My period of internships at school

My period of internships at school

I am going to tell you my experience when I was doing internships at school. I hope you enjoy it!

Last year, in September, I started my period of internships at a public school which provides pre-school and primary education.

I was doing internships in sixth of primary education. Moreover, I was in fourth of primary education teaching the subject “Arts and Crafts” in english with other classmate. I spent most of the time in sixth and only three hours per week in fourth. In sixth course, I had twenty-four pupils; twelve were girls and twelve were boys. I also had four pupils who has special educational needs. Since the beginning of the year, the pupils were organized in pairs but with the passage of time they were organized individually because they talked a lot. The classroom was equipped with a lot of materials and technology; one digital whiteboard, one traditional blackboard, one computer for the teacher, individual computers for the children, dictionaries… The walls of the classroom were a valuable space because they were decorated with maps and posters. During  my period of internships, I taught in sixth course different subjects: mathematics, Spanish language, Galician, natural sciences, social sciences and Arts and Crafts. When I was teaching these subjects I cleared up some questions, I did many dictations, I explained different lessons, I corrected many exams, compositions, exercises and works that the pupils did. 

Now, I am going to show you some activities that I prepared for the pupils in sixth course.

1.-“Pulmonary Ventilation”: I prepared this activity because the pupils didn’t understand the pulmonary ventilation. The previous day, I said to them that they had to bring at the class some materials to built the bottle. The next day, they built the bottle step by step at the same time I was explaining what they had to do. In the end, I explained the pulmonary ventilation with the bottle. They enjoyed a lot and they were very attentive.

2.-“Poster board with panels”: In this activity, the pupils chose a book in Galician. They had to explain the book to the rest of the class drawing six panels in a poster board.

3.- “Mildews”: I explained the mildews to the pupils and I suggested them to bring at the class some foodstufs with mildews. They bring the foodstufs with mildews and each pupil explained to the rest of the class what happened to his/her food.

Now, I am going to show you some activities that I prepared for the pupils in fourth course in relation to the subject “Arts and Crafts”.

1.- “Geometric shapes series”: In this activity, each pupil had to continue the geometric shapes series with the pencil. Then, they coloured each figure with crayons.

2.- “Doing a drawing with geometric shapes”: In this activity, the pupils cut out cardboards doing geometric shapes. They did a drawing pasting the geometric shapes.

To sum up, during my period of internships I noticed the educational level of the pupils, their motivation to learn different subjects and the cooperation between the pupils and their difficulties. In the future, as a teachers, it’s important to know their difficulties, their educational needs and adjust our knowledges to the children. Moreover, it’s essential to motivate the children because they will learn with more eagerness and, of course, the teacher has to enjoy what he/she is doing.

This was my experience in my period of internships. I suggest you to see this video which it gives you advices for teachers. 

Moreover, I invite you to see these web pages about how to motivate students.

https://teach.com/what/teachers-change-lives/teachers-motivate/ 

http://www.teachhub.com/top-12-ways-motivate-students 

https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/motivating-students/

Mª Esther López Pérez

Benefits of Mindfulness

The use of  mindfulness can be a new thing for our students, because it is not a practice used in every school. A lot of studies have shown the importance and the benefits of mindfulness. It is so simple. The commonly way used to get into a mindful state is sit on a chair, close your eyes and try to focus on your breath. In this way, other thoughts won´t enter your mind, and you pay attention in the present moment. 

Now, I am going to talk about the beneficts of practicing mindfulness in class:

- Stress Reduction: Many studies show that mindfulness reduces stress. This is because mindfulness increase the ability to use emotion regulation strategies and this way, we can select the emotions. It can be very important for the students, because they sometimes are stressed, for example when they have exams.

- It can improve student´s grades: some ressearches proved that the students who were trained in minfulness performed better in the verbal reasoning and also improved their working memory.

- Mindfulness lowers depression risk among teens: Teaching mindfulness could help the students to reduce anxiety or depression, because it helps to be more relaxed in all kind of situations.

- It helps to focus the attention: mindfulness meditation affects students hability to focus attention and ignore distracting information.

- Mindfulness makes us smarter and improves our decision-making: with only fiveteen minutes of mindfulness focused on breathing, you can think clearly, removing other thoughts from your mind.

