If we go to other Primary Education classes, we will observe that many teachers who use films in an appropriate way as a didactic resource and others who do not. Many teachers like cinema and think it is a good method to use in the class but they don’t know how to introduce it correctly in the class. From my own experience, I have witnessed, from the Primary stage until even the university, that a minority of teachers have played a film in relation to the content we were watching in class. In this, the simple role of the teacher was to play the film and here ends everything. Supposedly, the teacher thinks that students have understood the film, know how to relate it with the content. However, there is no kind of scaffolding, nor exercises of expression, creativity to work the film…

Precisely for that reason, my objective on writing this post is to provide some methodological ideas for the use of films in the Primary Education class due to I am totally in favour about its use:

• To do as we are doing in class with the Film Project: Each student has to create its own character. These are gathered and students write a plot/film invented with the aspects more interesting for students, such as actions, characteristics, scenery, dialogues…
• In a chronological order and by sequences or scenes of short length (depending on the duration of the scene, but more or less 1 or 2 minutes). To begin with, it consists in watching the film with no sound and imagine what characters are talking, or describe the scene, characters, etc… Once, to play the scene-sequence with no sound but with subtitles. And finally, play the scene with sound and subtitles.
• Provide like a ‘writing frame for films’ with the title, scene, main and secondary characters; scenery (background); Scene’s plot; dialogues; Depending on the film … historical moment, contextualisation, period; Character’s characterisation (clothes, colours, personality…); setting…
• Cross curricular films: We can watch a film and relate it to the content seen in class; For example: If we analise ‘The Lion King’ we can relate it to the Science subject with the different habitats, vertebrates and invertebrates animals, the food chain…;
• Regarding the language, we can work in films with the flash-back sequences where it is blend the past and present. Furthermore, the student can create an ending regarding the future.

To sum up, cinema can provide student to develop its comprehension skills of creation, analysis. Also, as a way of expressing feelings, emotions promoting a positive and confident atmosphere providing the collaborative work.

During the previous weeks the class has been working on a specific feature related to Aladdin’s film. We had to create a workshop for 9 years old students from Daoiz y Velarde School (Alcalá de Henares). Our group chose the Cave of Wonders scene when Aladdin enters to the cave of wonders and he finds all wonders such as gold, the magical carpet… everything students had ever seen before. For this, we wanted to decorate the class as it was a cave covering all the chairs and tables with continuos paper, carpets and cushions were placed on the floor where the students could be seated, also we put tables full of chocolate coins, everything with the purpose of creating an Arabian ambience.

In addition to the decoration, the group disguised itself of the different characters from the film: Aladdin, Jasmine, Jafar, Genie, Rajah, and Abu. The children were spell bounded when they saw us and immediately they recognised which character we were. So with that, let’s start talking about the procedure!

To begin with the workshop, Aladdin was outside the classroom (Cave of Wonders) pretending to be meditating while children were getting closer with Abu who was asking: ‘Do you know who is this character?’. So Aladdin asked them to enter to the CAVE OF WONDERS. Once inside, students bumped into the Genie character who carried out the ‘wishes activity’. In which consisted the ‘wish activity’?. The Genie was calling student by student so that students told their own wish: ‘I wish…’ ‘I wish to be a…’. Once the Genie had all the wishes he kept them. After, we did the following activity using the interactive whiteboard and the program ‘Netbook’. It consisted in giving some messy sentences and children had to be placing them. After this, we played the trailer of Aladdin to remember the film, scenes, landscapes, characters… Later, we played the game ‘Who am I?. The activity consisted in being placed by pairs, the teachers put a drawing-flashcard of the character on the forehead of the student. They couldn’t see their own character so that they had to guess it. You can see it here:

They had to ask: ‘Have I a long hair?’, ‘Am I a man?’, ‘Have I feathers?. The other pair had to answer yes/no. We thought that scaffolding here could be provided, so we made some lists of adjectives, objects and parts of the body related to the characters in order to help students to have more flexibility and fluency to talk and describe the character, as you can see here:

Once they could guess their character, we passed into the last activity.

The aim of the last activity ‘Cartoonist‘ was to create the character children wanted. For example, to build the body of Aladdin he had divided the character into the parts of the body (head, arms, legs…). Like this:

Children had to join all the parts in order to create the new character. By the way, there were helped by this sheet that they had to follow:

On the head there was an empty face where students could put behind the poster’s character and take a photo, pretending the student was this character. And finally, we gave them medals, chocolate coins… and so on with the next three groups!

I hope ýou enjoyed the workshop!

