I am always trying to teach my kids the difference between
parts of speech… something that is often overlooked when teaching foreign language.
I think that understanding the structure of a language makes it much eaiser to
think in that language; at least that is how I began to really learn Armenian. Another
one of my goals has been to introduce more projects into the class room. My
students love projects! They love when I give them a long term project that
they will have to present to the class, it makes them excited about class.
Which is a switch from American students who groan when a teacher announces a
new project.
So from these goals came the idea for an excellent project
that I called Noun Town!! This was a three part lesson. The first part of the
lesson students got into two groups and wrote all the people, places and things
that a town would need to run. My fifth grade class really ran away with this
part. One of the groups came up with 150 words!! Remember this is their 3rd
language, and they have only been studying it for 2 years! So it was really
fantastic to see such excitement. This is also my class that loves competition
so it was really fun just to sit back and watch them try to steal words from
each other and sneak peeks at the other’s list. My student Romela who by far is
the brain in the class but also the calm shy quiet girl burst into an angry
tirade when she caught a boy from the other team trying to look at her list. In
the middle of class she yelled out I will murder you if you come any closer.
The whole class was taken aback because it’s just so uncharacteristic of her…
though I have to say English class does bring out the cutthroat in her!
The second part of the class the students had to draw a
picture of their town and label it. Everything had to be on one small poster
board, but the catch was that whatever they put on the poster board they would
have to remember because they would have to present it as a group and be able
to answer questions. The kids really loved this part. They all worked together
so well making pictures and studying the new words. Finally they had to present
the project to the class. Each presentation was about three minutes long… which
is a lot of English for them to be speaking!!! They had to tell me what their
noun town has and who works at the various places. I have posted the video of
my 5th grades presentations on my youtube channel… it’s really cute
to watch them! My sixth grade class also did this project but 5th
grade just blew them out of the water with the depth of their projects…. The
best part is hearing them correct each other and showing them what the other
team was missing. You know your students are very involved in a project when
they come up to you during the day and say Miss Alyssa the other team doesn’t
have a bus station in their town, they can’t go anywhere!! So anyways we had a
very exciting week in my classes and the winner of the presentations got stickers
in their books as well as homemade cookies by their very own, Miss Alyssa! I
couldn’t have been more pleased with this project and with my students!!!
Yep! Keep those home-made cookies coming! And teach them to bless each other despite of others being nasty towards them, that is: to bless, love and be merciful to each others, because when they do that they in turn receive mercy, love and blessing. As they sow so they reap.
ReplyDeleteI think a teacher's job is to cultivate grateful hearts in her pupils that give blessing in spite of being cursed at.
Papik