Thursday 2 July 2015

Wednesday 1st July. MST 2015

Word cloud made with WordItOut

Environmental print. Teaching resources.

A valuable resource to practise and learn English based on real visual material. This term and many others are part of NILE online website glossary. Samples of Norwich environmental print are posted on the NILE blog.

Group work (4-5 SS) as a follow-up activity after the trail activity scheduled on the previous session.

§  Introduction to the concept of Jigsaw group work. Analysis of group work dynamics presented in the previous lessons in terms of number of participants, tasks and TR’s role controlling time.
§  Group dynamics foster interaction and active participation of the SS.
§  In the classroom scene, it is remarkable to notice that SS are more used to the group work conventions in terms of instruction active listening and end of task conventions (hands up).

Lesson based on environmental print. London Tube Signs.

§  Collocation matching as a thinking skill booster
§  Comparison with the first short story (Monday 29th June). Both activities share simple language but they entail higher thinking skills. Creativity development  is discussed as a source of 21st skill development.
§  A range of tasks is adapted since different thinking processes are entailed within the same group of students at different pace.
Brainstorming final remarks about the creativity environmental print outcomes:
§  Dialogues and role plays
§  Leaflets
§  Designing training for future strategies.
§  “Beyond the classroom” lessons.

Websites for teachers. NILE website as a tool

Computer lab tip: turning off the screen until the TR sets up the classroom.
E-learning platform Moodle is presented actively, it is the SS task to surf the websites in search of their own choice for the TR proposed questionnaire.
It is a collaborative task online to have access to the comments and activities or tools SS have chosen bearing in mind their students’ needs.

Visual literacy.

Visual organisers and graphs contribute to language learning, this session explores the use of double T-charts in a lesson plan “Beyond the Classroom” featuring Sainsbury Arts Centre pieces of art.
Lesson plan combines both individual (slow down activity) and pair work.

Individual work, “My reaction”
§            - Preserves critical thinking processes. SS are not influenced by other SS remarks.
§             -Fulfils schedule or classroom requirements.

      Pair work “My partner has said”, “Matching titles”
§     -Sequencing discussion encourages turn-taking strategic learning and summarising information skills.

Related to visual literacy, the activity “A picture is worth…” combines visual prompts and previous knowledge of newspaper conventions to create a caption for any of the pictures. Creativity is encouraged in a quiet and relaxing atmosphere. Everyone enjoys reading the SS witty captions proposed.  Made up captions and real captions are compared.


The classroom ends up closing the circle. The set of follow-up activities recollect the environmental print and visual literacy input provided. 

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