Changing paradigms and Do you dare to dream?

Hi, 

As I said in my last post, I've recently changed jobs... and it's proving quite the challenge to adjust to my new situation. While a lot of the conditions are better than I had, there are a few things that I'm struggling with. One of them is the lack of technology. 

After teaching at a school where all students had their own netbooks or iPads, and where a lot of work was done in digital form, using the textbook as the only material available is quite limited. To begin with, textbooks rarely cater for different levels, and I have a multitude of levels in each classroom. Another issue is that textbooks provide a limited number of exercises, and some students still struggle with some grammar forms after having exhausted all the exercises available in the textbook and the workbook. Last year, it was simple--I could just generate my own drills, or search for some in trusted websites, and share them with my students within seconds. This is not possible now. 

Mind you, I'm probably allowed to send work via e-mail if I take care of personal data. I haven't asked yet. 

Anyway, I have been thinking about this famous video quite a lot. I admire Sir Ken Robinson, and I think he's absolutely spot-on with what he says about the school system. Thinking about this saddens me, makes me think I'm only one little person in a little school which is part of this system, where I haven't spotted many 'lone riders' (as someone put it in a talk I attended a couple of years ago) who are taking risks by encouraging divergent thinking, creativity and group work. I feel like a fish out of water because in my last school at least there were a few people like that. 

It's not all doom and gloom, however. I think knowing your enemy is a key part to defeating it. Or at least, to save your sanity and to know what you can get away with. There's another video I have been thinking about, because I've left my comfort zone and I'm staring at the abyss, looking at the panic zone and looking for a way to fly upwards. Here it is, 

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It's comforting to think that there's a way out if only you dare to dream. 

Thanks for reading!

Maite 

New year, new life, old-new school.

Hi all, 

In this post, I'm not going to describe any of the activities I do in class, but rather, I'm going to comment a bit on the start of the new school year 2018/19. 

For reasons I wouldn't like to discuss on a blog like this, a few months ago I decided to try to change jobs. One of the things I did was to sit the official exams to join the public service as an English teacher in the government-funded schools. For anybody living outside Spain, this usually means going through an antiquated, industrial process of recruitment where there are just a few permanent positions for thousands of applicants, and since they are in competition with each other, the atmosphere is usually tense, even hostile. Competence is a factor in your success or failure, but also luck: applicants must write an essay on a topic chosen at random out of around 70 topics (for English, these include linguistics, English language, literature, culture and such like). If one of your topics is drawn out of the bag, then you can count yourself lucky. That's only the first exam--if you pass, you still have to go through an oral exam in which you present a yearly programme for your subject in front of a panel. And then, your teaching experience, training and official certificates are taken into account to place you in a list. Finally, if you score enough points, you may get a permanent job. If not, you are put in the supply teachers' list. 

I'll spare you the details. I did a good first exam and was lucky in the topic, Romantic literature in Britain. I went through to the second phase and managed to impress the panel enough for them to give me a decent mark, which combined with my teaching experience, language certificates and other courses I've taken through the years, has landed me a permanent job as a civil servant. Hooray!!!

I'm currently working at the same high school where I studied as a teenager. This is by no means common, by the way. Let's say I'm a bit of a nerd that way, so I applied to work there and I was lucky enough to get the job. 

I'm still getting used to my new surroundings, my timetable, my students, my groups... I don't know if I'll be able to fit in any of the multi-skill projects I'm used to doing, as each group gets fewer lessons than what I'm used to. The evil demon sitting on my shoulder says there's no time for projects. The good angel sitting on my other shoulder says that projects tick many more boxes than traditional lessons. 

I'll keep you updated. 

Thanks for reading!

Maite 

A letter to Mother Midsummer (as opposed to Father Christmas!)

Dear Mother Midsummer, 

I have been a good teacher this year. I have taken care of all my students, I have taught them some skills I hope they can use and I have given them all fair marks. I have also been patient and understanding, I have taken into account my students' circumstances and I have pushed them enough to make them take risks and make decisions. 

Because I have been such a good teacher, I have put together a list and, if you think I deserve it, I would love to find these under the nearest palm tree so I can be an even better teacher next year:

- a good timetable, with enough time to prepare lessons, correct assignments, mark exams and talk to my colleagues about meaningful aspects of our job

- since we have a new Minister for Education in Spain, my wish is that the law is changed to do away with our current system of external assessment, to bring back subjects that help teens develop critical thinking and an ethical mind, and that individual schools have more freedom and more resources to best serve the community where they are located (I'm so generous! This isn't even for me!)

