Lesson plan

► LESSON PLAN

Day of the class:  January 17th, 2016

Time:  45 minutes

Students: 25

Materials/Resources:

●     Video: Song Stick to the Status Quo from the film High School Musical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJRT-qoS3cE  

● Storybook “Allie’s basketball dream”

● Computer

●     Digital board

       ●     Colours

       ●      Cardboards

       ●       Stickers

       ●      Continuous paper

Specific objectives:

● To combat bias and prejudices.

● To develop an awareness of the importance of pursuit your goals and dreams.

●     To promote the critical thinking and to reflect.

Specific contents:

● Positive values such as comradeship, empathy, respect and equality.

●     Importance of chasing your dreams and goals.

Specific competences:

● Competence in linguistic communication

● Social competence and citizenship

●     Cultural awareness and expression

●     Competence in ‘learn to learn’.

Activities:

Ø Warm Up activity: Stick to the Status Quo

We will listen to the song Stick to the Status Quo from the film High School Musical. Once we have finished singing the song students should express their opinions about what they have seen in the video. To guide the activity we can propose some questions:

1.    How would you feel if you were one of this boys or girls judged by the others?

2.    Imagine that your friends tell you that you can’t do something because it is for boys, or because it is for girls, but you really like it a lot. What would you decide: to fight for your dream or give up?

•    Time: 10 minutes

•       Materials/Resources:  

-Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJRT-qoS3cE  

-Storybook “Allie’s basketball dream”

-Computer

-Digital board

•       Space: classroom

•    Development: First of all, we will watch the video (meanwhile, students can sing and dance because they love to be active and it is profitable for them). Once we have finished with this, we will start a debate in order to help the students to develop their critical thinking and share ideas with the rest of their classmates.

Ø Activity 1: Show me your answers!

Present the book Allie’s basketball dream and tell the story.

•    Time: 15 minutes

•       Materials/Resources:

-Book Allie’s basketball dream

-Small white boards, markers

•    Space: classroom

•    Development:

1. To introduce the story the teacher will show the cover of the book to the students and they will have to describe what they can see and what they think the story will be about. Also, to foster critical thinking the teacher may ask students to talk about the use of the word “dream” asking them if they think a dream can become a goal. What might they have to do to make that happen?
2. The teacher gives each student a small dry erase board and a marker
3. At strategic points during the story, the teacher will stop and ask a question.
4. Students will have to write their answers on their dry erase board.
5. Once the tale has finished, everyone will hold their boards in the air.

Examples of questions:

-In what ways are you like Allie?

-If this book were about you, what would be different about the dream and the way I pursued it?

Ø Activity 2: Mimics

Guess the mimic and give opinions about it.

•    Time: 10 minutes

•       Materials/Resources:  

-Papers with the actions that students have to represent

•    Space: classroom

•    Development: Students should form groups of 5 persons, each group will represent an action in front of the class and when they finish the rest of the pupils have to express their opinions about the action that they have represent (the actions will be written in small pieces of paper and it will be the random who chose the action for each group).

Ø Sum up - Calm down activity: Creating a mural Create a mural to combat bias.

•    Time: 10 minutes

•       Materials/Resources:  

-Colours

-Cardboards

-Stickers

-Continuous paper

•    Space: classroom

•    Development: Using the same groups formed in the last activity, students should create a slogan or sentence to combat bias and write it in a cardboard which also should decorate, because once they have finished all the slogans

will be hanged on the corridor of the school to celebrate the International

Women’s day.  

Attention to diversity: everybody will be able to do these activities because they are very visual, however if a foreign student has difficulties to understand something the teacher has to explain it through mimic or other student can help him/her.

Assessment: we will use a rubric with questions to evaluate the lesson.

	YES	NO	OBSERVATIONS
Have students learnt the importance of respect everybody?
Have we promoted critical thinking?
Have new technologies been effective to teach students?
Have students enjoyed the activities?

