AEXALEVI Convention 2018

Creative coding in ELT: can our students design videogames?

Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science since it helps foster problem-solving skills, logic and creativity. Steve Jobs claimed that “Everybody in the country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think”. There is no need to be an expert or to start big in order to program, the only need is to be willing to accept challenges! This presentation will offer you different ideas on how to develop computational thinking. By engaging students in experiential tasks which enhance higher order skills while developing their language and digital skills, students develop the necessary strategies to succeed in the 21st century. We will explore how language, technology and content can be integrated effectively in authentic tasks which require students to develop critical thinking. Students are engaged in real realistic activities, such as the ones experts carry out, and the final goal is a meaningful one: to design their own videogames.

Speaking Activities

Speaking is a 'huge' activity that describes so much of what we do in the classroom, from oral drills, to quick discussions, role play, problem slving and even board games. These ativities may have different aims: from very controlled practice on grmmar, vocabulary, functional language or pronunciation, to freer practice and the development of other skills such as critical thinking. Speaking activities are one of the biggest challenges. Here you'll find a selection of activities I collected from the web which worked in my varied classrooms

Taboo

In this game, one player has a card containing four words:

a. The first word is the secret word, which has to be guessed. The aim of the game is to get the other players to say this word so the student with the card needs to describe this word until another student discovers what the secret word is.

b. The other three words are the “taboo” words that can’t be used to describe the secret word since they are the most obvious options.

You can play this game can be played in two teams or in small groups. You can create your own sets of words based on the content your students have been studying, or you can find sets in your textbook and on the Internet.

Variations

1. Create a PowerPoint presentation with a noun on each slide, and the “taboo words”. Have one student come to the front of the room and sit giving his/her back to the PowerPoint. The rest of the students take turns describing the word on the slides, and the student at the front has to guess it.

2. Separate the students into groups of four or five. Place a pile of cards with content words in the centre of each group. Students take turns describing a noun for their group members to guess. The group member who guesses correctly keeps the card. The winner is the student who keeps most of the cards!

3. Separate the class into two teams. Students are given a word to describe to their partners, and a list of “Taboo” words they cannot use in their description. Each student should have two to three minutes to see how many words their teammates can guess

Retrieved from https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-speaking-activities-for-adults/

Descriptive drawing activity
Pair up the students and give each student a picture, placing it face down so partners cannot see each other’s cards. They must describe the picture for their partner to draw.


Comic strip descriptions

Give each student a portion of a comic strip. Without showing their pictures to one another, the students should attempt to describe their image, and put the comic strip into the correct order. After about 10 minutes, the students can guess the order, show one another their portion, and see if they were correct.

Find a friend bingo

This activity is a variation of Find someone who.

It can be adapted easily to different levels

Prepare a handout with a 3 x 3 grid of squares. In each square, write a phrase that is likely to apply to at least one of the students, e.g. has a birthday in March, went on vacation to the beach, loves the “Star Wars” movies.

Give a copy of the handout to each student. Tell them to ask questions and find a friend who answers yes to one square in the grid, crossing out the square when they find someone. They should then move on to a different friend.

The winner is the first person to cross out all the squares.

Tip: For higher levels, make the grid larger. Alternatively, ask students to write their own ideas in the grid. For lower levels, use pictures instead of words and stick to Do you like …? questions.

Retrieved from https://www.english.com/blog/speaking-activities-for-your-new-primary-class/


Are we the same or different?

Students do this speaking and writing activity in pairs. They ask each other questions to find out what they have in common and what is different about them.

Before the lesson, prepare a handout with a large Venn diagram for each pair of students. Alternatively, you could have students draw their own diagrams in their notebooks.

Retrieved from https://www.english.com/blog/speaking-activities-for-your-new-primary-class/

Other ideas:

https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/12-fun-speaking-games-language-learners

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/motivating-speaking-activities-lower-levels

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-speaking-unit-6-activities

Materials Developed to Teach Literature, History and Language (Part 2)

Approaches to Literature in the classroom

Collie and Slater (1987: 5-7) encourage the inclusion of stories in the language classroom, as literature provides valuable material, contributes to cultural and language enrichment and encourages personal involvement. In addition, Ferradas (2003: 406) supports the presence of literature in the EFL classroom on the grounds that it contributes to language development by “revealing the creative and expressive potential of language and giving learners access to new sociocultural meanings”.

Traditionally, reading has been administered in the ELT classrooms following two types of approaches: intensive and extensive reading. In broader terms, intensive reading may be described as the practice of reading to study the linguistic aspects of the text, calling the attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface structures to obtain a literal meaning of the text (Brown, 1989). Extensive reading occurs when students read large amounts of high interest material, usually out of class, concentrating on meaning, reading for gist and skipping unknown words. According to Day and Bamford (2002:139), these materials must be within the learners' reading competence in the foreign language.

Robert Hill, as cited in David Hill (2013: 93), suggests a third approach named an expansive reading approach. It highlights the use of reading activities to go beyond the original text and explore areas such as the biography of the writer, the historical and cultural context, intertextuality, among other issues. Culture and history can be taught as students learn the language, by means of graded readers. The essential feature of these texts is the narrative, which will facilitate understanding and engagement when reading fiction whose historical context and cultural implications may be opaque. In the words of Robert Hill, in an expansive reading approach ‘the text becomes a springboard to improve language skills and to explore historical background, cultural connections and other topics suggested by the text” (Hill, 2013: 93)

The procedure taken into account to design these materials is Hill’s expansive reading approach, in which the text, in this case a graded version of Oliver Twist and a fragment of its original version, becomes a starting point to improve language skills and to explore historical background and cultural connections without overlooking the aesthetic aspects of literary texts. The version published by Express Publishing has been chosen among a great variety of collections that offer this title because it fits my context in two aspects: it matches students’ A2 level, which is necessary for them to read texts on their own; and it doesn’t contain distractors such as glossaries or activities in between chapters, which may make students loose motivation to read text (Tomlinson, 2013: 176).

Principles of learning and teaching

In order to avoid an ad hoc, spontaneous and intuitive development of the unit, I will delineate the principles of learning and teaching which guided the process of writing of these materials and which facilitated coherence and consistency, working as a framework.

1. Exposure to rich, meaningful and comprehensible input of language in use.

Students need to be exposed to specific language items and features many so that they can understand and store them for later use. Nation and Wang (1999, in Harwood, 2010: 87) state that controlled graded readers are valuable resources in this respect, since items are repeated with “an optimal space between repetitions”

2. Authenticity of materials in terms of text and/or tasks.

Widdowson (1998, in Mishan 2005: 13) claims that authenticity of texts alone is a contradiction since “Reality [...] does not travel with the text [...] What makes the text real is that it has been produced as appropriate to a particular set of contextual conditions. But because these conditions cannot be replicated, the reality disappears”. Thus, the development of these materials will emphasize what students and teacher do with the text than its occurring in a “real” environment. In fact, the text is an adaptation of a literary text whose context of production is far removed from the context of reception. What makes it “authentic” is the purpose it is applied to. Following these presuppositions, authenticity is not brought into the classroom exclusively by means of resources, it resides in the objective that teacher and students need to reach as a result of their interactions with the text.

Hill (1997: 58) takes this issue further by claiming that the authenticity of graded readers is “irrelevant”, since importance should be directed to extent to which these texts achieve the purposes for which they were produced and brought to the classroom. The author adds that the Extensive Reading Foundation have promoted the name “Language Learner Literature (LLL)” in order to avoid the prejudice against graded readers. (Hill, 2008)

3. Affective and cognitive engagement.

Hill (1997) states that graded readers provide a model of the target language which is accessible for learners due to the controlled and reduced code. In addition, as students are drawn to stories and they generally want to know what happens next, it gives learners an immediate purpose in using the language. Stories evoke different feelings of enjoyment, pleasure, happiness, empathy, which are likely to influence acquisition of the language, since, in the words of Tomlinson (2003; in Harwood, 2010: 89) positive emotions appear to stimulate deep processing. Learners need to think and feel whilst experiencing the language in order to acquire it.

4. Noticing of salient features in the input.

Tomlinson (in Harwood, 2010: 93) maintains that when students are offered opportunities to notice patterns and features about the language for themselves, they are more likely to develop language awareness. Graded readers offer exposure to the language as well as opportunities to practise and consolidate by means of repetition.

5. Opportunities to use the language for communication in context.

Materials should encourage students to go beyond basic communicative competence so that they can develop their ability to use the language fluently, accurately and effectively in varied situations and contexts (Tomlinson in Harwood, 2010: 95). Input is a crucial factor for language acquisition, but output, which is defined as language produced for communication, provides learners with opportunities to systematise the language, to receive contextualised feedback and to stretch the learner’s strategic competence to negotiate meaning. Consequently, the author believes that “setting learners achievable communicative challenges is likely to be more useful than providing easy practice”.

6. A text-driven approach to materials

Tomlinson (2013: 69) claims that children are “naturally drawn to stories” and, that storybooks produce better results than traditional coursebooks, which are generally used with older learners. To add more benefits, the author believes that the language of stories is paramount for children to develop their own narrative discourse. Besides, stories can become the springboard for engaging thematic units which integrate the four macro-skills while enhancing students’ cognitive development.