- kind, generous, friendly, curious and conscientious students who like to talk about different subjects, who progress in their skills and who help all their classmates no matter who they're friends with. 

- exciting projects across different areas of the curriculum, to give students a global vision of their world and... why not, to help me understand other areas as well. 

But before the new school year begins, we have the summer in front of us, so my wishes for the next few weeks are: 

- the chance to sleep in every now and then

- the chance to stay up and look at the stars, with and without StarWalk... like when I saw a meteor shower last summer

- to be able to visit some new places but also some familiar places, both in Spain and abroad

- to switch off for a bit, even if it is to gather strength and energy for the next school year

I will leave a glass of lemonade on ice and a few chilled pieces of watermelon for you and your train of flamingoes. 

Best wishes, 

Maite Gallego 

Sexist lyrics (4º ESO)

On the occasion of International Women's Day on the 8th of March, I designed an activity that would make my students use their critical thinking skills to decide whether some popular songs have sexist content, whether hidden or not. The aim of this activity was, in a way, to activate the 'sexist radar' in my students and to be aware of sexism in our society.


I chose some current hits but also some older songs, in an attempt to show that these issues are not new. Terms such as infantilisation, objectification and banalisation were discussed and we looked for instances of them in order to create awareness of how they can be put into words and images. If there was something I really wanted to achieve was to promote feminism as an equalitarian movement, which favours equal rights and equal treatment between the genders, and that a wrong is a wrong regardless of who does it.

This activity encouraged a lot of debate in class- students helped each other understand the difference between healthy behaviours and attitudes (for example, a feeling of sadness after a relationship breaks up) and unhealthy and potentially dangerous ones (jealousy, manipulation, stalking). We also touched on the role of social media in human relationships, but did not explore this in a lot of detail as this alone would make for a long and complex project.

The assessment rubric was quite simple:



I definitely think this activity works well for older groups of students. Some of the songs and videos chosen were quite explicit and this needs to be taken into consideration in order to choose whether to show the videos in class, or to just talk about the lyrics. The most interesting presentations were, unsurprisingly, about the songs which attempt to hide sexism and about the ones which display deep-rooted sexist behaviours that have, to quite an extent, been normalised to such a point that a lot of people do not perceive them.

I would definitely like to repeat this activity in the future.

Thanks for checking in! See you in the next post!

Maite

Songs of Innocence and of Experience Project (4º ESO)

One of my favourite works of literature is William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Published in 1789 (Songs of Innocence) and 1794 (Songs of Experience), in the middle of a buzzing period to say the least (the French Revolution, the conflict with the American ex-colonies, the Englightenment, and more importantly for this particular project, the industrial revolution), these poems encapsulate the duplicity of progress, society, human relationships and many other issues which, over 200 years later, are still relevant.

As usual, I made a presentation to show my students:



Although all of them knew about the industrial revolution, as they had recently covered it in History (this is the beauty of inter-disciplinary topics!), none of them had heard of Blake and only a few of them had considered the artistic output inspired by it.

Connecting the 18th Century social issues with the 21st Century was a bit of a revelation for part of the class and triggered a fruitful, improvised class discussion on the effects our lifestyles are having on developing countries. My aim was to focus the issues on childhood, and the impact that adult decisions and actions have on children.

Although writing creatively isn't always received positively by students (most of them wanted to make a short film about this), because of time constraints, it is often the most sensible option. The visual part of this project, in the end, had to be abandoned because of the same reason; if I do this project again, I will certainly try to involve both the History and the Art teachers to fulfil its potential.

You can read the students' stories clicking on the Stories at Base blog.

Thanks for reading this post!

Maite

Year Zero (2º ESO)

Making students question their reality is part of their education if we want them to grow into critical thinkers. This doesn't mean making them question everything just for the sake of it. It means making them aware that there are other ways of doing things apart from the mainstream way, and that there may be a lot of valid reasons for doing so.

Usually, debates are productive class activities to encourage students to consider different points of view. However, I wanted students to produce some individual work this time, and I created the following activity, which I called Year Zero. You can have a look at the presentation here:



I showed my students the excellent 12,017 In a Nutshell video, in which the authors argue that using our current calendar is misleading and gives a distorted vision of History. If you haven't watched it, I recommend it, as I would many other videos in the same channel. My point was that our calendar is just one of our cultural conventions, and that conventions can be changed if there is a strong enough reason for it.

