My didactic unit: "Fantasy turns reality"

Today I come with my didactic unit called “Fantasy turns reality”. I’ve spend so much time working on it,  in order to do a good presentation in my oral communication subject.

The unit corresponds to an art class given in English language; it’s for the second cycle of primary education for the 4^th grade.  Doing this didactic unit I’ve learned what is CLIL.

What is ‘CLIL?

'CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focussed aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language'. (Marsh, 1994)

This approach involves learning subjects such as history, geography or others, through an additional language. It can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing in the youngsters a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards themselves as language learners. (Marsh, 2000).

Didactic Unit: Magical beings from Sabri Liazid Abdelkader

The "mention" is OK but what's there beyond?

It’s very difficult to state what I want to do next year. This is just because the situation of the country changes very fast and this means that it doesn’t offer you many options to choose. That’s the reason why, many students who finished their studies, they decided to go abroad due to the many jobs they offer in some countries. Meanwhile, I always think that no matter how difficult is the way, if your effort is big, you will have success and reach your dreams.

The English mention had opened my mind, in the sense, that now I know perfectly that being an English teacher is the right way.

When I finish my studies, I would like to start preparing myself to the national exam, because I would love to work in a school and be all the creative that I couldn’t be during some of my years of degree, but in this case, as a teacher and not as student.  Actually, I think that a few teachers gave me the opportunity to be creative and to present jobs on a way I would liked. But that's another topic…

I would also like to do a "master", maybe as an expert of bilingual education or as a secondary teacher and continue my English studies in the official school of languages.

How can music help me as a learner of English?

Music can help you to improve English in many ways...

First of all, the lyrics are a very important aspect in every song, and fundamentally they are written in English. So you can understand better some structures or learning new vocabulary. Furthermorek, there is something really strange that occur in English classes; students sometimes pronounce better when they listen to music than an everyday structure learned in class. There are some researches that state the following thing: 

Using music in a language acquisition context generates interested students, but there are other effects, including higher vocabulary acquisition, a natural context for words, extra-linguistic clues to meaning and exaggerated prosody, all of which aid second language acquisition. Language teachers have much to gain from familiarizing themselves with the educational uses of music and the effect of music on thought and behavior. Music's effect on language acquisition has also been proven in clinical studies by music therapists, who see similar results.

As a conclusion, teachers can make use of this useful tool when it’s possible without abusing. It will promote motivation and will make the teacher in tune with the class.

Blogs are important in English classes...

How can a blog help me as an English teacher?

From my point of view, a blog is a very useful tool, not only for an English teacher but for other professions. Blogs are important for several reasons:

They are useful to keep in contact with people that share the same tastes, interest, experiences, information, events, meetings, etc. It makes you think about many topics and it makes you free to say whatever you want. Nowadays, what we denominate blogs, are one of the form of extended interpersonal communication.

As a future English teacher, I think it’s important because you can share and maintain your students updated with the class work. Furthermore, you can also use some extra activities for supporting the work in class.
Likewise, you can also introduce some voluntary work as texts, useful vocabulary, listening, videos, articles, etc. The most important thing of blogging is the relationship that you can create not only with your students but with people you’ve ever met before. And this is important, because you can also meet other English teachers and share your experiences, works, classroom problems, etc.

An unexpected visit...

Today we receive the visit of a very important person in our city in the field of the English teaching; his name is Jesus Canca Lara, and he works at an adult education center called Edrissis. 

When we saw him for the first time, we thought that he was a very involved, innovative and original English teacher. 

We started with a warming up. He told us to write the name of a song that we like in sticky notes and then we post them in the blackboard. Once we did that, we just realize that wasn’t any paper in white, everything was written, and at that precise moment, we realize how relevant music is for everybody. Besides, we talked about so many important topics. 

Blog can be a very useful tool, and everyone should use it, not only in the field of education but in others.

Furthermore, we’ve been talking about "The fun theory". After four years of degree learning about so many “theories” in subjects as psychology and didactics, I realize that this one, which is a very important one, was unknown for me. 

We saw a very interesting video. And for sure, there are many things to say about this video, but I will let you see it, and you’ll understand it for yourself…

We've been talking about an author that I’ve never listened about, his name is Tim Murphey. He wrote a book called "Music and Song". I read this quote in his presentation and I thought it was very interesting.

"We know that music is not one of the conventional categories of language study (grammar, vocabulary, etc), but it can be the content matter of any of these categories".

(Tim Murphey -"Kanda University of International Studies"; Japan)

We also talked about why blog is a very useful tool for the educational world.

Some of the keywords that appear in his presentation were.

• Motivation

• Self learning

• Innovation

The flipped class and the Khan Academy

"The flipped class"

Today in class, we have been talking about the "Flipped Class". There is here some information that is very relevant about this new style of giving class in the article and the image below.

 http://oupeltglobalblog.com/2013/10/09/connecting-online-and-in-class/

"The Khan Academy"

When we start talking and reflecting about this new way of teaching, our teacher Fernando told us that there is an organization which is called “The khan academy” that provides a free world-class education anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Read, Summarize and Expose...

This is the article that I read: "Why Oreos are as addictive as cocaine to your brain"

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

This is a Screenshot that I've made remarking the most important information of the article.

Here is my summary of the article:

A small new study tells us that Oreo’s cookies may produce on us the same effect as some drugs like morphine or cocaine. This small study demonstrates why once you started eating Oreos, you can’t stop. Furthermore, they discovered that rats - those they had been used in the experiment- they like to eat Oreo’s creamy first as humans.