7. Skills development

Mishan and Timmis (2015: 99) distinguish the concepts of skills and strategies. The authors define skills as automatic and unconscious actions that students carry out without being aware of the steps involved and strategies as conscious procedures aimed at making learning more effective and efficient. Although the former cannot be taught but developed, materials might be designed in order to offer opportunities for strategies to be practiced and automated so that they can latter become skills.

8. Use of a graded reader

Hill (2008: 185) defines graded readers as “books written for learners of English using limited lexis and syntax, the former determined by frequency and usefulness and the latter by simplicity. Most series increase the permitted lexis and syntax in stages from beginning to advanced, with each stage presenting a more demanding reading task, not only in language but also in length and format”. He adds that these types of stories were originally commercialized order to make literature accessible to foreign learners of English whose level of the language is not yet appropriate to read the original texts, as it is the case with my students. (Hill, 1997: 57)

Materials Developed to Teach Literature, History and Language (Part 1)

Most materials developed for Language Teaching aim at achieving communicative competence, which is needed to succeed in a globalised world. As a result, materials and resources often appear to be limited to “conduct transactions and perform occupational tasks in the world outside the classroom” (Pulverness, 1999: 33). This type of commercial global material flourishes in the market, offering what is considered to be useful language for communicative purposes.

Pulverness (1999, 2007) and Ferradas (2003) state that Literature has often been neglected in ELT due to the emphasis laid on this functional or “referential language” in coursebooks, i.e.: “language which communicates at one level” (McRae, 1991: 3, in Ferradas, 2003: 406). These practices seem to disregard the potential literature has to offer “representational language”, which McRae (1991:3) defines as language whose meaning engages the imagination and interpretation of the learner in order to be decoded, going beyond the referential level. (In Ferradas, 2003: 407). Widdowson (1997:116) highlights the importance of literature as it “develops in learners an awareness of how literature functions as discourse and so to give them some access to the means of interpretation” (In Ferradas, 2003: 407).

The main reason to design materials aimed at using literature to contribute to cultural awareness through content taught within a CLIL approach was the fact that ELT has enough materials aimed at teaching functional language, but it lacks resources which integrate language and content such as literature, history and culture.

Approach to developing the materials

The development of these materials has followed humanistic and social-constructivist approaches, as they both focus on the needs of the learner.

Williams and Burden (1997: 30) acknowledge that humanistic approaches emphasize the vitality of the inner world of the learner, placing thoughts, feelings and emotions at the centre of human development. The authors claim that all human beings have a “natural potential for learning”, i.e. learning will take place if the content involved is perceived to be of personal relevance, and if it requires active participation including both feelings and cognition. The authors add that personalisation and differentiation are crucial. The former encompasses the idea that every learning experience should help learners develop a sense of personal identity, whereas the latter implies that the individual learners’ needs should be identified and targeted. As Hamacheck (1977:149) describes it: “Humanistic education starts with the idea that students are different, and it strives to help students become more like themselves and less like each other” (in Williams and Burden, 1997: 36)

In addition, Williams and Burden (1997: 43) point out that, from a social interactionist point of view, children are immersed in a social world and learning takes place through interactions with other people. Thornbury claims that through those interactions teachers provide sources of input and feedback which are crucial for language acquisition to take place in the classroom (2006: 225). When interaction takes place, learning can be adjusted to the needs of the child in order to help him/her become more competent (Cameron, 2001: 8). This was defined by Bruner (1983, in Tomlinson, 2013: 183) as scaffolding, i.e. temporary interactional support given to learners while their language system is developing, in order to perform a task at a level that might be beyond their current competence.

To program or not to program? That's the question!

Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science since it helps foster problem-solving skills, logic and creativity. Steve Jobs claimed that “Everybody in the country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think”. There is no need to be an expert or to start big in order to program, the only need is to be willing to accept challenges!

It is the purpose of this presentation to explore Selby and Woollard (2013) suggestions about teaching which support the XXI c skills our students need to develop computational thinking  (algorithmic thinking, evaluation, decomposition, abstraction, generalisation). Then, I will delineate an authentic teaching practice I carried out with my 6^th form students at Colegio Newlands, which proved successful for the attainment of these strategies.

Learning how to programme in the classroom becomes an authentic and meaningful task conducive to language learning (Breen1985: 61, as cited in Mishan). Students are engaged in real world activities, such as the ones experts carry out. The only difference is that the context that is used is meaningful for them at their age, and the final goal is an authentic one: to design their own videogames using Kodu, a visual programming language tool.

