Pre-Primary teachers in Oxford. Last days.

Hi everyone!

We finalized the second week of the course using images, pop songs and imagination for languages development. It was a funny lesson before giving and receiving positive feedback on our work. We also exchanged telephone numbers in order to keep in touch and share experiences in the near future. 

As far as we're concerned, sessions have been carefully planned to suit the needs, interests and learning preferences of the participants and to provide the right balance of skills, content and structure. They've been practical and communicative and based on the needs of the participants. They've included lively, interactive methodology sessions, so teachers can learn how to make their classes more communicative and effective and improve their learners’ motivation to learn another language. Inspiring language improvement sessions have been designed to develop teachers’ confidence in English and discover strategies for self-directed learning.

In language improvement sessions, Catherine has demonstrated us, through loop input, how teachers can improve and update their students’ grammar, lexis and pronunciation, as they improve their own.

In all sessions she has indicated recently published subject-specific materials for further reading and/or classroom activities, also online and offline resources for further research and/or cultural background. 

Our last excursions were visiting the magnificent Blenheim Palace and its fabulous gardens and Stratford-upon-Avon, the town where William Shakespeare was born. A charming Tudor village built on the banks of the Avon river. 

To sum up, we would like to say that this Erasmus grant has been a fantastic experience plenty of opportunities to improve our work and our English language skills. It was an amazing summer! 

We hope you enjoy what you read and thank you for following this blog. Goodbye friends!

 

 

 

Ana María 10th August Canterbury

10th August

There can be no doubt that Listening is the first and most important skill to learn. A baby needs nearly a year of listening before starting saying its first words in its mother tongue.

Accordingly, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing would be acquired by the student in this order.

Students don´t speak a lot in front of the class because they don´t know what to talk about. Before starting this activity, teachers need to brainstorm ideas, vocabulary and revise grammar. We should prepare them by going through the context.

Not everybody is confident and talkative, so make sure that there is an atmosphere of respect in the classroom to make this skill easier. However, there could be students who don´t want to participate in these speaking activities. To force them to speak is not a good idea. In some cases, students who are watching, learn as well from listening and they don´t want to take part because they´re shy.

One of the activities we have done has reminded me what we are working in our school.

1. Play some different sounds.

2. The student listen carefully and recognise them. They are learning to pay attention to things they don´t usually realise.

3. The student identify the sound and try to make a story.

4. Role play.

After practising many different short and long exersices, we are convinced that Listening must be included in our daily planning.

In the afternoon, we´ve continued with games to pratise vocabulary such as: Tic Tac Toe, The Coffeepot Game, Last Letter, Word Association, Crosswords, What´s behind you? What am I?, Gesture Game and so on. Learning by playing is a goal to achive by all the teachers.

Unfortunately, Erasmus Course 2017 has finished but it´s not an ending. Last 30th of July, my friend Helena and I arrived in Canterbury with great expectations and all of them have been realised. Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity of having this experience.

Ana María 9th August Canterbury

Hello bloggers,

Sightseeing was finished last Sunday, therefore this week I’ll focus my blog on all the interesting lessons we’ve had in the morning and afternoon.

As usual, our teacher Patrick has made the most of his time with the topic of the day: “Classroom Management”

Good classroom management means:

1. A better learning enviorment

2. Better use of resources available

3. A better control over discipline

But, do all the teachers understand what discipline means?

Discipline is not about getting kids to do what you want them to do. It is providing an environment in which positive teaching and positive learning can take place simultaneously. It is not control from the outside; it is order from within.

These are some of the most remarkable ideas I’d like to share with all of you:

1. Whatever you devote your attention in the class, it increases.

2. Instead of saying “stop doing it” say what they have to do.

3. The teacher should treat the students as equal but not as friends.

4. It´s not possible to control student´s behaviour in the class, what teachers can control is their behaviour. “Control your reaction and be positive”.

5. Make sure your instructions are clear.

6. Planning is very important, support the teachers and gives them freedom.

Teacher should prepare materials and overplan, something might not work.

7. Speak to the student in private, not in front of the class.

8. Everything in the right place, even the furniture.

In the afternoon, we have continued the lessons with our teacher Isabel, dealing with the use of Board Games and Songs in the class. Surprisingly, Board games such as The Battle Ship, Maze Cards, Ludo or The Game of the Goose, could be an effective and enjoyable resource to use when teaching. On the other hand, the songs “When I´m 64” by the Beatles or “The Streets of London”, by Ralph McTell are suitable exercises to learn collocations.

