USINGIN THE CLASSROOM!

This is a great webpage where you can create your own poetry or stories. Where you use pictures given by many artists. Once you have finished creating your story you can publish them for others to see. It is a great idea involving children to use the website, with this, you are encouraging them to read any kind of stories between them and the peers.
This could be done individually or in groups.

During the class, Raquel gave us a username and a password on a piece of paper:
Username: class201349
Password: xxxxxxx 

Later on we had to choose the images of a certain artist: The art of Alina Chau. Then Raquel explained to us the purpose of this activity and what type of poetry she wanted us  to write about. There were 4 types of poetries:

1.  Letter poetry: There are poems read as letters where you can think of writing in a formal or colloquial way, the subject could just be anything (a complaint, love letter, philosophical letter)..

2. Haiku poetry is the way of looking the physical world and see something deeper that really means a lot to you.

3. Guessing poetry are rhymes where you have to figure out what is the poem talking about.

4. Cluster poetry is poetry where you collect things in different ways.

Hope that you liked my poetries!
We could do so many things with students, could you give me more ideas?
Thanks a lot...

WORKING WITH FILMS ACROSS AND OUTSIDE THE CURRICULUM 

The other day we were watching Mulan, a warrior female of China who decided to protect his father from fighting with the Huns... Raquel gave us a handout filled with questions and we are going to work in groups to discuss about these questions. In my opinion, it is a great way of working with films, you motivate students in it is not just watching a film to waste the time.

I have also found an article in the Internet that says: New report shows how film in education supports teachers and educators in the learning development of students.

They say that film in education is improving literacy levels and the motivation of the students are also increasing.Watching films raise students to a better attention, creativity, cognitive abilities, cultural education and attainment. 

I think that it could be a positive way working with films but depends on how you deal and work with films. I didn't have a good experience when I was studying in London at Dunraven School. The first time I watched a film in the classroom it was in English literature at KS3 level. We were working with Shakespeare (Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Much a do about nothing..) My English was not very powerful and then I had to write essays about the plot and this was a nightmare indeed. 

The teacher never scaffolded activities and a lot of students were lost. They spoke English but I just spoke little English and Shakespeare language was so difficult because it was old English. For sure, it was a nightmare and no one tried to help us. More or less my oral communication was fine, but my writing was awful, so imagine writing an essay. I got frustrated and failed the subject. 

Next year, I had to retake the subject again, but this was different, because we had a teacher that really cared for us, she reminds me of Raquel. His name was Mr. Sumner, he was the headmaster of Dunraven school, and he was only 26 years old (outstanding) his speech was perfect and extraordinary. Mr. Sumner helped us a lot for this subject and it was so much fun. First, before watching the film, we did some activities, with the language, and the scenes, then we had to draw for each scene what we thought that happened. After drawing, we had to retell the story. And finally we did like a little drama, to understand what was the topic about. 

The point in representing the drama ourselves, helped us understand the situation of the film and that was amazing, seriously. I want to be be that teacher.

I'm still in contact with that teacher and I told him what I was doing in my teaching trainee degree. I told him what was the meaning of CLIL, the different approaches that we had studied and applied in presentations...the way we work. And he didn't know about it, he told me that he wanted to hire me in the future. lololol

Anyways, some teachers apply different methods without knowing that in the future is going to work, and this is the beautiful part. With my students that I teach in the extra curriculum time, I've been working with them, the film of Mary Poppins. First I asked them if they knew about Mary Poppins, then I gave them some vocabulary and structures to discuss about the musical film. Only one girl out of six new about this character.

I spent three sessions on watching the film, but for each section, we had to work in different tasks. For example, in the first section of the film, the students had to draw their favourite scene of the film and the majority of them drew a picture where the children were tidying up the room with Mary Poppings in a fun way. In the second section, I told them to print out one of songs they most liked from the film because we were going to sing it. It went well, I spent one hour focusing on the pronunciation. When they felt ready, I recorded them. It was the first and the last time recording, because we didn't have enough time to record a second time. Students were motivated and anxious so the next time they wanted to sing another song from that film.

At the end I disappointed them, I wanted to work in other thing. At the end of the last part of the film, I wanted them to think by themselves by formulating this question: What things would you do if you had a Mary Poppins in your lives? They were great answers, they were very creative and participative. 

My thoughts at the beginning were quite negative: I thought that the tasks that I tried to do with them were going to be difficult but you can't expect things if you don't know how  it is going to work with certain groups.

I want to share with you the song...If I can!