PURPLE ELENA'S DIARY
M Elena Perez Marquez
20 July 2008
After a very nice flight and arrival in Sussex University, Brighton, we, the fifteen Spanish teachers from Madrid, began our stay at the University Residence; which turned out to be very clean and confortable. The University campus was also beautiful and very close to our place. So we were looking forward to spending a marvellous fortnight in a programme of real inmersion .
21 July 2008
We met our social programme guide at the University. We were taken to a meeting point where we met the rest of the staff.
Then already in class we met the Deputy Headteacher of the Language Institute and our regular teacher Tom, who was very interested in knowing our expectations and needs. We discussed a lot about the possible future topics we would like to talk about and we introduced ourselves explaining our roles in our schools as CLIL teachers in the bilingual Programme of the Community of Madrid.
We also had a useful guided tour around the facilities at the campus, and we could appreciate it was very well equiped with lots of resources.
We finished with some speaking activities as a warm-up for the two future weeks we were going to spend studyng at Sussex University.
22 July 2008-07-28
After having breakfast in our happily shared kitchen, we began our lessons with language exercises. We found them interesting since they dealt with new words related to adjectives. We thought it was great to have the opportunity of increasing our vocabulary. We really need to update our English.
Breaks are nice too as the weather in Brighton now is sunny and warm, so we had a coffee sitting in the sun in these peaceful and relaxing parks that are everywhere at the campus.
Then we listened to an interesting theoretical lecture about bilingualism. I liked this topic. Particularly I think it is necessary to know the old and new approaches of teaching English from their basis, so a theory lesson is necessary from time to time.
After that we had a short debate comparing the different definitions of bilingualism and being multi or monocultural. I really enjoyed it and tried to participate asking some questions.
After having lunch in the sun again, we were taught some info about interesting web pages where we could find materials for our CLIL lessons back in Spain. We went to the computer room to see and check them on our own.
We discovered surprising and amazing resources to use in the future.
A nice guide showed us books, DVDs, magazines, etc that we could use and borrow during our stay in the university. I borrowed the book Persuasion by Jane Austein. I had recently seen the film in Spain and I really liked it.
In the evening we visited the still sunny city of Brighton. We had great fun at the pier and The Lanes. We joined the social programme again and we went to King and Queen’s pub in downtown. There were lots of people participating in the Karaoke activity. I was very surprised when we saw the warhammer players upstairs, so elaborated and organized.
It was an excellent idea to go there and see Brighton at night which impressed us so much.
23 July 2008
The day began cloudly but warm. We had a very interenting beginning with the talk about Brighton history. Alexandra spoke nicely, clearly and slowly and we learnt a lot about the place. It was very, very exciting information and I was motivated in advance since I wanted to know the origin of this place in depth. She gave us lots of details covering different aspects, not only the history and geography but also news, music, art and even people and builidings. I think everybody liked it. Then we reviewed the most useful web pages that we visited the previous day and Tom showed us the blog he created for our group where we could find and add new information. He included links to help us with phonics which is an aspect we find difficult to deal with as we are not native teachers of English.
After lunch we met one of our guides and the whole group went on a guided tour in Brighton, sunny Brighton again, where we checked all the things we had studied in the morning about history of Sussex County and more specifically Brighton and Hove.
Then five of us visited the interior of the Royal Pavillion. Its Indian and Chinese style impressed us and we listened to the explanation helped by headphones in English. The palace was amazing and we couldn’t imagine we were going to find such a wonderful Banqueting Hall and Music Room. It’s difficult to see this original and surprising decoration in any other palace or place in the world , and not of course in Europe.
The weather in the afternoon and evening was fantastic. We had tea and scones in a delicate and typical tearoom and the we lied in the beach contemplating a very calm sea , almost as calm as the Mediterranean Sea in a summer day.
We had dinner in our kitchen and we found out that a good friendship was being born among us. We realized we had a lot of things in common. Bilingualism is something else appart from CLIL. It is also sharing a part of our own lives. Thank you.
24 July 2008
Intense day today. We’ve been working on pronunciation hard: how words link, rhyme and also about intonation and stress. We used the song The Grand Old Duke of York. It was a different way of using it in class paying special attention to stressed and unstressed words. It was curious to notice how different the selection can be depending on the rhythm. So, I noticed that not always meaningful words are stressed.
After the break we practised writing techniques such as running dictation. I liked dictogloss to create your own text but guided and based on a previous one you have previously listened to. I enjoyed taking notes and summarizing. Then we were shown how to exploid anything from youtube. We worked with clip “Wirewalker tells story”. I thought it was not very convenient for little kids but it was highly motivating for adults. I liked asking questions before the listening and try to find the answers when listening. Normally I do just the opposite. First my students listen and then aswer comprehension questions. So this technique was new for me.
