So, I was having a play with Powtoon (This appears on my latest http://srswopshop.blogspot.com post too!) and came up with this little video style thingy. I think I am going to use it in my first lesson with Year 7, just to show them how easy it is to understand. Obviously I have chosen my words very carefully and provided lots of images and so on. Every little helps! I might make a little sheet for them to sum up what they have understood.
Here it is:
Showing posts with label first lesson thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first lesson thoughts. Show all posts
Friday, 29 August 2014
Thursday, 7 August 2014
Planning
Actually, there hasn't been much so far! I get all creative at the start of the holidays and loads of ideas find their way to the front of my mind and then I stall! I just know that I have a lot to think about. I have to think about how to make the language accessible straight away, whilst also intriguing my shiny new MFL learners and make them want to find out more. It's like giving them a taste of a really yummy cake, but not the whole thing. I don't want them to go away feeling confused and lost, but neither do I want them to think that they can understand everything immediately; I would be doing them a disservice because you often find yourself, as a language learner, struggling for meaning and this is good - it stretches your mind and makes you think about connections and word families and, 'Where have I seen that before?' and so on. I am also lead teacher for Talented, Able and Gifted (TAG) education in our school and therefore am trying to challenge pupils as much as possible; although as language teachers, teaching in the TL, I think we are actually rather good at it anyway.
So, thoughts on the first lesson. Well I will have 3 Year 7 classes; 1 German and 2 French. As German is my specialism, I will probably concentrate on that class mainly for the benefit of this blog, although I am sure that the 2 French classes will pop up. I will assume that most of the pupils in the class have done French before, which is the norm here. Therefore, it will be appropriate to start from zero knowledge. As I mentioned in my previous post, I do not want to start with the usual boring rules and expectations lesson, which is all done in English as this will be defeating the object somewhat. What to start with and how to go about it is the issue.
I usually start with a registration routine pretty sharpish. For those of you who have never done this I thoroughly recommend it to get the party started(!). In German, I usually introduce 'Ich bin hier' as their answer to the register and 'nicht hier' for those who are absent. I do this because it is all about thinking ahead and using structures that are going to be future friendly. 'Ich bin' is a phrase which will be used over again, so that's why I use this for the register. 'Nicht hier' is just a simple foot in the door. In the future, they will be taught: 'Er/Sie ist nicht hier/krank/im Urlaub' etc.
However, before they even enter the classroom, they will have to be put in their seating plan; so, I think a visual representation of the plan on the SMARTboard would be a good idea, accompanied by 'Fred, du sitzt neben Bob und Joe' with lots of gestures and pointing. After this, a greeting and a simple intro accompanied by a visual presentation (PPT, Emaze, Haiku Deck) with images and cognates where possible:
Hallo!
Guten Tag/Morgen!
Ich heiße Frau Wylie. Wie heißt du?
Eliciting some meaning from them would be the next step, then drilling with mimes. It's essentially a dialogue, so it would make sense to get them out of their seats and using it with their classmates as soon as possible to get to know each other - it is after all a communication tool - that it why we are learning it and teaching it in the TL! After that I will need to use it to get to know their names, so a ripple effect conversation would be good: I start it off and address one of them - maybe I will throw a ball (Or my knitted snowman, Peter) and the conversation will move from child to child. An element of competition may need to be introduced - maybe a timer...teampoints for each conversation delivered. Maybe a timer with a random explosion - if it explodes on you while you are talking, you lose points. Maybe a musical chairs type activity - play some music quietly in the background (German of course!) and when it stops, points are lost??? Lots of things could be done. I want them to leave their first German lesson, having had fun and excited to come to the next one.
Something that we do in our department is hand out Schultüten to all our new Germanists on their first lesson (like they do in Germany). These have been made by our Year 9 and 10 and filled by Year 12. We put sweets from our Austria trip in with stationery items, like rulers and pens. They love them and it rounds off their first lesson really nicely. The whole experience needs to be as real as possible, so that they expect the same kind of thing in the next lesson (not the treats, the learning experience!) - we use German to communicate and it is normal practice in our lessons.
Phew - lots of thoughts and possibly rambling here! I'll have to come back and sift through to plan the lesson. I also started to make some phrase signs for the door for colleagues in other subject areas to use with us if they knock at the door for something - got to lead by example!
Bis bald!
So, thoughts on the first lesson. Well I will have 3 Year 7 classes; 1 German and 2 French. As German is my specialism, I will probably concentrate on that class mainly for the benefit of this blog, although I am sure that the 2 French classes will pop up. I will assume that most of the pupils in the class have done French before, which is the norm here. Therefore, it will be appropriate to start from zero knowledge. As I mentioned in my previous post, I do not want to start with the usual boring rules and expectations lesson, which is all done in English as this will be defeating the object somewhat. What to start with and how to go about it is the issue.
