Learning and teaching by e-Twinning

Hi guys,

I would like to share with you this tool in order to practise foreign languages, mainly English. Besides, you could enjoy with your pupils, and motivated them with this subject. In my opinion, it is a comprehensible tool because you and your students will know others schools, students, teachers, educational systems, ever their countries. I hope you enjoy working with e-Twinning.

If you want to explore e-Twinning follow this link:

e-twinning

Handouts: session 1 (Listening / Music and Language

Here are the links to the handouts to go with the Listening / Music and Language presentation.

Task 5B

Handout

English Workshop: Listening / Language and Music

Great to see so many keen teachers at the first session of the English Workshop at the CEP in Córdoba, and pleased to find some faces from last year's course, too!

As always, time just flew by and we'd only just scratched the surface of so many interesting and important issues. With this in mind I think it'd be great to use the blog as a place to sound off anything we haven't had time to deal with in depth during the session and an opportunity to get things off our chests...Who knows, they may just be a solution for a tricky situation around the corner.

Something that kept on cropping up again and again was the problem of large classes and the difficulties of teaching language (and not only language!) with sometimes 30 or more students who aren't always motivated. Motivation is of course central to creating a positive learning environment and it is part of our responsibility as teachers to get and maintain our students motivated. But what do we do with those that just don't want to be motivated? Do we persevere, perhaps at the cost of the rest of the class? Do we crack on without them? How do you find the right balance? It'd be great to hear your thoughts on that, so over to you...

I look forward to seeing you at the next session on the 7 February where we'll focus on the reading skill.

Neda 

This is the presentation on Listening / Language and Music (24th January):

Listening / Language and Music: Links

Here are some of the sites and articles I looked at to compile my lecture. I hope you find them useful.

The Listening Skill

The British Council have a nice collection of concise articles with practical tips on a great range of topics. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles

Improving ESL Learners' Listening Skills: At the Workplace and Beyond

 The five language skills in the EFL classroom

Silvia Vernier; Gabriel del Moral; Sandra Del Giusti; Silvia Barbuzza (2008) "The five language skills in the EFL classroom ". En: Nueva Revista de Lenguas Extranjeras, Nº 10, p. 263-291.

Dirección URL del artículo: http://bdigital.uncu.edu.ar/2647.

Music and Song in the English Classroom

http://www.tuneintoenglish.com/

THE EFFECTS OF SONGS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM ON
TEXT RECALL AND INVOLUNTARY MENTAL REHEARSAL

A dissertation by Claudia Smith Salcedo. The document is very long but interesting to dip into.

Using Songs Effectively to Teach English to Young Learners

A succinct article with suggestions for using songs with kids.

The 100 best London Songs 

Music in the English Classroom: going beyond the lyrics

by Fernanda Pereira ELEUTÉRIO, Isabella Araújo OLIVEIRA, Mariana Santiago SILVA

Profa. Ms. Márcia Helena Venâncio Faleiros (orientadora)

An overview of the benefits (linguistic and cognitive) of using  music in the classroom.

Music, language, and the Brain

Language, Music, Syntax and the Brain by Aniruddh D Patel

An article on the overlap in syntactic processing of syntax in language and music. Uses a lot of scientific terminology but is clearly written and overall provides an insight into this interesting area of research.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/november16/music-111605.html

Brief report on another remarkable area of research of cognitive neuroscience involving experiments with music. Dr. Nadine Gabb has conducted studies which have shown that trained musicians outperform non-musicians in a number of studies centred on detecting split-second differences in rapidly changing sounds.

Videos:

Music, Brain and Education Panel

Influences of musical training on language processing and executive functioning

Other interesting stuff:

Music and Language: A Fragment by T. W. Adorno

Webpage of psychiatrist and educator G. Lozanov 

7 laws of Suggestopedia / Reservopedia  (Principles of Lozanov's teaching method)

ENGLISH WORKSHOP: DEVELOPING AND ACTIVATING SKILLS IN ENGLISH

We are glad to inform all of you that next January we will begin another interesting teacher training activity aimed at teachers of English and at those who teach their subjects through English.

This is the programme of this teacher training activity:

ENGLISH WORKSHOP: 

DEVELOPING AND ACTIVATING SKILLS IN ENGLISH

Teacher trainer: Neda Mirova. Traductora y experta en la enseñanza del inglés como segunda lengua.

24 de enero de 2013
• De 17:30 a 20:30: Listening
I speak English = I understand English? Integrating speaking and listening.

Music and language.

7 de febrero de 2013
• De 17:30 a 20:30: Reading.
Motivation and creation of target language reading habits.
Bottom-up and top-down approaches.
Using authentic materials in the classroom.

