On Monday, our teacher prepared new activities for us that were linked with poetry. The first activity that we did had a close relation with new technologies. In this activity, first we were divided in small groups of four or three people, then we had to search on YouTube for the poetry videos that we did and choose one of them.
They can be watched in this direction: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdrzI70O2odaLe7LN52gX7Q)

After choosing, we had to create a QR code for the video that we had chosen using the website: https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/. Once we had the QR code ready; we started to think about an activity that can be done with the video that we have chosen, such as adding a new strophe or drawing objects that appear or should appear in the poetry, etc. You may think about the purpose of this activity; the aim of the activity was to print the QR codes with the activities suggested and place them in the corridors of the university, so that people could do the activities that we created thanks to their smartphone´s camera.

By the time we finished the activity we started with the next one which was linked with creation, art and visual spatial intelligence. The activity began when the teacher place in different parts of the class some sheets with a poetry in them, but this poetries had a special characteristic; its verses form shapes of objects that were related with them. We had to go read each sheet and create another example using the technique which appears in the sheet.

In conclusion, I have to say that I really liked the activities that we did, because they gave the opportunity to develop imagination and creativity, also they were motivational for us and they would be motivational for children as well, but a very interesting point that the activities suggested is the sense of continuity, I mean that the videos that we did some weeks ago have been used again for another activity. Furthermore, I think that this could be used in some many ways in schools for letting the children create a visible progression in the continuity of the activities that they do.

First, we took some videos of Michael Rosen, who is an English children’s novelist, as a good example of storytelling. Then we analyze curiously the characteristics that made Rosen´s stories catchy for children and even for adults. We conclude that there are plenty of things that make his stories so attractive, such as the repetition of grammatical structures and vocabulary, the mystery included in his stories, the first-person narration and all the gestures, voice intonations, noises and funny things that make the auditor feel involved by the story and its characters.

After this analysis, we thought about new innovative ideas that could improve Rosen´s story according to CLIL. Finally we thought about some useful ideas, for instance, it would be motivating to activate the children´s prior-knowledge by asking them if they like chocolate cakes, or what would they do if they were the protagonist of the story. Moreover it would be eye-catching to introduce pictures, visuals, encouraging them to repeat the body language of Rosen and pre-teaching some of the difficult vocabulary words that appear in the story.

Although we proposed some great ideas, the teacher showed us more ideas to create extra tasks for each story. The one that I really liked was called “Kung Fu Punctuation Poster” it consisted in practicing some different Kung Fu techniques in the air while reading the story, but they have to do a specific melee attack depending on the punctuation mark that they´ve just read. For example, each time that they had to stop reading due to a dot, they have to punch the air while saying “ha”.

We also saw another model of story in which for every action and noun that appear in the story the students have to imitate the gestures that the teacher does, so that it could be more attractive for the students.

 Finally, the teacher told us to create our own story using the previous one as a model, so that, every group could prepare a different story but using the same structure, we have to develop our own gestures for the different verbs, adjectives and nouns of the story and try to link it to other subjects apart from English in order to make the story educational.

 So next week I will write about how the activity resulted in class.

Michael Rosen´s chocolate cake story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BxQLITdOOc

Kung Fu Punctuation Poster:

http://displays.tpet.co.uk/?resource=1264#/ViewResource/id1264

Jaime García

And it was a great surprise for me when Raquel (our teacher) decided to show us some examples of a good storytelling.

We saw a video of an English storyteller named Michael Rosen about a chocolate cake, it was one of the most exciting stories I ever heard but not because of the story, which is interesting, but because of the way of speaking and representing of the author, he makes the story really funny and interesting, he creates the story in a way in which he is the main character and represent it in a really exaggerated way with a lot of gestures, mimic, screaming and noises in the story.

It surprised me to the point that I decidedto look for more stories and I found more stories about a watch, washing up and others shorter ones.

The topic was really interesting so I decided that I should show the story to some of my friends that has not a good level of English and check if they understood the story, and as I thought they got the whole idea of what is Michael Rosen talking about, not because of the words (they understood some of them) but because of the whole context of the video.

The class after that we returned to some videos of this brilliant novelist, but this time we were not only listening, but we were telling the story with the author, the first time we just listened to the story and the second one we represented the whole story with the help of the video at the same time. It was great, firstly I felt a little bit embarrassed but then I realized this is something really fantastic to learn because, in some way or another, all of us will work with children, and sometimes we will tell them some stories, I would like my stories would be as interesting as Michael Rosen’s ones.

Chocolate Cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmeS6U_OcE4

Michael Rosen’s website: http://www.michaelrosen.co.uk/