The materials of our lesson planning.

THE CHINESE NEW YEAR

 Our lesson planning is about a typical Chinese festival celebrated in the United States. We have chosen The Chinese New Year because we think it is a positive way to introduce the Chinese culture in nursery education.

 I want to show you some of our materials:

The routines.

Flashcards used to talk about the dragon and the lanterns.

The head of our dragon.

Routines about feelings.

Flashcards about typical Chinese food.

Routines to check the roll.

The Happy New Year card.

The characters for the Mulan's story.

The Chinese fan.

The characters for the shadow theatre.

Flashcards about animals.

 I strongly recommend you to work with this topic in nursery education, because it is really interesting but at the same time an unknown theme and you can teach to your children the Chinese culture and many values using a big variety of activities. I'm sure your pupils will love it!

 I hope you have enjoyed the post and see you soon around here!

 M.R.M.

The ninth lesson.

Story activities

 As we have said in the above posts, we can practise and improve their oral skills, listening and speaking, using activities where they must listen and do, perform, identify, respond, colour, draw or make. And in the same way we can provide dynamics in order to get better their pronunciation and intonation with songs, vocabulary games, playing speaking games, practising new sounds, starting to speak freely or working in groups.

 And on other hand, we can introduce the writing and reading in nursery education employing pictograms, playing with the alphabet and the letters or inventing short stories.

In the first point Things do after retelling a story, they tell us about the possibility of changing and adapting the plot to increase the children´s attention and interest. We have to keep in mind when we choose a story the pupils´ level and cognitive development and what contents we want to revise or teach with it.

 For example if you use The very hungry caterpillar, after telling the story you can make an activity where students colour images about the colours or food you have seen in it. And at the same time you give them instructions repeating the vocabulary. In this tale the author mention many things so you can work the feelings or the days of the week too.

 In addition we must reinforce them with the aim of increasing their confidence and promoting a positive attitude towards the English.

  The next item is Getting children to add to a story. Here they propose us we can work the stories using the vocabulary previously learnt in class. With very young learners we can tell a story about animals and mention some characteristics like the colours or the sizes (big, small). And later we will encourage carrying on with others things and ideas.

 In the third point, Making up a story, the authors suggest to create our own story related with the children or their close surrounding. We will use vocabulary which we have already worked and many different materials (pictures, puppets, costumes, ...) in order to break with the customary. So we can employ it several times but we will always add or change something else.

 Moreover, Using stories for project work where they make group dynamics and practice their English in a more fun and natural way. Also we can decide the aspects about the project together, for example what they want to put in it and how to do it or what tales they want to include. We must use as much as possible the English but if there was a problem obviously we can use our mother tongue.

 To end, it is very important the last point Correction and project work, because if they are going to perform in front of a public, the teacher must check the organization and what they are going to say. We have to verify if everyone is at ease with they are doing, since the acting has the aim of raising their confidence and their oral skills and especially they have to enjoy it. 


 See you around here in the next post!
 M.R.M.

The fifth lesson

SPEAKING MORE FREELY

 In this unit we learn how teachers can help children to speak for a longer time. 

 Firstly, when we work in a second language with very young learners we have to keep in mind the Cognitive development and language learning and for that it is necessary to choose a suitable topic which can be familiar or interesting to them, for example about festivals or cartoons. If it is the first time we can work with this theme we will introduce it with pictures or realia. On the contrary if they already know some things about it we explain two or three more. In any case we will begin with basic contents and step by step we will add others more complex.

 We can make different kinds of activities in order to develop the English oral skills, for example listing, rdering and sorting, matching, comparing, predicting and problem-solving, sharing personal experiences or creative works.

 As has been said in the above posts, if we want to get an effective learning in pupils we have to speak in English slowly, to repeat a lot, to listen them carefully, to reinforce their contributions, and also to provide them attractive activities which motivate them and where they learn something useful in their daily life.

 In addition in the second part Starting to speak freely-eliciting personal talk, they tell us that it is pretty positive talking about their families and personal life, because they love it and everyone wants to participate. To give an example if you talk about the family you can ask them about the brother or sisters which have each one and later introducing vocabulary about this topic (mother, father, grandparents,...) or if they have already acquired that contents you can compare or make a list about the differences between one and another.

 Furthermore, we can use Speaking games where children learn while they are playing, in this way they practice vocabulary, verbs or expressions about many different topics. We have a lot of things to carry out them (flashcards, balls, realia, ...) In these kinds of games, in which the whole class participates, we promote cooperative work and the knowledge of their peers.

  In nursery education we can make mime games about simple actions or vocabulary for instance imitating how walks a grandfather or actions like eat, sleep,...

  To end, in the last point Children speaking in groups they explain that not all children like speaking in public or in front of a big group, because they are shy. So we can provide them activities in smalls group or in pairs in order to benefit to the all children, and thus they get more confident and they will be at ease with the English. In this way the students have more opportunities to practice and there are many sorts of dynamics to do, for example looking for the differences between two pictures, imitating to somebody or something,...

 In my opinion, the methods and tips I have learnt in this unit are very useful for our future as teachers because they have shown us how pupils learn and many activities to meet the need and requirements of them. I think we can use them in primary and also in nursery education because they propose a methodology based in the learning in a funny and attractive way.


 See you on the next post!
  M.R.M.

The fourth lesson

SPEAKING WITH SUPPORT

  In this fourth unit we have learnt how work in order to children start to speak.

 So we can Use classroom phrases, where we tell them about things in which they are interested or about useful vocabulary with they treat in their daily life. For example we can teach them the clothes, colours, phrases to ask permission like "Can i go to the toilet?" although the very young learners say only "toilet, please", but it is really positive because they are improving the speaking and the pronunciation. Also they love repeating so it is very probably that when you say to them a word later they will repeat it.

 And if they make some mistakes the best method to correct them it is repeating again in the right way and reinforcing them a lot with a smile or with words like "Good job", "Right!", "Perfect", ...

 We must use easy and short sentences better than individual words because pupils learn by the context.

 Other important thing is Saying rhymes and singing songs to practise pronunciation, stress and intonation. Children love the songs and in their life they spend much time singing, so we can use them to improve the oral skills both listening and speaking, the intonation, and also to teach vocabulary about the seasons, the weather, the colours, the animals,.... In addition we can put them when we want to change in activity to warm up and to stretch.

 It is really useful using flashcards or pictures to Practise new vocabulary, because you can show them at the same time that you are telling the word with the purpose of the students repeat it later. Also when you are teaching new vocabulary, you can give to the classroom realia which pupils can touch and work with them, and in this way maybe they learn better the contents.

 We can Play vocabulary games, to revise and to check if pupils have learnt the vocabulary, and to improve the intonation and pronunciation. For example with the game "I spy with my little eyes..." at the beginning the teacher will start the game and later the child who guesses the word will be the person who is it now. Other typical games are "Finding pairs", "Shopping games" or "Happy families", in all of them we practise much vocabulary, verbs and the English oral skills.

 As it has been said above, we can use some games to Practise pronunciation of new sound, being that they learn the second language in the same way they do in their first idiom, listening, speaking and making some mistakes. So if we want that they learn properly we have to repeat, speak slowly and reinforce and praise them a lot.



 See you round here soon!

 M.R.M.