Obviously, teachers should adapt the games and songs to the contect they are interested on.

Pre-Primary teachers in Oxford. Days 8 and 9

Hello friends!

On Wednesday we continued developing personal language skills, focus on shifting sentence stress. Definitely, intonation is more important than grammar in the communication. We practiced with exercises to make sense of spelling and pronunciation and connected speech. When native English speakers speak naturally their words are not separate, they join together. This can make listening difficult as it is often unclear where one words ends and another word begins. It can also change the sounds of words. In the afternoon, we talked about film as an English language resource.

When we finished the lessons, our family was waiting for us to visit Worcester College. It might not be the most famous one in Oxford, but it has a serenity and seriousness that are enchanting. We made the most of our time visiting Ashmolean Museum, Magdalen College and taking cream tea, including scones served with clotted cream and jam.

                                         

                           


       

Today we've been debating and understanding concepts of Content and Language Integrated Learning. Previously, we expected to getting bored because of the matter used to be explained in a too much theoric way. However, we've explored this methodology through practical exercises, buildings meaningful learning with clear objectives: content aims, language aims and learning skills. It was fantastic! 

 After lunch, Catherine made a funny test about life and culture in UK today. In this way, she checked our knowledge about some interesting questions and curiosities about British people.

Goodbye!

Pre-Primary teachers in Oxford. Days 6 and 7

Good evening friends. Just a one note to tell you about last lessons!

Yesterday we did something different to take the classroom tasks up afterwards our touristic weekend. Every classmate talked about how their free days were: who travelled furthest from Oxford, who spent a bomb or got compeletely ripped off, who ate the most traditional English food or someone who was at loose because its plans fell through. In this way, the teacher introduced a new appropriate vocabulary and expressions for a particular topic. It was an efficient warm up technique to restart the second week course. We also updated our English through activities like Verb patterns (adding -ing to the verb or using the infinitive) and True or false? (to recognize some words and it's meaning in a correct subject). We finished with 101 ways to praise our pupils and encourage them to learn more and more English!

Today we've spent the whole morning doing practical pronunciation. We could verify the complexity of the English phonic alphabet practicing all the sounds and checking our mistakes with the teacher. We did a word stress and a connected speech exercises. On the one hand, stressed syllable in a word is usually noticeable by being slightly louder, slightly higher in pitch than the syllables next to it. On the other hand, when native English speakers speak naturally their words are not separated, they join together. This can make listening difficult as it's often unclear where one word ends and another word begins. It can also change the sounds of words. As a conclusion, we've firmly convinced that intonation is more important than grammar mistakes in a concrete communicative context.

In the afternoon we've lived a pleasant surprise visiting The Story Museum with children (recommended by our classmates). This museum celebrates stories in all forms and explores their enduring power to teach and delight. It is located in a quirky building in the center of Oxford than provided us several ideas to get our own school more attractive. We could design some existing spaces to create innovative story experiences to spark the imagination of all age pupils. Certainly,
we've been thinking about our little students seeing our sons enjoying Time for bed activity (brilliant storyteller) or Talking Throne game, where the whole family browsed an extensive collection of costumes, picked an outfit, walked up the red carpet and heared the amazing talking throne announce us. It was absolutely hilarious!
 



See you in the next post. Regards!

Ana María 7th,8th August Canterbury

Ana María, 7th August
Hello all!!
Last weekend we had the opportunity of visiting Cambridge and Leeds Castle. If you have never heard about this castle you maybe think that it´s close to Leeds city, but it isn´t.

Actually it´s near Canterbury, just one hour far by train. The easiest way of arriving at the Castle from Canterbury is by taking a train to Hollingbourne and then you have a 30 minute pleasant walk. Fortunately, the weather compensated us for the rainy day we had in Cambridge.

                                

The ticket you buy is valid for one year so that´s why there were so many local people taking pleasure of the sunny Sunday. Apart from the visit of the castle, the whole family  could enjoy the maze and grotto, falconry displays, punting on the moat, playgrounds and what´s more, the tradicional Sunday picnic. 


Coming back to studies, our teacher Patrick has started the first Monday lesson with “Focus On the Learner”. 
According to the Multiple Intelligences Theory, there are eight different kinds of intelligence: Kinaesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Logical, Musical, Naturalist and Spatial.
Therefore teachers should try to be ecleptic, use different techniques, and vary the activities in the class to get the attention of the plural students.
After practising some very useful exercises, Patrick has finished his lesson giving us two pieces of advice:
 “The teacher needs to believe in the method he´s using”
“We should learn by playing with the language”

In the afternoon, Isabel has focused on New Ways of dictation: Running Dictations, Mutual Dictations, Mixed Ability Dictations, Whistle Stop Dictations and True/ False Dictations. 

