Getting inspiration from Learning the ropes

Blog Learning the ropes

This is my last entry of this course which I have enjoyed so much, even in these special circumstances we are all going through. It is true that it has been a little stressful because we had so many things to do, regarding the online teaching, but it is also true that it has helped us develop our digital competence and undergo a guided process, so I want to thank you our teacher, for his great work and comprehension and my mates because they have done wonderful activities. Last, but not least, I want to thank María J  for her wonderful inspiration:

One of the great activities I have seen is this one called "About Arthur Miller: A Life on Stage". I like it because it has given me an idea of introducing Literature in the class, which is one of the issues I always try to do in my classes. My idea is to divide the big group in small groups of 3, maximum four students, and give them different literary ages or periods so that they have to investigate the most important authors and write a timeline with their most important works and the most important historic landmarks.

I hope you like this activity and I want to know if you enjoyed this part of my blog in English too.

Working writing collaboratively

There are many tools with which you can make your students write, I have used many of them in the past:

•          A blog, you can invite them and make a collaborative blog with different posts from different authors, you can see an example here.
•          A collaborative document in Google, in the first term, they made a magazine like those of NGOs with what they have done in helping their communities.
•       Any of the tools this course has shown us: Storyjumber or Pixton, and others.

I have given a look at both of the digital tools that Juan Antonio presented us at this course, but I prefer Book Creator because I think it fulfills my requests better, I do not need a comic nor characters and they seem a little childish for my 16 or 17 years old, so he let me change to Book Creator.

My first intention was to make a brochure about a trip to Gibraltar that our class was supposed to take on the 12^th of March and that we finally cancelled because of the Covid-19, then, my students were supposed to choose one of the landscapes, squares, buildings or anything of Gibraltar and write about it in groups.

Since we haven’t been able to take the trip, I changed the topic of the book and it is now: “My next travel will be…” I will encourage them to investigate about a city they want to go to and write a page about it with a text giving reasons why they have chosen that specific town or city and a video or photo that gives people an idea why there is a reason to go there. They will have to do this in this digital tool that allows them to write collaboratively.

In this way, they will have to read extensively in the Internet to learn about different cities and decide the reasons why they choose that one (this builds up their critical thinking which is one of my favourite objectives to build up). Since I will be doing this activity with them next week, after the test they have on Use of English, I cannot tell you the difficulties they will be having, but from my previous experience on projects like this, the most difficult thing for them will be to choose the city, they are not used to taking decisions, which is another thing why I like doing activities like this in which they are not guided, but they have to lead and take their own decisions.

This is the book I have prepared for them to write on BookCreator, I don’t now if you can see it.

Listening activities in the distance.- EDPUZZLE

Since we are going through difficult times now, I am taking advantage of this course to continue with my classes online. I have  prepared two videos for my 1st of bachillerato class, one of them is a British meme which will be voluntary and this second one will be compulsory. The meme is to have a relaxed time in class and have an introduction to the use of modal verbs, the second is very basic and simple but it will serve me to refresh old ideas about this grammatical point and then explain it to them with the help of the post in my blog Close your books ( I have it linked at the end of the video). There is no way I can flip the class now, because I won't be able to have practice time in class, but I will try to assess them back on the exercises I propose them on a Google Meet videoconference. These are very good listening activities, because they need to make an effort to understand on their own and complete the questions, both multiple-choice and open-ended, I have poposed.

Last week, they got a listening test by means of a Google form with Timify, it has been a great experience too.

Speaking with Genially

I think that this is a good example of what can be done with the help of technological resources, This is a project I did last year with my first of bachillerato class. You have to click on the numbers to follow the process we underwent, but I also explain it below:
1. Reading about what gender is.
2.We made a brainstorming with Mentimeter, a very interactive and easy-to-use tool, about how gender affected our lives. We, as a class,  decided it was important and we compromised to make what gender was known to the students in our high school. We chose a 3rd ESO class.
3. Outline of the project with Genially.
4. I gave them a handout to organise the activity they were going to present to the other class (Genially).
5. Preparation of the activities (2 classes)
6. Before presenting the activity to the other class, they rehearsed in front of their mates. They had to fill in a form on what assessment or feedback was to be given back and how (located in Scribd)
7. Making the final preparations, after their mates' assessments, they make the necessary changes and...
Camera. Actual presentations, I do not have permission to show openly the videos, but I can assure you, they did a great job.
Last, but not less important, you can see the rubric by clicking on Evaluation.
With this activity, they learnt a lot of English, they learnt a lot about teaching, they also learnt a lot about helping in the community... They loved the experience. Regarding to possible changes, I would give them one more session, I could not, because I had to evaluate them, but they were a bit hurried.

