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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mafalda.ppt (927 KB)

"Learning a foreign language is much more than learning a number of sentences, a certain amount of
vocabulary or a number of grammatical rules. It means being able to interact in a new cultural context
that will enable us to function in a society different from our original one." from the Spanish ab initio Syllabus (IBO)

This is why it is very important for my students to learn about Spanish and Latin American culture. Because they are learning how to describe people and about likes and dislikes, discovering the world of Mafalda, a comic strip written and drawn by the Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado (pen name Quino) perfectly fitted into the unit.

At my new school, technology is very scarce: there are no interactive whiteboards and only a few video projectors are available from the library. Then, because we don't have our own classrooms (German custom: students stay in a classroom, teachers move from class to class), this means we have to carry a laptop and a video projector from class to class. So, I have become a bit lazy and decided to do without technology most of the time!

For the Mafalda's lesson, the easiest would have been to show my students a PowerPoint presentation about Mafalda and the main characters in the comics. Because of the technical issues I have mentioned above, I decided to print out each PowerPoint slide and to laminate them. When I started the lesson, I stuck each laminated slide on the wall in different parts of the classroom. I asked my students to go around the class and read each card, a bit like you would in a museum I guess :) As they were going around, I asked them to stop anytime they crossed another students and to explain to each other what they had read on the card. Because they are Spanish beginners, they could explain in English but most of my students tried in Spanish which was great. I then asked them to go back to their seats and we went through true and false statements about the cards. Students really enjoyed standing up and discovering each character at their own pace. I actually think this lesson was far more exciting than if I had gone through a boring PowerPoint and it was more focused on differentiation as each student could read at their own pace.

In a way, not having technology makes you think about more engaging and differentiated options! And by coincidence, I just happened to be reading Isabelle Jones' really interesting  post about Naked Teaching and reflecting on the use of technology in the classroom.

What about you? do you have any great ideas to teach without technology in the classroom?

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There are already great contributions with videos, poems, articles and websites, as well as ideas to implement reading strategies in the classroom. I have added my little contribution today with resources related to the 20th century's writer, Jean Giono and his book L'homme qui plantait des arbres (The man who planted trees).

I do believe reading books in a another language and understanding the literature of another country helps you to better learn a language and understand the culture behind the language.

So if you:

• need help with your plans for literature/reading in the classroom, click on the Discussion tab and start a thread with your question and/or comment.
• have a link to a video, song, poem, article, website, etc. for a reading, click on the century for which you have something to share and get started today!

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