LITERATURE SEEN AS A WHOLE!

Hello Bloggers!

As you probably know the term is ending and that means that this fantastic subject is coming to an end too. That is why I have decided to make a reflection where I will try to include most of the things that our teacher Raquel Fernández has taught us.

First of all, I would like to mention that I am sure that all of us are impressed of how many possibilities working literature offer. That is why we should not understand literature as reading alone because… 

Literature offer other fruitful and more attractive options! 

·      TALES could be used written or orally. It is important that we used them with some scaffolding such as pictures or videos, to help students comprehend their meaning. Moreover, we should keep in mind that tales are not just stories that we tend to forget after reading them. The reason is because they offer pre and after reading possibilities to analyze their meaning and encourage children to keep working with literature, for instance PERFORMING a tale

·     SONGS are also literature! They could be used in different ways depending on their purpose. For example: there are songs to improve students’ pronunciation, as you know, it is the case of YO-YO PHONICS. If what we want is to deal with hidden messages we could use NURSERY RHYMES, they are easy to memorize due to their rhythm.  Another good tool are JAZZ CHANTS, they are really flexible because you could include the content you want using the guidelines established by Carolin Graham. Jazz Chantz are useful to help students memorize content or vocabulary.

·   POETRY is not as boring as you think! It usually seems tricky for our students however it depends on how you apply it in your lessons. You could create different working corners where in groups students explore different types of poems. You could enhance them using RIDDLE POEMS where they have the challenge to solve some problems or LIST POEMS where they could add one more verse.

·     THEATRE offers us also different possibilities. We could use FROZEN FRAMES to review or check a content. Also, they could be used to create comic situations where students should guess what is happening. Another option is DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE where students could read aloud a text emphasizing expressions. 

 Moreover, literature could be perfectly implemented in a 

Bilingual context for several reasons:

• It deals with the 4C's and as we all know they are essential elements of all CLIL lessons (please click on the picture to see detailed explanation)
  

• Students are learning content and English at the same time with the help of scaffolding: activating pre-knowlegde, use of visual tools, contextualizing, modelling, bridging, schema building, re-presenting text or developing metacognition
• Literature could cater different learners' needs through the implementation of all multiple intelligences

In conclusion, I would like to mention that with literature is possible create meaningful learning experiences where students learn content without realizing they are doing it! Moreover, literature also offer motivating contact that encourage learners to keep working with different activities that help them to improve their self-esteem. Also, as we could see along the subject the resources that we could used are very different and creative for children.

Finally, I would like to thank our teacher Raquel Fernández for all the things we have learnt with her. It has been an excellent experience where we all have discovered many things and  have spent a great time!

Classmates! It has been a pleasure reading all your blog reflections!

See you soon!

 

I CAN TELL IT WORKSHOP

Hello bloggers!

Today I am very glad to share with you one of my best experiences during my degree. It happened thanks to the project called IcanTellIt designed by my teacher Raquel Fernández.

Have you ever imagine that new technologies, fairy tales and reading promotion could work together? With my bilingual teachers partners everything is possible!

We have enjoyed this activity with the students of 2^nd year Primary Children coming from Daoiz y Velarde State school. 

• PLOT OF THE PROJECT

A Boring Wizard has started to blow all the pages books and all the fairy tales characters have forgotten their identity. However, these magnificent students will help them to recover their memory and retell the story again.

This main objective will be achieved with the help of ICT and the different workshops created by all my partners, each one belongs to different popular fairy tales. Below you could find the description of my group proposal.

• MY GROUP POPULAR FAIRY TALE

When students arrived to our workshop they found a class very decorated: many flowers and birds, a big tree and the walls were re-covered by grass. Moreover, three characters were playing and dancing, trough this song they should guess who we were. Let’s see if you guess it!