- It increases our hability to feel empathy for others: some studies show that a brief meditation intervention make the participants more compassionate and empathic.

- Mindfulness enhances creativity: this is very important in education, because as teachers, we want our students to develop creativity. Mindfulness improve the main factors that determine levels of creativity: convergent thinking and divergent thinking.

As we can see, there are many benefits of mindfulness for students, but teachers can take advantage of this too.

Here, you can see the power of mindfulness and meditation in a funny way.

Enjoy it!

Relaxation techniques for children

In most of the lessons we can find nervous and restless children. When children are nervous, is very difficult to get them work. This is, why teachers must do some relaxation activities to be able they undertand to the lessons. This kind of activities can be very different such as chants, games, breathing exercises, etc. In this case, children can enjoy doing it! Besides, they feel more calm without realize.

Why is it important for children to be relax?

From my point of view, it is vital that children get calm in the lessons because they could learn more things in a funny way. If they don't feel relax the teacher must try to get it. Among several alternatives doing some exercises that are proposed below may be beneficial for children. So, take a glance of them.

- Chants: Children can enjoy singing and dancing so this method can be beneficial to achieve a mindfulness body. They can feel more relax after doing this. For further information see some interested videos about this:

- Games:

  1. Yoga: is a mix of physical activities, breathing techniques and meditation. This kind of exercises   can be done at any time, except after eating. To introduce this games the teacher can show some videos to the children.

  2. Displays: This technique is the most difficult one to use with youngest children because they have to use their imagination as the teacher tell them. Te advantage of this method is that children can connect with themselves. In other words, body and mind work together. One example can be follow in the next link (https://www.educaixa.com/-/visualizacion-1)

When should we practice relaxation?

Many psychologists recommend doing relaxation exercises after break because the children are often more restless. However, according to several psychologists, each teacher should do relaxation activities at the end of their lessons. This fact will help them during their learning process.

What are the main benefits of practice relaxation?

- The capacity of listen to the teacher improve considerably.

- Better self-confident.

- Improve the concentration capacities and memory skills.

- In terms of laterality, the use of relaxation techniques, help children to improve their spatial vision.

- A good way to get children develops their social skills and reduces their shyness.

Riddles in the classroom

Creating riddles with or without rhymes can be fun, No matter the age of the students or the topics you are teaching. Encourage your childrens to play with words, to try a rhyme, to hide words in the verses.

 Around the corner there is a tree.

Under the tree there is a school.

In the school there is a desk.

On the desk there is a bell.

Behind the desk there is a teacher.

What is her name?

(Schwartz, 1987)

Create a puzzle with the foreign lenguage, or maybe a picture! Improve their pronunciation, their vocabulary or their grammar. Or simply break with the monotony of a lesson introducing riddles like:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

I can’t convince you about the advantages of using riddles in your classes?

I give you a citation from: Buchoff, Rita in The Reading Teacher, 1996

"Riddel books are not only pleasurable. They assist in developing cognitive skills.
Through riddles, children gather and interpret data, make inferences, and

Draw conclusions. When provided with the riddle’s solution,
they interpret this new information, construct meanings to clarify and extend knowledge…”

And it is a very cretiv exercise. So I drew my first riddle too.
Enjoy it!

She cames late in the afternoon
before the sun goes down and arrives the moon

I will tell you soon

She has four legs and likes the darkness
She doesn't like snakes and neither eggs
Fresh-fish is her favourite dish
codfish, crawfis, blowfish
doctor fish, sellfish, sawfish

She loves meat too
She searchs it in the earth
but in the air too

You will gess it soon

Monday
            in
              all
                 you

Why are new technologies really necessary to learn foreign languages?

Is known that new technologies (NT) are a good way to make new friends, to open our minds, to access to every kind to information or simply to fight boredom. But we must know, as teachers, that new technologies can offer a lot of options that we should use to make our lessons meaningful and interesting.

DOES IT MEAN THAT NEW TECHNOLOGIES ARE THE ONLY WAY?

No. What I want you to think about is that we should combine every resources that we can to make the most useful learning.

We should not forget that NT are comfortable for us as teachers. Maybe at firsts moments they carry a lot of work because we don't know how to use it, but them have a lot of advantages. We just need to try to do it and don’t be close-minded to learn.