In this talk I will also share different experiences that teachers can carry out in order to include programming in their lessons. I will demonstrate how language, technology and content can be integrated effectively in authentic tasks which require students to develop critical thinking. For instance, students can learn about Victorian England designing the city with Minecraft. Even when there is no technology or connection at school, programming can occur in meaningful authentic contexts. The final objective is to create a PLN (Personal learning network) to create connections and contribute to our professional development for the benefit of our students.

Bibliography

Jobs, S. (2012). Interview: Steve Jobs says everyone should learn to program. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCDkxUbalCw. [Accessed 25-04-2017].

Mishan, F. (2005). Designing Authenticity into Language Learning Materials. United Kingdom: Intellect Books.

Selby, C. & Woollard, J. 2013. Computational Thinking: The Developing Definition. Available: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/356481 [Accessed 25-04-2017].

Authentic texts or Authentic tasks? Towards a balanced reading diet

According to Alderson (1984:1) the demands of a globalised world require students to master a reading knowledge of a foreign language (FL) for their academic studies as well as for their professional and personal development. As a result, students are often assessed with a reading comprehension test that should demonstrate their reading abilities in the FL. Yet, this author claims that it is common for most students to fail to read in the FL as they seem to lack either basic understanding of texts, speed, knowledge of the language or mastery of reading strategies

One of the reasons for this failure may be derived from the lack of authentic activities. Teachers who ask students to answer direct reference questions in reading tasks do not appear to foster authentic reading comprehension compared to teachers who ask students inference questions, which go beyond the literal comprehension of information and demand for reorganization, inference, prediction, evaluation and personal response.

According to Van Lier (1996: 128, as cited in Mishan, 2005:15) authenticity does not get into the classroom by means of the materials or lesson plan, it is realised in the act of interpretation, and may be judged in terms of the degree of participation and personal involvement of the learner with the text. This idea has critical implication for the pedagogical classroom since what is important is what we do with a reading text rather than whether it belongs to a ‘real’ context.

It is the purpose of this presentation to address teachers’ current practices in relation to reading tasks in an attempt to help them broaden the scope of activities aimed at the readers’ understanding of written texts within an authentic pedagogical act. This talk will offer ideas on how to aim at authentic reading tasks which foster the acquisition of comprehension strategies. As Clarke puts it ‘teaching materials should reflect the authentic communicative purpose of the text’ (1989: 75, as cited in Mishan, 2005:71)

References:

Alderson, J.C. (1984). Reading in a foreign language: a reading problem or a language problem? In J.C. Alderson and A. H. Urquhart (eds.), Reading in a Foreign Language (pp 1-24). New York: Longman.

Mishan, F. (2005). Designing Authenticity into Language Learning Materials. United Kingdom: Intellect Books.

Around the world in 80 days

Global Cooking, Global Fun

New year, new projects

Last December I mentioned in my last post about XXI century skills for education: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, learning to live together. (Delors, 1996), This year, Clau and I decided to start with a new project about feelings and emotions, about being comfortable together, about learning to be in the group. The project was called "My shoes, your shoes" and studens enjoyed it a lot! They shared different experiences and how they felt about them, as well as the way the people helped them overcome difficult situations. Students praised each other and put themselves into their partners shoes. Together we laughed, we cried, but, most importantly, we learnt that we need to look around and beyond ourselves.

Retrieved from: https://www.pinterest.com/amc21/anti-bullying/

Final Reflection 2015

I was asked to think about strengths and weaknesses of the year, just like Crónica, TN and other channels do at the end of the year. There are thousands of moments that can be considered strong or weak enough to be mentioned in this post. Maybe I rather choose things that I want to do or have again next year and things from which I have learnt so as not to repeat them.

And now that I come to think again, at this time of the year, it sounds like a Christmas wish or plead to Santa!! I know I will have it, but I want to insist on this, just in case! I want to work with Clau again. That has been my strength this year, my support when I felt I was falling to pieces. So practical, she always has the exact words to make you feel better after the Tsunami. Always willing to work, always willing to make changes and to make things more interesting and funnier. She led me through the tangled world of 6th form, full of extra activities and responsibilities. I think we became a good team, with lots of ideas and open to suggestions.

Now, regarding the things I consider that I need to change for next year, I must mention first “communication” in general. Communication at school is not flowing fluently all the time. We are lacking moments in which we can sit down and reflect upon our work throughout the year. Fridays are not enough and the focus of our attention gets diverted to other aspects which are also important but may not be fundamental. I think we need to tackle obstacles when they occur, not at the end of the year when nothing can be done. We need to talk things over collaboratively, so as to find solutions to situations as a team. If I am to be specific, I’m referring to parent’s meetings. I take responsibility for the communication that failed between parents and me. I am responsible for the misunderstandings that occurred for things that I took for granted. Yet, the amount of things we are asked to bear in mind during the year is overwhelming if we consider the little time for reflection we have.  

