TALLERES: IDEAS ON HOW TO USE LITERATURE IN THE ESL CLASSROOM

El CARLEE organiza los talleres de ámbito autonómico  “Ideas on How to Use Literature in the ESL Classroom”, dirigidos a docentes especialistas de lengua inglesa en secundaria. En ellos se aportarán ideas prácticas para trabajar textos literarios en el aula de lengua inglesa. Se trabajarán textos como Boy, Revolting Rhymes, o las historias cortas ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, ‘The Landlady’ y ‘The Great Automatic Grammatizator’, de Roald Dahl; Wonder, de R.J. Palacio; poemas de Michael Rosen como ‘Chocolate Cake’ o ‘No Breathing in Class’, o fragmentos de The World’s Worst Teachers, de David Walliams. También se planteará cómo los recursos estilísticos propios de la literatura están presentes en canciones pop o anuncios.

Los talleres se realizarán en el CARLEE (C/ Eugenio Lucas s/n, Zaragoza), en las siguientes fechas y horarios:

FECHA	HORARIO	CONTENIDO
lunes 11 de noviembre 2019	17.00-19.00	Roald Dahl: Boy, Matilda, Revolting Rhymes
miércoles 13 de noviembre 2019	17.00-19.00	Roald Dahl’s short stories: ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, ‘The Landlady’, ‘The Great Automatic Grammatizator’
lunes 18 de noviembre 2019	17.00-19.00	Literary devices in pop songs / Wonder
miércoles 20 de noviembre 2019	17.00-19.00	Michael Rosen: ‘No Breathing in Class’, ‘Chocolate Cake’; David Walliams’s The World’s Worst Teachers

La actividad se plantea como una serie de talleres independientes. Se certificarán entre 2 y 8 horas de formación, en función del número de talleres a los que se haya asistido.

• Información completa en este enlace. 
• Inscripción: del 16 al 30 de octubre 2019, en este enlace. 

 

suggested reading for teenagers and young adults

This is a list of books for children, teenagers and young adults, by no means comprehensive, which could be used as reading material in the English classroom, or as recommendations for independent reading:

• Dahl, Roald. Boy (Tales of Childhood) 
• Walliams, David The World’s Worst Teachers 
• Dahl, Roald Revolting Rhymes
• Dahl, Roald Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, [nice, lots of useful vocabulary]
• Dahl, Roald  The Twits [easy, short, funny]
• Kinney, Jeff  Diary of a Wimpy Kid [funny, easy]
• Gaiman, Neil. Coraline. 
• Dowd, Siobhan The London Eye Mystery (thriller-suspense)
• Wilson, Jacqueline. The Story of Tracy Beaker.
• Morpurgo, Michael. Kensuke’s Kingdom.
• Enz, Tammy. Batman Science: The Real–World Science Behind Batman’s Gear (Capstone Young Readers) 
• Layton, George The Fib and Other Stories
• Peet, Mal. Keeper (Paul Faustino #1) [about football]- classroom ideas
• Dahl, Roald. Matilda
• Dahl, Roald. The BFG [nice story, lots of invented words, good if you like playing with language]
• Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
• Kerr, Judith. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
• Palacio, R.J. Wonder
• Haddon, Mark  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time [part of the GCSE curriculum in England and Wales]
• Orwell, George Animal Farm [part of the GCSE curriculum in England and Wales]

Further suggestions (year 4 secondary and upwards):

Roald Dahl’s short stories:

• ‘The Landlady‘
• ‘Lamb to the Slaughter‘
• ‘The Great Automatic Grammatizator‘

Novels:

• The Harry Potter series
• The Hunger Games series
• Frank, Anne- Diary of a Young Girl
• Picoult, Judi- My Sister’s Keeper
• Adams, Douglas – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Orwell, George – Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women

 

fake social media generators- ideas for the classroom

In a world where social media prevail (or can it be ‘prevails’?), it might be interesting to bring them into the classroom. Basically, because the language to be used in social media is sometimes different to the language of other media, or may require some adaptation; therefore should be dealt with in class. On top of that, because this kind of communicative activity may prove motivating for students, regardless of their ages.

