Jane House

This week, in our English subject Jane House, who is a published author of children's material came to class in order to talk us about her job. She was talking about what she did as well as how important are the books in students' life. 

Moreover, she showed us some of her materials and we realized that books are not always as boring as they seem. I mean, books can include dynamic activities and funny games too. It is the teachers' tasks to use them in a correct way, to exploit their possibilities. For instance, she showed us that her activities are usually related to a text, in this ways, students can do meaningful activities with a concret context. One of the activities she talked about was a dolphin poem that students had to read and then they had to answer some questions. I think that her talk was inspiring and she encouraged us to use books in class, a way of teaching which is hated by most of the university teachers. 

To sum up, I think that the talk was very helpful to us as it has shown us a different point of view about books, giving them the change to be used in class with the aim of improve children's skills because they can be a great support. 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear. What do you see?

This week we have been talking about stoytelling, a good way to encourage our students to learn English and a good resource to start our lesons, as well as a great complement to our units.

Here we have some questions about the story "Brown Bear, Brown Bear. What do you see?" and my answers:



1. Why is this an appropriate story to read with both preschool and primary children? Give at least 3 different reasons.

•  Because it has a lot of pictures which could help students to know what is the story teller saying.

•  As it could be a support for teaching colors and animals to the students.

• Given the fact that it could offer to the students grammar structures which they could use in their own speaking.

2. How would you use this story with your students? Think of two before reading activities, two during reading activities and two after reading activities that you could do with your students if you read this story in class.

• Before reading: Maybe I will ask students about their favorite animal in order to introduce the topic and to encourage them to practice their speaking. It would be also a good idea to read the tittle and ask students what they think it’s going to happen in the story.

• During reading: I would do a lot of gestures with my hands with the verb see for example, marking my eyes with my finger with the aim of allowing students to understand what I’m saying. Moreover, I would read with a good intonation, and very slowly for catching the students’ attention.

• After reading: I would ask students to tell me, for example: what do the golden fish see?, and it could be a good way to remember the story and their characters. Then, students could also do a picture about their favourite character and I could see if they remember the colour of the chosen animal .

3. What age and grade would your students be?


I think that the best age for telling this history is for 5 or 6 year old students, when they are learning animals and colors.



4. What language objectives would you have for this story?


The language objectives would be to learn animals’ names, to learn colors and to learn the structure: “What do you see? I see….”.


5. Find one other story written by either Eric Carle or Bill Martin Jr. that you could also use with your students. Eric Carle has a wonderful website you might want to explore.


Mister Seahorse is also a good story. In this case, it should be ideal to older students, approximately 7 or 8 years old because it includes more difficult vocabulary and more text.



In conclusion, we should use more stories when we are teaching English as it is a good way of learning, as well as funny and dynamic.

The world teachers' day

This week we have been talking about the world teachers' day. I have written a letter to my sience teacher when I was eleven. She has helped me to be a better person and I would like to share with you my composition:

"Dear Mrs. Manga,

I’m writing this letter in order to thank you for teaching me many life lessons. Today is the world teachers’ day and I would like to show you how important was for me to be your student as well as the effect that you have had in my current life.

There are a big amount of things which you teach me although I’d like to talk about three. The first one is that all in this life have a solution except death. Another one is that people love you for who you are and the last one is that we should treat others as we like to be treated.

Your advices or popular sayings have helped me with social relations during all my live. Besides, these have helped me in bad moments of my life to go ahead and to be happy despite what was happening around me. You have also encouraged me to be a teacher who teaches students about life and not only about learning contents.

I hope to hear from you soon, take care.

Ana."

I think that there are a lot of teacher who helped us in our formation and we should thank all their efforts. 

FIRST TASK: Me as a teacher

My name is Ana Jiménez and it's my blog for the subject "English Didactics". It's my last year studying Primary education, but not the last at university given the fact that I'm studying biology too. In this subject I hope to improve my ability of planning a class. I want also to get many resources which can help me in a future to be a good English teacher.

My group is THE TRAINEES and it is made up of five participants; Brigit Rosenauer, M del Mar Galindo, Alberto Gómez, Patricia Ortid, and me, Ana Jiménez. We have chosen a quote which could represent our thoughts about teaching English. It is: "When you Teach what you love, and share what you know, you open eyes, minds, hearts and souls to unexplored words", by an Unknown author.

Finally I'm going to explain which type of teacher I would like to be. I think that to be a good teacher you should be understandig and empathetic with your students as well as you have to use creative and innovative ways to teaching which helps our students to improve their English skills. Because of that, I'll use a big part of resources we are learning this years in order to make funnier classes to be a dynamic teacher.