DRAMA: Storytelling and drama handout

In this handout they are plenty of different activities (more than 30) that can be do with very young english learners.

In class we just did one of them, the first one, "Words in the story". The story is the Kraken, a story that I think it is not appropiated for preschool children, so I think that we should make a small modification and tell the story with a different ending (maybe a mermaid can rescue them or something similar not being al drowned).

From all the activities appropiate for my future students, my favourite are the following:

4.5 Finger stories - children love puppets and for them is much more atractive to listen to an story with them. I think  they should make a previous activity creating by themselves finger puppets (with the teacher's help, of course) so that each children have two puppets: Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle, and they will get more involved in the story.

4.9 That's not right! - If it is an easy story that children know well (cinderella, little red riding hood, etc)  , they would love this activity because they always enjoy and have fun when the teacher seems to be wrong. Maybe it will help them to have some pictures about the story in front of them so that they can correct the teacher easily.

4.19 Freeze! - It is like playing to statues, one of the favourite game for children. Children need to move andd they learn better while they move so, why do not combine moving ang learning? With this activity we will work on their concentration cause they will have to pay attention to the movement that it is said. The same activity 4.10 Follow my leader! They will have a lot of fun with it at the same time they are practising their listening skills and their imagination.

4.32 Four little pigs - Althoung it is recommended for 6 year old children, I think we can addapt it easily just simplifying the text, making the sentences shorter. We can prepare two or three different shows at the same time so that all the children participate and they dont get bored. With this kind of drama representation we are developing children memory skills and also their confidence.

DRAMA: Reading

For my reading activity I chose the book "Spot can count" from Eric Hill.

It is a really simple and easy book but I preferred it because it was the first time I was going to be in front of a class reading a story in English, so I decided to choose an story that make me feel confident about myself and my possibilities.

To begin I started asking the childrens some questions about the cover:

What can you see in the cover?

Can you count?

Where do you think the story is going to happen? --> making predictions.

After that, I start reading the story but I just read the questions, and each time I told one different children to tell me the answer. I was trying to encourage them to take part in the storytelling.

Obviously for my classmates was really easy and for sure it was a little bit boring, but for very young learners (as my students are going to be) I think it is a really useful book to practise the numbers and how to count.

In this story the same structure is repeated ("How many") so it will be easy for the children to learn it.

An easy story like this one will motivate the children with the learning of second language cause they will feel confident about knowing the answer and this is really positive for them. Another reason why I choose thi story was that the vocabulary the book works it is really basic for young learners: numbers and animals. Children love animals and they like to know their names, the sounds they make, where do they live... So the contents in the book were appropriated for them. 

DRAMA: Roald Dahl

Since I was little I have loved reading, and one of my favourite books have always been The Witches and Matilda, from Roald Dahl. I really like the story itself but also the original illustration. Even now that I'm 26, all the summers I still like to read this books, they bring me nice memories.

Now that I have to analyse this books from a teacher's point of view I have get to some conclusion. Of course that they are really nice books, interesting for children because they are about topics they are interested in (witches, magic...), but maybe preschool students will be too young to understood the complete meaning of the story, but I think that we can try to make it easy for them by creating readers to simplify the text and make it shorter, and telling the story one chapter per day. We can also show them the pictures that appear in the books so that they can imagine easily what the stoty is about.

I really love the Little Red Riding Hood Roald Dahl's version. The end is so funny and original that children will love it too. This revolting rhyme is much more easy for them because it is shorter and they already will know the story, so it will sound familiar to them. I think it is a good idea to make children repeat some parts of the text like "What great big eyes you have, Grandma" and to represent the scene, so that children will have even more fun. We can even prepare a small show for other students or for the children parents, we can use puppets... Being the story so easy and short give us a lot of possibilities to work with it. 

I have found in youtube the following video which, in my opinion, should be show to the students, to make the story even more atractive. 

The same can be done with the Cinderella revolting rhymes, because the children also know the story already. But, in my opinion, the vocabulary in this story is much more difficult than in the previous one, even for me was quite difficult to understood the story and I have to look for the meaning of some words. Maybe this story should wait until primary.

I have left for the end the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because I have never like this story in particular. As I have said, when I was litlle (around 9 years) I loved to read and my mother bought me all the popular Roald Dahl's books, but I dont know why I never liked the Charlie's one and I didn't finish it. I really like how the story begans with all the golden money hidden in the chocolate squares. But once they are inside the factory, I can't find the attractive of all those strange rooms. When I saw the movie, I didnt like it either (I hate Johnny Depp) but I did like the end. 