You can find below a list of online tools and apps I have been using lately. For all of the tools described below, my advice to students (and teachers) is for the tweets/texts to be typed on a word document/pages document first, then copy and paste them onto the website or app. That way, if something happens (if the connection gets lost, for example), you will still keep a copy of your work.

Fake Twitter generators: 

Twister– very quick. Just type the (invented) username of the tweeter, their real name, and the tweet. It will create a ‘twister’ post in seconds, with a picture of the person/ character.

Fake Twitter generator: create really true-to-life fake tweets.

*Tip: if you’re creating the tweets on a laptop/desktop, when you finish your tweet you can click on the button “save image”. However, if you’re using a tablet, iPad, or any mobile device,  the button is likely not to work. Try taking a screenshot instead.

Fake Fakebook generators:

• Simitator: creates fake Facebook posts and walls.
• Fakebook: ‘Fakebook’ page, can include character bio, posts, interactions with other users… Different students can access the page if the teacher shares the code.

example- Fakebook page for Nicola Thorp– a British actress who started a petition against dress code in the office. (Started by me as a teacher, comments by students).

Fake text messages / WhatsApp:

• Fake WhatsApp texts: up to two characters / people can take part in the conversation. Plenty of options: delivered, read; time; emojis…

text created by teachers in a CPD course

• Fake iPhone messages: the conversation can include up to three characters. You can customise the operator, battery, signal, time…

• Texting Story: This Android and iOs free app allows you to showcase dialogues between several characters as if they were texting. The product you get is not an image, but a video of their conversation.

WhatsPrank (iOs app)- to create fake WhatsApp texts, including the icon for audio messages.

What kinds of activities can you do with these websites and apps?

• Turn any ‘write a dialogue between’ activity into an ‘imagine the texts that X sent to Y, and their reply’ activity.
• Create profiles for (and write comments about) historical characters
• Rewrite well-known plots (literature, film, TV shows), or imagine how they could be retold in tweets, or the conversations the characters could have at a certain point in the plot.
• Create custom conversations/social media posts as input for a mediation activity in the classroom (Not recommended for exams-whatever input you provide should be real-life material).

Can you think of other activities? Would you like to share your thoughts on this? Leave a comment.

Crime and the Law- related music, books, films and TV shows

(updated 3.11.2019)

If you want to increase your vocabulary to talk about crime and the law, you can listen to the songs on this playlist (or any others):

You can also watch any of these films:

• Witness For The Prosecution (Billy Wilder 1957) [Good depiction of the British legal system, based on a play by Agatha Christie]

• Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock 1954) [Alleged murder]

• To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock 1955) [romance / thriller about a retired thief / cat burglar]

• Take The Money and Run (Woody Allen 1969) [hilarious comedy about a petty thief who always gets caught]

• A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner 1992) [courtroom drama about the US Marines in Guantanamo]

TV SHOWS:

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC 1969-1974)- They had many different sketches dealing with crimes and criminals, among which you can watch:

 

Blackadder Goes Forth (BBC 1989)- Court Martial

Sherlock (BBC 2010-2017). Excellent show. Can’t comment any more.

https://ororo.tv/en/shows/sherlock

Finally, Roald Dahl wrote several short stories for adults, some of which have to do with crimes. You may read “Lamb to the Slaughter“, for example, or “The Landlady“. You can also watch TV episodes based on the stories.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents– “Lamb to the Slaughter” (directed by Alfred Hitchcock, script by Roald Dahl based on his own short story):

Tales of the Unexpected (Anglia Television)- “The Landlady” (introduced by Roald Dahl):

Recent TV shows related to crime:

Big Little Lies (HBO):

13 Reasons Why (Netflix):

A Very English Scandal (BBC, 2018):

A Confession (ITV, 2019)

Literature, literacy and IT- my paper for CIEB 2017

You can download the presentation by clicking on the screenshot below:

project on literature- final products

If you want to have a look at all the final products out of our project on British and American literature, you can visit this google site:

https://sites.google.com/a/iesparquegoya.es/britishpg-literaturey1/home

 

 

literary classics year 1: step 2- infographics about books

The next step in our project is to get to know the basic elements of the book in hand (genre, themes, plot summary, characters), and to be able to summarise them in an infographic. These are two of the examples made by students (click on the picture for full size):