This year has been a hard one for me, as I couldn’t reach the main objective: help students work their differences out, help them develop empathy for others. I know I failed. Today I came across a blog post which mentioned the 4 principles which should be present in the XXI century education: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, learning to live together. (Delors, 1996). I feel I could develop the first two, but I couldn’t accomplish anything valuable regarding the other two. Thus, these four pillars will be taken into consideration when planning lessons next year.

Delors, Jaques et al. (1996). "The Four Pillars of Education". Unesco. Retrieved 17/12/2015 from: 

http://www.uni-kassel.de/wz1/mahe/course/module4_1/01_delors96.pdf

Acto de Egresados 6to año EP

Quisiera compartir en este espacio el discurso que preparamos con Claudia Pugente para despedir a nuestros alumnos. 

Chicos, 

¿Como podemos empezar a despedirlos? Desde nuestro lugar queremos hablarles de manera sencilla, directa, sin tantas vueltas como tal vez sí tiene este idioma que nos tocó enseñarles. Queremos que hoy se lleven más que un recuerdo, o un momento, deseamos dejarles palabras llenas de sentido y significado, (que tal vez hoy a esta edad solo sean eso, palabras) pero sabemos que algún momento de la vida este discurso va a tomar forma más real, tipo en 3D. 

Hoy No los vamos a remontar a épocas pasadas, y preguntarles si recuerdan sus primeros pasos por el jardín, si recuerdan como lloraban en la puerta del colegio pidiendo ir a casa con sus papás. Tampoco los vamos a llevar a través de los 6 años de primaria, recordándoles spring concerts, actos escolares, gallery nights. No es necesario, sus papás probablemente tienen digitalizada cada etapa de sus vidas.

Sí, en cambio queremos hablarles de lo que está por venir. Es simplemente una nueva etapa. Están pasando al siguiente NIVEL de sus vidas, como en los videojuegos. ¿Y Cuál es la característica de un nuevo nivel, en Minecraft por ejemplo? Desafíos. Nuevos objetivos 

La vida es como un juego, y es importante ser consciente de que estoy jugando mi partido, y ganar o perder, depende de mí. Cómo lo juego, también. Cada nueva etapa es un nuevo nivel que hay que atravesar y que nos ayuda a llegar a nuestro objetivo. Y tal como en los juegos, cada nivel ofrece desafíos cada vez más importantes, los cuales requieren de la experiencia adquirida en las etapas anteriores, de las habilidades logradas y las estrategias que fuimos y seguimos desarrollando. Y acá está nuestro deseo, que disfruten de este nuevo nivel y los próximos que están por venir de la misma manera que disfrutan jugar al Minecraft. Sean perseverantes, insistan, muevan las fichas, los bloques. Construyan, armen, desarmen y comiencen de nuevo si hace falta. 

Y Si es necesario, tomen distancia, observen, reflexionen. No está mal pausar la jugada para analizarla con tranquilidad. Esto no quiere decir que la partida se termine. Siempre podemos darle PLAY nuevamente y a seguir jugando, pero esta vez con más fuerzas, más estrategias. En la vida también planificamos nuestras decisiones antes de avanzar, armamos la jugada, pensamos qué táctica funciona mejor en cada situación. Además puede pasar que la maniobra no salga como pensaban y es también parte del juego. De eso se aprende, se asumen las consecuencias, y se intenta otra vez y se sigue adelante con el juego. Siempre avancen porque, aunque más tarde se den cuenta que fue una mala jugada, la misma sirve para descartar, aprender y no volver a pasar por ese mismo lugar ó circunstancia. 

¿Cómo juegan cuando juegan al Minecraft? ¿En equipo, solos? Cada jugada es individual, cada uno de ustedes debe mover sus propias fichas para avanzar. Pero nunca están solos, siempre hay un compañero que les da una pista, que los ayuda a desarrollar una estrategia, que los guía. También hay compañeros con quienes jugar juntos, colaborativamente, con quienes complementarse y aunar fuerzas para ganar el partido. Entonces si no están solos, esas jugadas que ustedes arman repercuten en otros que juegan a su alrededor. Por eso tengan en cuenta que sus movimientos pueden afectar a estos jugadores, para mejor o a veces no tanto. Pero todos estos pasos nos llevan a algo nuevo. Tampoco es bueno mirar todo el tiempo la jugada del otro porque se pierde concentración en la propia jugada. Ténganse confianza, no busquen siempre la idea ó el apoyo del otro. Si están convencidos que es ahí donde quieren llegar, sigan para adelante. Hasta acá sabemos que cargan muchos conocimientos y vivencias en sus espaldas, y eso los ayuda a ser criteriosos: a nuestro parecer un aspecto fundamental para poder tener los pies sobre la tierra (estar bien plantados). 