As we were very worried about presentations we had a debate in which we suggested to reduce the time for sharing experiences and have more time for imputs because we needed inmersion as much as possible.
Tom listened to our “wishes” and looked very flexible and open-minded.
After a nice walk in Brighton Marina we went to bed really tired.
25 July 2008
Short Friday. People in Spain have a holiday today!!!!!
We worked on Interactive Whiteboards. Everybody was eager to know how to use them. First we learned how they work and we practised grouping, locking and basic movements. For me the most surprising thing was the possibility of linking material from internet and bring it to the screen for the children to interact.
Then we had Free lunch!!!!!!! Good idea! Thanks again.
We had self-study and in the evening we visited Rottingdean, a nice coastal village. We went to Kippling gardens and the black mill. And of course the church and the impressive chalk cliffs down in the beach. Unfortunally Fernando, one of our friends in the group, had a great fall from a wall when posing for a photo and we took him to the hospital. Poor thing! Well, a new and weird inmersion experience!
WEEKEND: 26-27 July 2008
Nice and exhausting weekend. On Saturday we visited Tonbridge Wells. We saw the waterspring, the gardens, the Pantiles and we even went on a steam train ride from there to Groombridge. We walked in its Enchanted Forest and had a nice cup of tea and scones….Delicious!!!!
On Sunday we went to Canterbury and saw the cathedral. The best of all was a boat trip in the old river and old quarters. Very beautiful. In the afternoon we went to Rye and we saw a pretty sight of the town from the tower of the church. We had delicious tea and scones again and come back to our place completely exhausted after a busy and productive day.
28 July 2008
Sad day for me. I woke up with an unpleasant piece of news. My friend’s father passed away early this morning.
Life and work must continue. I’ve learnt a lot about blogging today. I think having a blog will be useful for my professional development in the future and I really think I will use it a lot. Now I will include my diary here in Brighton and lots of things to swap with my colleages in Spain and abroad. Good learning! Keep up the good work!!! Thank you Tom! Don’t forget to come to my school if you visit Madrid. It would be fantastic!!!! Let’s have FREE lunch again!!! I’m really hungry!!!!
M Elena Perez Marquez
20 July 2008
After a very nice flight and arrival in Sussex University, Brighton, we, the fifteen Spanish teachers from Madrid, began our stay at the University Residence; which turned out to be very clean and confortable. The University campus was also beautiful and very close to our place. So we were looking forward to spending a marvellous fortnight in a programme of real inmersion .
21 July 2008
We met our social programme guide at the University. We were taken to a meeting point where we met the rest of the staff.
Then already in class we met the Deputy Headteacher of the Language Institute and our regular teacher Tom, who was very interested in knowing our expectations and needs. We discussed a lot about the possible future topics we would like to talk about and we introduced ourselves explaining our roles in our schools as CLIL teachers in the bilingual Programme of the Community of Madrid.
We also had a useful guided tour around the facilities at the campus, and we could appreciate it was very well equiped with lots of resources.
We finished with some speaking activities as a warm-up for the two future weeks we were going to spend studyng at Sussex University.
22 July 2008-07-28
After having breakfast in our happily shared kitchen, we began our lessons with language exercises. We found them interesting since they dealt with new words related to adjectives. We thought it was great to have the opportunity of increasing our vocabulary. We really need to update our English.
Breaks are nice too as the weather in Brighton now is sunny and warm, so we had a coffee sitting in the sun in these peaceful and relaxing parks that are everywhere at the campus.
Then we listened to an interesting theoretical lecture about bilingualism. I liked this topic. Particularly I think it is necessary to know the old and new approaches of teaching English from their basis, so a theory lesson is necessary from time to time.
After that we had a short debate comparing the different definitions of bilingualism and being multi or monocultural. I really enjoyed it and tried to participate asking some questions.
After having lunch in the sun again, we were taught some info about interesting web pages where we could find materials for our CLIL lessons back in Spain. We went to the computer room to see and check them on our own.
We discovered surprising and amazing resources to use in the future.
A nice guide showed us books, DVDs, magazines, etc that we could use and borrow during our stay in the university. I borrowed the book Persuasion by Jane Austein. I had recently seen the film in Spain and I really liked it.
In the evening we visited the still sunny city of Brighton. We had great fun at the pier and The Lanes. We joined the social programme again and we went to King and Queen’s pub in downtown. There were lots of people participating in the Karaoke activity. I was very surprised when we saw the warhammer players upstairs, so elaborated and organized.
