Who was Pablo Picasso?

This was my favourite lesson with Taya ❤

I've recently come across this nice book which is written in a good style, easy to read language, so why not read it with your kids or students?

You can download it from the VK 

Before I get into details of the lesson plan I would like to tell why it felt like the best lesson for me:

💜 It was rather spontaneous, I did not prepare, I had only looked through the introduction page and I liked it. 

💙 And I had it on my holidays' to do list - to tell Taya about some world known artists, to recognise some names and some styles of the world art. 

💚 And to get the inspiration to create something ourselves.

💛 And it was a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) - for those who know the terms. For those who do not: the content, the general knowledge of the world, the culture or science is a prior goal, whereas speaking English comes as a special bonus, but not the planned language lesson, just a means of communication.

In my after teaching analysis I will refer to Bloom's Taxonomy, if you don't know what it is, I'll give you the clue - see the picture below.

 All lesson activities can fall into 6 categories and every lesson's aim is to reach to the top of the pyramid - to create some work based on the learned material. 

Lesson breakdown

Reading

Questions:

🔹Do you think Pablo Picasso lived a happy life? Why? (he lived a long life, he was very popular and very rich, but also he lived through two World Wars - (teacher's remark: it is not easy to tell if he lived happily or not -it is an open question - and it is Higher Order Thinking Skills,  HOTS#5 - Evaluation).

🔹What events did he witness?

(Lower Order Thinking Skills LOTS #1 Remembering - it's good to check how well your memory works, how many words can you call out without looking into the text. And after getting it you can take that step to the HOTS, reflecting, comparing, judging, speculating...)

🔹For how many years had he been working? - Taya knows that eghty years of work did not start at the age of one, which means that the artist had lived even longer, hypothetically for 95 years if he started painting at 15 (LOTS #3: Application)

🔹How many pieces of art did he create? (LOTS #1: Remembering, scanning the text for the answer)

🔹What forms of art were mentioned in the article? (LOTS#1: Remembering and also HOTS #5 evaluating how industrious a person can be)

🔹When did he start selling his drawings?

🔹At what age did he die?

Taya was really amazed by the fact that the symbol of piece 🐦 has it's creator. She said it must be so cool to create a world known symbol!

🔹What are the opposites of these words:

serious - funny, silly, playful...

childlike - adult, grown-up, realistic

colorful - black and white, grey, monochrome, dark

simple - difficult, complicated, complex.

(LOTS # 2: Understanding)

🎨 it's time to have some fun!

Let's try to draw the outlines of a horse without taking your pencill off the paper, think at what point will you start and make a one-line-drawing.

Let's do the same with the scissors!

yeah

our horses

If it counts as HOTS #6: Creation - then we got it! But I think we just had some fun after lots of reading and discussing. In a language class the creation should be either a piece of writing or a speech (some verbal creation, such as a short report or a summary, maybe rendering). And I guess  because it was not a language lesson 😅 but a CLIL lesson, we had it all right!

I hope, you like it too. ❤

Gateway

Family dinners

Speaking lesson

Anapa, Jan, 12th, 2023

It has been a year since I started giving Taya proper lessons. I mean properly planned lessons, with a course book (Go Getter 3 -the course is great! Want to get back to it soon). It worked well for a couple of months, then we declined for summer vacations and just enjoyed lisening to a nice audiobook “Gladys" by Bertie (Storynory.com) 😍 an absolutely enjoyable book for early teens!) 

Today I am restarting proper teaching - and I try a new coursebook: Gateway B1

Goal: speaking

Topic: Family dinner

Student's age: 11

Level: B1

Stages:

1) Warm up.

comparing two pics (exam skill: 

▪ point out the common thing in both pics - food, having a meal

▫ tell the difference - all together / alone

➡ elicit the idea: which situation is nicer, better scenario and why ➡

the importance of eating together

I got Taya speaking! ⛵

I was happy with what I got - a good balance of teacher's talking time and Student's talking time ☺

There is a room for improvement however. If we stick to the exam skills algorythm it'll work best.

2) Lead in.

