alice’s posterous

Isabelle Jones sent this wonderful link on Twitter the other day about getting physical in the classroom by using movement and language.

Marc Helgesen from Miyagi Gakuin Women's College has listed numerous activities which can be used to introduce or reinforce a topic.I have already tried one of the activities listed called FonFs (Focus on forms). The good thing is that there is no preparation required and you can practice different structures and new vocabulary.

I used it in French with grade 4 students (8-9 years old). They have been learning items of clothing, so I explained to them I went on holidays and I wrote on the board:
Dans ma valise, j'ai emporté.... (in my suitcase, I had.......)
Students worked in pairs. They faced each other. One partner held his hands in front of him, palms up.The other partner said the target sentence (Dans ma valise, j'ai emporté un pull) and slapped the first partner’s hands. The first partner said the next sentence. That sentence included the first item from the previous sentence (un pull) and a new item (Dans ma valise, j'ai emporté un pull, un pantalon) and slapped the partners hands.
Students loved slapping each other's hand! and it was a good way to memorise the different items of clothes, plus they learnt a sentence in the past tense.

I used it in Spanish with grade 7 (12-13 years old). This time they practiced a mi me gusta bailar, navegar por internet....(I like....).They enjoyed it so much (there are all boys!) that we did it a second round with a mi no me gusta.....(I don't like...)

The version from Marc Helgesen includes saying a word starting with every letter of the alphabet, so that students play the game from A to Z. But I thought it would get too complicated for my students so we just did the activity randomly.

There are many more activities I want to try on this web page so I will be posting more to tell you how I adapted them and how they went.

What about you? what are your warm-up activities?

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What do I remember from school? a song by Sting we learnt in my English class,  a trip to Verdun during my history class. This trip made me understand the word "war" as well as this book our enthusiastic History teacher made use read A l'Ouest rien de nouveau by Erich Maria Remarque. Apart from that, I don't remember much. Why? maybe because lessons were boring. We never took an active part in our learning, most of our lessons were about listening to the teacher's monotonous voice and to take notes. I have found that since I have a PLN, Google reader, Twitter and Friendfeed I have learnt so much more than I did during all the time I spent at school!
Maybe because now I can explore and discover new things, whereas before I was just a passive learner. And maybe that's why many students are not involved in lessons.

This video I found on Shelly Terrell's blog shows what learning should be about: FUN!

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I found this inspiring video on strategies on how to encourage students to speak in a foreign language on teachers.tv.

The teachers at Wildern school put in place "Group Talk": students are in groups of 4 and discuss different topics. They have cue cards and a list of key words and expressions to help them talk. When watching the video, I really liked the approach and the fact that students were engaged in their discussions although it was in another language. When I teach, I do find it hard at times to make my students talk. They will talk in English ;) but they find it hard to have a sustained conversation in another language. I also liked the fact that the students build up their conversations following gradual steps. For example, first they will have to say if yes or no they like sports, then they'll have to give a reason why, then comment on future plans...You can see an example of a "Group Talk" progression chart on http://www.teachers.tv/video/32765 at the bottom of the page, in the section "support materials".

In the video, they are also great ideas to engage boys with active learning like cycling around to get the tenses or the ballet dance to learn the time.

These are all ideas I am ready to try out next year and I find this very exciting indeed!

What about you? What new strategies are you considering using next year?

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