This is a big project, but this year I started a much more humble and simple one. Every day one or two of my students present a small talk of 1 or 2 minutes of different topics from a list I make them choose from about British and American culture, though they have one joker if they want to present something of their own, In this second term I told them they had to use a digital visual support, they can choose whatever one they want, so far, they used PowerPoint, Genially and the tool for presentations that Guadalinex has.

Activity with a timeline

This is the activity I had thought about doing with my class. It has been a long time that I have not studied specific methodology for reading or any other skill, I have been Head of Studies of my high school and I did not have much time, but now that my familiar situation has changed and I have more time, I was very happy to take this course. I had no idea about intensive and extensive reading; it has been eye-opening for me. 

My students usually have to read a compulsory book, all of them the same. Now, I think this is a mistake. Since this year we still have this one you can see in the timeline, which has been created with Canva, a great tool, called Tales of the Macabre. I have worked a lot with Picktochart some time ago and I tried TimeToast, but for me is too oldish, not too intuitive and more difficult for me than Canva or Genially.

I have decided to create this timeline with the steps of the activity they have to do so that they are also provided with an example. I will show them the three tools that I have managed at a point or another so that they can decide which one they prefer and we will have a variety of students using different tools, which will build up their confidence and their digital competence. Also, it promotes their improvement in the comprehension of the texts they read because they have to work in their brains with the information they are getting.

MY FAVOURITE READING STRATEGY

Reading is a challenge in the English classes, especially because our students do not usually read a lot, not even in their native language. I have learnt in this module that extensive reader has got much more advantages than intensive reading, which is what I mostly do in my classes. I will try to improve the extensive reading part.

I work reading almost every day in class, we use it mainly to read the instructions of all the activities that we do and also most of the exercises we do, we read them aloud, but I reckon that this is not a reading that students or even I enjoy; it is just that it is easier to focus their attention if we are working with written rather than oral texts.

My favourite strategy is the use of the reading to work other skills, especially oral ones. I usually use this one especially with lower level groups; this year I am using it with 2nd FPB. It consists in the following: I tell them to read the text on their own and silently and underline five to six words that they do not know how to pronounce (maybe they know their meaning or maybe they do not, we focus on its pronunciation), then we listen to the text read aloud (by me or played on any device that we can make use of), they should focus on the pronunciation while they are listening and finally they read it aloud making the effort of reading the words they have chosen correctly, in this way, they focus on learning the pronunciation of some words of their choice, it helps them develop a better understanding of the text and of oral comprehension. If all the class does it well, they get a prize, that is, extra points, listening to a song in English of their choice, getting time to do homework in the class and so on, it depends on the day.

MY READING HABITS

Helsinki's Public Library

I have liked reading all my life, I can remember how the pages of books made me happy and made me stay up till late. My reading habits have changed, though. When I was younger I liked reading novels, especially long ones from the beginning of the 19th century, nowadays I read a lot of articles, I still read some novels and I am starting to appreciate good poem books. I usually read literature on paper and articles on electronic devices. And I still try to read as much as I can, in fact, my favourite places are libraries and bookshops. I like reading in the original language, but this is only possible in English, French and Spanish, and the choices are quite the same for the three languages.

In the images you have presented us, we find several readers' profiles: it is interesting that children seem not to have chosen their readers, the one who seems to be with her grandmother has a book on flowers and the kids in class are all reading the same book (at least the first one has an affective bound to the person who has probably chosen the text). Adults seem to have more freedom and therefore be happier with their choices.

INNOVATIVE TEACHING PRACTICES SUPPORTED BY THE FOCUSED USE OF ICT TOOLS IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

I created this blog a few years ago to use it as a virtual notebook online for all of my courses. I usually write in Spanish in it, because I have been doing other online courses in which the language was Spanish, but I was sooo looking forward for a course in English.

I am doing this new one in English at the CEP de Castilleja, the "school for teachers" that our employees have given us teachers and which I am so proud of. This is a very necessary place for teachers to develop their skills and not to feel alone, if we work together, we will get further and that benefits our students. Therefore, we will have some posts in it in English.

I have added this list of links they asked us for, I have also added some more blogs and a picture here in the post. Since they asked for two pictures and I don't like entries with two pictures so much, I have changed the background of the blog with the picture I have for my real blog Close your books, which helped me work with my students for several years and also cowork with other teachers who didn't work at my high school (I don't know if you will be able to see it for, as long as I know, it was stolen from me a couple of years ago, so I had to migrate the contents to Close your books2). I have also created the list of links and the cloud of tags I was asked for, so I am willing to jump into step/module 2 when my tutor allows me to.

We are going to have a great course!!!