It is encouraged and boost the use of literature in the class, and teachers instil in students that reading and understanding is very important for life. Teachers give many opportunities to read in class: before/after starting the class, reading as an award, reading during the break… These are appropriated methods to encourage reading which is quite important but what really matters is: Do we know what are students reading? Do students understand what they read? Are students able to retell the story?.  Probably you have frequently observed a teacher giving just a book to a student to read without emphasising on understanding.

Considering these actual questions, I suggest some strategies for a better comprehension seen from my experience.

• To begin with, dramatize is ideal for reading. There is not better method to understand than being involved in the story, students will make an effort in understanding what they are reading. The student will feel inside the story as part of it and it will be understood rather than just reading.  Dramatize is related to expression movements (drama). This is suitable for kinaesthetic students according to the Howard’s Multiple Intelligences.
• As well, teachers can select several words which are going to be eliminated and students have to guess what the words are.
• Going little by little is always the best way to learn. Sometimes, to read less understanding the story, thinking and commenting about the last read, is better rather than reading three pages and not understanding nothing at all.
• Read sentence by sentence and explain this with the students’ own words.

To sum up, new strategies are needed to improve education and reading comprehension.  Reading is a passionate requirement in children’s life and the teacher-family role is quite important to help them and make it enjoyable in order to develop their reading competence.

I hope you liked it,

See you!

‘I wrote when I didn’t know life. Now that I do know the meaning of life, I have no more to write. Life cannot be written, life can only be lived’.  

These great quotes were written by Oscar Wilde. He is very known worldwide for its main works such as: ‘The picture of Dorian Gray’; ‘De profundis’ where he shows that the fact of suffering gives a way to live; its masterpiece ‘The importance of being Ernest’ where describe and talks about marriage in an humorous way, or ‘The ballad of Reading Goal’ which was written after his release in Reading’s prison because Wilde was convicted of homosexual.

Apart from these works, the Irish writer published many stories that later editorials adapted to children such as: ‘The Happy  Prince’, ‘The Canterville Ghost’, ‘The Model Millionaire’, ‘The Selfish Giant’, ‘The Star-child’… Through these stories the reader gets excited because perceives tenderness, friendship, love, mystical ideas, reality-fiction, all are mixed concepts that make the reader think and until one is moved to tears.

With all of this, I would like to say that the Oscar Wilde’s adaptations (the last ones I mentioned) are a very proper resource to use in the Language Classroom for children. They are touching, short and easy to read and to understand, perfect to perform in which students are part of the story and involved in the performance. I read these short stories in the 6^th year of Primary School in English classroom, since then I was shocked about these stories and this author and then I grew up and I had the opportunity to read its works more complex (poems, theatre…).

When I was a child I loved reading. But what I liked the most was that my parents read me stories, tales, and all I had to read; As well, when reading time I used to read aloud so everyone (I mean to my parents) could hear me (but the roles have changed because now I love reading to children, and it is something that inspires me…). When reading aloud I thought (and think) that it was one strategy to understand better what I was reading. In fact, in the English Classroom at School the teacher recorded us when reading a book, and then the cassette was given to our parents in order to see what we used to do in class, I love this kind of activities. For this reason, when learning new languages is very useful to record oneself talking, I know it sounds quite embarrassing hearing your voice, but from my own experience it is totally effective and I have learnt that  is an ideal activity to improve our Speaking and Reading skills. It is something which agrees all language teachers  with I have had and they usually say to do this kind of activities.

And last but not least and for all these reasons, I decided this time to film a video recording myself reading ‘The Selfish Giant’,  (The Oscar Wilde’s adaptations I mentioned before), a lovely story by the way. It is a didactic resource, or better called an ‘audio book’. The video would be a didactic example/proposal  to do with students. I found many ‘audio book’ on the internet with drawings, images… in order to practice with our students.

You can watch it here, hope you like it.

(If you have problems opening the video, you can update the web page again, and  cross fingers)

Interesting information: Oscar Wilde studied at ‘The Trinity College’ (founded in 1592). Noted people such as Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Beckett studied at this relevant University, among others.

       Trinity College (Dublin)

Bibliography:

• ‘The Canterville Ghost and Other stories’- Oscar Wilde. Oxford Progressive English Readers (2004)

Along this week we have been working in class with many reading resources for literature that we can use in our future career as English/ bilingual teachers: Jazz chants, finger plays, storytelling, us as readers (reading map)… And I would like to talk about this issue because when I was in the library and I bumped into a panting saying: ‘If you read, they (children) read’. So I started thinking what my motivation was for reading when I was a child, and what and how people motivated me to read. Thus, I would like to explain from my experience what the advantages of reading are and why we should encourage children to read.