I usually start with a registration routine pretty sharpish. For those of you who have never done this I thoroughly recommend it to get the party started(!). In German, I usually introduce 'Ich bin hier' as their answer to the register and 'nicht hier' for those who are absent. I do this because it is all about thinking ahead and using structures that are going to be future friendly. 'Ich bin' is a phrase which will be used over again, so that's why I use this for the register. 'Nicht hier' is just a simple foot in the door. In the future, they will be taught: 'Er/Sie ist nicht hier/krank/im Urlaub' etc.
However, before they even enter the classroom, they will have to be put in their seating plan; so, I think a visual representation of the plan on the SMARTboard would be a good idea, accompanied by 'Fred, du sitzt neben Bob und Joe' with lots of gestures and pointing. After this, a greeting and a simple intro accompanied by a visual presentation (PPT, Emaze, Haiku Deck) with images and cognates where possible:
Hallo!
Guten Tag/Morgen!
Ich heiße Frau Wylie. Wie heißt du?
Eliciting some meaning from them would be the next step, then drilling with mimes. It's essentially a dialogue, so it would make sense to get them out of their seats and using it with their classmates as soon as possible to get to know each other - it is after all a communication tool - that it why we are learning it and teaching it in the TL! After that I will need to use it to get to know their names, so a ripple effect conversation would be good: I start it off and address one of them - maybe I will throw a ball (Or my knitted snowman, Peter) and the conversation will move from child to child. An element of competition may need to be introduced - maybe a timer...teampoints for each conversation delivered. Maybe a timer with a random explosion - if it explodes on you while you are talking, you lose points. Maybe a musical chairs type activity - play some music quietly in the background (German of course!) and when it stops, points are lost??? Lots of things could be done. I want them to leave their first German lesson, having had fun and excited to come to the next one.
Something that we do in our department is hand out Schultüten to all our new Germanists on their first lesson (like they do in Germany). These have been made by our Year 9 and 10 and filled by Year 12. We put sweets from our Austria trip in with stationery items, like rulers and pens. They love them and it rounds off their first lesson really nicely. The whole experience needs to be as real as possible, so that they expect the same kind of thing in the next lesson (not the treats, the learning experience!) - we use German to communicate and it is normal practice in our lessons.
Phew - lots of thoughts and possibly rambling here! I'll have to come back and sift through to plan the lesson. I also started to make some phrase signs for the door for colleagues in other subject areas to use with us if they knock at the door for something - got to lead by example!
Bis bald!
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Creating the right atmosphere from the start
First week of the summer holidays almost at an end and my brain finally has the space to think! I've been giving some thought to how I want to start off my classes in September. Usually, I go for the 'Rules of the classroom, sanctions and rewards and sticking things into books' lesson, but I am always left at the end with a really stodgy feeling; I haven't been true to my beliefs about teaching in the TL, the pupils haven't learnt any German/French, and most importantly, they have been bored to death with the 5th such lesson in one day. This year I have decided to break the mould and start all my classes off in the TL.
As far as rules and behaviour expectations go, I read an interesting article in the TES about a year ago about a teacher who launched straight into teaching and allowed the pupils to 'work out' where the boundaries were. I must admit, it's a little daunting, but then I don't work in a school where behaviour is an issue. I always put my classes in seating plans, which helps with remembering names and I have various ways of rewarding and applying sanctions. I am going to re-launch Class Dojo with my lower school classes for an individual team point thingy and I will be implementing my yellow and red card sanction system. I have also considered starting a football card collecting system off the back of the world cup - not sure yet; maybe too much.
Hopefully with all this in place, I should be able to jump right in at the deep end with the TL, using lots of simple language and cognates and of course mimes galore!
Any thoughts? I would really love to hear them. Post comments here, send an email (see right hand side) or send a tweet (@reebekwylie)
As far as rules and behaviour expectations go, I read an interesting article in the TES about a year ago about a teacher who launched straight into teaching and allowed the pupils to 'work out' where the boundaries were. I must admit, it's a little daunting, but then I don't work in a school where behaviour is an issue. I always put my classes in seating plans, which helps with remembering names and I have various ways of rewarding and applying sanctions. I am going to re-launch Class Dojo with my lower school classes for an individual team point thingy and I will be implementing my yellow and red card sanction system. I have also considered starting a football card collecting system off the back of the world cup - not sure yet; maybe too much.
Hopefully with all this in place, I should be able to jump right in at the deep end with the TL, using lots of simple language and cognates and of course mimes galore!
Any thoughts? I would really love to hear them. Post comments here, send an email (see right hand side) or send a tweet (@reebekwylie)
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