I suppose I will have to make an effort and give my students the chance to discover Charlie's chocolate factory and maybe when I am a teacher, I will start loving the story, who knows. As the two in the beggining, it is a really long book, so for very young learner we should create a good reader much shorter and with nice and representative pictures.

DRAMA: Yes and No puppets

With this activity, we are going to practise affirmatives and negatives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJwsLap4Hs

DIDÁCTICA: Videos

British Council - Teaching Speaking Techniques (John Kay)

I've found this video quite interesting although it is focussed in older students than the ones I will have. In this video the teachers try to develop speaking skills and I have found some important ideas that for sure will help me as an english teacher in the future:

- It is very important that teacher and students are relaxed at class.

- When you decide to organise group activities, you must think carefully on the groups you want to form, so that the children can help each other.

- When you give some instructions, you must observe that children have understood you, if not, repeat the instructions again.

- The instructions have to be very simple and easy to understand.

- The teacher shouldn’t speak at the same time as the children, so that she can hear what they say and how they say it.

- It is a good idea for the children to be surrounded by the language we are trying them to learn: posters, sentences, etc. 

Teaching Activities - British Council - BBC

As the previous video, this one shows us different english lessons in Thailand, and we have an expert giving us several tips to develop speaking skills in second language speakers.

A lot of things that the video mentions, I have learnt them in my English studies at La Salle, such as the importance of giving the children the opportunity to make predictions, storytelling, information gap. But I have learnt a new idea about debate. It is true that my students will be too young to participate in one, but maybe when they are 5 years olf, if we give them useful language and we choose a topic that it is really interesting for them, and above all, we let them practice what they want to say, maybe we can try to do one. 

Carol Read: The secret of working with children

It has been the video I liked the most although it is quite long. I really love Carol Read's enthusiasm, I think it is contagious and that's the real secret of her interesting spechees.

The video start with her encouraging the assistants to give their opinion about what is the difficult things about working with children (they move a lot, talkative, it is difficult to make them pay attention, they constantly demand new things...) and also she demonstrate with a practical activity how to do it in an attractive way. It is really funny the moment where they are all singin about the fruits in the flashcards.

As the video is very long, what I will like to outline is the important tips Carol gaves us along all the video. If we want to be good teachers, and we want to prepare good activities, we should take into consideration:

1. Make all the children participate

2. Always with visual support

3. We must encourage the children all the time, if not they are not learning

4. The children have to understand what they are doing.

5. All the things we do with them, have to be conected to real life situations.

6. It is important that the children have enough time to respond.

7. We must be careful about our body language, sometimes when we give a message, we give it from our expressions/body language and not from our words,

Carol Read: Ideas for using flashcards

I've found this video really useful because, althoug it is very common to use flashcards to teach a second language to children,  I have learnt a lot of new ideas I will like to put into practice with my preschool students.

It is true that we have studied some of the techniques in class, like the "What's missing?" and the "Flashcards riddles" ones. But, for example, I have never heard before about the "Flash" technique, but for sure children will find it really funny and they will pay a lot of attention to the teacher. I have also like the "Magic eyes" activities, it is a good way to train the children memories and to make them to associate visual and mental representation to words. In my opinion it is a good idea to combine movement and learning, so the "Hands on heads" are accurated for very young learners. Above all I have liked the "Flash chain" activity where children can practice with very simple interaction patterns such as "Do yo like zebras" "Yes, I do" "No, I don't". It is really important from the very beginning to make them practice the new language they are discovering.

DRAMA: Shadow Puppets Performance. The little red hen.

Here is the video Laura, Alba and me have prepared for our drama lesson using our shadow puppets to represent "The little red hen" story. Hope you like it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q9O_IrEdfE

And now you can see some pictures from the making of:

DIDÁCTICA: Writing activity

For this activity, we decided to use the Velazquez famous painting "Las Meninas".

After showing the children the painting and giving to them a short explanation about Velázquez and this painting, we will create at the blackboard two big tables. In one of them the children will have to write which things can they see in the painting that are painted from a certain colour.

The children will make the same but this time with numbers, so that they will have to count how many things can they see at the painting and write them down.