Y por último, aunque no menos importante, todo lo contrario, DISFRUTEN. Es la mejor manera de transitar por esta vida Disfrutar mientras se juega, pasarlo bien en cada decisión, ser consciente de cada paso y aprovechar cada momento; además de ser la mejor forma de perseguir el éxito, ya es el éxito del ganador. Ganador es aquel que juega con alegría, vive con entusiasmo y aprende de sus errores, para seguir siempre avanzando, y creando nuevas formas de conseguir lo que se propone. Y si no tenés aún una estrategia muy elaborada, lo ves difícil o imposible: puede ser, pero NUNCA dejes de mover tu ficha, ya que la peor decisión es la que no se toma. ¿¿¿Seguimos jugando???

Piloting coding & gaming in the classroom...

To program or not to program? That's the question!

It is crucial to enhance students with one of the key skills of the XXI century: programming. Just like we teach reading or writing, programming should be included in every teacher’s agenda. 

As Mark Zuckerberg has already stated "In 15 years we'll be teaching programming just like reading and writing...and wondering why we didn't do it sooner." It is fundamental to incorporate principles of coding in our lessons as another skill to be developed. By starting from a young age, students will have developed the necessary strategies to succeed in the XXI century. 

Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science since it helps foster problem-solving skills, logic and creativity. Steve Jobs claimed that “Everybody in the country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think”. There is no need to be an expert or to start big in order to program, the only need is to be willing to accept challenges! 

  

Mystery Biomes Game

6^th form students at Newlands School have been studying the different biomes of the world and they would love to put this knowledge into practice by having Mystery Hangout Sessions to guess the biomes where is school is located.

1) Mystery Hangout 20 Questions: Each class tries to figure out the Biome of the other class without knowing beforehand.

Type of questions:

Some questions are similar to the traditional Mystery Game, but there are other questions that could be helpful

-         About the Weather: is it hot most of the year? Is it cold most of the year? Is the temperature moderate?

-         About the precipitation: does it rain less than 25 cm annually? More than … cm annually?

-         About the geographical features: is it icy? Are there many trees? Is it sandy?

-         About the flora, fauna and its adaptations: do plants have thick leaves? Are animals adapted to cold/hot weather.

2) Biome Exchange (10 minutes) - Each class shares information on the local biome. What is it like to live there? What animals or plants are typical in their region? How do you prepare for seasonal changes? What natural resources are found in the area?

Type of Biomes we are planning to connect to:

Desert - Less than 25cm of rain annually
Tundra - Glaciers, little plant life, north of the Arctic Circle

Taiga (Or Boreal Forest) - Below the Tundra (Russia, North America) Northern Hemisphere
Temperate Forest - Pacific Northwest of the United States, New Zealand
Tropical Rain Forest - Central and South America,

Grasslands: North America prairie, the Pampas, steppes of Eurasia
Deciduous Forest - Dense forest with four distinct seasons

References::

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/grasslands.htm

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss5/biome/

Games in the School, 2nd Round

My third and last MOOC of the first term

Created with Padlet

How to Teach Computing

This second learning diary was prepared for another MOOC

Created with Padlet

Creative use of Tablets in Schools

This is the learning diary which I prepared for the MOOC.

Created with Padlet

Argentinian Sins in the classroom

It might be that teacher's concern at the very beginning of the year is mainly Behaviour. It could also be the fact that we wish to settle the way we should work for the rest of the year. Now that I come to think of it, it could also be that I have been too influenced by the teachers my students had before. Whatever the reason is, I feel terribly worried about my student's behaviour. 

I've read a thousand articles about dealing with disruptive students and behavioural issues in the classroom. The truth is that I couldn't come with any definite conclusion or solution to the problem as many English webpages come with recipe-like ideas which may prove useful for foreign students. But my Argentinian students' of English have the Argentinian gifts of talking without listening to the person they are talking to, interrupting when it is somebody else's turn to talk, making unnecessary “funny” comments which disturbs the rhythm of the class, just to mention the most noticeable ones.

Thus, as it is an innate characteristic which comes with them and is activated once they receive their Argentinian ID, most of my students share this quality. I have a minimum of 19 students who talk at the same time, who interrupt, who ‘share’ unnecessary. What could be done when the majority of students behave similarly, when they feel that this kind of behaviour is the expected one for their ages in the XXI century?