14 de febrero de 2013
• De 17:30 a 20:30: Writing
The process approach and the importance of writing for learners
Improving writing skills through meaningful tasks.

21 de febrero de 2013
• De 17:30 a 20:30: Interaction
Creating a culturally aware classroom
Stimulating the need to communicate as a way to integrate skills
Webquests

6 de marzo de 2013
• De 17:30 a 20:30: Speaking
Acquiring and using a new language (*we will learn a new language in this
session!)
Working towards fluency at all levels.

We will keep on using the blog to share strategies, materials, lesson plans, etc...

Hope to see you again!

INDEPENDENCE DAY

This is Thomas´ slideshow on "Independence Day":

Activities - Diamond Jubilee

Hi everybody!

During the last session of the course on Wednesday 6 June, we ran a series of mini brainstorms inspired by slides 5-8 of my Diamond Jubilee slide show. Some of the ideas were directly related to the Monarchy, Royal Family and ongoing Jubilee celebration, whilst others were freer variations on the theme. All contributions were of course more than welcome.

Sorry to have taken so long to upload them, but here they are finally. Better late than never...I hope you get a chance to use them and enjoy them with your classes. I certainly enjoyed reading them and have added a couple of my own.

Don't forget the time capsule idea. See http://www.jubileetimecapsule.org/

STREET PARTIES (Slide 5)

• British end of year party - bring sweets, crisps, soft drinks, bake a cake with parents;
• Organise a parade - stalls, decorations, special clothes, food, dancing, maybe bring a favourite English song;
• Prepare the classroom for a visit by the Queen with information on our customs – decorate with flags, bunting etc.;
• Create and explain recipes; provide a list of necessary ingredients
• Prepare typical English/British dishes;
• Party Organisers - everything you need to organise a street party – food, drink, music, tables, list of guests;
• A competition of some kind – maybe a quiz on knowledge of British customs or the Royal Family?

HISTORY / GEOGRAPHY (Slide 6)

historypin.com  

• Choose 15 -20 photos, show them to the students and get them to order chronologically;
• Vote for the best Queen/King;
• Study the Royal Family history, perhaps a family tree;
• The Queen’s biography: a simple PowerPoint with photos and texts selected by students;
• School trips: students compile a history of all the places they have visited through their secondary education with photos and comments.

CHARITIES – THE DIAMOND JUBILEE TRUST (Slide 7)

http://www.jubileetribute.org/the-trust/

• Organise a charity race to help “Save the Children”. A student may have as many sponsors as they wish and they pay 1 euro per km;
• In groups, students choose one charity and brainstorm ways of helping it;
• Choose a charity and collect money, food or clothes to send to them;
• Charities debate: the school or class collects money, for example by selling crafts or doping sponsored races. Now the students must have a debate and decide which charity this money should go to.
• Think of one cause which is not part of the Jubilee Trust and propose why it should be included;
• Design an awareness-raising campaign with simple pictures and texts, encouraging people to help one of the charities;
• Collect books and school material for poor countries – perhaps write a letter to the children explaining why we think this material may be useful or fun for them;

Culture and Heritage

• Students have to compare their way of living (including gadgets, tools, games…) and that of their grandparents ;
• Interview grandparents about their life as teenagers and report to the class in English about their findings; ideally they should write questions and carry out the interview in English, so perhaps interviewees could be any adults that speak English.

THE COMMONWEALTH (Slide 8)

• Students can prepare web quests with tasks about Commonwealth countries;
• Look for info on Commonwealth countries on the Internet, draw a map, colour in the countries and name them, also perhaps collect information abut their population, capital cities, geographical features etc.
• Ask students about countries which could be included in a Spanish Commonwealth!
• Look at a blank map and mark the countries which belong to the Commonwealth (could add a competition element here – set a time limit etc.)
• Find out as much as you can about a given country – individually or as a class project;
• Give students a cut out of the 15 realms and a map and get them to stick countries in the correct place.

QUEEN´S DIAMOND JUBILEE

This is Neda´s slideshow on Queen´s Diamond Jubilee and Trooping the colour celebrations:

Activities Diamond Jubilee, brainstorming ideas from participants.

Is there really cause to celebrate?

Here is an article which takes a different stand on the Jubilee Celebrations.

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations

Hi everyone,

This is the "central weekend"of the Jubilee celebrations with a lot going on everywhere. This article from the guardian (it's my preferred newspaper, as you have probably guessed) has a summary of activities going on these days, and for those who are not royalist, myself included, there are some ways to escape the madness!

Also, here you can read some thoughts on growing up during the reign of Queen Elizabet II by a few well-known writers who were all born in 1952 (the year she ascended to the throne).

See you on Wednesday!

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