Friday, 20 December 2013
Our English Project
Our English Project
1. MAIN IDEA: WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
This project takes place in a small village of the Basque Country called
Urnieta, where the mother tongue of the students is Basque, but as this
community is bilingual, they also know and speak Spanish. The only contact they
have with English is at school.
The aim of this project is to teach the language of English in a playful
and attractive way to pre-school students.
In our opinion, nowadays, the teaching of foreign languages, specially
English, is very important during these ages so children can have an approach
to the language. This is a very appropriate time to make the first contact
with English, at a time when they
are so motivated to learn new things and they take it as a game. Throw
this, we
want to introduce 3 issues :
-
What the best age to learn a new
language is.
-
What methodology we want to use.
- What activities we are planning to do.
The class routine is organized in
corners. This school is taking part in the program of “Ikastolen Elkartea” and
one of its characteristic is the learning of foreign languages. As the school
where we are working they start the teaching of English at the age of 4, our
project is planned with the 3rd level of preschool, with 5 years old
children. They have already had contact with
the language for a year, so they are familiarized with it.
2. CONTEXT: WHERE ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO IT?
In Urnieta there are only two schools, one is our
School that is Egape Ikastola and the other one is a private. In this
particular town, children whose tongue language is Basque usually go to the Ikastola, and the children
whose tongue language is Spanish, usually go to the private school. Therefore,
it is important to know that most of them speak in Basque.
Apart
from using the English classroom, our main is to get closer to the village and
surroundings, so we will organise different trips such as going to a nearest
farm.
3. METHODOLOGY
The students will leave their everyday classroom to go to the English
classroom. This classroom will be decorated with wall-charts, with drawings and
messages like ¡Welcome!, The Weather Forecast, The Calendar : What day is it
today? Can I go to the toilet? Family members, different animal¨s names and pictures, their parent´s job´s pictures
and names... All the messages will only be in English so they will identify the
new space and the teacher with the language itself.
The teacher will only speak in English, but he/she won’t obligate them to speak in English, if
they say something in Basque the teacher will repeat the same word or sentence
in English, so, he/she does not correct
errors directly. Students are allowed to respond in English language, their
native language or a mixture of both. Children receive comprehensible
information and are personally involved in class activities (answers with
words, objects and pictures, yes/no questions…). The English class will be
given three times per week and each one will last 30 minutes.
Our methodology will be interdisciplinary
because we will work taking into account what they are doing with their tutor.
We will integrate different areas in English classes. We will approach what
they have done recently in Basque, to practise these contents in English, so we
have to be sure that they have understood it in their tongue language.
Apart from that our project will be based on
the constructivism philosophy education because all of the exercises will be
done on experimental learning through real life experience to construct
knowledge. As we will follow this philosophy, the types of learners will be
self-directed, creative, innovative, drawing upon visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic,
bodily kinesthetic, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligences.
The topics that we will work on, will be based
on the children’s nearby environment. For instance, if we work on about jobs,
we will see their parent’s jobs, and not unknown jobs; if we work on animals,
we will use animals that they know about...
We will use CLIL, an educational approach in which an
additional language is use for the learning and teaching of both content and language. We will use CLIL because we will start
teaching English taking into account children interests and basing on their
knowledge. We will integrate content and language (in our case the second or
third language because of all them know Basque or Spanish) but also their
contest (family, social contest…). In our case, we will teach them English and
content such as family, jobs, maths, animals, fruits and colours.
In our project
one of the most powerful resources will be each other (for example: when they
are playing, working in groups...).
When proposing activities it is essential to bear in
mind the idea of a Preschool teacher creating materials for Preschool children
and leaving apart the point of view of a specialist teacher (English,
Primary... teacher).
Our project will have these features: stories,
oral activities (being in touch with the language in a natural way), different
types of grouping (individually, in pairs, in groups, whole group)...
We believe that intensity and timing exposure
are both important. We think that here in the Basque Country 4 years would be
appropriate age. We have an example of this, here, with the "Eleanitz
project": our children start learning English when they are 4 and not when
they are 12, as we have done some years ago. In our opinion, the age we
aforementioned is adequate, first of all because of their capacity to learn new
things. Secondly, because we agree with dividing English learning in a longer
time and not accumulate all classes in less years, bearing in mind that high
exposure does not necessarily correctable with higher competence. Finally, we
think that the quality is the third key when we are teaching a language. It is
important to adjust our methodology with their age and skills.