Now I am going to talk about a few of these advantages:

• Kids see NT as something very closer to them. Is a way to camouflage the learning, to mix the game and the learning into something that could become in an interesting experience.
• Sometimes when we think in NT in classrooms we only think on computers; but we should think that kids could use tablets too (that are cheaper for the schools) or even smartphones. As usual, pre-primary kids don't have its own mobile phone, but they can have apps specially thought for them on its parents' phones.
• In the same sense that in the previous advantage, tablets and smartphones are easier to carry, so it could be a good way to avoid the heavy books
• We should think that we are in a technological society and we should pull on the same direction. It's worthless to force them to make all type of traditional exercises if nowadays these are obsoleting.

• NT open up doors to a lot of activities. They can learn by touching the screens, they can move elements sliding a finger over a screen, they can change colours and sizes of different elements, etc.
• NT is a synonym of share, because it permits to exchange information, apps, games, photographs, videos and all you can imagine.

If you want to know more about this topic, you can click on this links:

• https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/the-benefits-new-technology-language-learning (another benefits)

A video made by the University of Birmingham talking about the e-learning and Virtual Learning Enviroments.

Ideas about how educators can incorporate technology into the classroom to serve ELL's

THANKS FOR READING 

Total Physical Response

This method is based on how the children learn their mother tongue and it was created by DR. James J. Asher.  The communication between parents and children combines linguistic and physical skills. The parents say something, for example “Give that ball” and the boy or girl responds to this doing the action. This happens for many years but even if the kid can’t speak he or she is internalizing the language. After this stage the child can reproduce language spontaneously.

For teaching a second language learning in preschool, TPR is the perfect method because kids gets actively involved in the lesson through action activities.  In the classroom the teacher has to start by saying a word (jump) or a phrase (Sit down) and demonstrating the action. Then the teacher says the command and the students do the action.  The most effective way is if the students are standing in a circle around the teacher and he/she encourage the children.

This is an example of how to explain the target vocabulary like  stand up, make a circle, turn around, walk , run , close your book …  This kind of exercise is really fun because children love moving around.Then you can introduce the game “Simons says” with this type of vocabulary. It consist in:

Students only can do the action when the teacher starts the sentence with "Simon say..." and then say an action for example Jump! so the children have to do the action. To add some difficulty the teacher can say "Your teacher says..." or "you say..." and the children have to notice that they can't do the action.

Another game could be introduce TPR in a storytelling so the children learn the linguistic structures that appear in the story  and get involved in it through the gestures. Then while the teacher is reading the story, they can represent the gestures.

A variations of any kind of TPR activitie is that the actions should be done by the students slowly or quickly, also you can include some action with left and right ( Hop on your left foot) as well as small or big (big or small jumps)

In the end, we can't forget that songs can be tought with TPR to make this resource more complete and fun. With songs you can teach a lot of actions such as claps, stomp, nod, shout, brush, wash ... 

For example you can use " If you're happy and you know it" song or " The wheels of the bus " song.

Try to apply this kind of activities in your classroom !

ERASMUS TOURISM

Last semester I have gone on Erasmus to Romania. It has been an incredible experience and I recommend you to go if you have the opportunity. During those 6 months, I have visited different cities and I would like to share with you my opinion about the cities that I have liked more, but to summarize it a little, I have decided to make a top three.

#3 BERLIN

The third place I liked the most was Berlin. We were very lucky to go in winter because it coincided with Christmas holidays and we could enjoy the beautiful markets that were decorating the city. In addition, we did a lot of things like: visiting the city by bike, ice skating, taste the typical hot wine... The city is very big and you have many things to visit and do, it's hard to get bored. It is also true that on this trip, we met with more Erasmus people from Ourense and we had a great time together, this is the main reason why I give the number 3 to Berlin.

#2 BUDAPEST

In the number two Budapest, one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. We also had some luck because it was snowing and the streets were very beautiful. The nightlife in the city is unique, you can find underground bars with great diversity of music and people. The only bad thing it is that I was there only 2 days and a half and I didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy the well-known thermal baths.

#1 PRAGUE

And finally in the number one .... Prague. This city has pleasantly surprised me, the streets and downtown buildings make you feel like the protagonist of a Disney movie. But not only the center is beautiful, the surroundings of the river and the castle of the city are awesome too. There is a lot of variety of good food, in addition, the price is very cheap because Czech Republic doesn’t use Euros, the currency there is called the Czech Crown.

EXTRA:

Although it would not enter into my top 3 or 5 for its beauty, I wanted to finish saying that Arad (Romania), my Erasmus destiny, it has another different enchants like good people, tasty meals... However, inside Romania, I recommend you to visit cities like Cluj Napoca, Brasov, Sibiu and Oradea.

Fun Ways to Teach Your Students Mindfulness

As we all know, Mindfulness is a widespread practice in recent years to learn how to combat the frantic pace of life and the lack of attention that accompanies us. His practice is accompanied by multiple benefits, such as the improvement of attention, concentration and learning, so the Mindfulness was soon appearing in schools. 

But... How to make a Mindfulness practice in something fun and motivating for children? 

If you are a beginner and want to have more information about Mindfulness, you can see this presentation.

Then I show you some exercises to practice in the classroom in an entertaining manner: 

I - Jingle Bell. 

Tell the child that you are going to play a bell. Ask them to listen carefully to the sound and to lift their hands when now they hear nothing, when the sound has disappeared completely. 

2 - Fast Balloon or Slow Balloon? 

This game is done in large group sitting in circle with a balloon, previously decorated with drawings and fine words.  At first, tell the children we are going to give us hand balloon hand the more rapid as possible.  This round is as you can imagine very fun and full of laughter of children. Then we ask you to pass the globe of hand by hand but it more slowly which may, as if were in space without gravity. In the first round we ask that they focus on the characteristics of the globe, in the details that previously could not see: color, texture, drawings and written words... In a second round, we invite you to pass the balloon and smile to fellow looking you in the eye. Finally, let's reflect on group on what return have been enjoying more of the small details, making a general debate.

3- Astronauts.

You are going to play to be astronauts who visit other planets. Offer you a piece of fruit (or any other food) and ask that you have never seen same thing describe it with the 5 senses well: how is that food, that is has, which is it color, if you weigh, whether it is soft or hard, whether it is soft or harsh, if you smell something, if it makes a sound when you chew it, if it is sweet or savoury , etc... 

4 - Weather Report.

In this practice, you must ask your students to develop their own weather forecast.Like the weather, our feelings chage: it can be a sunny day or a rainy day... Suggest that each student try to recognize that "weather" is on inside them.

Remember that to put into practice these exercises you must use a proper space and attitude. With perseverance and patience, everything is possible!

Here I leave you some web resources to keep practicing Mindfulness:

Pixel Thoughts. Interactive Web.

SpiderMan Meditation

The Listening Game (Vídeo)

7 Fun Ways to Teach Mindfulness

Mindful Eating

Annaka Harris. Mindfulness for Children

Be Happy! 

Nerea Limia González

NEW VIRTUAL METHODS OF LEARNING ENGLISH!

        You want to learn English but....You do not know how to do it? I want to help you to learn English; I will give you some tips on how to learn English in a fun way. Thus, if you are a person who searches solutions for learning English maybe you have to read this Blog Entry!

I suggest two innovative solutions for learning English for people who don´t want to learn by the traditional method, and the best point is that both solutions are free!

The first solution is an interactive method; learning English by the YouTube channels. I guess that you tried to learn English many times, but maybe you don´t have the money to train in a private language school. Probably, you don´t have enough time to study English or you don´t have a fixed schedule.

With YouTube Channels you don´t need to pay for a native speaker to take English classes because you can learn English at home  -in your free time and listen to an English speaking person-. Also, if you don´t have much time you could use Youtube whenever you want. Learning English by these channels would be the solution, because it´s a flexible, economical way of learning online. Furthermore, with this resource you will improve your speaking skills and pronunciation.

I would recommend you some YouTube Channels, but there are a lot more. You only have to search “learning English” in YouTube searcher. If you click above the name, you could get to the channels:

1. ETJ ENGLISH

2. ENGLISH WITH LUCY

3. BBC Learn English

4. AMIGOS INGLESES

Another possibility is learning English by mobile apps like Duolingo, Babbel, Memrise or Vocabla. These apps are very useful for learning English, because they start with a level exam. As you progress in learning English you level up.