I have tried a variety of feelings to ‘share’ with them, like emoticons in whatsapp. I’ve been happy that we had the challenge, confident that we could improve, disturbed that I couldn’t notice any change, angry because they didn’t react to my ‘speeches’ and sad because last Wednesday I realised I lacked the most important issue: trust. Every time I talk to them o even threaten them I, myself, don’t believe a word of what I am saying, how on earth can I transmit it to my students. Unfortunately, I am an Argentinian teacher of English who doesn’t trust the system any longer.

Next issue: how to 'kick the board' and do something for these Argies, both teachers and students...

21st century skills - Final Reflection

5th forms project have been designed and developed to enhance some of the skills necessary for a 21st century learner.

- Summarizing skills: when dealing with summarizing skills, students worked really hard reading webpages, books and cards which had information about the different projects. They read paragraphs and they had to obtain the main ideas, summarizing them in one or two sentences. Then, they created collaborative presentations with the information they gathered. They also designed mind maps which helped them study.

- Logical & Creative thinking: in our first project Helping Hands students analysed the situation of children in different parts of the world, they connected the place where they lived with their needs. They also read about children's rights and the extent to which they are respected or not around the world. They created a comparative chart collaboratively and they drew conclusions regarding this issue. During Green Helping Hands project students analysed the impact our actions have had on the environment. They investigated about energy & environmental issues. For this they had to find reliable sources, select relevant information, summarize the ideas and show them in a creative way. 

- Communicative skills: during assemblies students trained their skills for communication. They were asked to share their ideas and thoughts about the topics both fluently and accurately. They were given different functions which helped them develop their ideas further as well as specific vocabulary to be more precise when they expressed their beliefs. Besides students had various situations in which they made informal presentations during the projects.

They also developed their communicative skills in writing when they created different pieces of work such as comics, stories, descriptions, presentations, reports.

During the videocalls, students faced the challenge of communicating with both native and non-native speakers from different parts of the world, sometimes with unknown accent or with technological difficulties, but always achieving a successful exchange of messages.

- Reflective thinking (reflective moments): All of our projects contributed to the development of reflective skills as students used their knowledge of the world, their feelings and their perceptions to consider the different themes we worked with. Not only did they reflect upon their social commitment to people in need or the environment, but also about the role of ancient civilizations in shaping our culture and heritage. Furthermore, during the project The Time Machine they also implemented a journal in which they reflected upon their learning and the process carried out in the lesson. 

- Bringing the world into the classroom: 5th form students have connected with different classes from around the world, both synchronically and asynchronously. They have enjoyed learning about other cultures, sharing their interests and guessing the locations while developing geographic skills. They also used social media to report what was going on in real time, they used online browsers and maps to locate geographical features and monuments, as well as books, encyclopaedias and atlas.

- Collaborating with other teachers? (bilingual projects / cross cultural content / global themes) 

Even though it has not been agreed on during the teacher’s meeting, we worked on a bilingual content when we studied Ancient Greeks. We profited from the fact that students studied Greek myths and legends in Spanish at the beginning of the year, in order to build in knowledge regarding this ancient civilization. 

As far as cross cultural content is concerned, we have already mentioned that each of our projects dealt with topics that bridged gaps and expanded students’ view of the world.

5th form Projects took into account global themes such as children's rights, the environment, pollution, poverty etc; which aimed at raising social awareness and building global citizenship. 

Evidence of Reflection Class III

Finally, I delivered a second class to put all the concepts in bilingual education together, my reflections....

It has been an effective lesson as I could notice students’ active involvement and desire to speak. Most of them raised their hands and asked their own questions as the video we watched offered ideas and inquiries as well as fun. During the lesson there was a slight change in the sequence of plan. The language focus was carried out before expected as a couple of students noticed that the sentences they were given to read had “two verbs, one in the present and the other like in the past” (student’ sic). The previous day we worked on the changes a fictional city suffered and students described the way it looked in the past and the way it is nowadays. So, when the lesson began I reminded students of the two cities and asked them the following question: “In your opinion, what has happened? (making reference to a space left between the two pictures). Later, every time a student shared a “human action” I asked him/her if it was performed in the past and if we stopped doing it or if we continued doing it. Finally, I elicited from students the fact that there are actions that we did in the past but still have an effect in the present. Students participated actively because they felt they discovered how to use and frame this new item of language.