MULTILANGUAGE EDUCATION
The early years are an advantageous time span
to acquire language skills. One of the skills young children need to acquire is
the ability to understand the adults in their environment, whatever language or
languages they may use while speaking to the child. At the same time, the child
is learning to speak, acquiring the language at its own rhythm and in a
playful, natural way.
Language acquisition can take place
sequentially or simultaneously in several languages, it is known as
“Multilinguage education”, in the Basque country called as “Eleanitz proiektua”.
The mother tongue is the language children acquire first in life. It is also
the language that most people know best, use most, and strongly identify with.
All
people have the right to learn and use their mother tongue and to learn a
second or third language. In many cases, these rights are still absent, or there
are no adequate provisions. Regional and
minority languages are spoken by more than ten percent of the European
population. Particularly for some languages, for example for the Basque, their
situation and future prospects are critical.
The central message of research on
‘multilingualism’ and ‘early language learning’ is: "Start early!"
There are many advantages when children have the opportunity to acquire more
languages at an early age. Research suggests that bilingualism has positive
effects on children’s linguistic and educational development: they develop more
flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing information through two
different languages. There are long-term cognitive, linguistic, social,
economic, and cultural benefits to become multilingual.
Some benefits to learn more languages from the early
start are:
·
Bilingual
or multilingual children communicate easier, faster, and better with other
people (in this increasingly globalised world).
·
Children are less shame (than adults) to use
new languages other than their mother tongue.
·
Their
pronunciation is better in both languages, they do hardly have an accent, or not
at all.
·
Bilingual
children can manage their grammar better; there is also more chance to develop
better writing skills. Compared to adults children who acquire a second
language at early age make fewer spelling errors.
·
There
are vocabulary advantages; children grasp the meaning of a word better.
4. OBJECTIVE: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?
As we aforementioned, our principal aim is to teach English to the children in an attractive and playful way. For that, these are our principles:
We want
to do:
-
Learning English has to be a pleasure, not an obligation.
-
Following children interests, we have to base on their interests.
-
Personalized learning.
-
Teach them about the British culture: typical music, food, customs…
-
Relate the teacher with English language, indoor and outdoor the classes, it
will be
easier to speak in English.
- The
teacher has to make motivation and excitement happened.
-
It is interesting to do some rituals to start and finish the class, for
example, singing, dancing…
-
It is a good idea to integrate different areas in English classes: art, music,
sports… and we liked the idea of doing workshops.
-
It is essential also working in groups.
- The
ideal teacher of our project has to be flexible, active (learn things
doing), patient, researching, she/he has
to collaborate with other teachers and she/he has to respect children’s
precious knowledge.
We don´t want to do:
- Put
pressure on learning in a uniform way, demand more than each one knows.
- Do
exams to mark them.
- Be
afraid of the language.
5. ACTIVITIES: HOW DOES IT WORK?
What
is our guideline?
·
Pre-school students love stories and this
project is based on one story: “The wolf and the seven little
goats.”
·
The characters of the stories are
introduced by flash-cards: father, mother…and after showing them, students will
be asked about the names of their family members.
·
The new vocabulary of the story will
be worked with songs, dances and everyday life situations. (TPR activities)
·
After working the story the last
activity will be the acting out or performance of the story.
These are
the activities that we are planning for
an active learning project:
First of all, before
starting explaining our activities based on “The seven little goats” story, we will suggest some routine
activities that we think that are adequate to do every English classes.
Obviously, it is impossible to do all of them in each English class because we
won’t have enough time to work on anything more, so we will choose one or two
of them for each day.
·
Presentation:
to present themselves to the class, the teacher will say "Hello I am
your English teacher and my name is ....." "What is your name?"
and the students have to respond one by one "My name is ....".
·
Greeting: the
teacher is going to start every morning with the same greet. For that, we will
use a teddy bear called Babu and we will use always the same song:
"Good morning/afternoon Babu good
morning/afternoon
How are you? Thank you I am good."
We will sing with all names of
classmates. After
singing the song, each child will have to answer individually depending on their
mood that day. For this, we are going to use different flashcards,
that will show some basic moods: happy, sad, angry, bored…
·
We think that it is necessary to teach
children asking things in a polite way. Taking this into account, as in
early childhood the toilet is a meaningful place, we think it offers us a good
opportunity to teach them the correct manner to ask things. With this aim, we
have wrote a little song :
Can I go to the toilet?
