We think that stories can teach a lot, because children can feel identified with the characters, they feel their happiness and sadness, and they feel that the goals of the character can be the same for them. But sometimes although they like so much stories they don't read because they don't like be quiet, so in many cases resource like this video can be useful.
This story is easy to catch and the picture helps a lot to the meaning of the words. Also this videos use the drills, so some structures are in many cases the same.
Do all the students learn in the same
way? Do the teachers provide the same opportunities of developments
to all of them? Is assessment always fair?
According
to Gardner's theory, there are different intelligences. Regarding to
that, the intelligence is
a combination of skills that allows to solve problems.Each
person has a different capacity in each area of intelligence and it's
can be influenced by biological development and by the environment.
So, he says that each pupil has some interests and facilities to
resolve the problems in a way. In order to assess in a fair way, the
teacher would have to take into account all the intelligences and he
or she would have to provide the children opportunities to show what
they have learnt in different forms, attending to the multiple
intelligences, and not only through the traditional written exam (the
same for all the class as we see in the picture). This could be more
time consuming for the teacher than traditional approaches methods,
because teacher would have to prepare variety and dynamic activities
and tests (using TIC resources, role-plays, debates, portfolios,
diaries, moving activities, … ).
This
is an explanation about in what consists each intelligence:
The
following information is a video in which we can watch how Gardner explains their theory. The video also gives examples of known people that have
developed some intelligences a lot.
These
are some examples of activities to take into account all the
intelligences in our lessons:
LINGUISTIC
INTELLIGENCE
Readings
(stories, simplified books, comics,...), debates, role-playings,
words games (like Scrabble), writing comments about the readings, ...
LOGICAL-
MATHEMATICAL INTELLIGENCE
Classifying
words by categories, problem solving activities, ordering words
or pictures in a logic structure, inventing titles for a reading or
listening text, making
hypotheses about how could end a story, ...
VISUAL-SPATIAL
INTELLIGENCE
Explanations
by power point with pictures and mind maps, videos and films, recording
activities, imaginations games, constructions projects, activities
with maps, …
KINESTHETIC
INTELLIGENCE-BODY
Role-plays,
Total Physical Response activities, objects
constructions, moving activities...
MUSICAL
INTELLIGENCE
Listening,
rhythm or stress activities, songs (for
example, a rap to remember specific vocabulary), poems
to work intonation, rimes to remember grammatical rules,
...
NATURALISTIC
INTELLIGENCE
Organizing
an environmental
discuss, classifying the animals depending on their characteristics,
inventing
and describing their ideal pet, describing naturalistic scenes, ...
INTERPERSONAL
INTELLIGENCE
Playing
games in teams (for example a taboo words activity), doing
role-plays, jigsaw tasks about readings or listening,
...
INTRAPERSONAL
INTELLIGENCE
Through
self-assesment,
diaries, learning portfolios, writing
a comparison between he or she and the protagonist of a story and
saying what would he or she do in their role, ...
We have tried to present this information attending to Multiple Intelligences Theory. We hope that you like it!
In this communicative activity we give to the children images of one
small boy and one small girl but they are naked. The groups must find out their
clothes for win the game.
For getting the clothes, children have to guess a question for each
garment, that the others groups have, the others groups will give to their
classmates the garment that they demand.
The group that achieves to dress it more quickly will win the game.
We have to analyze our activity according bloom because it´s so
useful in the way of know how we develop the cognitive process of pupils with
the task.
We have thought about it and we believe that in this activity children
will get some possible achieves into the Bloom´s taxonomy like:
üRemember: pupils have to looking for information in their memories
for the answers.
üUnderstand: they make a list for clothes that they need and they
make a way to achieve their aims. We have to develop a strategy.
üApply: in this case we think that we give a material and
instructions for them and they use the material and we apply the way to play
that we have said. They are able to work with the instruction.
Aims
–
The
learner will be able to ask about possession using the structure “have you got
a... ?”
–
The
learner will be able to manage the vocabulary about colours and clothes that
they have seen in class.
–
The
learner will be able to use different strategies to understand and to make
himself or herself understood in a conversation (non-verbal language,
rephrasing, ask for repetition... ).
–
The
learner will be able to express ideas applying his/her knowledge about animals
in verbal and non-verbal ways (to pass the requirement proof to get the
clothes).
Communicative
competence
According to
the communicative competences, this activity works sociolinguistic competence
because the children can speak in a simulated real context. Regarding to this,
it develops specially discourse competence because they have a purpose and they
must negotiate with their classmates to get it.
Notions
and functions
They would
use notions regarding to the clothes topic and colours and the referential
functions of the language with the structures “have you got a... ?”, “can you
give me a...?” talking about things of the environment (clothes) and asking
about possession.
Skills: In this activity, in relation to the skills, we develop the “interaction”. Students need interacting for play and for achieve the different goals. We believe that “interaction” is basic because, in real life, they must interact each other. Of course, the other skills (listening, speaking and writing) are included in the activity too, but not in a significantly way.
Multiples intelligences
With the big head boys and girls activity we can develop some intelligence
like; linguistic, musical, and bodily kinesthetic.
Why we work with these intelligences? Because during the activity
our peers have to move around the class, doing some proof like touch and say
some parts of your body, or sing a song about fruits…
We think that work with Gardner’s theory is one of the most
important parts in the class, because we give them the opportunity to express
themselves.
Classroom language: Come on class! Please, pay attention! We’re going to play a funny game! For this game, we need four groups. One. Two. Three. Four. Please, each group in a corner… Well. Each group has a “Bighead boy” like this. Look! It’s nice, isn’t it? But… I think they have a problem… They are nude! They need clothes! And you help their to get their clothes. You must go to the other groups and question to your classmates for the clothes you need…But you need pass a proof! Your friends tell you what you must do to get the clothes… Well, remember use the structure “Have you got….?”. Any questions? Ok, Let’s see who dress up their Bighead first! Criticism: We really enjoy with our presentation in class. In our opinion, our classmates enjoyed the game and they were very active and motivated.
Obviously, we need to improve some aspects. Overall, we need to improve the “instructions” that we give to our students. Maybe some instructions weren’t so clear and there were some problems to understand the activity, even giving examples we saw some classmates a little confused. Anyway, we think that the activity worked well in class, and we felt that our classmates were much implicated.
"Tabu"
The first activity we have chosen is called tabu. In groups one
member of it will be looking toward the group with the blackboard in his or her
back. The other members will decide a definition of the word without using the
words of the list.
Here we have some examples of the words:
Our students will have to guess the word computer and blood, without saying the words in the arrows
“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.
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
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 3rd 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.
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 1st 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, 3rd grade and children with 9 years old (in Spain also 3rd
course but children with 8 years old), and in 4th grade (children
with 10 years old), the teacher usually start with repeating and drills
activities and then in higher levels, 5th grade and 6th
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 6th
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.
