Niños bilingües en Madrid: Meblis

Aprovecho de que en EEUU mis lectores estén celebrando 'Memorial Day' para escribir un poco en español :o)

Hace un par de semanas me fui a echar un vistazo a uno de los 'playgroups' semanales que organiza  Meblis aquí en Madrid. 

Pic: Whitney Museum of American Art

Meblis es una asociación, nacida originariamente en Roma gracias a la idea de una joven mamá española, que se propone de ayudar a las familias multiculturales en conseguir el objetivo de crecer a sus niños de manera bilingüe.

La idea se extendió a España gracias a varias otras jóvenes familias italo-españolas y, desde el año pasado, todos los fines de semana, niños y niñas acompañados por sus padres se encuentran en un espacio de Madrid con una educadora de la asociación para jugar utilizando un idioma común, diferente del castellano.

¿Playgroups? Qué son y como funcionan.

Estos Grupos de Juego que desarrolla Meblis son encuentros de 1 hora y media donde los niños siempre juntos a unos de sus padres juegan, cantan, leen cuentos y hacen manualidades 'dirigidas' por una monitora que les habla constantemente en el idioma elegido para ese grupo.

Es una hora y media muy entretenida y divertida en la que niños de 3 años y medio / 4 años aprenden un segundo idioma (principalmente él de uno de los papás, pero también hay niños que van porque sus padres quieren que aprenda ese idioma aunque no se use en casa) sin darse ni cuenta, como siempre pasa en el aprendizaje que se basa en juegos y actividades educativas lúdicas!

Los niños tiene la oportunidad de expresarse y utilizar el conocimiento que tienen de su lengua minoritaria, ganan confianza y dan un sentido al hecho de estar comunicándose en dos idiomas cada día. 

Lo que más me gustó fue el hecho de que estuvieron constantemente presentes sus papás para animarles, dirigirles y abrazarles, todo el tiempo del taller. Fue muy tierno.

El objetivo último que Meblis se propone es que el bilingüismo sea un derecho de todos. Yo asistí al 'playgroup' en italiano, porque de momento es el único activo, pero la meta es crear grupos de todos los idiomas! 

También organizan talleres para adultos sobre el bilingüismo, para despejar dudas  en los padres que hayan decidido emprender ese enriquecedor camino juntos con sus hijos.

Si deseáis organizar un grupo para disfrutar con vuestro hijo el aprendizaje de otro idioma diferente del castellano no tengais ninguna duda en poneros en contacto con la asociación!

Estarán encantados de ayudaros!

Más actividades para niños en Madrid

THE LIONS OF LITTLE ROCK by Kristin Levine

Little Rock, Arkansas, 1958. Marlee is a shy and introverted twelve- year-old. She loves maths and prime numbers, but she finds it really hard to talk to anyone except for her family. 

She has got a special relationship with her elder sister, Judy, who pushes her to talk to people, but especially to look for real friends, someone she will have something in common with, and to stop letting herself being bossed around by Sally, her supposed current best friend.

One day, a new girl arrives at her school. Her name is Liz and it seems to be the friend that Judy was hoping that Marlee would find. 

They start a school project together, where Marlee will have to give a speech, right in front of the class, about natives of Arkansas, and Liz manages, not without a huge effort, to convince her to do it, demonstrating that she really cares about her shy friend.

"It's important to face your fears," said Liz. " It makes you a better person."

Things continue improving in Marlee's life till the day Liz, suddenly, disappears from school, apparently without any reason.

In the meantime Little Rock's high school is being kept closed by the local governor to protest against the new Integration Laws and to avoid white students from mixing  with Negroes.

It's President Eisenhower's time and many southern States are struggling to preserve their way of life. It's all about states' rights and segregationists against integrationists.

So, due to this tense situation, Judy is forced to move to her granny's house to be able to go to school, leaving Marlee without her friend nº1.

At least she still has Liz by her side, but the same day of the presentation, Liz doesn't show up.

And it's awfully hard for Marlee to discover why. What happened was that Liz, taking advantage of her light skin and straight hair was signed up by her mum for the school for white people to get a better schooling and life opportunities.

