comprehension about the story line. I think that this is a perfect way of catching the kids' attention and also to ensure they assimilate the aims we had planned. After listening to the story, children have done an exercise of the activity book but before doing it in their books, they have solved it in the digital board. Kids love movement so it's a good idea to make them come to the board a write on it. This task is also positive to facilitate all the students the view of the correct answers.

A visit to the radio station and school blog updating 01.02.13

During this teaching placement I'm spending most of the time with year 6 students. My school tutor, who is also one of the two English teachers, is the tutor of the oldest kids so that's why I'm joining other subjects they learn apart from English and also some excursions.

Yesterday I went with children to the local radio station. We had already been there because last week we visited the place just to know how all the stuff worked. During the next fifteen days, students have been preparing a radio program in order to become journalists and be able to record it in a real studio. 

Kids were very excited with the experience and they enjoyed a lot reading their programs in front of the microphone. It was a fantastic activity because they work very hard in groups and they planned in pairs different sections about news, music, sports, video games, etc. Previously at school they had to write all the scripts, so they developed their writing skills and also they practised the dialogues many times, so the oral expression was taken into account as well.

Ignasi Iglesias school has many blogs that talk about excursions, important activities, English, music, books, etc. but sometimes teachers are so busy to update them. For that reason I offered to write a new entrance in the year 6 blog talking about the radio experience and also showing some pictures I took in the morning. My tutor was so grateful to me because she didn't know exactly how to include photos in the blog. I think that blogs are very useful to show to the children's family which activities they do at school and outside it, so this resource is very useful to establish a good and trustworthy relationship between the school and families.

Here you have the school blog, where you will find some pictures of the excursion.

"Prova d'avaluació d'anglès" with year 6 31.01.13

As you know, year 6 students are taking a set of official exams in May. The Generalitat tries to evaluate the competences' level of Catalan, Spanish, English and maths of kids who are going to finish primary education in June.

For that reason, last week and today I've been practising some reading comprehension with children. My school tutor gave me the last year exam so I made photocopies of the two texts and the corresponding questions. Last week we read the text together and I helped the kids to choose the best answer (the exam is a kind of multi answer quiz). Today I have let the students be more self-efficient and they have taken the exam on their own. 

During the next class, I have corrected the exam so I have had the opportunity of checking how high the marks are. Most of the kids have passed the test but some of them with a low score. I have calculated the arithmetic mean of all the marks and I have obtained a 6 (last year the arithmetic mean of the whole exam in Catalunya was a 7,4). I think that kids should work more on their reading comprehension because it's a very important part of a language learning process so I hope they keep practising when I leave. Next week we are going to take some oral comprehension exams so I hope they get better results.

If you want to see the 2011-2012 English test click here

If you want to hear the listening comprehension audio click here

"Word by word" in year 4 30.01.13

Last week I put in practice the game "word by word" with year 6 students. To play this game I wrote some definitions in every letter of the alphabet and kids had to guess the word. Because it was a very successful game and students enjoyed a lot playing, I decided to prepare the same game for year 4 pupils. As I said in the previous entrance, for young learners is easier not to write definitions but just put images in every letter.

Now I'm going to talk about the development of the game. As I did in year 6, I divided the class into four teams and they had to raise the hand to answer. In the case of year four, I have followed the order of the groups to let them say the words, so the game has been better organised than last week. If a group didn't know the word the next team could answer. 

I have also managed the class better than the other day because I have stopped the game every time there was some noise and kids were distracted. Finally they have been very concentrated and they have participated actively in the activity.

"Word by word" in year 6 25.01.13

On Friday I put in practice a very funny game with year 6: Word by word. Last year at university, the English teacher showed us this game to play with kids and told us that it was very useful to consolidate new vocabulary. For that reason, I used this resource in most of my lessons as a teacher, both with pictures for young learners and with definitions for the older students. 

During the week, I had been teaching job's vocabulary in year 6 so I wrote some professions' definitions in every letter in order to make them remember the new words. I decided that they worked in groups so I divided the class into four groups with a speaker in each one. If they knew the answer, they just raised the hand and said the correct word.

I think that games are very useful to motivate children to learn a new language and in case of "word by word", it's appropriate for all ages students. I saw the kids enjoying the game so I want to prepare more games for my future lessons.

The English classroom

I want to show you how the English classroom of Ignasi Iglesias school is:

This is the entrance.

This is what you see when you come into the class. The tables are grouped in groups of two or three and when kids sit down, they face the digital board. With this spatial distribution is almost impossible to work in groups.

On the right side of the classroom we find a shelf with the material (resources, handouts, stories, etc.) and some books to read.

Kids use Surprise! book, which includes lots of digital exercises and sources.

On the opposite wall of the digital board, there is a blackboard. We have to remember that kids face the digital board so when the teacher writes something on the blackboard they have to turn around and it's difficult for them to copy or just see.

This is the teacher table and shelf. There she has the books, the handouts for the next class, her material, etc.

In the corridor we find two murals with students' writings so everyone at school can observe them.