Unfortunately, the school I assisted when I was a child (6 years old more or less) was not so motivated about encouraging reading. I don’t remember much my teachers encouraging me or my classmates to read, and I haven’t been so influenced to read in the school during this time. Fortunately, my parents were in charge of my developing in reading because they thought (and still thinking it) that reading can only have benefits. I used to go every week to the library, or to buy books, even my family gave me books on my birthday/ Christmas… I have always had a book to read on my shelving, when I grew up I had no space to put my books. On the contrary,  I remember being sometimes lazy when reading but people around me encouraged me and they read with me, talking, sharing and reading out loud, etc… And now I realized about the reasons of reading and how important is.

On language class (lengua) in my first practicum time in Spain, children could read after have finished their tasks/homework of the class, or the teacher left time in a whole class to read. I think this is perfect, because it fosters reading and children think reading is important. In contrast, during my practicum in Ireland I was impressed about the motivation and encouragement teachers gave to the reading. Children had to read every day their own book and the next day they had to tell the whole class what they read and what happened in the book/ chapter of the previous day. As well, they went to the library almost every day, so children spent reading at least 1/2 hour per day.

I find this very interesting to do it here, and after this, I would like to give some tips to encourage children for reading gathering my experience, and as I have seen about which should be ideal for reading :

1. Use children interests/ hobbies to read. For example, if a child likes animals, give him an animal book. He may like more rather than a topic he doesn’t like, obviously.
2. Leave around children available books, colourful and interesting magazines to read.
3. Take children to the library regularly. Children will love to go there, and do extraordinary things!
4. Encourage older students to read to younger ones. The youngest see the oldest as a model to follow. Children will love receive in the class new classmates.
5. Invite parents/ grandparents to the school.
6. Enjoy reading, and be a model to follow for our future students J

I am going to leave you interesting links/ideas for fostering reading:

http://brandongaille.com/list-32-good-reading-slogans-for-children/

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/tips-encouraging-kids-read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1oOrwmhVC8

(*This post is a mix of the different types that a blog may include: Self-selected response (SSR), Class-related response (CRR).)

Bibliography

Photos https://www.google.es/search?q=encourage+to+read&biw=1024&bih=499&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=-2c1VP3xH-_gsATSnoBw&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=FuL4GU8CUcHxOM%253A%3Ba5DglNJ1bWc1FM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F247moms.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F12%252Fkids-reading.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F247moms.com%252F2010%252F07%252Fvtechs-ultimate-tips-for-encouraging%252F%3B320%3B316

http://brandongaille.com/list-32-good-reading-slogans-for-children/

Language skills: Children learn new vocabulary in an indirect way by singing the song at the same time. They acquire new structures and vocabulary which are not common or usually used in daily life.

Listening skills: Children acquire the language by listening, paying attention to what they hear.

Memory and imaginative skills: This is crucial for children to imagine what they are listening or singing, they imagine the story in their own way. As well, nursery rhymes are created always with repeated structures, which is advantageous for children to keep the story in mind.

What is more, nursery rhymes are related with multiple intelligences such as the musical (rhythm and harmonic) which involves sensitivity to rhythm, tone, timber…; and the bodily- kinaesthetic intelligence because it involves a physical action. In addition, nursery rhymes are linked with phonics, phonemes to help students by repeating and reinforcing the words which contain some tricky phonemes.

On the other hand, as we have seen in class Nursery Rhymes have a double meaning such as ‘Three Blind Mice’ or ‘Mary, Mary, Quite contrary’ published in 1744. This last has a religious and historical meaning furthermore than lyrics. The known british nursery rhyme ‘Georgie Porgie’ (‘Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry, when the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away’), actually seems to mean ‘a torrid gay sex scandal which involves King Charles I’.

So with all of this I claim to say that nursery rhymes are perfect and fascinating for children to learn. But what catch my attention is that they are a good resource to learn the history of a country, or to observe the perspective towards the monarchy, society, power on those times.

Nursery rhymes are fun, so why not to start by singing them? Ending a class, or just using them for learning during a class can be so funny, children love moving, dancing, and singing, so why not to take advantage for this?

I am going to leave you some of my favourite Nursery Rhymes:

The wheels on the bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFrN1FL6tE

Pat-a-cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxMzHZ9eKw

Thank you for standing by,

References:

http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/article/5978/Advantages_of_Nursery_Rhymes_to_Little_Children

I am Beatriz Sandoval, a student of 4th year Primary Teacher Degree (English Specialization) at Centro Universitario Cardenal Cisneros.

This blog is aimed at dealing with Children’s literature in English or English as a foreign language. You will find activities, resources, reflections about teaching English for a Primary Education classroom.

I hope you find useful this blog.