In some way, she had been discovered to be a Negro and therefore, to avoid any persecution for her and her family, she had to disappear.

At that time Little Rock had a Negro neighborhood with its Negro church, cinema etc.

The KKK was generally accepted and black people were harassed despite the new integrationist laws.

Despite this environment, Marlee, after a first moment of feeling betrayed, decides that her friendship with Liz must go on, even secretly. 

This decision will bring very nice moments but also a lot of problems and dangerous situations. 

I'm not telling you anything else about the plot because it's really worth reading the book to find out for yourself what happens.

I enjoyed this book so much!

First of all because historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. It takes you to another historical moment, in a different place, with unknown people and their lifestyle. 

You can live another life and at the same time learn from it as it were your own experience.

The characters are really complex and the first person narrative style is deeply involving. It wakes up the ten year-old inside you.

It's easy to identify yourself with Marlee, blushing with her when she almost falls on her secret love's knees at the football match, or suffering with her when she has to put up with Red's bullying and racism, without been able to do anything to protect Liz.

And you also worry about her secret friendship being reported.

This book will dramatically increase the sense of justice naturally carried in every child. 

Your children, as Marlee, will also learn a good life lesson, explained by the Maths' teacher.

The world is not straightforward, and even if adults tell kids that if they do something good they will get that good result they're expecting, most of the time it's more likely a long complicated equation: people have to break it down into smaller parts to factor it. 

Winning the referendum about integration was the first step, and not the end of the struggle as Marlee had hoped, of a long walk on the path of solving the world's problems.

Good Classroom resources and activities are available on this web pages:

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/desegregation/printable/73231.html

http://lionsoflittlerock.weebly.com/activities.html

Enjoy them!

You might be interested on these books too:

THE EVOLUTION of CALPURNIA TATE by Jacqueline Kelly

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE by Laura Ingalls Wilder

THE ADVENTURES of HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain

Writing Tip nº 6: THE CREATIVE MISTAKE

Gianni Rodari's Grammar of Fantasy is an endless source of ideas for making up stories.

Today we'll talk about the CREATIVE MISTAKE. 

This technique makes the most of children's mistakes at writing or pronouncing words. An example of this case is in the worldwide famous fairy tale 'Cinderella', written by the French author Charles Perrault.

As we all know, Cinderella drops her glass slipper, running away from the prince's castle while the clock is striking the Midnight.

Well, it seems that originally that slipper was made of 'vaire' , a sort of fur, but for a fortunate coincidence, maybe a mistake of transcription, it was changed into 'verre', glass. Perhaps, a much more appropriate shoe material for a fairy tale.

Here some mistakes that can be inspiring for eccentric stories:

Work station ---> Working station ---> A station that works by itself while human beings spend their lives doing whatever they like

Post horse --> Posting horse ---> A horse that is in charge of taking mails and parcels to the post office could be a big surprise in big city.

Break dance --> Breaking dance ---> A cursed dance which break the bones of people who try to performance it.

etc.

Moonbeam---> Moon bean

Serial Killer --> Cereal Killer ---> Panic in the cupboard!

...........................................

A bloody scream pierced the silence of the kitchen. The boxes, bags and tins woke up from their nap and gathered round to see what had happened: Quaker, their friend and comrade, was lying on the floor, his oaty guts spilled everywhere, his box smashed.

"Is he…?" said the tin of sardines in a quavery voice.

"Yes. He's dead."

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then the bottle of olive oil started to cry, oily tears rolling down his face.

"Quaker was a great guy." he said. "He was a wonderful box of oatmeal."

Life in the kitchen continued for a few days. Everyone calmed down and started to forget what had happened to Quaker. Prepackaged foods aren't known for having excellent long memories. Eventually a new box of oatmeal appeared in the cupboard. 

But late one night when everybody was asleep, there was another shout, followed by a plastic crunch. 

The food awoke to find Uncle Ben, the bag of rice, dead. He had been smashed under a sack of lemons.

The boxes, bags and tins sat around till morning talking about what happened. Was it some sort of accident? It couldn't be! First Quaker and now Uncle Ben… 

It was the jar of mustard who was the first to say what everyone was thinking… He spoke in his thick French accent, "Lediz ahnd Gentlemahn. Ah tink we hahv a… a cereal killer among ahs!"