We have had the change to do an example of all of them and we,ve checked that they are dynamic, engaging and meaningful for our students.

Maria Teresa

Hi everybody from Spain!!!!

  Γεια σου ;

    I´m going to tell you my experience in Wales. I didn´t write before in this blog because I have had many problems with my wi-fi and I want you to watch many photographies of this amazing place.
Botanic Garden, next to the University.

People playing cricket.

 




I have had a typical Welsh weather, if you want to travel around this beautiful part of UK, I recommend you to be sure to bring with you a raincoat and a pair of waterproof walking shoes.

       




    On Wednesday afternoon, I visited the National Waterfront Museum, which tells the story of industry and innovations in Wales, now and over the last 300 years. There is a  fantastic vintage car, Benz´s car. I read that this car has competed in the London to Brighton Vintage car rally, several times, that´s sounds unbelievable.

  

    On Friday, the course came to the end, I ´ve really had an outstanding experience, not only with the translation of Euripides, Bacchae, but also talking about the influence of classics over Shakespeare´s  tragedies.




These are my partners and my teacher.

   At the end of the course, we had a little farewell reception, where our teacher gave us the certification of the course.

 On Saturday morning,  I had a sunshine day and could walk through the Mumbles, as you can see there were incredible view sights as a fairy tale or Game Thrones, film.


See you soon, Wales!

Pre-Primary teachers in Oxford. Free weekend!

Hello everybody!

We've had two very interesting excursions at the weekend one hour by train distance from Oxford, especially travelling with kids -as in our case-.

The first one was the amusement park "Legoland", located in Windsor (a famous city for its castle, the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world and The Queen's favorite weekend home).  We were lucky with the weather as we only had the one heavy shower that day. In our opinion this theme park, inspired in the bricks building game, offers you lots of different areas to enjoy an absolutely fascinating family day. The park has lots to do for children of all ages, the little ones will enjoy the Duplo play area and the puppets performance of popular stories. We saw the Cinderella. Children aged three to eight will be pleasant to ride the Ninja Go, the Atlantis submarine voyage, the Driving school or the Dragon's apprentice. There is a lot to do in Legoland and even though we spend the entire day there we don't feel we covered nearly all there was. We think ideally to get the most out of your visit it's worth staying at Legoland or nearby and go for two days. We found the staff to be friendly and go out of their way to be helpful which was truly appreciated. But, we also should highlight negative aspects, such as the waiting time in some queues, crowded places and changeable weather.

                           
    



The second one was the city of Bath. It was a special day in a walking tour by our own that it started crossing the main street directly to the Roman Baths. After waiting a quite short time we went into the great bath, an impressive one of the finest spas of the ancient world where you can see the ruins of the temple and going step back in time to admire how Roman men and women would have lived in the fourth century through colorful projections. We recommend you going with children, so they can have a first contact with the history due to properly and funny audioguides for them. We also admired the gothic Bath Abbey, Victorian buildings in Circus Street, The Royal Crescent and the huge Victoria Garden, where children went running on the green grass surrounded by beautiful trees.
 
                 
                        
                       



That's all for now!

Pre-Primary teachers in Oxford. Day 5

Hi readers!

Even though it seems unbelievable, but the first week of the course has already finished. Today we've continued doing tasks to develop personal language skills. We've learnt that there is no Language Academy for English, so dictionaries only record language in current use. New words will only remain in English if the concepts they represent continue to exist.

The second part of the lesson has been the most entertaining because was about songs, rhymes and chants. We consider quite interesting to make children listen and follow instructions in an action rhyme. So, they'll be able to build up confidence in responding to English and participating actively in class. We've had a fun singing songs, even dancing. It has been absolutely hilarious!

In the afternoon we've had the opportunity to visit the New College. It's one of Oxford's oldest and best-known Colleges. Situated in the heart of the city, it is one of the most beautiful sites here, boasting the earliest planned College quadrangle and spectacular gardens set against the medieval city wall. It was originally founded for the education of priests and a choral foundation. It has played an extremely important part in education at the University, being the first college for undergraduates.

See you soon!

Helena 6th August Canterbury

Hi there, 

Just a few words to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here and learn a little bit more about the English teaching world and its culture. I'm willing to put all these new ideas into practice back in Spain. I leave you with my last pictures of Canterbury!! See you soon!!

We are on the right rail to success!