So… Who are we? Very good the THREE LITTLE PIGS! After this song, we observed a big poster sticked in the tree that said wanted. The children also discovered that was the wolf paying attention to our descriptions. Then, the students should build the story with ICT before the wolf comes into the class. Subsequently, they were divided in groups of three and each one had a different house. Children should build their house with the correct material. Furthermore, with the help of additional characters: Mrs. Mouse, Mrs. Fairy and Mr. Lion, they should think about a good plan to scared the wolf. Finally, these students worked really hard and we all were save =)

• WORKING WITH ICT

As it is mentioned before, this project has been designed with the help of ICT. In our case, we have used a good and useful program called Edilim (click there if you want to see more information). We discovered it in the first course of our degree with our teacher Inmaculada Tello. It is a free tool that let you build multimedia books where you could combine different types of activities: matching, filling gaps, choosing the correct option, classifying pictures, working with texts... One of the main advantages that Edilim has is that could be used in any subject and in the language you choose! Moreover, it is possible to add pictures and voices notes. During the project we use it to help students:

1.          Recognize the three little pigs’ houses
2.          Identify the wolf role
3.          Build the story again

  

Students enjoyed a lot because they had an active attitude moving the pictures and thinking about the correct option.

Would you like to share with me how you use ICT in your workshop?

Finally, I would like to congratulate all my partners, they all do a great job and we could see how children enjoyed!

Thank you for reading my blog! See you in the next post! 

Best wishes:

READING STRATEGIES: MEANING, SOME EXAMPLES AND IMPORTANCE IN CLIL

Hello blogger explorers!

The other day in one of Raquel’s Fernandez lessons I realized how important is to design effective reading strategies. But… First of all, do you know what is a reading strategy? Here you have my own definition, I built it when Raquel asked us about it:

Reading strategies are educational tools that a person use to read and comprehend a text.

 As you could see, they have many connections in an educational context. The reasons are because they could…

·         Facilitate the reading comprehension of our students

·         Motivate them: previous, during and after the reading activity

·         Involve the students with a text in all senses

·          Be used by learners and teachers

After talking about the meaning of reading strategies and its definition we started analyzing them. Raquel divided us into groups of three people, each one should analyze a strategy. Later, we shared our descriptions and reflections about the different Method in a website called Padlet ( you could click on it in order to see all my partners work). Once I have read all the comments and videos I have selected the following ones: (Notice that my selection has been done taking into account the previous, during and after stages)

• BUILDING READING COMPREHENSION: this reading strategy should be done as a warm-up. The teacher takes an important role because he/she has to ask questions. They should make students reflect about characters, places or content that appear in the story. Moreover, students also play an important part because they have to produce and share their own deductions. This way, the teacher could assess which is his/her students’ previous knowledge in order to improve it.

• CRITICAL READING: this creative activity could be used during the reading process. However It must start before students read the first page. The reason is because they should state their hypothesis paying attention to the book cover. After this, students can change their opinions orally. While they are reading students should think about other questions and write them down in a small paper, such as a post-it. Moreover, they should classify them into different categories (why, what, when, where, who, how). It is important to mention, that this procedure will help the student to be able to answer the question by themselves.

• SUMMARY MAP: it is an example of an after reading activity. The aim is to create a summary map. To do so, the teacher should establish general questions that help them to achieve this objective, for example: who is the main character? Which are the main problems? Which are the solutions?. In addition, these questions should be answered in groups in order to develop their speaking skills and also to exchange their ideas. Once, they have done it, the summary could be easily done.

IMPORTANCE IN CLIL

As you could see these different reading methods could be applied in any subject, not only with literature. It is because their main goal is to help student to understand the meaning of a text. Moreover, as we all probably know CLIL deals with, among other things, communication and content. Sometimes, bilingual students feel that is difficult to understand the content because it is explained in L2. In this case, reading strategies could work as the language and content scaffolding they need. The reason is because they help students to synthesize the main information in order to make it more understandable. Furthermore, as it could be observed in the examples I have proposed, all these kind of activities start using LOTS, where students are applying, understanding and remembering; through teacher’s questions or activating previous knowledge. However, the process ends using HOTS because students could create, evaluate and analyze through their own exchanging opinions, assessing their hypothesis or building their own summary. This means, that with reading strategies we are also working on all cognitive skills which is also a big component in CLIL.

