"What have we got in common?"

“What have we got in common?” is a group dynamic for our FL class. This activity consists on fill up the gaps and finds someone with the same answers. The student must complete the column “YOU” with his/her own answers. When the column is completed, all the students must stand up and search another classmate who has the same as theirs. They will go around the class asking the other pupils for the things they have in common, and taking notes of the name of that person.

In one hand, we consider that it is a good way to help our students to meet each other and to feel more comfortable. With this activity pupils can find a lot of things in common with the others, so they will feel more confident and integrated in class. In a way, it is a good methodology to create a better atmosphere.

In other hand, this activity is very useful for practice the communicative skills. Our students must ask each other, give an answer and participate in a little conversation. We give their notions, and “find a similar person” is their function.

The best of “What have we got in common?” is the possibility to adapt it for every level, course and class. The questions could be more (or less) difficult and the vocabulary more (or less) specific. Also, we can choose a topic and make an activity only with questions about, for example: food, travel, family… And it is the same for the pupils’ different needs. We can simplify the structures, even we can include some pictures for make it easier to understand.

By the way, we have made this activity in some of our English lessons at school and we think it is a very motivating task. Find a similar person into the whole group makes our students feel that they are not alone and it is a good opportunity to develop the trust and the empathy between our pupils.

This activity could be integrated in every part of the curriculum, because with it we can promote every topic and develop all the skills (all of them are included in this task).

One of the most relevant characteristic of it is the need of talk that the students have when they are playing this game.

Now we are going to show some materials which we designed. We have tried to adapt this task depending of the level and the topic we want to work. Exists a lot of possible variations and all of them are completely right. It depends of the teacher’s approach and the aim which the teacher could achieve.

Here, some examples.

Stories

The other day we had a master class of stories, Malin Glimäng tell us the importance of telling stories to our pupils.

Stories are essential in these ages because children use them every day as a strategy for their communication.

Stories involve cultural aspects because children can travel to places that they never have been, and we can create a lot of motivation when we say we are going to tell a story because in the tails there is something magic. It’s like the stories have their own world with other rules, in which fly is something normal and happy endings are true.

But there is something more inside the tails, one strategy that we can use is the meaning who gives the pupil confidence because they can understand the opinion of the character, they can identify with someone else.

But we have to be careful with the stories: we can’t lose the magic of the story, we should keep the balance between demands and supports, and we should keep in mind that we have to adapt the tail for the age of our students.

Here we put a mind map of the main ideas:

Now we are going to explain with a mind map, how we can work with the stories in the five skills

Speaking with a Song

This activity is appropriate for any cycle of primary education because is very simple to adapt, but in this case, we work with children in 3^rd grade of primary education (8 years old). It consist in practice the expressions and vocabulary learned in the unit in a funny way.

The teacher put in the touch board or black board, these expressions they are going to use, for example, "greetings": "Hello!, How are you?, What is your name?, How old are you?..." and the answer; "Hi!, Fine! And you?, Not bad, My name is... I´m 10 years old..." 

After this, the teacher turns on the music and all the children have to walk around the class. When the music is stopped, they stop also and they ask the questions on the blackboard to the partner. Then, when the music continues, they continue walking in the class. 

This game has different rounds, for example, the fist time the teacher stops the music, children have to say: "hi, hello!, how are you?"; the next time, they ask about the names and the age; one more time, when the music is turned off they can ask about hobbies or favorite food... 

It is an activity that allows many possibilities for practice the vocabulary. And also they are using the speaking and interacting between each others.

English Lesson in Finland

In this post we are going to comment and relate an experience of a member in the group with the theory given during the subject till now.

Our classmate Carolina is studying now in Finland in Erasmus Program and there, she has practices in a school. She has told us that she assist only to English lessons so we think it is a good experience to comment and share with you.

First of all, mention an essential feature of the Finnish education. The education and all of related to it, is free: school, meals in it, books, material, transport… They haven´t private school, they don´t know what it is. It is just a data to reflect about it.

Also, we have to take into account that children start the school, so, writing and reading with 7 years old, in the 1^st grade.

After we talk with our partner and we share experiences, we would like to comment how Finnish Education treats these two skills: listening and speaking. For us, these two skills are very important in class, and they should be the first ones when you are learning a foreign language. The Finnish’s teacher said to Carolina that first, children have to learn listening and speaking, and then they start to reading and finally writing. It´s reflect the importance of these two skills and also, we can conclude that is a good method because as Carolina has said to us, Finnish students with 11-12 years old speak English very well according to their correspondent level.

So, now, we explain in general the implementation of these skills in class. 

According to the listening, it is one of the most practiced skills in class. Maybe in one lesson around fifty percent is listening. Our partner said us that the teacher is used to use TPR in class as a common strategy. For example, when the teacher gives order to the students.

Another interesting situation to comment that our partner has told us is when the teacher is going to explain an activity. She always explains the activity in English, with a basic language, visual support and using vocabulary known for students, it is “Classroom Language”. The importance she gives to Classroom Language is very high. It is good, because children are in contact every time with English and they are used to listening those words and expressions.

One thing that Carolina has told us, it is when the activity is very difficult or the teacher sees they aren´t understanding it, she explains it in Finnish, but just after explaining it in English.

Regarding what kind of activities they do, the most commons are: “listen and repeat”, they spend much time repeating aloud, vocabulary, expressions and dialogues; “listen and discriminate”, for example, in almost each lesson they sing a song; and “listen and sequence”, for example they listen a sequence of acts and they have to put in order the pictures.

On the other hand, with the speaking skill, according to what Carolina has said to us, in Finnish lessons there are many opportunities to speak during the class. The teacher organizes between an average of 4 or 5 speaking exercises per each lesson, so it’s a lot compare with English lessons in our country. These activities are usually in pairs, because of this, all the students have the opportunity to speak in class. We think it is a good way to practice oral skills for young learners because they are practicing speaking but they don’t have to speak aloud with all the partners. So it is also a way to reduce the children anxiety when they speak in English.

Our partner has told us more things about the development of the speaking in a class. She says that in lower levels for example, 3^rd grade and children with 9 years old (in Spain also 3^rd course but children with 8 years old), and in 4^th grade (children with 10 years old), the teacher usually start with repeating and drills activities and then in higher levels, 5^th grade and 6^th grade she tends to use more role plays.

We can relate to these with the theoretical issues dealt with in class the last session. It is a good example of the natural way and logical sequence of teaching the speaking. First, she starts with “controlled speaking practices” in lower levels, with tasks like reading dialogue aloud, question/answer exercises or simply repeating words. When they have improved their level she continues with “semi-controlled speaking practices” like question/answer questions but with pictures; and finally she introduces “free speaking practices” in higher levels like 6^th grade, with role plays activities and conversations.

We think it  is a good opportunity to learn more about other countries, and specially from Nordic countries, where the foreign languages are so important.

Here some photos of the school: 

 

Didactic Sequence

After reading some texts about assessment we agree in these point will be the base of our pyramid for the evaluation in our didactic sequence, like Hughes, A. said we will be in mind the feedback because is one of the most important thing in the teaching-learning process.

Also like Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., and Wiliam, D. said in their article “Assessment for learning: putting it into practice” we want that our students be active and think about their own process so they will have to reflect, they will have to work in groups…

Also we know that with the pass of the days we will probably change our ideas, so in this case we will do another mind map.