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mercoledì 28 agosto 2019

Reading and the challenges of teaching reading


I belong to a generation of readers. Reading was my favorite past time during the summer and  I  read plenty of books as a teenager  while I was not  at school.

Today my students are not  so fond of  reading. They love surfing the web and  chatting online. Most of them  just read a book because they are asked to write  a short summary about it.
Some have  many books and  read them in their  free time while  others just  go to the library and borrow what they need to read. Some sell the books they have bought as they do not love books.

They  are asked to read a book and this is bad as they will never enjoy the pleasure of touching and reading a book. This  approach to reading will influence  their reading habits  as  they will never  develop  as learners and will not be ready to continue  learning and reflecting on what really matters.




The article  presented online in the  website about  self-development  underlines that there many reasons for underlying the importance of reading: just check it and you will agree that reading can be an important activity and you will also develop as a learner

 https://www.selfdevelopmentsecrets.com/benefits-importance-reading-books/

Their infographics has a long list of benefits related to the  habit of reading. I cannot but think that reading is important regardless of your age.

Infographic about reading and its importance


When teaching languages we do need to rely on activities that can enhance  reading: a  reading club can be something we can work on. An English  reading club could help my lazy learners as we could  choose among the books to read  and we could interact on what we have  learnt.

Edutopia has presented some   ideas  shared by  educators dealing with the issue of literacy and reading:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/starting-heritage-language-book-club

Which are the main advantages for working on developing  reading skills?

  • learners can learn from mistakes
  • learners   can learn about  grammar while reading
  • by scanning  texts learners can build bridges between their language and the other language that they are learning
An interesting activity shared online  is  Collaborative Reading: check this video released by Edutopia- the young  learners are getting engaged and are learning while  reading.


I feel that teaching needs to find new  bridges into the learner's paths as today's learners are different and they might not love reading but  they also need to be trained and helped to develop their critical thinking skills.

Learning and reading about  heroes and important people  who  are admired by our learners is the first step to find reading texts and topics to cover for our syllabus: Shelly  Terrell has  given a lot  of tips in her blog and you can read more about this  online



I must support  reading activities  in my classes  this year: the challenge is to get the learners into reading for pleasure and for learning. 




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martedì 30 luglio 2019

International Friendship Day



I found this interesting post shared by  Erasmus Plus and  at the same time I also found an interesting story shared online about  the time of Nazism.  The story is a story about  the friendship of two girls who were penpals . One was living in  Europe while the other was living in the USA. The first one belonged to a Jewish family and when Hitler came to power they had to find a way  to  escape  and  avoid  being sent to the concentration camps.

This story can help us reflect on what we can do for the others and how we can change the life of people if  we are human  beings. If we do not  decide, we will never be " human", since caring about the others is really important.

Here is the link to the  document online which I am  going to use with  my students of the  fifth year  when school starts in September.


https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/personal-story/marianne-winter


 
I cannot but say that if more people had " worked " to fight against the persecution of the Jews , we would have  changed history.
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lunedì 22 luglio 2019

Teaching English: songs

I was surfing the web yesterday and I came across this collection of videos which can be used to teach English. It is still work in progress and it was shared online. Here you can  find some videos which have been used by educators to work in  English.


Made with Padlet



I am used to introducing some topics in English by presenting some videos. I must confess that I really like it.
What is really  interesting is  to choose among a variety of texts which we can use in class.
I will check this repository online and see if some  songs can be used in my class too.
In this way we can get more engagement and perhaps learners will be more interested in learning new idioms.


Resources online

https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/pop-songs-connected-speech-fluent-english 


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sabato 20 luglio 2019

Remembering the first landing on the Moon



Fifty  years  ago we had the first men landing on the moon. The event was  awesome and as a little child  I could but not imagine  my life in a new land, the moon. I cannot remember much but  I thought the  human beings could  get any planet in the universe.
Since then men have experienced  new discoveries  but  we have also  faced difficulties.


Since I love writing and  I am interested in creativity and English  Language learning I could find this interesting ebook online created by using  an app  Story Jumper. You must  read it and be inspired.


Book titled 'Puggy visits the Moon'Read this book made on StoryJumper
It is a great tool which can help your learners write about themselves and enhance their ability in writing, storytelling for example.

 The Merriam Webster dictionary  has provided some  language input  which is worth sharing:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/glossary-of-moon-terms-and-definitions/selenography

Here you can listen to an interesting document online  shared thanks to  Listenwise:


https://listenwise.com/students/lessons/585-apollo-8-mission



And here is the poem by one of the greatest  English  romantic  poets:





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giovedì 18 luglio 2019

Teaching about Mandela and modern history

Mandela's day is celebrated every year on 18th July.

I was fascinated by  the man who was in prison and  fought for the  rights of the black people in his counntry.  I do remember  reading about  South Africa and its apartheid when I was studying  geography in secondary school. I was shocked by what I read about  the system  that  segregated people.

