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.