alice’s posterous

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GFuertes.escuela.ppt (583 KB)

Christian Jacomino created a wonderful method for French children to learn how to read, but not only how to read, how to enjoy reading French literature, something that schools omit to do nowadays because "it is too hard"!. His method focuses on the reconstruction of oral and written literary works such as poems, stories and songs and it revives the tradition of memory exercises.Through this method, Christian has created presentations of several literary works called Moulin à paroles (m@p) and he offers workshops (only in France at the moment) to help teachers and pupils use those presentations in a creative and suitable way. So far this method has been very successful with students who have been struggling for years with reading.

There is a poem called ¡Mi escuela, mi escuela! in the Spanish textbook Gente Joven I am following with my students. I thought it would be nice to create a Moulin à paroles with this poem and make my students follow this method although they are Spanish beginners. So I asked Christian if I could create a similar presentation to his and of course he said yes and helped me start on a shared Google document. So this presentation has been the result of a truly collaborative work. I have never met Christian physically, but we have been able to work together on this poem thanks to the magic of web 2.0!

Today, I have delivered the lesson to my students following the instructions on the presentation and I am proud to say it has been a true success. Students loved repeating each verse to each other and they were very proud to be able to remember a poem in Spanish although they only started to learn the language a few months ago. At the end of the lesson, I could hear a student who usually doesn't seem so keen on Spanish, reciting the poem to a friend who studies French. What a better example to show students how to enjoy literature!

I cannot thank Christian Jacomino enough to let me work with him and share his method with my students, and also write this moving newsletter on his website.

What about you? have you taught a poem in another language to your students?

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This week, we have been learning members of the family in Spanish with my students and how to describe them. An activity that went well and is based from the excellent textbook Gente Joven is to ask questions about other families.

1. Students write the names of 3 members of their family on a card. They go around the class with their cards and ask each other for each name on the card "¿Es tu madre/ padre/ abuelo...?" (Is he/she your mum/ dad/ grandad...?).
2. Students then stay with a partner. The partner chooses one person from the other's card and ask different questions about this person:
   ¿Cuántos años tiene?
   ¿Cómo es?
   ¿Qué le gusta?
   Whilst asking those questions, they write the answers down.
3. Students write a paragraph using their answers about their partner's member of the family. They memorize their paragraph. They go around the class telling each other about their partner's member of the family "Ellen tiene una hermana. Tiene trece años. Es rubia, alta y delgada. Tiene los ojos azules. Le gusta mucho leer y chatear con sus amigas pero no le gusta nada estudiar."

Students enjoyed finding out about other's families and telling the class about each other. It was also a good way to use verbs and expressions in the 3rd person a not only in the first person.

What about you? Have you used an engaging activity to teach family members in another language?

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This week, in Spanish, we worked on a conversation between a mum and his son about his new girlfriend. The mum wants to know about his son's new girlfriend and keeps asking him how she looks like (description vocabulary: hair, eyes, size...). And of course, the son doesn't want to say much to her mum. This conversation can be found on Gente Joven 1, a great Spanish textbook I mentioned in an earlier post.

First students listened to the conversation and answered questions about it. Then I gave them some key phrases and expressions from the conversation. Some key expressions applied to the mum "A ver, ¡cuentame!" "¿Como es?", "¿Es guapa?"..., others applied to the son "¡Pero mama!", "si, es muy, muy guapa", "Es morena, alta y delgada"...
Students worked in pairs and had to say the phrases with the correct pronunciation and gestures. I let them repeat and repeat the phrases to really get into their roles and pretend they were Spanish people (very loud and with lots of gestures!). Despite the fact the task was quite repetitive, the students really enjoyed repeating the phrases with the correct pronunciation.

Finally, once they got into their roles, I asked students to prepare their own conversations using some of the phrases they repeated as well I using their own. I told them they were going to be recorded and marked on their pronunciation, fluency and the correct use of feminine and masculine words. Students really got engaged and worked hard to prepare and rehearse their presentations.

The following lesson, I recorded students' conversations. Whilst, they were being recorded the other groups would mark them on pronunciation, fluency and the correct use of feminine and masculine words. At the end of each recording, we would discuss the performance. I noticed students would always remain positive in their comments but would also be sharp on incorrect sentences
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I was extremely pleased with students' performances and I could really see they enjoyed doing the task. I posted their recordings on the school blog and I have asked them to post some comments.

What about you? have you experienced a fun and engaging speaking task?

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I am not a big fan of textbooks and was thinking of creating my own exercises this year since my new school has very few resources but I found a brillant textbook called Gente Joven in the school library.

Good points about this textbook:

• Everything is in Spanish, there is no English explanation or translation. For me, it is very important to immerse pupils in the target language. This is how toddlers learn how to speak.
  
• The exercises are fun, engaging and challenging. For example, we were describing how people look like and there was an exercise about a casting for a TV serie. Pupils had to say why they would choose this boy or this girl. So not only, they had to say basic sentences describing people, thay also had to give their opinions using "creo que el chico puede ser ... porque...".
  
• The teacher's book is full of great ideas to get students involved with group and independent work. The collaborative listening activity which I posted earlier on this week is based on the teacher's book.
  
• There are also tasks to assess students such as creating the school website in Spanish or recording a radio show for a speaking assignment, along with sheets to mark pupils and to let them reflect on how they performed (again all in Spanish).
  

I also went on the publishing website "Difusión" and found a list of useful resources for free. So only, you have to register to access them.

What about you? do you use a very good textbook or create your own resources?

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