To be continued?

Contributed by Daniel Welsch, internationally bestselling ESL author. 

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We can even take into account typical pronunciation mistakes:

Sheep --> Ship --> A flock of ships?

World War 2 --> Word War 2 --> Nice words against bad words?

Beard --> Bird --> A beard's nest? Flying beards?

Boat --> Boot --> Wearing a pair of boats? A fishing boot?

Anyway… Mistakes exist because the right words exist, so the creative process of inventing stories is inspired by the relationship/contrast between them. A sort of fantastic binomial that once again allows our young writers to explore many fantastic possibilities.

So, by all means correct your students' homework but at the same time don't forget to take note of their mistakes… Potentially they might be a good source of inspiration for their next writing project!

MORE TIPS ABOUT CREATIVE WRITING HERE

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results. 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com

Teaching English Through Games 3: ORCHARD TOYS

One of the best aspects of my job is the opportunity to use toys and educational games as tools for teaching English.

I really enjoy playing with my young students, noticing their concentration and the effort they put into doing their best and actively participating in the game.

But, what's even better is how easily they learn from play experiences. After a couple of times they've already acquired vocabulary and grammar structures without even noticing it!

One of my favorite educational games producer is Orchard Toys, a company based in Norfolk, UK.

Their games and puzzles are highly educational and at the same time really nice, creative and fun.

I personally had the opportunity of using 'The Shopping List': a memory game where each player has to fill his own shopping trolley with all of the items on his shopping list.

The items are drawn on little square cards, that have to be placed face down on the table. The first player turns over a card and if the item is on his shopping list then he can put it in his trolley. If not, the card must be placed face down again on the same place and the turn passes to the next player.

So, while you're trying to fill your trolley you can also review or introduce new vocabulary, some place prepositions like in and on, besides having your  students 100% concentrated.

Orchard Toys really sells many products that, as they say, make learning fun. 

I warmly recommend them!

             

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results!!! 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com

IF YOU WERE ME AND LIVED IN… MEXICO by Carole P. Roman

As explained in the subtitle, A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World, this is the first book in a non-fiction collection about life in other countries from a child's perspective. 

The first country to be introduced is Mexico.

The author's main purpose is to give an idea about life and culture in Mexico to young readers: its capital city, language, festivals, monuments, food, etc.

It could be also used as a starting point for elementary school students to do some individual or group research about other countries and it's a good excuse to learn the 'second conditional'.

Grammar and Geography brought together to let the children investigate and appreciate the many cultures that inhabit our planet.

Colorful illustrations and a pronunciation table complete the whole experience.

Don't miss the next issues: France,Turkey, South Korea, Norway and Kenya are on the way!

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results!!! 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com

Build Your Own Neighborhood!

Mari Richards is a toy designer who delights us with her nice little paper houses, all downloadable for free on Vivint's The Neighborhood web page. 

It's a really good resource if you're teaching vocabulary about the city, its shops and places.

The houses themselves don't present any shop signs, but you can always let your students draw one, directly on the house's surface or on a sticker. 

However, if you like them as they are, using some toothpicks, you can even make little flags showing the shop's name.

Then, on a big piece of cardboard, draw streets, railways, pedestrian crossings and…there you are!  

Your city is ready to practice how to ask for and give directions!

Thank you Mari Richards!!!

More ESL GAMES AND CO.

Do you need a ready made game for tomorrow's English class? Miss Lucy's Teaching Fun: Guess What?!? ((Vocabulary Activities for Young Learners of English)) is the solution!

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results. 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com

¡Inglés para Padres!

Daniel Welsch es un profesor de inglés que vive en Madrid. Tiene 10 años de experiencia enseñando a adultos y he decidido darle la palabra pensando en aquellos padres que quieren participar más activamente en el aprendizaje del inglés de sus hijos. 

Estoy segura de que os vendrá muy bien!
.........................................................................................................

¿Tienes hijos que están estudiando el inglés?