It was an excellent idea to go there and see Brighton at night which impressed us so much.
23 July 2008
The day began cloudly but warm. We had a very interenting beginning with the talk about Brighton history. Alexandra spoke nicely, clearly and slowly and we learnt a lot about the place. It was very, very exciting information and I was motivated in advance since I wanted to know the origin of this place in depth. She gave us lots of details covering different aspects, not only the history and geography but also news, music, art and even people and builidings. I think everybody liked it. Then we reviewed the most useful web pages that we visited the previous day and Tom showed us the blog he created for our group where we could find and add new information. He included links to help us with phonics which is an aspect we find difficult to deal with as we are not native teachers of English.
After lunch we met one of our guides and the whole group went on a guided tour in Brighton, sunny Brighton again, where we checked all the things we had studied in the morning about history of Sussex County and more specifically Brighton and Hove.
Then five of us visited the interior of the Royal Pavillion. Its Indian and Chinese style impressed us and we listened to the explanation helped by headphones in English. The palace was amazing and we couldn’t imagine we were going to find such a wonderful Banqueting Hall and Music Room. It’s difficult to see this original and surprising decoration in any other palace or place in the world , and not of course in Europe.
The weather in the afternoon and evening was fantastic. We had tea and scones in a delicate and typical tearoom and the we lied in the beach contemplating a very calm sea , almost as calm as the Mediterranean Sea in a summer day.
We had dinner in our kitchen and we found out that a good friendship was being born among us. We realized we had a lot of things in common. Bilingualism is something else appart from CLIL. It is also sharing a part of our own lives. Thank you.
24 July 2008
Intense day today. We’ve been working on pronunciation hard: how words link, rhyme and also about intonation and stress. We used the song The Grand Old Duke of York. It was a different way of using it in class paying special attention to stressed and unstressed words. It was curious to notice how different the selection can be depending on the rhythm. So, I noticed that not always meaningful words are stressed.
After the break we practised writing techniques such as running dictation. I liked dictogloss to create your own text but guided and based on a previous one you have previously listened to. I enjoyed taking notes and summarizing. Then we were shown how to exploid anything from youtube. We worked with clip “Wirewalker tells story”. I thought it was not very convenient for little kids but it was highly motivating for adults. I liked asking questions before the listening and try to find the answers when listening. Normally I do just the opposite. First my students listen and then aswer comprehension questions. So this technique was new for me.
As we were very worried about presentations we had a debate in which we suggested to reduce the time for sharing experiences and have more time for imputs because we needed inmersion as much as possible.
Tom listened to our “wishes” and looked very flexible and open-minded.
After a nice walk in Brighton Marina we went to bed really tired.
25 July 2008
Short Friday. People in Spain have a holiday today!!!!!
We worked on Interactive Whiteboards. Everybody was eager to know how to use them. First we learned how they work and we practised grouping, locking and basic movements. For me the most surprising thing was the possibility of linking material from internet and bring it to the screen for the children to interact.
Then we had Free lunch!!!!!!! Good idea! Thanks again.
We had self-study and in the evening we visited Rottingdean, a nice coastal village. We went to Kippling gardens and the black mill. And of course the church and the impressive chalk cliffs down in the beach. Unfortunally Fernando, one of our friends in the group, had a great fall from a wall when posing for a photo and we took him to the hospital. Poor thing! Well, a new and weird inmersion experience!
WEEKEND: 26-27 July 2008
Nice and exhausting weekend. On Saturday we visited Tonbridge Wells. We saw the waterspring, the gardens, the Pantiles and we even went on a steam train ride from there to Groombridge. We walked in its Enchanted Forest and had a nice cup of tea and scones….Delicious!!!!
On Sunday we went to Canterbury and saw the cathedral. The best of all was a boat trip in the old river and old quarters. Very beautiful. In the afternoon we went to Rye and we saw a pretty sight of the town from the tower of the church. We had delicious tea and scones again and come back to our place completely exhausted after a busy and productive day.
28 July 2008
Sad day for me. I woke up with an unpleasant piece of news. My friend’s father passed away early this morning.
Life and work must continue. I’ve learnt a lot about blogging today. I think having a blog will be useful for my professional development in the future and I really think I will use it a lot. Now I will include my diary here in Brighton and lots of things to swap with my colleages in Spain and abroad. Good learning! Keep up the good work!!! Thank you Tom! Don’t forget to come to my school if you visit Madrid. It would be fantastic!!!! Let’s have FREE lunch again!!! I’m really hungry!!!!
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