-Other observations: in this part, the teacher can take notes about students’ attitude, self-assessment, etc.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

Motivation graph

Good morning! :)

Today I am going to talk about a motivation graph. In it we will see how the motivation of our children changes throughout the lessons. At the beginning of the class, what we think is that their motivation level is really low, then in the middle of the session, it increases and then at the end they are so tired and in most of our classes, the level drops considerably.

Although, we are really wrong, we have to increase their motivation throughout the session. And, of course, they need to be really motivated at the end of the lesson, this will be synonymous that our class has been useful and interesting for them. So, the graph would have to be something like this:

In this way, a good graphic of the motivation would be the previous one where the teacher focuses on encouraging his or her students until the end of the session.

Alastair Pennycook

Alastair Pennycook is a professor of Language in Education at UTS (University of Technology Sydney). Furthermore, he has been involved in language education for over 30 years in lots of countries. Through his book "The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language", he explains some unfair situations of the English language.

First, on the one hand, I agree with him because a language is usually taught depending on its political context and lately it is really normal that politicians are not agreed about anything so it is unfair for English and for every language in the world. In my opinion, the needs of society should prevail, not political interests. Thus, this is a reason why some minority languages are also disappearing and this situation prevents many people from identifying with their mother tongue because politicians are giving more importance to English than any other language as Pennycook says in his book. I think this is a very unfair situation because it is true that English is important, but every language is too! Of course, we can acquire as many languages as we want but without underestimate the rest. Besides, as the author comments, it, English, hinders literacy in the mother tongue for speakers of minority languages. The reason for the previous statement is what I told before, we just focus on learning English as the main language and we have to focus on our mother tongue too. We need to acquire a good level in our first language and after, we can learn other languages. Finally, Pennycook says that English is not receptive to the needs of many people and here I totally disagree. I believe that each person can adapt each language to his or her necessities and for that, we need to know very carefully which our goals, learning this language are. 

Therefore, what do you think about Pennycook statements? Do you agree or not? 

Motivational strategies

Good afternoon everybody!

This post is to show you a list of possible motivational strategies that you as teachers can use with your students to motivate them. Here you have the pictures of the survey that I have already done.

Positive Psychology: "Aulas Felices"

Good afternoon everybody,

In this post, I will provide you with three activities that you can carry out in your class to improve confidence and perseverance among students.

These three exercises are pulled out from a program called "Aulas Felices" whose authors are Ricardo Arguís Rey, Ana Pilar Bolsas Valero, Silvia Hernández Paniello and Mª del Mar Salvador Monge.

The first activity is called "Los ciegos":

Body: In the gym, in pairs, one student will be the blind and the other will be the guide. The guide should say instructions to his or her partner to arrive somewhere together. The exercise will have two parts, in the first one the one who is the blind should follow the instructions but without physical contact. In the second part, they can be guided by touching some part of the body of their guides. At the end, the blind person should say how he or she has felt in both situations with and without physical contact. After that, they have to change their roles.

Goals: Moving around with closed eyes, sharpening the rest of the senses. Develop trust in their partners.

The second activity is called "¡Corre, corre, que te freno!".

Body: All the students, except one of them, should be placed forming a V without spaces between them. In front of the row, the student will have his or her eyes covered. Then, he or she has to reach out until his or her classmates. When everyone has done the activity, they have to say how they have felt during the exercise.

Goals: Run with their eyes closed. Develop trust in their partners.

The third activity is called: "Potenciando la perseverancia en casos especiales"

Body: There are some students that need special steps to strengthen perseverance habits during their school tasks. They can be students with immaturity problems, lack of work habits, attention deficit disorder, lack of motivation, etc. For this reason, we can look up information about some strategies in the following document:

"La concentración en las tareas en casos especiales":  http://documents.mx/documents/la-concentracion-en-las-tareas-en-casos-especialespdf.html

Goals: Favor concentration in ADHD students.