As far as formative assessment to monitor learners’ progress is concerned, several aspects were considered so as to engage students in an active participation and productive language skills. Each student was given the time to read the slips of paper, match them and think of the consequences individually. I have two students who feel threatened when they have to speak in front of the class, so they generally write what they are planning to say before exposing themselves and their ideas. Besides, different interaction patterns were used so that students could think on their own but also enrich their beliefs with their partners’ ideas in order to build up the information together. For example, after watching the video, students were given some minutes to think of some questions individually. After that, they discussed their thoughts in small groups and finally they shared their ideas as a whole class. They thought individually, they discussed in small groups and finally they shared to the classroom. In the end, traffic lights were used so that students evaluated their own understanding of the topic. Through this self-evaluation technique I could gather information regarding the student’s feelings in relation to the language item. Most of them agreed that the content was not difficult but that they needed more time and activities to process it since they felt like “yellow”. Only two students demanded a new explanation because they couldn’t grasp the idea of the lesson and other seven students gave “green light” to the lesson because they felt confident enough to use present perfect to talk about human impact on the environment.

Having participated in this course offered me a range of new possibilities to explore in the bilingual classroom. Even though I have been teaching for 10 years I always find I have got new things to learn. I have been using learning targets and success criteria for a few years and this course has strengthened the idea that they are crucial for students’ betterment since they clearly show them what they are expected to do, say and how to reach the desire outcome. This year I have also started working with the four C’s and they provide my lessons with a variety of tasks and skills which make them more meaningful. I have slightly developed my understanding of the triptych, I found the use of it interesting and hard at the same time as I had never heard of it before. I generally have a functional language routine at the beginning of the lessons and sometimes it is not related to the tasks of the day or it relates back to the previous day’s activities. Yet, if I think of it as the language for, it might be useful as I give students the chance to use an item of language accurately which is contextualised. I still think I need to continue being trained as there are things I could not grasp in these three months and which are crucial such as language through. As I have not sufficiently developed my ability to implement language through in my lesson plan, I consider I need to investigate more about it. Having read about essential questions and the revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy, I realise I both are useful to plan my lessons so I consider I need to keep them  at hand to make sure I include activities that cater for these cognitive demands.

Evidence of Reflection Class II

When I participated in the course of Teaching Bilingual Education I delivered a lesson taking into consideration the theory analysed in class. Here I share my reflection on that lesson.

I consider that the lesson was effective in terms of students understanding of content. The most significant aspect which helped students understand the information better was the activation of prior knowledge. As Petty (2006) claims, “to make progress in ‘understanding’ means linking to prior knowledge”. Because there were so many instances in which students worked on content, it was easier for them to comprehend how to use it in the main tasks. First of all, the video gave them an idea on the topic and offered them more information about water. Then, the use of pictures and labels triggered students’ knowledge of vocabulary which was known or stored somewhere in their minds. Together, they worked out the lexical items they needed for the lesson. Besides, they had to think of the links of those concepts to the topic in question. After all these interventions, students were ready to tackle the texts without difficulties and to use the data included to understand maps, which also gave them more information to build their own conclusions and hypotheses. I think that the lesson run smoothly because there had been enough activation of prior knowledge and scaffolding so that students could work out the text autonomously. Mehisto, Frigols & Marsh (2008) consider that we need to anchor the information into our prior knowledge in order to move it into our long-term memory so that it can be recalled at a later time.

However, I think that time constrains have been an issue in this first lesson I was observed. I was so concerned about giving students opportunities to access prior knowledge that there were many questions students asked and time was not enough. Then I had to rush through language, so content and language focus had not been properly balanced. This understanding is essential to me as a practitioner because I think that next lesson needs to have fewer activities, but more effective ones so that there is no need to activate knowledge with three different tasks and there is more time to dedicate to the comprehension and production of language. Because I was not yet confident about the lesson format I couldn’t handle timing properly. I will now need to organize the activities coherently, bearing in mind time sequences so that I can work on both content and language simultaneously, since content and language acquisition go “hand in hand”. (Mehisto, Frigols & Marsh). This could be important to students because it could have a better impact on their learning of both content and language progressively and systematically, in a meaningful way.

Another aspect I would like to improve for the next lesson is the kind of questions I ask students during the lesson. I noticed that most of the questions I pose are questions that guide, questions that lead and, in a smaller degree, questions that hook. Yet, I did not include enough essential questions, which are open-ended, thought provoking and intellectually engaging (Mc Tighe & Wiggins). Acquiring this skill is significant for me as a practitioner since essential questions aim at stimulating thought, provoking inquiry, sparking more questions, thus, demanding for higher order thinking skills. Because I am not yet confident about this topic, I will need to plan thoroughly the type of questions that might be asked to trigger students understanding.