Can you say it in the correct
way?
Can I go to the toilet, please?
Okay, okay, you can go now!
·
Say goodbye:
as in the beginning they will sing to Babu and to the teacher saying goodbye
with this song:
"Goodbye goodbye see you
again,
goodbye goodbye see you my
friends,
goodbye goodbye I had fun today, I
had fun today"
1st point:
family
- With the flashcard of “The seven little goats”, the children will be asked if they have any brothers or sisters. After that, each one will say how his/her family is formed by. For that, they will be asked to take a photograph of their family beforehand to work it in the group. Next to the photograph he/she will write the relationship with that person (mum, dad, sister, grandfather…) so as to learn the vocabulary. At this age pre-schoolers do not know writing properly yet, so the teacher will give them the pattern on the blackboard or on cardboards and they will be able to copy them.
- Another activity related with family matter could be the following one:
-
First of all,
we will ask children about their family; "How is your family?", that
way, and if they want they will speak about their family.
-
Then, we will
show them some posters; each one has got a picture of one member of the family,
below it will have written the name of this member in capital letter. We
will read it aloud and put it in the correct order (grandmother,
grandfather, mom, dad...).
-
After that,
we will share out these posters and this way, each child will have on of
them. Then, we will ask children about the poster they have and finally, all
together will put it in the correct order.
-
At the end of the class, we will put a song
about family topic and we will sing it together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiRUF7hvWuM
·
It could also be a good idea to draw each one’s
family. In this case, each student
will have to draw a picture of his/her family. When they have finished their
picture, they will have to write belong to each person who is he or she
(mommy, daddy, sister...). Then, they will have to show to their classmates
their family and explain who are those that appear there, and if they want,
they will be able to sing the family song with the members of his/her family
(daddy and mom, daddy and daddy, only one mom or daddy ...)
·
Taking advance of one of the kid’s birth, we can also create a family tree
with different family member’s names. They will bring their own family members
photos and they will cut and paste them. We can use this activity to mention
their family member’s names to make sure that they have understood what they
have to do and whose name is the suitable one.
Before doing this activity, to understand better
the concept of the “family tree” it is interesting and useful to work in class
some famous families like “Simpson”, they will relate their own family with
this one, for sure.
Before doing these activities
about the family, we have to be sure that they have already studied the members
of the family in Basque, so it will be necessary to talk with their tutor about
this matter.
2nd point:
animals
·
When the wolf appears they will be
asked what they know about wolfs, if they know any other story where a wolf
takes part and so on…
“What other animals do you know?” will be the introduction to the topic of Farm
Animals to work during the next lessons: identifying, cutting out, naming and
colouring, miming, making the sounds of the animals…) The activity will finish
with a visit to a farm where students will be able to use and practice the
previous worked words (pig, cow, hen, and dog).
·
In another activity, the teacher will
show the children two different videos about animals. In that way, they can go familiarizing with
those animals. One day the story is about farm animals and the next day about wild
animals. After seeing these videos they will talk about them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwIOkOibTgM
(farm animals)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSGv6wleoo4
(wild animals)
In spite of the fact that we know that when they are 5 in general they are interested in animals, we think that
if we go to the farm they will learn their names easier because it will be very
visual and close. If it is possible, we will use more time than the English
class last (30 minutes) so we will have to come to an agreement with other
teachers.
3rd point:
cooking
·
At the farm, as the wolf does, we
will collect the eggs and after that we will cook different dishes:
- A potato omelette.
- A fried egg.
- A boil egg.
- A sponge cake
- Some biscuits.
In this way, they will se how to cook different usual
things, what ingredients are need, where they come from (the ingredients), what
cooking tools are need… and apart from that, they will see and relate the animals
with food.
For
this activity, we will use the school kitchen, so it is important to talk with
the cooker and find a good moment to go there. And, of course, we will have to
prepare all the ingredients and tools beforehand.
4th point: feelings
·
The children will be asked if they
are scared of wolfs and related with this question, we will ask them: “What
else are you afraid of?” this issue will be taken by the way to work vocabulary
about feelings (happy, scared, hungry thirsty). We will cut out and colour
paper masks after naming them.
