Elena m's diary

Monday 21st July

We’ve started our teaching development course today. We’ve practising speaking skills and giving a short presentation about ourselves to know each other.

Some of the teachers work in a multicultural school with children from very different cultural backgrounds. This makes us think about the changes that are taking place nowadays in Spanish society and how this is reflected on education. We can find in the same class three or more clearly distinguished levels with students that work at very different paces. It is something we have to take into account when planning our teaching. However, this is quite different in well-heeled schools where the students come from the same backgrounds and there are not so many difficulties to teach them. Therefore, parents in these schools are very demanding and maybe it’s more challenging to work in a multicultural school.



Tuesday 22nd July.

We’ve attended a lecture about bilingualism. It was too theoretical but it has made me reflect on the importance of using the language in context and having into account aspects such as the negotiation of meaning in order to communicate effectively. That’s why we as teachers should consider not only language structure but also language use. Sometimes we focus too much on teaching lots of new vocabulary, correcting and revising it; for example in Science, and we forget about the usage. It’s probably more convenient that students learn a few words that they will use in context rather than a lot of words they will easily forget.

We’ve also done some online research and found some useful web pages. I’ve included here some of them:

http://www.dltk-kids.com/
Fun children's crafts, including printable craft templates, mini books….
www.first-school.ws/
Free preschool printable activities, crafts, lesson plans….
http://www.starfall.com/
Reading activities, Literacy... (American English)
www.britishcouncil.org/kids-games-play-and-learn.htm
The game “monkey squash” is very funny and motivating. ( Many topics).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/charlieandlola/stories/play_music/
Good website to teach music. (Instruments)
www.bbc.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden.com
For infants (songs with repetitive sounds, useful for drilling).
http://www.primaryscience.ie/site/activities_activity_movies.php
Nice experiments to try on the Science class.


Wednesday, 23rd July

We’ve had a wonderful lecture about the history and culture of Brighton. It’s quite interesting how Brighton became a place for wealthy Londoners and patients to cure their diseases at the seaside. The character of the “dipper” (Martha Gunn) that helped people into the water could be used in the class so that students could compare how diseases were cured in the past to nowadays methods and techniques.

It’s also quite appealing the history of mods vs. rockers and how the two groups confronted because of different ways of thinking and dressing. This can be used in the class with older students (Primary 5 & 6). We can work on the clearly marked differences in their clothes, the music they listened to and prepare some listening activities using The Who or Elvis’ songs.

We’ve dealt with phonetics too. I like the sound pictures activity. I think it’s quite useful to practise pronunciation. I’ll adapt it to work with little kids using simple sounds. For example, my students always have problems to distinguish between ai /ei/ and ie /ai/ as in “pain”, “rain” or “tie”, “pie”…Students mixed them very often. The “schwa “is difficult for them too as well as the difference between the pronunciation in “the” and “think”.

Thursday, 24th July

Today’s pronunciation class has been very productive. I like the idea of using traditional English songs to practise rhythm and intonation. It helps students to learn how to link chunks of language. If we combine the songs with movement to mark the rhythm, it’s an excellent way of improving our students’ command of the language. They’ll enjoy and feel more comfortable using English.

The dictogloss activity to teach how to organise a paragraph can be used to develop pupils’ writing skills if we adapt it to their levels. Sometimes we take for granted that our students know how to link the paragraphs in a text but that’s not always the case, even the oldest students, so we have to teach them strategies to cope with it, provide them with the language to use. This kind of activity is very useful to focus on the importance of cohesion and coherence.

Friday, 25th July

We’ve been working on the Interactive whiteboard. I’ve had the opportunity to use it in my school this year and it’s amazing the range of possibilities that it offers. It motivates students and makes the classes more appealing.

I was really surprised when I first used it in my class. The weakest students in the class or even those often misbehaving were very eager to participate and have a go with the whiteboard.



Saturday, 26th July

I’ve visited London with some of the people in the group. I’ve enjoyed it a lot and I’m willing to go back again in the near future.

Sunday, 27th July

I’ve been to Canterbury and Rye, wonderful places to visit but too little time to visit everything.

Monday 28th July

We’ve learned how to create a blog. I think it’s very interesting and I’ll use it to exchange sites, information and so on with my colleagues from other schools.