Ya sabrás lo importante que es aprender el inglés para los niños de hoy en día, y querrás ayudarles a aprobar en la asignatura pendiente de los españoles. Si nunca has aprendido el inglés o si llevas un tiempo sin tocarlo, puede que ahora sea el momento de empezar!

Mi libro electrónico, Inglés Para Principiantes, explica en 30 unidades todo lo más importante para el estudiante del nivel inicial. Es fruto de una década de experiencia enseñando el inglés en escuelas y empresas de Madrid, y el conocimiento que eso aporta. En estos años he aprendido muy bien qué son las necesidades y las dudas de los hispanohablantes a la hora de enfrentarse con mi idioma y puedo explicar todo de una forma comprensible.

El libro contiene la gramática básica--los mismos temas que estarán aprendiendo tus hijos en el colegio. Presente simple, presente continuo, pasado simple, los verbos más importantes y el vocabulario imprescindible. 

Además contiene unos textos para practicar, conversaciones básicas, y listas del vocabulario necesario. Todo está explicado en un español claro y sencillo, con muchos ejemplos para ilustrar los puntos.

Para ver más de lo que hago, entra en mi página web http://madridingles.es donde tengo unos 600 artículos gratuitos sobre el inglés y el aprendizaje de idiomas. Puedes suscribir a las actualizaciones por correo y aprender más un par de veces a la semana. 

Inglés Para Principiantes está disponible en Amazon.com … Amazon.es … iBooks de Apple o bien puedes cómprarlo directamente de mi.

¡Gracias y espero verte pronto en la web!

Daniel.

GUESS WHAT?!? A Guessing Card Game for Kindle!

Do you remember GUESS WHAT?!? 

The vocabulary card game designed to prepare the Cambridge FLYERS A1 level exam?

Well, it's finally available for KINDLE!

I published the Card Game on Amazon, so you can have a quick, readymade resource to  use at home or during your English classes.

Words and phrases you'll find on the cards: 

BACK, EXTINCT, FUR, SWAN, WILD, WINGS.

BLOND(E), BEARD, CURLY, FAIR, MOUSTACHE, NECK, SHOULDERS, STRAIGHT, FINGER, TOE. 

STRIPED, SPOTTED, NECKLACE, RING, SILVER, BRIGHT.

GRANDCHILD (REN), GRANDPARENT, GET MARRIED, GROWN UP

CHOPSTICKS,THIRSTY, SMELL, TASTE, FLOUR.

COUGH, EARACHE, HURT, TEMPERATURE, CHEMIST'S.

A version for iPad and iPhone will be ready soon!

Don't miss it!

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results. 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com

MARY'S TOOTH

It looks like my 3 (nearly 4) year-old students, who attend a bilingual public school here in Madrid, know the names of the parts of the body, mentioned in the famous song Head Shoulders Knees and Toes,  almost perfectly.

They also enjoy any activity related to this subject.

So, Mary's Tooth was exactly what I needed to close this cycle of lessons.

The book is about a little girl, probably the age of my children, who, one day, is eating a snack on the playground of her school.

At this point, (1st page) I heard: " No, no. ¡No se come en el patio! ¡Solo en el comedor!" (She can't eat in the playground! Only in the dining hall!)

I must admit that it was hilarious!

Well, turning pages, we find out that one of her teeth falls out and she carefully wraps it to take it home and safely place it under her pillow.

But, unfortunately, once she is back home, she can't find the tooth!!! 

If you play this moment up just a little, you'll notice a couple of reactions: some of the listener will sympathize with Mary showing a worried little face, while some others will try to find the tooth among the several school objects Mary's frantically throwing out of her schoolbag. 

Anyway, at some point the Tooth Fairy manages to fix the situation by passing the responsability to 'Ratoncito Perez' (a famous mouse who is the Spanish version of the Tooth Fairy), who manages to lead the story towards a happy ending.

Now, my students weren't totally satisfied with the present that Mary finds the next day. Therefore I took the opportunity to ask them what they were expecting and let them draw their answers.

This book, like The Moon is Cold and At The Fair, belongs to the First Steps collection, published by Algar Editorial.

Exactly like those previous one has got a little cartoon on the top left corner. This time it shows the Ratoncito Perez taking out a present.

Enjoy it!