Learning a foreign language is very important nowadays. It's important that children learn English at an early age because it's easier for them than adults. For children to show an interest in English we should make this a fun learning experience. Nowadays we have many resources for a more funny and meaningful learning. Thanks to the new technologies we have a great variety of content, games, app, videos ... A very fun and economical way to learn the new language. It's only necessary to have internet access and an electronic device.
Here you can see some resources online: Http://www.funenglishgames.com/ It's a website for children to learn English with activities, videos, games ...
What is bullying?¿? Bullying is the deliberate and continuous physical or psychological abuse of a child by another or others, who behave cruelly for the purpose of subjecting and frightening him or her in order to obtain a favorable outcome for the bully or simply to satisfy the need to attack and destroy that these usually present.
Bullying implies a continuous repetition of teasing or aggression and can lead to social exclusion of the victim. Characteristics: - Teasing, threats, physical attacks, systematic isolation, etc . - It tends to originate problems that are repeated and prolonged for a certain time. - It is usually caused by a student, supported by a group, against a victim who is defenseless. . - The victim develops fear and rejects the context in which he suffers violence; Loss of confidence in oneself and in others, and decreased school performance. - It diminishes the capacity of moral understanding and empathy of the aggressor, while a reinforcement of a violent style of interaction takes place.
- It reduces the quality of life of the environment in which it occurs: difficulty achieving objectives and increase of problems and tensions. Types
- Physical: pushing, kicking, aggression with objects, - Verbal: insults and motes. - Psychological: undermine the individual's self-esteem and foster a sense of fear.
- Social: seeks to isolate the youth from the rest of the group and colleagues.
I have chosen this topic because the last week I read an article about this in the newspaper and I found it interesting. I had listened something about it, but I have decide to look for some new information. I hope you enjoy the reading.
The result of a genetic study of the Trinity College of Dublin announced in 2010 showed that Irish people could have direct descendant of Galicians and Basques. The three races would share the Y chromosome. This theory coincides with the mythical legend of Breogan,a Celtic king whose descendants and whose army would have arrived in Ireland and would have conquered it, respectively, after the death of the first ones mentioned.
In fact, Celts, in the Iron Age, founded the culture, religion and homeland of Galicia that later would transfer to Ireland in the later emigration to the British Islands. As evidence of this, actually there are many coincidences in the culture of both nations: in mythology, there are heroic and mysterious legends, characters as gods and magical witches; in music, the bagpipe, the tambourine, the folk dance and music; in linguistics, each nation has an meaning of the word morriña, in Irish, cumha; in culinary terms, the copious meals; finally, the most acknowledged similarities: the rainy weather and the green landscapes.
Now, we have to pray for Galicia to approach our sister nation's high per capita so that the parallelism is completely happy.
In the first semester,
I had been an Erasmus student in Warsaw, when I arrived in the country I was very
surprised because I didn’t expect it as it was. The first week, while I was
looking for a flat for rental, I stayed in a hostel with more Erasmus students,
finally we found one. Luckily, our landlord spoke English, so we didn’t have
any problem talking with her.
At the beginning, it
was a bit strange as it was very far from Spain and the Polish people wasn’t very
friendly with foreigners.
Few days after that,
the first of October, the classes at University started, where I had to catch a
tram to go there. In the class, we were all Erasmus students, Turkish and
Spanish. I chose five subjects but later I decided to change two of them,
because, they were taught in Polish, being so difficult. The teachers were very
nice, and the coordinator solved all the problems quickly.
There was an
association called ESN, which organized trips and other activities. One of
these trips organized by them, was to Krakow, which I decided to go, enjoying
very much the city and meeting many interesting people.
The weeks were passing
and the weather was getting very cold. In November, we were at 0 degrees
celsius or even less. In this month, my friends and I traveled to Wroclaw, a
charming but small Polish town.
At the end of November, we traveled to Berlin, which
I loved it. After this trip, we went to Stockholm, a nice city too but very
expensive.
In December it was snowy,
so it was very cold. At the end of this month, I returned to Spain for
Christmas.
After Christmas, I
returned to Warsaw, when I got off the plane it was very cold, -14 degrees. In
this month I didn’t travel, but my friends came to visit me.
Finally in February, I
returned to Spain.
To sum up, I loved this
experience and I recommend it to everyone.
I liked a lot of the English language in secondary school. I paid attention to the way of my teacher's teaching and I imagined how would be my way of teach when I be teacher.
My thoughts changed when I was in Baccalaureate because I began to hate the English language. I had writing and grammar exercises all time since I was child. I never did oral exams and I think that this is very important.
I think that the method of schools should change. The subject of English should be more practice and more oral exercises or exams than writing exercises.
To teach English to child without “traditional methods” I think it's good:
Don't force the situation.
To create mystery in the class.
To see cartoons in original version.
To play with funny games.
To sing English songs to learn new vocabulary.
We will be future teachers of English and we should keep it in mind when we become great teacher. This change depends on us.
THANKS YOU!!
Saturday, 29 April 2017
Learning English with movies and series
Using
series and movies to learn a language is a method that has many advantages. They
are a fun way to learn English when you are too tired to do anything else. They
can, also, give a cultural insight so you´ll be able to understand the culture
and history of the country. Thanks to the new technologies we have a great
variety of audiovisual elements and possibilities of interaction with them.
Some
advantages of this method are, among others, that you
can learn real English, the kind that native people actually speak. The
English spoken in movies is very natural and use some colloquial expressions
that aren´t found in textbooks.
You can hear how words are pronounced which is a very interesting and
important thing to learn because it allows you to better communicate with
native speakers and to improve your English level. Also, you can understand how
words are said, taking into account the tone of voice, so you will be able to
know what the person who is talking wants to express, further than just paying
attention to the words. This is an advantage that we don´t have if we want to
learn this by reading (which doesn´t mean that reading is not a good method, on
the contrary, since it helps us with vocabulary, spelling and syntax) because
reading doesn´t allow us to observe the characters or interpret their
expressions.
Movies and series can give an idea of the context in which the words that you
have just been learning are used. This is an advantage in relation to learning
from vocabulary lists, which is very common, for example, in schools. It´s
obvious that knowing the meaning of the words is essential but knowing where
and when to use them is important too, as well as the different meanings they
acquire according to the context in which they are used.
The
last advantage that we are going to comment is the possibility of turning on or
off the subtitles during the visualization
of the movie or series that we choose. Although many people recommend seeing
them without any subtitles, this can be challenging at the beginning so I think
that maybe they can be gradually turned off. For example, at first, you can
have them in Spanish and, as you improve, they can be switched to English and
then, finally, you can turn them off completely. Perhaps it would also be a
good idea to watch easy movies and series, and the ones that matches with your
current English level so it´s not too complicated when you start. You can even
watch films in English that you have already seen in Spanish first. On the
other hand, the subtitles may present the problem of reliability depending on
who make them since not always are experienced translators who carry out this
work.
For
all the previous advantages I think that series and films constitute a good way
of learning without this supposing to take away importance to the other
methodologies.
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.
Duringmy 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.