  The advantages of these apps are that you can learn English wherever you want and you don´t need microphone and speakers. This would be the best option if you prefer to learn English outside; on the bus, in a park and so on. Moreover, if you are at home or at work and you are short of time to practise English you can close the app and leave for later.

 Even if you are a student or a teacher and you want to use some apps, I would recommend you to take a look at this webpage, because here there are a variety of apps for learning English: Mastersinesl. 

In addition, if you have time, in this video you will be informed about which the best application according to your level and preferences.

           

YouTube channels and mobile apps will be useful for you to learn English!

I hope this has been interesting.

 Xiana Barros Giráldez.

BENEFITS OF BILINGUALISM

 Different studies during the 20th century expressed that bilingual children created an interference in their brain activity while they were learning and it was a problem for them.

Nowadays researchers argued that this idea was outdated and incorrect. They are finding out that is not a problem because interferences forces the brain to resolve the internal conflict and it gives more resources to learn. An article in the New York Times, of Katherine Kinzles, an associate professor of psichology argued that multilingual children improve their social abilities too. 

In the other hand another study of Concordia University in Montreal, shows that the children who are in contact to several languages are better in problem-solving activities. Also the programme of bilingual learning of Madrid shows an increase of the cognitive abilities to resolve problems especially in pupils who are bilingual. 

Alberto Costa, member of researchers group of Barcelona says: “The bilingual persons have to control two languages and revent interferences. Because that they must use the brain areas connected with language and the atention abilities too.

However there are advantages and disadvantages. The Costa team has found some disadvantages of bilinguism. These people are more slow speaking and sometimes they forget some words and it is very difficult for them to remember those words. 

Last researches show that the multilinguism could have even more effects than bilinguism. Multilinguism could produce significant changes in the brain work making the kids smarter and faster processing information.

My Erasmus trips

Hello everybody!

Today I will go to talk about the cities that I have visited during my Erasmus. I was in Arad (Romania) from 25th of September to 13 of February. Traveling from this city, where I was studying,was very cheap so, these months I went to different places.

Prague

Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. I stayed there in January, so the weather was cold. This city was the sixth most visited capital by tourists. Charles Bridge or Prague Castle are one of the most important tourist attractions. It is interesting to know that the city is within the European Union but it has its own currency called Corona.

Warsaw

Warsaw is the highest city of Poland and also its capital. I traveled by plane there. This city surprised me by the number of Erasmus students. However, the Poles are not very friendly people. The nicest thing for me was the Jewish quarter. With regard to gastronomy, I recommend trying a typical dish like mielone, a kind of hamburger, or Golabki, meat balls.

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary and is divided into two parts: Buda and Pest. Buda is the historic Hungarian capital where the spectacular Buda Castle is located. This is associated with upper class neighborhoods while Pest is the urban area, where we can find the Hungarian Parliament. Budapest was the city that I liked most.

Traveling allows you to get out of the routine and discover new places besides knowing different cultures and customs.

My Erasmus in Warsaw

I'm going to tell you my Erasmus experience in Warsaw. Warsaw is the capital of Poland and I arrived there on 23th of september to 6 of february. Erasmus has been the best experience of my life so far. I recommend living this to everyone.

Warsaw is a city where many students and young people live. I met a lot of people of different nationalities and I took the memory of incredible people.

Life is very different there. In Warsaw it is very cold, in December we reached 17 degrees below zero. The food is very diferent too. Poles only eat pork for the most part and there is almost no fish. I advise you that if you ever go to Warsaw you can taste Zurek soup, it is very good. 

During my erasmus, I travelled to a lot of places like Stockholm, Berlin, Krakow, etc. It is very cheap to travel from Poland, I remember that the ticket to Stockholm cost me 18 euros round trip.

The classes were all in English and during the day I also has to communicate in English because Polish language is really difficult.

I lived many adventures and experience during my Erasmus but I would need an eternity to be able to tell you everything. I attach a video about the city.

                                      

Why we should to learn English?