People call to the radiostation to tell about their situation: whether they eat together or not, whether they have a small talk or not. 

What can you tell of your own dinner habits? Are you happy with wat we've got? What can be done to improve it?

⭐ Together we stated the problem: we don't have proper conversations around the table. Normally we, parents, discuss some adult issues like politics and kids have to mind their own business. 

⭐ I like Taya's ideas, her speculating ability. However I made he feel uneasy by asking of the solutions to our family problem. I tried to give a positive mindset, we could work it out together. She didn't seem to be ready to offer anything at all. - it is okay, I guess we just have to go on with the listening activity which could give you more ideas and we can get back to our question later.

 

3) Pre-listening

How many speakers are there? - 6.

How many statements to match - 8.

So, two versions are are there to distract your attention.

Here's the strategy: put down the names and be ready to take some notes for each speaker ( age, occupation, whethe he/she is happy or not with their dinner habits)

4) Listening to audio 4. 

Gist listening (Match the speaker and the ideas)

1 Mike - D

2 Chris - G

3 Sally - E

4 Alice - A

5 Jennifer - F

6 Daniel - B

5) After-listening 

Evaluation of the situations: which is the best, which doesn't sound right, which resembles yours? Which speaker do you think reminds you anyof your friends? What do you know about your friend's family dinners?

⭐ I enjoyed working with Taya, she can concentrate allright. Her listening skills are quite strong. It  can be challenging yet - which is good, the B1 level coursebook is just right.

⭐ Together we tried to work out some suitable topics for family dinners. We speculated about how life could change when we move to the new flat with a big telly in the kitchen. It'll never be the same. And what could be done about it not to end up in having zombie family dinners. We even discussed a layout of ouf future kitchen.

⭐ What I liked most in this lesson is the level of her engagement. It was not a hypothetical situation, but things that really matter, something real to focus on. I tried my best to show Taya the positive mindset and a problem solving approach. She was not as excited as I was. And I feel uneasy about switching between two roles: a mother and a teacher.

6) Follow up. 

special questions ex 3

(didn't get to that stage - Taya got already tired)

Abrau-Durso, Nov, 24th 2022

farewell to 2022

Is your memory jar filled with ligts?

Nevermore 2022

ZOZZ ☄ seemed to be the darkest year of all. However I managed to recover from the fear, pain and depression, somewhere in October. And I believe in better future for my family and for this country.

The last event - getting the keys of the appartment - gives even more joy and hope 🎈

I sum it up because it has become a tradition to look back and summarise achievements, improvements, best cases to put into a "memory jar".

I haven't got any memory jars of course. Social media used to play this role for me. Still haven't recovered completely so sign up again.

I remember last year publication where I compared Rus/Eng traditions. English people seem to have a tradition of writing New Year resolutions (or promises and future plans) whereas Russians tryto look back and recall the positive moments of the year. Since the year was black (I wanted to erase everything, the memories, the hopes, my identity and my relations) -  today I will not look back any more, I'll choose the English scenario instead and look into the future.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

English goals

❄I just want to learn English, to grow as a speaker and a communicator

❄I also want to give more English to my children. I have a daughter who is my best student ever and I have a son who is still reluctant to learn English.

❄I want to teach English, to have more students and to enjoy the process of giving English to someone else, of growing professionally too.

Parenting goals

❄ I want to give more freedom to my daughter to let her become more independent: starting from stereet crossing experience and making coices to giving her some pocket money and ending with listening to what kind of person she wants to be and to teach her to speak for herself.

❄ I want to teach my son to play by the rules, to communicate with people. He is clever and very creative (if not genious 😅) in some ways, especially when playing on his own, but is he a good teamplyer? What's the right age to begin to worry about it? He is only five and he wants to posess me completely when we are on the football pitch and there should be no more players, no sister 😓. He only wants to be a goalkeeper and meet my attack. 

Moving into our new flat

❄ I want to manage our interior fitout project and not to break up while moving in the new apartment. It includes the idea of finding out what I really need in my house, the way it should be done but at the same time it would require a lot of compromise with the way my husband sees it, and with our limited budget too.