This year  I could teach  about the history of  Apartheid when I did a short  text by  Nadine Gordimer with my fifth year  students. I felt inspired by some videos and also  some songs which can help us  introduce  Mandela and apartheid in the English lessons.

When searching online there are plenty of resources. Here is the one  shared online by  TeachingEnglish.




Resources online

Mandela's day websources


My Lesson Plan and materials

Introduction created by using  a  free  world cloud  tool: I just had to copy the text of the song by the  Simply Minds

https://www.wordclouds.com/


Talking and guessing about the issue in the song 

 The students will have to talk about the content of the song and  be guided into  finding more information about   Mandel .

Listening and  Viewing  Skills

The students  watch the video about the song and focus on the information they can get from the text and why it was  written.




The students are given the video trailer about a famous  film about  the life of  Nelson Mandela and will discuss about  what they have seen and what they know about  the man.



Follow up

The students do the activity  about  the  hero Mandela at home- it is a lesson shared online but it can help the learners work on their own and will  listen to some  more information in a guided  biography online.

https://ed.ted.com/featured/fZIlNzq6


The next  step: creativity

 The students have to work in a group and  create an artefact in English about  Mandela and  the history of  South Africa.

They can use online editors for photos and create their text online  to be shared by using  Google Slides and any tool for making  videos.



Image of  Mandela created by  using  https://www.fotor.com/features/goart.html


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giovedì 20 giugno 2019

World Refugee Day

We can learn from the past and from the others.

Let's remember  what happened- it is  happening again, regardless of the lesson.

 


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domenica 26 maggio 2019

Europe and its values


The recent elections in Europe have  created a great debate online and also in my country many people fear the Union. Some are not aware of the importance of  Europe and think they are responsible for the problems in many countries.

Why  Europe?

Because together we can share values and because we have been able to live in peace for years. After the sad events that occured  during WWII and in the dark age of the Holocaust our fathers decided to build a continent in which democracy and peace were its main values.


We should never  forget this.  Today we travel and work in different countries and  Europe is promoting education and well-being among its citizens. The Union cares for the old, the young, the unemployed, the disabled and since 1945  Europe has been a continent without wars, apart from what happened in  Bosnia in the  1990s.

Today I came across this post which mentions the ideas expressed by an important Italian  thinker and professor, Umberto Eco: today's Europe has its roots in the past.










“Cari ragazzi, ringraziate di essere europei. Voi per fortuna non sapete che cosa sia una guerra. Per la prima volta in millecinquecento anni di storia, dal 1945 a oggi abbiamo avuto quasi settant'anni ininterrotti di pace (se si esclude un conflitto nei Balcani, atroce ma localizzato e abbastanza breve). Voi siete i figli di settant'anni di pace. Forse la pace vi annoia, ma se non ci fossero stati questi settant'anni voi forse non sareste nati, o sareste morti a sette anni giocando tra le macerie e inciampando in una bomba inesplosa. E invece molti di voi possono non solo vivere in pace a casa loro, ma tentare l'avventura del programma Erasmus e sperimentare come si vive e si studia in altri Paesi. Perché godete di questa fortuna? Perché delle persone illuminate che si chiamavano Altiero Spinelli, Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schumann e altri, fondatori dell'Europa unita, hanno capito che non solo per necessità politiche ed economiche ma anche per profonde ragioni di unità culturale si doveva riconoscere il nostro continente come una patria comune. Ringraziate Iddio o la sorte, come preferite, di essere nati europei e non fidatevi dei falsi profeti che vorrebbero farci tornare indietro di settant'anni.” Umberto Eco, Quirinale, 29 novembre 2014 [Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP]
Un post condiviso da Linkiesta.it (@linkiesta.it) in data:

We should never forget that today our children and people living in Europe are working and studying in a place where the best minds and ideas can work together. There is a mix of languages and cultures and we are developing in order to offer the best to our citizens.

Ersmus Plus, Comenius and  Leonardo are some interesting project that are or were aimed at educators and learners . They promote European  values and schools and educators have learnt to work together while sharing ideas and learning about other  cultures.
The European Union promotes Language Learning and Teaching and as an educator I have already done many Moocs which are supported by the Union. I have met other educators online and we have shared ideas and learnt together.






Many young people  have  studied in Europe and  have acquired new skills  thanks to the European projects.

My students have done some training in Europe: some have been to Belgium while others  did some training in Finland and also in  Spain. They have met new cultures and have learnt about the Union.

Without these projects which promote mobility among learners, university students and also workers we would not be open to new worlds and cultures  and this is one the main reasons why  we  do need Europe.



 

 Less Europe means we become a sort of an island , like the Uk , this implies not living in a community  and rejecting the values which are  the foundations of the European culture.

At school we do work on projects and we do learn together. Thanks to Etwinning we can say that our students are  an online learning community.


Every year we  celebrate  Europe, the date is important: it is 9th May.

We need to continue  living in Europe and to enrich our life and culture.  We need Europe and Europe needs us.



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