Natural Science, CLIL and significant learning.

Today I would like to talk about a somewhat controversial matter: the subject of Natural Sciences in English.

I know that here in Madrid, more than 10 years after the implantation of bilingualism in the Primary school, many parents have left their enthusiasm aside to replace it with the fear that their children will not learn almost anything about the subject in both English and Spanish.

In many schools the greatest weight of the evaluation to pass the subject is taken by the written tests: it turns out that in first and second grade these controls are quite simple: mainly children have to connect a word to a picture, circle parts of a drawing, paint, complete sentences with the given words and little more. The problems begin in third grade, when these controls become quite complex because in addition to labeling drawings or body parts, which implies writing without spelling errors in English, students are asked to fill in gaps in a text, for example, or to read a definition and write the word described, correct statements or even explain with their own words some facts: tasks that not only require spelling correction but also require reading comprehension and the ability to express ideas and concepts using specific scientific vocabulary and correct grammatical constructions (writing skills).
It seems to me that we should keep in mind that at the base of the bilingualism project is the concept of Content and Language Integrated Learning – CLIL– whose objective is for children to learn a language through the study of subjects such as Natural and Social Sciences, Music, Plastics, Physical Education, etc.

However, I have the impression that, despite the CLIL premises, it is still not very clear how to encourage this type of learning. Regrettably, the vocabulary lists copied a few boring times only serve, and not always, to achieve a certain orthographic correction, when the objectives of the subject are to learn the Natural Science in English: children should be able to express and present scientific concepts and facts in more or less correct English, depending on the stage in which they are in.

How can we help our students?

My experience and the cognitive and constructivist theories of learning have led me to this reflection: we should always bear in mind that the main objective of the bilingual project is to learn the language and this is learned using 'complete sentences' made up of a subject, a verb and a direct or an indirect object. In practical terms, it means that children, in class, at home, when doing written exercises, during presentations, etc., should always answer with a complete sentence using the specific vocabulary and the correct grammatical structure (the affirmative, negative and interrogative forms of the present simple and the present  continuous of any verb, together with 'can', 'have got' and not much else).
This may sound banal, but if we look at the dynamics of a class we can see that when we launch a question in most cases the competition to be the first to answer prevails, and that means not having time to think about an entire sentence: our students tend to answer with only one word. On the other hand, the exercises we can find in the book don't help much in that sense either, since most of them are about filling in gaps or answering questions by choosing between already formulated answers. Could you guess how much time and attention a child spends on these types of tasks after 8 hours, or more, spent at school?

To sum up, using complete sentences will cost our students more effort because it requires them to connect the subject of Natural Sciences to that of English, to leave the compartmental units of their books in order to create a more general and flexible narrative; but with time and practice important improvements will be noticed, because there is a greater and deeper understanding of the subject, which will allow them to follow their teachers with less difficulty and assimilate more concepts, unleashing in this way that virtuous circle which improves at the same time the results, self-esteem and control of the language.

Social Science: Europe, countries and capitals

--> Quiero leer esta entrada en castellano

Back to school...with Jolly Phonics

Hello there!
 

New school year, new project! This time I have the great opportunity to work with the Jolly Phonics method in a systematic way with a significant number of children and I already have my notebook and pen ready for observations and notes on its development. I will tell you how my classes are progressing because I think it's interesting to follow up in order to observe how the method is working, the adjustments that are going to be necessary and everything that may come up.
 

I am going to start by specifying that in the teacher's book it is advisable to introduce a sound every day, although, if the students are younger than 5 years, it is recommendable to reduce the working speed in order to achieve a better assimilation. Following this pattern, at least at the beginning of the course, I have planned to work one phoneme per week (I have 2 sessions of 1 hour with each group) that we will introduce in the first session and look deeper into during the second one.
 

The first phoneme of the first group is, as you may have understood from the photos, /s/. At the beginning of the first session I told them the story that accompanies the coloring card that comes in the teacher's book. It's very, very short but at the same time very handy to grab their attention and introduce them to the sound. Then we listened and sang the chant a couple of times and I encouraged them to move their hand as if they were writing an S in the air (this is the movement associated with this phoneme).
 

At this point I changed a little the recommended plan introducing a variation of the famous game of the 'zapatilla por detrás', using a card that represents a snake instead of the slipper and the chant associated to the phoneme instead of the song of this game. In this way everyone repeats the chant and learns it in a pleasant and natural way.
 

