Time flies when... you are busy

Hello y'all!  😁

I'm alive and well, as Katniss would say (from the Hunger Games, of course). Last year, COVID entered our 'normal' lifes and revolutionized them, showing no mercy. In March 2020 I was teaching phonics to my preschoolers, helping kids being more fluent, writing posts about it, enjoying the center of Madrid day and night, literally. At the same time, I was studying this Master degree about bilingualism and international curiculum that was being pretty intense but absolutely woth it. Life was busy, but pleasant, until COVID bursted in and all my routine and future plans changed. 

The studies could 'easily' go on because of the online mode, but my extracurricular classes had to be abruptly interrupted. Moreover, September didn't look bright and, because of this uncertainty, I had to opt for teaching English as a school teacher in order to assure myself and my elder dog (she is 15!!!) a decent lifestyle. After sending CVs to all the International schools in the area, I finally got a call which turned into a job as a homeroom teacher in the immersion line of a private school in Boadilla, where I had the opportunity to teach English almost as a first language. It was pretty cool! 

However, waking up at 6 in the morning every day since the 31st of August until last Thursday, dealing with all the pandemic school issues in addition to the current school duties, and arriving home at 6:15 pm every afternoon has been exhausting and that's why you haven't heard from me for so long. Besides, I had to finish my Master degree and take care of my own life during the pandemic, which also has been a bit stressful. 

Anyway, here we are! Thanks to the vaccination campaign we all feel a bit safer even though this feeling of uncertainty never leaves us really and I wanted to make the most of this summer break for saying hello again, and for letting you know that the many things I've learnt about bilingualism are now published in the 'Mi hijo habla inglés' book. Yes! I used the Easter break to update it. So, even if I haven' had the time for applying the 'Second edition' label to the cover of the book, I can assure you that there's new interesting content that is worth reading both in the digital and the paper version of it.

I wish you a safe and relaxing summer!

Bye for now 

Let's learn English vocabulary with Lift-the-flap books

Today I am going to briefly tell you about an option we have to present vocabulary in an effective way to the youngest children, where by youngest I mean children in preschool and first years of primary school, although, I warn you, never underestimate the fascination that a flap can have on a child's mind. It produces exactly the same expectation and excitement as waiting and opening Christmas presents, I guarantee it.

So with the excuse of the arrival - finally! - of spring, I took to class my big cardboard book about the seasons of the little mouse Maisy , which, with a lot of windows, captured the attention of all the children in the class in less than 3 seconds, as always.

Now, we all know - and if not, I'll tell you now - that when a person is interested in what they are studying they learn four times more than if he or she didn't have that interest, and precisely because of that, nowadays, so much importance is given to presenting the contents in such a way that they catch the attention of the students.

Soon everyone wanted to see what was hidden behind the flaps and I asked each child to open one and repeat the name of the animal behind it. Once the flaps were finished, I closed them again and, in order to practice a little more, I called each student to ask them where the animal was: they didn't miss a single one!

As you can understand in this second phase we work on the recognition of the word: through this exercise we create a direct link between word and image without going through the first language. That is why when you ask children who study English in school "how do you say horse in English?" They may not know how to answer right away as they never work with the translation, as I tell you in my book Mi Hijo Habla Inglés.

There are literally an infinite number of lift-the-flap books and I encourage you to try them because, in addition to having a lot of magic, they encourage active and multi-sensory learning, since children use their different senses - sight, hearing, touch - to interact with it. Moreover, as part of a story or a brief history, words are shown in meaningful contexts and this boosts a deeper learning of them.

Finally, during this type of activity, the children's speaking skills are also encouraged and, as always, when kids have fun, they lose any inhibition when it comes to speaking, repeating and trying to say their own words.

The collections that have so far been most useful to me when working on vocabulary with my students are those of Maisy, the little mouse, and Spot, the puppy, with some incursions of Peter Rabbit and Pete the Cat.

--> Quiero leer este post en castellano


 

 

  

European Countries and Their Capital Cities - Social science

Hi there! Today's post is about how I managed to help my students learn about European countries and their respective capital cities (in English) in a very pleasant and effective way. I imagine that you can use this same method for any list of countries you'd like your students to know.