My students, then, were given the challenge to choose an alternative 'year 0' from any point in history. They had to explain why they had chosen it and the advantages of using it as the starting point in history. The aim was to make a 1-minute long video using Spark Video or Shadow Puppet Edu explaining their choice.

The students had to write their script and then, after arranging the pictures they wanted to use in their video in the correct order, they recorded their voices over the pictures. To ensure sound quality, I asked them to do this part at home.

The assessment was done by rubric, taking into account (1) Grammar and vocabulary, (2) Pronunciation and intonation, (3) Correspondence between images and text, (4) Originality and creativity.

The final part of the activity would have been to show all the videos in class and to have a vote for the best videos. Because of time constraints, we never did it- maybe next time!

With an activity like this, students develop their cultural awareness, their digital competence and their communicative competence--first, by reading information on a topic; secondly, by writing a script; and finally, by reading it out loud while recording it over a video. They also develop their critical thinking skills.

This activity definitely took a lot of my students out of their comfort zones!

Thanks for popping in!

Maite

A Christmas Carol (1º ESO)

Who doesn't like Charles Dickens? There's no doubt of Dickens's significant contribution to world literature, or of the effects some of his works had on popular culture even today. His works are still relevant, still alive, still connect with audiences far and wide, and that is why I thought it was a good idea to get to know him and his works in a little bit of detail.

Not long before Christmas, I asked my 1º ESO students to research the figure of Dickens, as we were going to read an abridged version of A Christmas Carol.




It is important for learners of English to read authentic material, even if it may have simplified language, written for younger native speakers. It gives them a sense of accomplishment, it makes them realise the usefulness of their learning and it also pushes them out of their comfort zone, which usually is to conduct research in their own language and then translate it into English (with varying degrees of success... ).

Their posters were interesting, although some of students limited themselves to copying and pasting text and pictures. The students had to present their posters to the rest of the class, drawing attention to the facts that had surprised them the most.

After reading the simplified version of the story and doing some comprehension activities about it, the students had to design infographs on each of the characters. They also had to present these posters to the rest of the class. 

I used a rubric to assess the students: 

We rounded up this activity watching the 2009 film version directed by Robert Zemeckis. 

In an activity like this, students develop their reading and speaking skills, their digital competence, their cultural awareness and expression, and since they have to work as part of groups, they also develop their social and civic competence and their teamworking skills. It was a great activity which the students really enjoyed. 

Thanks for popping in!

Edgar Allan Poe: Short Stories (1º ESO)

The master of horror, the father of detective fiction, the main contributor to the obscure and the macabre... Halloween wouldn't have been completed without  Poe. Last year, I got my Advanced students to read The Raven collaboratively. Because of technological glitches, I haven't been able to upload the recording anywhere... so this time I approached the task differently.

It was my 1º ESO students this time. First, we had a look at the following presentation, which I created specifically for this project:




The students were given a calendar to help them plan their work:


Then, we split the class into two groups, and having a close look at the (adapted) text of the two stories, the students began to unleash the performers within and finally... we made two recordings, added pictures and... voilà!

The project was complete.

In a task like this, students learn about literature, read a creative story, practice pronunciation and intonation, and develop their digital competence by putting together an audiovisual product. They also work as part of a team and develop collaborative working skills.

The assessment was done by using this rubric:




As expected, this project involved quite a lot of hard work, but the students really enjoyed it.

Thanks for popping in! See you next time!

Halloween Stories (4º ESO)

Hi all,

This is a bit of a tradition for me now, since it's the third year I have done this activity. As usual, I introduced the topic of Halloween and launched the creative writing task in my 4º of ESO class, which this year are working towards a C1 level. They're a really strong class, with plenty of creativity and language skills to match.

The stories have been published in Stories at Base blog, and you can enjoy them by clicking on the link.

Enjoy!

Maite

Better late than never

Before you even know it, it's been the whole school year and you haven't updated your blog.

This is what's happened to me this year. Distractions, a busier school schedule and other commitments have stopped me from keeping this blog active. Anyway, enough self-deprecation and procrastination.

In the next entries I shall share some of the work my students have done this year. Don't be surprised to see Halloween and Christmas in the month of May, though.

Enjoy!