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!

Ana Maria & Helena 5th August Canterbury

Hello everyone!

Today is Saturday and we decided to join the Cambridge day excursion with Concorde. It took us 2 hours to get there by bus and it's worthy a visit. We went in King's College and visited its stunning chapel. After that, we took a walk around...we admired all the buildings, the round Church, the bridges that cross over the Cam river, the punting boats (they do it differently from the Oxford ones). In fact, Cambridge university, which is spread all over the old city center was founded by former  Oxford professors who disagreed with the rest and they decided to build another one in Cambridge in the 15th century. That  is why this rivalry between both universities exists. We had a little bit of everything when we talk about weather: sunshine, heavy storm for one hour and a half and sunshine again but, this is what we can expect in England!!!

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Ana Maria&Helena 4th August Canterbury

Hi again bloggers! 
Today, I had my last lesson with Patrick. We started by dealing with a really important aspect when it comes to teaching and that is motivation. We discovered the different types of motivation an individual may have and discussed how to encourage our students (integrative, instrumental, extrinsic, intrinsic, affect, self-image, needs, age and sex). We talked about the relevance of teacher's motivation to get their students involved. Besides, we also need to make sure that every student is involved in the task and gets some success as a way of increasing their self-steem. After that, we carried on with poetry. I'm not very much into poems, you know, but surprisingly it may be a good starting point to deal with different topics for discussion (speaking, writing, reading and listening activity). Well, sadly the lessons came to an end for me, and Patrick awarded me with my certificate after a very touching speech. I can't show you the picture of this moment, but I'll add it as soon as the Polish classmate Eva sends it to me. Once again, this has been an unforgettable experience and if you ever have the chance, please take it!!!

As on Friday afternoon we don't have lessons, we decided to get a train and go to Dover to visit the Castle and the White Cliffs. Dover Castle is also known as the Key to England as it has a massive harbour and is the way the ships had and still have to reach the island. We walked through the II World War tunnels, the medieval tunnels and visited the main tower. You find more than 2,000 years of history in just one place. Simply amazing! And to put an end with our visit, we walked up to the cliffs and enjoyed the marvellous views. 

Ana Maria & Helena 3d August Canterbury

Hello there again! 

Today has been an excellent lesson day full of varied and rich activities to be used with our students. 

In the morning, we did pronunciation and once again, we realized of the importance of this feature when learning a foreign language.In fact, in face to face communication 38% is pronunciation, 55% is body language and only 7% actual words. Definitely, our students must be taught how to do it. We started by having a look at the phonetic script with all the sounds of the English language. Due to the French control over England for many years the official language was French and that's why we find French sounds in English phonetics as well as  its influnce in many words.Many times, the context saves the day when we are speaking, but this not always happens. It's not the same to have a ship or a sheep. We can offer to students multiple choice activities, we read the sentences out and they have to choose they think they listened to or play ludo once you have taught them the different sounds...or you read out a story and they raise their hands at any time they hear the sound. I must recognise that playing ludo was a lot of fun and a perfect way to learn and consolidate pronunciation. During the second lesson we worked on reading. We did a lot of reading activities such as jigsaw reading, two-in-one story. We learned the difference between the skimming skill (main idea) and the scanning skill(particular details).Patrick showed us different techniques to train our students the reading skill. "Good readers only read what they need to read",he said and it's true.

In the afternoon, I had the last lesson with Isabel. It didn't surprise me at all that,once again it was amazing. It was about using media and authentic material in class. There are some aspects we have to bear in mind like innacuracy in grammar we may find if we use songs, for example. We did a marvellous chunk activity based on a Robin's Hood clip and we dealt with listening, vocabulary and speaking based on it. After that, we used another clip to learn and practice the tricky prepositions.Then,she gave us a list with different sources in the internet which we can work with in our lessons and discussed the ones we did successfully with our students. It was a nice sharing moment. This was my last lesson with her and even some tears came to my eyes when I had to say good bye to Isabel. She's simply the best. Thank you!! Well, I'm the one leaving but my colleague Ana Maria stays for one more week and she'll bring me up-to-date when we meet back in Spain.

In the afternoon, we went to do some shopping, walk around the city and walked up to the top of a hill to see Edmund's School and marvellous views of Canterbury.

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BOOKSHOP

Pilgrims Hospital of Thomas Becket

Yesterday was my last day. We were dealing with Grammar practice activities. Although it might sound boring, it was one of the best lessons of the week. We did entertaining mime activities and chatted about hilarious road signs.  So funny!
The 2nd lesson was: Using videos. It's a very effective learning tool, a good way of predicting, summarising, connecting or questioning. We watched some videos and had to squeeze our imagination and creativity. Videos as a listening tool can enhance the listening experience for our students.
To top it all off, Colloquial English was the last session of the training course. Students have difficulties to distinguish between what is formal and informal, and this is one of our main goals. We worked on an important topic: proverbs. Something new and grippy for me. We talked about controversial proverbs, cultural differences concerning body language and out-of-step expressions. And we ended with a quiz about slang.  It could be a good task for our students to give them idioms and investigate their origins and meanings.

After the lessons, we visited Valletta, Malta's capital and a World Heritage Site. It's one of the main tourist attractions, hosting the majestic St. John's Co-Cathedral, the imposing bastions and a treasure of priceless paintings. It also provides a stunning snapshot of Malta's Grand Harbour, often described as the most beautiful in the Mediterranean. We tasted the Maltese Pastizz, the typical pea and cheese cake. Delicious!


It has been an unforgettable and enriching experience. And remember the main point is: learning while enjoying.

See you soon bloggers!

Last days

Hello!
Last Thursday was a very profitable day. We started listening to music and thinking about a story. The session was: Tell me a story! We were engaged in an emotional level so we enjoyed and worked better. All the tasks we practised were very challenging, very good resources to use with our students. We invented very original stories encouraged by Valerie.
The 2nd lesson was a discovery: How to use Cuisenaire Rods in our English lessons. I show you some pictures related to that. Valerie gave us some ideas to use them to explain grammar, give directions, tell a story... (I have to buy a box of them!)
The last session was very familiar to me: Co-operative learning. We had a very rollicking time with: pass the buck, jigsaw reading and dictogloss. We have pretty good experience in our school working like that, so we'll continue doing it.
In the evening we went to the small and picturesque fishing village of Marsaxlokk. We walked along its peaceful promenade and grabbed a local beer.
It was a great day!