The reasons to study English are varied. Here I am going to talk about the most importants, apart from give you some information about the language, and practical advices to learn English faster and with an effective form.



1. To work

Perhaps the main reason which studying English is so important is because it is fundamental to find work. This language give us acces to a better education and the possibility of a better job. Our job opportunities will multiply as soon as we handle the language. In every areas of work, English often benefits to be promoted up or to access to another job, helping you to improve your real work situation.



2. Education and information
Another important reason to learn English is that we will be able to access to a better education, without limiting us to the universities or academic centers of our country. In addition, it will give us access to a current and complete information, we will know the last advances and will be able to get to the majority of scientific, academic and technological texts, written in English. According to a study, 56 % of the Internet sites are edited in English.




3.To travel
To speak English will allow you to travel arround the whole world and understand everything. You will be able to enjoy your trip fullly because English is spoken in five continents, and you will avoid stressful situations caused by the barrier of the language.




4. Vacations
Studying English is the best excuse to spend a wonderful vacations. A languages trip abroad is the best way of learning English, of discovering a new culture and interesting people, of visiting incredible places and enjoying in general a few unforgettable vacations.

My Erasmus Experience

Hello everybody!

Today I’m going to talk about my Erasmus experience but focusing on what I´ve studied. Something that surprised me once I got the scholarship for studying abroad was the language in which I would study. My destiny was Ljubljana, the Capital of Slovenia, where I thought that the lessons would be in Slovenian like in the rest of the degrees of the University. I got sick just thinking about attending these lessons in Slovenian but luckily for me and for my Erasmus classmates we would study in English. Now you will be wondering how could it be, and it is very simple. The faculty of Education offers a program with the possibility to study subjects in English exclusively for Erasmus students. This program is called “European Primary Teacher Education” or abbreviated “EPTE”, where we can choose between six or seven different subjects. We also were able to study the English course with Slovenian students thus having an intercultural class.

The subjects I chose were: EPTE Arts, where the members of my group and I prepared a play about expressing feelings without talking. EPTE Nature, this was an interesting subject, in which we went to the zoo, we interacted with animals in the lessons and we also had a practice with children in a school. EPTE Nutrition, in this subject we learnt a lot about what we have to eat, what food is healthy and which is not, how people feed in different parts of the world, etc. Otherwise I studied two subjects specifically of English call English I-Language skills and English II-English pronunciation for teacher.           These subjects were more focused in the studied of the language in its different aspects like listening, speaking, reading and gramma.

Finally, I would like to send you a message to encourage you to live this unforgettable adventure where you will make new friends; you will travel all around Europe and of course learn new cultures.

Miguel Sanmartín González 

Learning with songs

Music can be a good way to learn English. It is not only useful for non English speakers but is also useful for young English speakers.

The music is a repetitive way of teaching so it makes the teaching-learning process easier, It also causes students to be more motivated to learn.

Through the music you can learn a lot of vocabulary, but also you can learn grammar and pronunciation.

Juan Carrión was an English teacher in Spain that invented the Lennon Method.
 When he was teaching, in the 60s, there weren't methods to teach new languages, so he used to listen to the radio and transcribe the Beathles songs. So, as always there were some words and expressions that he couldn't undestand, when he discover that John Lennon was in Spain he decided to visit him. At this meeting he asked Lennon two things: the first one was to check his tanscripts, and the second one was to add the letters of the songs in the disks. Lennon was so excited with that idea, so he promised that he will include the lyrics in their new album; and he kept his promise.

To study or not to study

Studing used to mean getting a job. Our parents told us studyind was a certain way to get a good job. It used to be that way. But thing have changed.

Nowadays, there are many people with degrees that can't find a job. Being qualified is not a synonim of having a good position in the working market. 

⇓

After ten years of crises we are paing the prize. There are generations of qualified people who have no secure job prospects.

When our grandparents were young, they had more posibilities to find a good job if they studied. But having acces to education was very difficult so many people were left out. Nowadays, is more accesible to people, economically and culturally, but the tables have turned. Finding a job doesn't depend on how qualified you are.

So, what can we do?

• We can migrate not only to work but also to see the world.
• We can become entrepreneurs.
• We can change our lifestyle and live a simpler life.

Or...

Start a revolution in our minds!     :)