Afterwards, I went back to the plan of the book, which contemplates the activity 'hunt the sound': I handed out some magnifying glasses (made with brushes for children's crafts) and some booklets (from the Songbirds Phonics collection written by Julia Donaldson) for them to look for /s/. This activity, as it's explained in the guide, helps the children to realize that these sounds that they will learn little by little are not abstract elements, quite the opposite, they are found in the books and are useful for reading stories.
 

Finally, I showed them the flash card with the /s/ and gave them plasticine so that they could build one themselves with their own hands
 

In the second session, after singing the chant and accompanying it with the associated gesture (a quick review as suggested in the teacher's book) , we first played an auditory discrimination game in which I placed a large snake in the center of the circle and distributed to each child a pair of cards with some images. Each one, in turn, had to show his card to the others and if the name of the object represented in it started with /s/ they had to put it on top of the snake, otherwise they kept it. Apparently, although this activity seems very simple, I can assure you that for them it is not so immediate to hear and realize if the sound is there or not, which, in my opinion, justifies even more the use of a synthetic phonetic method to teach a language.
 

The second activity consisted of painting the sheet associated with the sound. While they were painting, I went around with the book 'Phonics Storybook' in which there are two pages illustrated by each phoneme. In these illustrations the children have to look for some elements that begin or contain the sound presented in that sheet and they also have the letter in relief with some arrows drawn so that they follow it with their own finger in the direction of writing, in order to feel the letter with their touch.
 

Naturally, as the number of sounds studied increases, the number of possible activities also increases and... fun never ends!

More about reading and writing in English here.

--> Quiero ler esta entrada en castellano 

  

Auditory discrimination: i / e

Finally, July! June's been a busy but rewarding month, so today I'm going to share some thoughts, ideas and resources to address the topic of short vowel discrimination with our children, starting with /I/ and /e/.

Short vowels are the first to be learned with the phonetic method but, while on the one hand the children recognize them visually because they associate them with the vowels of the Spanish language, on the other hand more work of auditory discrimination is necessary so that they can hear and pronounce them correctly.

I have noticed that there are pairs of sounds that Spanish speakers tend to confuse more frequently: the i and the e, the a and the lo u, and finally the o and the u. 

How to do this? Once the 2 sounds have been introduced separately with the appropriate activities and games, it is necessary to point out the difference between the pair of vowels that could generate confusion.

The easiest way to operate is to give each child a letter that represents the e and another that represents the i. Then we tell them, one by one, 3 or 4 letter words with one of the two sounds we are working on; the children have to indicate with the letter what sound they have heard.

For example:
tin/ten
pin/pen
pit/pet
rid/red
miss/mess
sit/set

Ideally, this list should be combined with other words that are not written with the same consonants (net, mist, get, hiss, etc.) and presented in random order, so that the children will be able to guess correctly more easily and feel more confident when it comes to answering. There are many more in the word boxes of the Jolly Phonics© method.

Now you can create more or less fun versions of this activity: in my class we usually jump over the chart, throw balloons or run to the chart to add a little psychomotor skills to the class and thus encourage deeper learning.


What to do when a child is wrong? I tell you what I usually do: first I repeat the word with the vowel he has chosen and then I pronounce it with the correct sound, then I encourage them to repeat it themselves, taking into account the position of their lips, tongue and teeth (phonetic articulation), to finally encourage him to repeat the word correctly and show me the corresponding letter.

Over the years I have come to realize that this is a very important job because the few hours of exposure to English in a school class are not enough for children to acquire this phonemic awareness on their own. It is important to emphasize it. What the children will do is realize, little by little, the differences between the vowels in their native language and those in English.

Here is the link to the pronunciation of the /e/ sound for you to practice ;)

More about phonics on my newest page: reading and writing in English, where I have compiled and will add links to related posts.

  



 

PBL - Spring Fever

Spring is my favorite season and it's the perfect excuse to start a project about plants or insects. Here I've collected every single post inspired by this colorful and crazy time of the year that I wrote so far.

1 - The Life cycle of a Dandelion

2 - Spring Lesson Plan 1 - Bugs

3 - Spring Lesson Plan 2 - Plants

4 - Herbarium

5 - Garden Scrapbook

6 - Tiny Garden Pot labels

I hope they inspire you many interesting lessons!

An excellent  novel about science and young girls: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.

--> Quiero leer esta entrada en castellano



 

     

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