In my opinion, I think is important to be aware of how reading strategies could facilitate and improve the reading comprehension of our students. Also, I consider that as (future) teachers we should work with them in class in order to teach our students how easily they could be used.

Now, that you have read my post would you like to share with me: which are your perceptions between reading strategies and CLIL? 

See you in the next post! Best wishes

FROZEN FRAMES

Hello again my blogger friends!

In the last posts we saw practical activities to develop child’s literature through reading. However, have you ever wonder if there is any other way to promote it? Of course there is!

It is the case of Frozen Frames!!!

 It is a funny and creative activity where students learn literature through performing and exchanging oral opinions.

Frozen Frames consists on performing a scene of a story they know. It should be done in groups therefore students should interact with each other. The components of the group should establish a dialogue where they talk about the argument of the story they want to perform and also how are they going to do it. After, the final product could be shown to the rest of the class. Finally, the teacher could suggest that the other groups guess which is the story that their partners are performing.

Here you have clear examples of Frozen Frames. Pay special attention and let’s see if you could guess which story refers to each photo!

How was it? Did you guess all the stories?

As you could see, Frozen Frames could be a useful tool where they could develop their creativity and communicative skills. Moreover, it should be done in groups therefore socializing is also a big component in this activity. Also, we should not forget that frozen frames is a good educational application to activate children’s previous knowledge because they are putting into practice their own ideas.

Furthermore, you should know that it has a simple application because it does not require any special material.

If you want to put into practice this funny activity you could follow the following steps, at the same time you will also find the advantages of using this activity:

•  Make groups of 4-5 people and tell them that they have 5 minutes to choose one known story, for example one fairy tale

In this step, they are learning how to organize themselves. Moreover, students are also developing their communicative skills. It happens because all of them have to give strong reasons about why choosing the story they like.

•  Once they have chosen one story, they should talk about its plot

One more time students are using their communicative and social skills. In this case, all together should contribute to build the whole story and summarize it.

•  Students should choose one relevant moment of the story and try to perform it

This time students should agree to choose a specific moment of the story and try to find a creative way to perform it.

•    Show the final result to the rest of the class

During this last step, students are remembering their previous knowledge and trying to find the connection with the action shown. 

Application in a Bilingual context

As it is mentioned before, frozen Frames is a really visual activity where students show their knowledge using their own body resources. These strong reasons make us think that it could be also used in a Bilingual Context. Many educational experts agree with the idea that the content should be shown in different perspectives to catch the attention of all our students, for instance reading, using schemas, writing and also observing pictures, videos or FROZEN FRAMES.

How to use it? It is simple you must choose a topic learnt in class, for example The five senses or The water cycle. Students should review their knowledge and try to represent it in front of the class. Here you have an example of The five senses:

As it shows, frozen frames is a good educational activity that help students to acquire or remember the main content of a story or a subject topic. Moreover, it is simple and funny so why don’t we use it?

Would you like to share with me some other good educational applications using Frozen Frames?

Thank you for reading me! See you in the next post! 

CREATING STORIES

THE THREE RECYCLING BINS!

Hello my blogger friends!

I am sure that sometimes you have thought that it is very difficult to find a story that fits with the topic you want to talk about. Nonetheless, have you ever tried to create your own one?

• MODEL

Dominic Streames suggested a good practical way to do it. He explained this model in a Tesol- Spain conference in Bilbao 2012. He proposed a narrative structure that must be follow in all the stories created. Moreover, he explained that is important that the teacher always uses the same gestures. In this way, students will have more facilities to understand the content of the tale. According to the expert Dominic Streames it is not enough because students also need visual scaffolding. Due to this fact is also necessary to create several pictures that help the student to follow the story.

Here you have a clear example of creating a tale following Dominic Streames model. It is called The Big tree and the Three Recycling Bins. If you pay special attention to the sequence and structure of the tale you will notice that it is easy to change. 