The most complicated part of this task is that it's totally abstract and quite far from the everyday life of our 8-year-old students. In addition, knowing the capitals (in this case in English) also means knowing the name of the country (also in English) where each one is located and, if that was not enough, it also means being able to locate them on a blank political map. For a student's point of view, studying for this exam can turn into an exhausting and very uninteresting job or, to be quite frank, into a torture.

As usual, the first thing I looked for was a catchy song that mentioned most of states we needed to learn: The Europe Map Song (Obertopian).
 

In this phase the trick isn't to learn the song by heart; instead, while the music is playing, the child should try to identify the mentioned nations on the blank map by pointing to them with their fingers, as if they were playing the piano: this way they are almost working with all their senses - through the coordination between hearing, sight and touch - which generates a deeper learning. In fact, this coordination allows the brain to establish connections, or synapses, between its neurons, according to Neuroscience and as Maria Montessori intuited*, and, at the same time, we are creating a 'muscular memory' too (actually it is a process known as myelination of the neural pathways that gives athletes and artists the advantage thanks to faster and more efficient neural pathways): the more we practice, the faster and better we solve the task.


Usually children find this exercise pretty entertaining and consequently, just by listening to our song a few times, the location of the different countries on the map was quickly under control, and therefore we could move to phase 2: the capitals (!!!!)

In this second phase we prepared a bingo: first we divided Europe into different areas: we had the English-speaking islands, the Mediterranean area, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Northern Europe (better known among kids as FROZEN Land ahahhaha). Then we associate a color to each area and we made some little flags - with post-its and toothpicks, as you can see in the photo - where we wrote the names of the capital cities. Then we prepared some plasticine pedestals where we could pin the little flags as they were being taken out from a container and finally we could play our homemade Capitals of Europe bingo!

* Maria Montessori designed sandpaper letters in order to allow the child to "play" the sound - by tracing the letters with his index finger first and with a stick, as big as a pencil, later - and build a muscular memory of the shape of the letter that one day he will write.

Natural Science: The Life Cycle of a Dandelion and The Erbarium

-->Quiero leer esta entrada en castellano

THE NEW CHALLENGE FOR 2014

Hello everybody and happy new year!

I'm definitely facing a new challenge this 2014. It was already in the air at the end of 2013, but now the time has definitely come to start teaching reading and writing to Spanish children who can already speak and understand English and, are also attending primary school!

As you know I've been teaching English to Spanish children in Madrid for 6 years and I must say that Madrid has always led the English trend in Spain.

People here, in some way, are more conscious about the importance of speaking English and especially parents have become really sensitive to the subject.

Spanish people have always studied English at school, but classes were focuses on writing and grammar. Besides, English was a secondary subject.  

Until the economic crisis began.

From the beginning of this milestone event, the perception that English is a fundamental skill in order to find a good job or to simply improve life opportunities has dramatically increased.

According to this new,  sudden and almost desperate need, the educational system introduced a new project of bilingual schools where at least one or more subjects,  besides English as a second language, usually science and art, have to be taught in English.

I have personally never dedicated too much time to writing and grammar because those areas are still extensively worked inside the classrooms.

Therefore my classes have always been focused on speaking skills, listening comprehension and just a little bit of reading. 

But something is changing here in the capital of Spain...

This year, I mean scholar year, I met 3 Spanish children who can communicate themselves in English, listen and understand almost everything they are told, but they cannot write correctly or read very well.

This means that, here in Madrid, we are getting closer to something extraordinary and, at the same time, really natural.

Children have always learnt how to speak first, and then, at school, how to read and write. It's natural and strictly connected to the survival needs when they are babies.

These 3 children started English classes in kindergarten. They needed to learn the language so that they could communicate with their English teachers.

What is extraordinary is that they are Spanish and English is not their first language. 

Due to this new unexplored field I'm looking for resources that can help these children to improve their reading and writing skills.

I've always dealt with pre-reading and pre-writing stuff for preschoolers, but I can't present those kind of activities to 9 year olds. Even so, I'm perfectly conscious that phonics and word sounds are the basic concepts to start with.

So, if any of you is a school teacher, I would be really pleased to receive any suggestions, pieces of advice or online resources you could share. 

Thank you very much!

Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted.