Revista Digital

EOI BOADILLA DEL MONTE
DIRECCIÓN: C/ Victoria de Battenberg, 10
PÁGINA WEB: www.educa.madrid/org/webeoi.boadilla.boadilla
AUTORA: Asunción Romeu y Gonzalez-Barros

Nivel educativo: ENSEÑANZAS DE RÉGIMEN ESPECIAL (EOI)

CONTEXTO EN EL QUE SE HA DESARROLLADO LA EXPERIENCIA

La experiencia nace como un Proyecto de Formación en el Centro. El título del curso es “Stories: A Powerful Tool in English Language Acquisition” . El objetivo del curso fue adquirir las herramientas básicas para contar historias en inglés con seguridad en el aula y su explotación didáctica en las cuatro destrezas. El CTIF de Collado –Villalba nos dio su aprobación y, durante el curso 2011-12, el claustro de profesores de la EOI de Boadilla ha llevado a cabo este curso y como resultado cada uno de los profesores ha creado una unidad didáctica en la que , basándonos en cuentos tradicionales, hemos desarrollado la historia en el aula.

La unidad didáctica tiene como objetivo desarrollar la imaginación y la creatividad; utilizar las historias para desarrollar el aprendizaje del inglés en las cuatro destrezas y el desarrollo personal.

Los contenidos gramaticales se centran en el uso de verbos narrativos, oraciones condicionales, estilo directo e indirecto. Pero también, en la narración como medio para reforzar la memoria a largo plazo, herramientas y técnicas para contar historias, el teatro como recurso para el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras, intercambio de ideas etc…

DESARROLLO DE LA EXPERIENCIA

DIDACTIC UNIT BASED ON The Spirit in The Bottle

1. LEVEL: B 2 / ADVANCED

2. TIMING: 3 SESSIONS OF 120 MINUTES EACH

3. OBJECTIVES:

a) Receptive skills:

b) Productive skills:

c) Linguistic / pragmatic competence:

d) Basic language competencies / general competencies:

4. CONTENTS:

• Text: “The Spirit in the Bottle” by the Brothers Grimm
• English Grammar in Use. R. Murphy. Grammar exercises on conditional tenses
• Jigsaw text: images from the scanned text
• The Spirit in the Bottle – original text Vs youtube version
• Grammar exercises link words
• Grammar exercises reported speech.

5. METHODOLOGY:

Session 1 (classroom): 120’

• Warm up 20’
• Jigsaw story – pairs – 30’
• “the Spirit in the Bottle” - 10’
• Ordering of jumble paragraphs 20’
• Grammar 10’
• Speaking 30’

Session 2 (Lab room) 120’

• Warm up 10’
• Listening 30’
• Speaking 40’
• Writing 40’

Session 3 (classroom) 120’

• Writing and grammar correction 20’
• Speaking and listening 60’
• Assessment 10’
• Watching video 15’
• Debate 15’

 6.  ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:

Students should, at the end of the sessions, write a short sketch to act out a scene from the story.

   

7. ACTIVITIES

SESSION 1

(20´) WARM UP

As a warm up the teacher will show them some objects that appear in the story:

• An axe
• A bottle
• A cloth
• Some money
• Some books
• Some wood.

And the teacher and the students will talk about the use of those objects in the story to practise Second Conditional. We can ask questions such as:

• What would you do with an ax / a bottle / a cloth?
• What do you think would be the relationship of those elements within the story?

(30´) JIGSAW STORY -PAIRS-

Aim: students anticipate the contents of the lesson, and work on text cohesion and coherence.

Procedure: To provide students with images and with strips of text cut from version of the story. Students work together to assemble the material. The teacher will go around helping the students if needed.

Organization: Pair work

Timing: approximately 20 minutes.

 

(10´)“THE SPIRIT IN THE BOTTLE”

MAIN ACTIVITY: The Spirit in the Bottle

Aim: oral comprehension; oral interaction; focus on 2nd and 3rd conditional structures and narrative tenses.

Procedure: Teacher tells the story encouraging students to participate – to repeat lexical structures and to use grammatical structures creatively.

Organization: Teacher centred activity with whole class participation

Timing: approximately 20 minutes.

(20´) ORDERING OF JUMBLE PARAGRAPHS

After the teacher reading the story, the students and the teacher discuss the correct order of the story. The teacher solves problems of vocabulary and meaning. We discuss questions such as:

• What do you think of the father?/son?
• How would you react to the presence of the genie?
• What wish would you ask for if you were granted a wish?

(40´) GRAMMAR AND SPEAKING (10´ Grammar, 30´ Speaking)

FOLLOW UP ACTIVITY : (40 minutes until the end of the session)

HOT SEATING:

The teacher asks three students to volunteer. The teacher will tell them that they are going to do an exercise called “Hot seating”. In this type of exercise a character is questioned by the group about his or her background, behaviour and motivation. The method may be used for developing a role in the drama lesson or rehearsals, or analysing a play post-performance.

Even done without preparation, it is an excellent way of fleshing out a character. Characters may be hot-seated individually, in pairs or small groups. The technique is additionally useful for developing questioning skills with the rest of the group.

How to do it:

The traditional approach is for the pupil playing the character to sit on a chair in front of the group (arranged in a semi-circle), although characters may be hot-seated in pairs or groups. It is helpful if the teacher takes on the role of facilitator to guide the questioning in constructive directions. To help students begin you can try hot-seating students in pairs or in groups. If the background of the character is familiar to the pupils, then it may not be necessary for those playing the characters to do much preparation. Although some roles obviously require research you may be surprised at how much detail students can add from their own imaginations. It is important that the rest of the group are primed to ask pertinent questions. Don’t get bogged down in facts during hot seating, but concentrate on personal feelings and observations instead.

In this session we will have the three characters in the story: The father, the son and the genie. Students will prepare their roles thinking about:

• Names.
• Background
• Feelings
• Personal situation
• Meanwhile, the rest of the students are preparing their questions. The teacher will help them prepare their questions in a constructive way. The questions can be:
• What’s your name? (the names are not provided in the story, the characters are simply called “the woodcutter”, “the son” and “the genie”)
• Do you like your job? (for the woodcutter)
• If you had the chance to change jobs, what would you do? (for the woodcutter)
• What would you like to study? (for the son)
• How long have you been living in the bottle? (for the genie)

Hot seating is an excellent drama resource to flesh out a character and students really enjoy.

SESSION 2

This lesson will take place in the lab room at the school. Students will seat in pairs, and they will use computers.

(10’) WARM UP EXERCISE: The teacher will ask the students if they like reading and their favourite stories. Discussion will be about classical stories such as Snow White, Cinderella etc…

Aim: students anticipate the contents of the lesson, and work on listening and speaking

Procedure: The teacher will tell them to go to the following web site: http://www.storylineonline.net/.

This site is produced by the Actors Guild Foundation and it is an excellent site where students can listen to stories read aloud by famous actors.

There is a wide range of stories but I have chosen two of them. (Feel free to use different stories).

(30´) LISTENING

Student A will listen to the story “My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother” by Patricia Polacco and read by Melissa Gibert. The story is about a girl called Tricia who can’t stand her redheaded older brother Richie, who can do everything better than she can.

Student B will listen to the story “White Socks Only” by Evelyn Coleman and read by Amber Rose Tamblyn. The story is about a woman who tells the story of her grandma one day when she was a little girl in Mississippi and saw a “Whites Only” sign on a water fountain.

They will listen to the story with captions off and see if they are able to understand the story just by listening to it. The second time they can watch it with the captions on. This time they can stop whenever they need to check vocabulary. They can either look up words in the dictionary or go to www.wordreference.com.

The teacher will go round helping them with any questions or problems.

(40´) SPEAKING AND DEBATE (Speaking 30´, Debate 10´)

Retell the story:

Once they have listened to their stories, the students will get in pairs (one A and one B). They will tell their stories to their partners and later they will listen to each other stories.

Debate. Talk about the stories. Which one they liked the best. Why.

 (40´) WRITING

Preparation for last day evaluation.

Students get in pairs again. This time they have to start preparing their sketch to act out next day. They teacher will give them the scenes numbered 1/2/3 etc…The students will first write the dialogue and the teacher will help them with vocabulary and grammar.

Example of scene 1:

Characters: the father and the son

Setting: the hut

Father: (not very happy): “We ran out of money, What am I going to do with you now?

Son: (like if he had a bright idea “I can help you chop wood!”

Father: (getting angry) “Help me? Look at you! Your head is full of books and you are not fit to do a full day’s work!”

Son: (showing off his muscles) “Give me a chance! I can do it!”

Father: (looking sad and devastated) “Well, even if you could, we haven’t got any money to buy an axe”

The teacher will encourage the students to bring props for next day.

SESSION 3

(20’) WRITING AND GRAMMAR CORRECTION: The teacher will allow the students some more time to prepare their dialogues and rehearse. Once they are ready the groups will begin to act out their sketches.

(60´) SPEAKING AND LISTENING

Aim: students work on listening, speaking and writing.

Procedure: (60´) The students play their sketches in order.

The teacher will take notes for later debate and assessment.

(40´) ASSESSMENT, WATCHING VIDEO AND DEBATE (Assessment 10´, Watching video 15´, Debate 15´)

Follow up

To finish the lesson the students will watch a version of the story on line. You can go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PMsQrkUTVk and watch the story and comment about the differences between the original story and the one they watch.

EVALUACIÓN Y CONCLUSIONES

Tipos y criterios de evaluación. Observación directa a lo largo de las tres sesiones y en la última sesión los alumnos en parejas han de escribir una escena del cuento y representarla delante de sus compañeros.

Conclusiones:

• Resultados obtenidos: Los alumnos disfrutan haciendo algo diferente y se sienten muy motivados. Al cabo de unas semanas son capaces de repetir lo aprendido, lo cual implica asimilación de los contenidos.
• Dificultades encontradas: A veces es difícil encontrar una historia que pueda interesar a todo el grupo.
• Propuestas de mejora de la actividad: Los alumnos pueden crear su propia historia para representar a final de curso.
• Posibles aplicaciones futuras a otras materias : Creo que la dramatización se puede aplicar a todos los niveles y a todos los idiomas.

 

BIBLIOGRAFÍA Y PÁGINAS WEB CONSULTADAS

Bibliografía y páginas web consultadas

• “The Spirit in the Bottle” by the Brothers Grimm
• English Grammar in Use. R. Murphy. Grammar exercises on conditional tenses
• “Storytelling with Children” Andrew Wright, OUP 1995
• “Creating Stories for Children” Andrew Wright, OUP, 1997
•  “Once Upon a Time” John Morgan & Mario Rinvolucri, CUP, 1988
• “Telling Tales, Storytelling as Emotional Literacy” Taffy Thomas
• www.storylineonline.net/.
• www.wordreference.com
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PMsQrkUTVk
• www.primaryresources.co.uk/online/powerpoint/how_to_write_a_story.swf
• www.eslflow.com/roleplaysdramatheatregames.html
• www.brainboxx.co.uk/A4_RESOURCE/pages/BrainBites/BrainBites.htm

 
 ANEXO

 The spirit in the Bottle. Brothers Grimm