• APPLICATION IN A BILINGUAL CONTEXT

As we already know, if we want to attract children’s attention we must propose a motivating activity, such as a storytelling. According to the curriculum Royal Decree 1513/2006 from 7^th December the students of the First Cycle of Primary Education start to work about recycling, therefore the story could be used to introduce the topic and activate students’ previous knowledge.. 

Through this story students will...

 ü  …Recognize how recycling bins are

“We are three, we recycle and we are hungry”

Physical appearance looking at the story pictures

 ü  …Identify their function

“We will eat Mr. Rubbish (…)

 So the Three Recycling Bins opened their lids and ate Mr. Rubbish. 

They ate, and ate, and ate and finally the Three Recycling Bins won Mr. Rubbish”

Paying attention to the pictures, they will see that each bin take a different type of material

 ü  …See that recycling helps us to keep clean our cities

“Oh no!” said the big and strong tree/

Don’t worry” said the Three Recycling Bins we will eat Mr. Rubbish”

 ü  …Recognize that they should not dirty their cities 

“I am Mr. Rubbish and I will destroy your park”

Moreover, we should not forget that with this story we are not only working  science contents because we are also helping to produce language! Storytelling provides contexts for talking, listening, reading and writing. 

As you could see there are plenty of advantages that encourages us to create our own tales. That is why I recommend all the teachers to use them in class. Not only the student will acquire new curricular and language contents, the teacher will also learn how to adjust the content and the language according to their students’ needs! 

STORYTELLING

Hello my blogger friends, 

My name is Carla and I am a last year student of the Bilingual Teaching Training degree. As you could supposed I am really interested in educational resources and innovative teaching methodologies. In my blog called If you read they read I am going to talk about how to use child’s literature. In my opinion, it is one of the best sources we have to teach our learners. Through tales or songs they are learning new content, vocabulary and grammar at the same time and with a bit of imagination we could make this process really funny and educative.

The first thing I would like to share with you is this video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DtyAdeVlNg

I watched last week in one of the subjects I am studying this term. As you could see, it is a lesson for Infant Education children and although they do not talk a lot they are able to understand almost everything. I think it is because the teacher is using scaffolding continuously. First of all, she did a warm-up were the students learnt all the unknown words that appear in the story. From my point of view the best resource used in this part is bringing objects, which is an example of modeling scaffolding. Also, before they started reading they practice phonics through a song . Secondly, the teacher read the story but it was in an interactive way because she was asking questions continuously. In this part, students are acquiring all the content because they are recognizing all the new vocabulary in the tale. Finally, the learners made an activity where they had to put in order the sequences of the tale.

Now that we have analyzed this activity, I would like to share with you a second video 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIfzSqJ9c3U

This belongs to a lesson of second year of Primary Education. In this case the teacher have prepared several activities where she is going to check if the students have understood the story. As it shows, the teacher is making questions and there is a few use of scaffolding because they should already comprehend the vocabulary. During the lesson we could also appreciate three parts. In the first one, the students started remembering the tale content through Laura’s questions. Before start reading it, they check phonics repeating words. All along the second part, they read the story together, however there are some words hidden, those they learnt previously. Using this good activity you could see if they students have comprehend and acquire the meaning of the word. Finally, they finish the lesson putting in order the sequences, the same activity of the first video.

From my point of view, they are two good examples of dealing with stories in class. With the first video we have seen that is essential make a previous reading activity where students could see the new grammar structures and words. And in the second video, we saw a good example of how checking student’s comprehension and phonics.

However, I would like to change a little bit the ending activity that the two teachers used. For example, in the second video once the students have recognized the different parts of the tale (minute 4:45)  they could performance the story. In this point they are able to do it because they have already matched the main sentence with the picture. I think that if we let students create by themselves we will see that they have understood the tale and it is a creative activity to check if it is true. Moreover, students would enjoy doing it because they will take an active role.

Before I finish this post I would like to ask you if agree with me, do you think it is a good way to finish the lesson?

Thank you for reading my post,

See you soon