 Some scientific proofs reveals that eating Oreos activate a zone in the brain called “nucleus accumbens” which is normally activated when pleasure or addiction. This shows that the amount of fat and sugar is more delectable on our brains than drugs. It also shows that a bad behavior at the hour of eating those types of low-priced and high calories foods could be more dangerous because of its accessibility. There are many studies that talk about the effect of some sugars in the brain that they leave much to be desired.

Anyway, this study will be presented at the Neuroscience’s annual conference.

Here is my presentation...

Oreos are addictive. from Sabri Liazid Abdelkader

Some days ago, our teacher Fernando talked about a new app unknown for me which is called....

What is Zite and how does it work?

We all want to be in touch with the “Zeitgeist” — the spirit of our times. We want to know the current events, important ideas and smart opinions that are circulating in our world-what’s happening and what’s interesting. And we want to be challenged with experiences that are new and unexpected.

With so much information available online today, it’s increasingly difficult and time-consuming to find the content we want. That’s where Zite comes in. Zite evaluates millions of new stories every day, looking at the type of article, its key attributes and how it is shared across the web. Zite uses this information to match stories to your personal interests and then delivers them automatically to your iPad or iPhone.

Zite harnesses and blends decades of research that it has tuned during six years of product development. Only Zite delivers your personal slice of the Zeitgeist.

Personally, I couldn't use this app because it's only available for apple devices, but my classmates told me that it's really cool.

Once we talked about this new application, Fernando sent us "Homework", we had to choose, read, do a summary and then a presentation of an article.

Task 1 : "The ME Pecha-kucha"

The first time that I heard my teacher talking about “The Pecha-Kucha” I didn't understood why he was talking in chineese meanwhile we were in English communication class.
But no, the word was Japanese... -.-
Later I understood what a pecha kucha means…

A pecha kucha is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each one. So you can imagine how I felt while I was exposing my presentation in class. Yes, I was drowning...

Task 1 the pecha kucha from Sabri Liazid Abdelkader

¡ProjectsProjectsProjectsProjectsProjects!

Hi buddies.

In our first class of oral communication we've done so many things, but the most important thing is that we've been talking about so many projects that they will be reality soon.
I love projects, I really do, so I'm really exciting for what's coming.

When we started our class, Fernando made us a very simple question...

What do we do to improve our english?

It's seems a very simple question, but it has so many answers.

Once the teacher asked us, he gave some "sticky notes" in order to Brainstorming. Everyone were very motivated so the "sticky notes" started flying and the blackboard passed from green to all possible colours.

Some of my ideas were:

• Have an English corner in class. 

•  Talk with our partners in English. 

•  Watch movies and read books in English. 

•  Etc.

When all the projects were exposed, our teacher asked us to make some groups and just try to work with those projects.

My partner was Beatriz Lopez and our project was "The English Themed Party".

Let's start describing our project:

What is the project about?

The project consists of a celebration of a party where everything has to be related to English: English culture, English language, etc. The main objective of this project is to practice the foreign language in an enjoying context that provides a relaxing atmosphere.

Who is it for?

It can be an activity for everyone who wants to participate from our campus.

How long?

It can last an afternoon time (e.g. from 6 pm and on)

What do we want to achieve?

There are so many things that we want to achieve:

•          Participation of the students (the more, the better).
•          Enjoyment for everybody (having a good time with friends).
•          Practice of English (speaking all the time in English).
•          Feeling comfortable in an English surrounding or setting.
•          Knowing/learning some cultural aspects about the British.

What do we need?

• English themed decoration (flags, balloons with printed flags...)
• Typical English food and drink (tea, british cupcakes, pancakes with a blueberry on the top),
• Typical English clothes (e.g. top hats, monocles, moustaches, royal guard uniforms…)
• Music from English singers (The Beatles, Adele, Jessie J, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Amy Winehouse, The sex pistols, Phil Collins, Lily Allen, Motorhead, Coldplay…)

Our party decoration

In the case of decoration, there are many things that we can use to promote a british atmosphere. In fact, hanging postcards and posters of popular London sights and destinations, such as Big Ben, red double-decker buses and Buckingham Palace would be a great idea. Furthermore, we can use some British flags, balloons with printed flags. As everybody knows, Charles Chaplin is one of the icons of modern cinema, so in our party it would be great having some actor that performs as Charles Chaplin. Having two english guards with those top hat in the entrance of the party would be a great idea that will allow people to take pictures with them and having some fun.

Our Typical food and Drink

In every English themed party is essential to have some typical drinks like tea, coffee and punch, which are the most consumed drinks  by british people.

In the case of food, there is a great variety that goes from fish and chips, to cottage pies, puddings, victoria sponge,  lemon meringue pie, etc.

The music

Britain is the cradle of pop music, so our party would count on music from a lot of different English singers, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Adele, Jessie J, etc. This would be a possibility to encourage people to get into the English culture in a way that everybody usually likes: MUSIC.

Clothes that guests must dress

As it’s an english party, nobody can wear whatever they want. There are some specific clothes that must be used in our party. For instance, British people they usually use clothes with stripes and rhombuses. But this is not only about clothes. People can imitate the British style with false moustaches, monocles, etc.

Activities

In order to make sure everybody can practice the language and, at the same way, have fun, we would carry out different kinds of activities. For instance, games, video chats via skype with students from England (as our partners will describe in their project), etc.

And remember...
If you don't know something, just...

In order to expose this to the class, we made the next presentation:

English themed party from Sabri Liazid Abdelkader