·
In order to
work with children's feelings we
will use this video,
where they can see
and relate the
gesture of each face with a feeling. Like
this, apart from interpret their selves feelings, they will be able to know about what are their friends
feeling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNP5BzrBiOg
5th point: jobs
·
In the story of the seven little
goats the mum sews the belly of the wolf. This scene is taken to work the
semantic topic of jobs, asking them about their parent’s jobs. We will work on jobs in class and then, if it
is possible, their parents will be asked to come to school to speak about their
jobs. Of course, the family member who is coming does not have to know English,
it is the teacher’s work to tell them key words in English, for example: if the
person is a fire-fighter, the teacher will say “how do you say suhiltzailea in
English?”.
·
Another possible activity, connected
with the first one, is that the teacher will
show to the student’s pictures of different professions while she/he says their
name aloud. After doing this, she/he will ask which are their parent’s
professions. So, each child will have to point his/her parents profession and
the teacher and both will say the profession together.
It would be interesting to talk with their tutor
about what they have done about this theme in class and also if it will be
possible to invite their parents (because she/he will provably know more about
the children’s families).
6th point: colours
- Basing on the “Seven little goats” book, we can work on colours pointing out in the pictures what colour is each one. Of course, we have to be sure that they have already known these colours in Basque.
- In our opinion, it is a good idea to continue working on colour for example playing the game “I spy with my little eye” …
In this case, the teacher will say: I spy my
little eye something beginning with “r” and the students have to think about a
colour which starts with this letter, for example “RED” and then, all the
children have to say one thing that it is into the class and visible of which
colour is red. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1YI2Zta_yw
- It is so useful to link different know things (fruits, vegetables, animals…) with the colours, so we could do drawings using different colours and mention how their colour is:
7th point: fruits and
vegetables
·
The aim of this
exercise will be to practice the vocabulary they have already learnt in Basque.
For that, we will make a fruit and vegetable bingo. Each bingo-card will have 4
different fruits and vegetables (some of them will repeat in some cards), and firstly,
the teacher will have some cards with the same pictures as the bingo cards.
When the teacher shows and names the card, children
who have that card will have to say: I HAVE IT. And when they don’t
have the picture shown, they will have to say: I DON’T HAVE IT.
When children have a fruit on their own
bingo-card, they will put macaroni on it, and when a child has four macaroni on
the pictures, he/she will say bingo. He/she will be the one who takes the
teacher’s place and will show the rest of the class the pictures while naming
them, with the teacher’s help. In case two children say bingo at the same time,
the teacher will gather them so they will be able to share cards and help
each other. Depending on the day, we will also play this game gathering the
students in couples or groups of three, finishing the game in big groups so
they learn to play together and to have fun in a different way.
·
Related with the
first activity, we can also do something like “looking for it’s pair”. For this
exercise, we will take some cards with several pairs of fruits and vegetables.
After mixing the cards and turning them down, we will ask the children to look
for pairs. Each time a child turns a card up, he/she will have to say loudly
the name of the fruit of vegetable drawn there. If in the second card which
he/she turns up, there is a different picture from the first card, the child
will have turn both down and give the opportunity to find a pair to the next
child. Nevertheless, if a child turns two cards up and if they have the same picture,
that pair will belong to that child and he/she will continue turning cards up.
The child who was most pairs will win the game.
·
Taking into
account that this subject is connected with the activity that we perform in
class about “Uxue was born” we will use
it like another activity to do in English class.
We have decided that do an activity about “What one
year children ate”, because in one occasion, a child asked what the
children eat. Then, the teacher told them that they had to ask at home what
they used to eat when they were smaller.
Most of them, after they have asked at home this question, said that they
usually ate liquid foods and fruit juices. In order to teach them how their
parents did these things, we will ask them to bring each one a vegetable or
fruit in order to prepare together at school kitchen different purées or
juices. In this way we want to involve parents to take part in their children´s
education.
When they have
brought the food, we will count how many fruits and vegetables we have got, we
will talk about their color and characteristics and we will separate the fruit
in one group and vegetables in another one. While we are doing this activity, we
will put the song which they already have learned with their tutor in order to
sing and dance. This is the song that we have mentioned:
When they have finished with this activity, each child
will draw a picture about what vegetable or fruit has interested them most.
In our opinion it is not easy for them to recognize all of the fruits
and vegetables, so we will have to be in contact with the teacher before doing
both of these activities. It would be interesting to talk about fruits and
vegetables in Basque beforehand, and as we were saying before, it would be
great to tell them to bring them to the class.
6. REFERENCES: WHAT ARE OUR INFORMATION SOURCES?
Horrez gain, Ikastolen elkarteko
ipuina.
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