COUNTRIES AND STATES WITH GENIALLY

 

In the first year of CSE, unit 8 was related to countries and languages so I dicided to take advange of this tool in order they create an infographic of an English-speaking country. As I have two groups form the 1^st year, the other group worked on USA and their different states as they preferred to discover new things about that country.

After deciding the country or state to look for information (surface, capital, inhabitants, economic resources, among others), each pair had at their disposal a laptop to look for that information on webpages provided by the teacher as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world.

In the next session, a tutorial about genially was shown in the interactive whiteboard and they started to use the program to make their infographics.

Students’ pairs were decided according to their English level in order to provide reinforcement to those students with a lower level and promote collaborative work. The project was organized in three sessions with the laptops and a final one when they presented their infographics to the rest of the class so as all of them learn about the the different countries. While one pair was presenting, they had to take notes because that pair could make them questions about the issues discussed when the presentations finished. In this sense, the teacher is sure that all students are paying attention.

The next session a checklist, in order to self assess their work and the one of their peers, was given. I also use a rubric to assess their final products like in the example below

	1-4	5-6	7-8	9-10
Task	Doesn’t talk about the topic clearly	Tries to accomplish the task but includes no related topics	Tries to accomplish the task and focus on the topic	Focuses on the topic

 

Intearctio/ Expressio

Waits to be asked Short answers Speaks with many stops Doesn’t let partner interact

Interacts only using short answers Speaks with several stops/ hesitation Doesn’t encourage

Speaks with stops/ hesitation Uses short questions/ answers Encourages interaction

Speaks fluently Engages in natural conversation Repeats to encourage interaction

 

Organization	Has poor organization Doesn’t include elements	Uses restricted connectors in phrases Misses one element	Includes the elements Uses connector adequately	Includes elements and shows creativity Connectors
Production	Inadequate word choice Mother tongue interference Frequent grammatical errors	Adequate word choice Occasional grammatical errors Fairly pronunciation	Adequate word choice Few grammatical errors Good pronunciation	Adequate word choice without grammatical errors Excellent pronunciation

I think Genially is a fantastic tool as they feel motivated when using ICTs andtheir presentations resulted to be awesome

Final task inspiration

 

Reading Miss Benitez’ experience with Pixton and her task has been really inspiring for me.

I am going to take her idea and use it with my 4th year of CSE group as they are reading a reader adapted from Anna Frank’s diary.

For the last month, we have been reading a chapter during class time each Friday and discussing it.

I am going to assign them a final task in which in groups of 3 they make a short comic per chapter, choosing the one they prefer and summarising it in other to present the main events simplifying the story.

In this sense, visual material will provide an extra help to know what happened in each chapter and this could be an excellent assessing evidence to know if they have understood correctly the chapters

Comics with Pixton

Practising writing with your students of the 1st year of CSE is more motivating with Pixton, as they create their own stories at the same time they improve their digital competence

In this class I have organised groups of 3 according to their English level, fostering coopeartive work.

In the first session, I explained the final task and grouped the students. In groups, they decided the characters in their story, the setting, main conflict and solution

The teacher also provided them with story dices so as to they can be inspired and play at the same time. In the next two sessions, computer trolleys available at highschool were provided in order to carry out the final product.

The objectives were to develop their digital competence, and their group work. In this sense, I guided them to organise the different members' job and assign each one a task. Youtube videos about Pixton were also shown so as they were able to manage it correctly.

The results were awesome as you can see in the examples. The majority of the group loved the activity as they feel capable of creating a comic. On the other hand, the problem with Pixton is that you only have a 7 days free trial, so groups with a lower level need more time to finish their tasks.

The final day, a presentation on the digital board was done by each group. In this way, they could practice speaking from writing.

The other groups were provided with the rubric the teacher uses for assessment. In this sense, they could obtain a mark and provide feedback to their classmates. Moreover, a self and peer evaluation checklist was provided to each member of the group in order to reflect about their work.
 

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I prepared this activity for my third year group since we were working with vocabulary related with clothes, materials and patterns.

As the final work was to make video with a haul of their newest clothes, I considered presenting them an example and in this sense they were aware of what they have to include in their videos.

This was the first lesson of the unit where the main vocabulary was presented. This is why, the lesson started with a brainstorming about clothes as an initial evaluation of the previous knowledge of the group. Then, this video was shown together with questions which helped them with its comprehension and as a way to introduce new vocabulary related with patterns and materials.

Once we finished, different pictures were presented to help them infer new words. The lesson finished with an activity in which they had to describe what the people were wearing in the pictures ordering the words presented in a box so as they could learn the order of adjectives when we have more than one together.

As homework, a Kahoot which summarized all the content seen during the lesson was assigned.

Next year, I consider that other example could be added as some of my students needed extra help

Time toast

Timetoast

I have just known this resource to practice my students' reading abilities.

This is what I planned an activity with my students from the 1^st year of CSE since in Unit 7 they were learning the past simple and they needed to know a little bit more about important women to have feminine references to be inspired.

Therefore, I formed groups of three students trying to make them according to their level and that everybody learns something new. Once the groups were formed I created  the activity in classroom providing them this link, https://www.womansday.com/life/g42642115/famous-women/ , so they could decide among 15 important women the one they wanted to learn more about. Once they decided, they had access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There, they had to select the information to create the timeline with the most important events in this woman’s life.

I have already received two of the assignments and I am really happy with the results, although some of the students had problems to meet and do the assignment.

Next time, I consider I am going to employ class time and use the laptops available at high school to avoid this possible inconvenient.

Now, it is time to look for a co-evaluation sheet and that they tell me what they consider they have learnt with this assignment.

Any of you know a place where I can find evaluation sheets according to their level? Will appreciate it very much!

Reading is a must

 

Since I have memory, books have always been in my life. I am the eldest daughter of two avid readers and my parents’ house is full of books.

But my relationship with reading was not so perfect as it could seem. My father being a teacher made he taught me how to read the summer I was 4. I remember that as an awful experience because I was learning how to read while my sister and cousins were out playing or at the beach. Therefore, this provoked that I hated reading during a few years and that I only read when it was strictly necessary, that was for school.

However, my mum, eager to make me love books as she did, decided to try buying me whodunit detective books. I became fascinated because I was able to choose the path I wanted the plot to follow so I investigated every single path and wanted to learn always more.

Nowadays, I could say that reading is one of my favourite pastimes. I read novels, drama and even some poetry in Spanish normally written on paper. Before going to sleep as a means to relax is my favourite time, but this is also a trap as cannot tell the times I could not sleep until I finished a book.

I also read a great bunch of works in English but they are more related with news or scholar books on the Internet as they are more related with my job.

English every damn day

 This blog has been created to English teachers and students

A few months ago, I met an old friend that is living in London. He married an English man, so he comes to Spain only on holidays and special occasions. As he was staring at me watching how I was having a conversation with his husband, he told me: "You don't now anymore how to speak English"

I was shocked but realized that he was right. Since the last time I went to live abroad... 13 years! So, my English is rusty! 

Since the only way to speak a language correctly (at least for me) is continuously practicing it, I decided in that moment that I needed to use it every damn day in a way or another.

This is why I have decided to create this blog, to share with other students and teachers my experience in re-learning a language and the tips I consider useful or relevant that could help also people in this same situation

Here I share with you different Youtube channels by English teachers that I consider very useful to practice and solve doubts:

https://www.youtube.com/@MonicaRedondoArias

https://www.youtube.com/@JForrestEnglish

https://www.youtube.com/@bbclearningenglish