Keep it up, Kira!

Reflective journal

Старт занятий: 11.10.2022

2 ч. в неделю

За два с лишним месяца занятий моя ученица Кира (8 лет)

✍ Наверное, нужно упомянуть, что у Киры ДЦП, пусть её опыт вдохновит кого-то еще 🌸

В связи с таким диагнозом обучение четкости произношения на очень второстепенном плане. А мелкая моторика - письмо - просто игнорируем. Немного раскрашивает, проходит лабиринты, может наклеивать фрагменты - есть чем разнообразить занятия ☺ любит играть в мемори с карточками и просто обожает playdoh! Подарила ей спиннер - все в дело!

✍ Теперь о языковых навыках. Кира равномерно усваивает задачи разного уровня:

1) Общение на английском:

+ тут нужна не только лексика (запоминает она хорошо), 

+ мне нравится её готовность к коммуникации на неродном языке, реакция, а по рассказам мамы, она несет английский в массы, разговаривает с дедушкой, логопедом и не только! ❤

Каждое занятие мы начинаем со "Small talk" (могу пометить, как "усвоенное"):

✔ Hello! How are you? I am good, great etc.

✔ How old are you? - I am 8.

✔ Do you like (cats) Yes, I do/No, I don't.

✔ Do you like the weather today? - Yes, I do./No, I don't

✔ Is it sunny/windy...? - It is/it is not.

2) Лексика.

▪ Местоимения I, you, it

▪ Цифры знает, но мне нужно чаще применять их. (revise)

▪ Цвета - хорошо знает.

▪ Части тела: head, hand, leg, arm, neck.

▪ Животных хорошо запоминает (cat, dog, pig, cow, bat, fox, hippo...)

▪ Действия (сложнее, как учить, так и тестировать): 

▪ Go, read, play, sit, open, shut, run, make a ball, roll (a ball), catch, squash, look.

▪ Прилагательные - антонимы:

good - bad

big - small

cold - hot

hard - soft

fast - slow

loud - quiet

thick - thin

long - short

3) Грамматика.  

▪ To be: I am, you are, it is.

I am sitting on the floor.

▪ Article "a": I am a girl / a snowman /a gingerbread man...

▪ Вопросы/ответы. Может спросить о предпочтениях: Do you like bananas?

Кира произносит полные ответы: Yes, I do./No, I don't.

What is it? Is it long or short?

▪ отдeльного внимания требуют структура и порядок слов повеств/вопросит/отриц

It is a cat. Is it black? It is not red.

▪ модальный глагол can:

Can you guess? (угадаешь?)

You can't catch me!

Can you put two apples up on top?

4) Чтение. Учим алфавит - с акцентом на фонетический : æ, b, k, d, e, f, dʒ...

C-V-C words: cat, leg, dog, pig, big, fat, can...

Tricky 3-letter words: car, egg, old

4 letter words: gold, flag, star, stop lamp, frog, drop

Sight words: Go, go, Do, do, it, is, I, am, to, no, on, in

Использованный материал (книги, песенки, стихи):

▪ Open-shut them (by Super Simple Songs)

▪ rhyme:

One and two, and three, and four.

I am sitting on the floor.

I am playing with a car

And a pretty little star.

(you are playing with a cat & hat)

▪ Symbols of Haloween: 🎃 pumpkin, witch's hat, bat, black cat, ghost, trick or treat bag.

▪ Green Eggs And Ham (by Dr. Seuss)

▪ Ten apples up on top (by Dr.Seuss)

▪ S-A-N-T-A is his name-o 🎅🎄🔔

▪ Letter to Santa✍💌

▪ I am a little snowman look at me ❄☃❄(by Super Simple Songs to the tune "I am a little teapot")

▪ I am a little cookie 🍪

Look at me 

Here are my buttons

One-two-three

These are my eyes and this is my nose

I jumped out the oven

Where it was hot!

(my adaptation for the gingerbread man story)

▪ Gingerbreadman fairytale - и даже наша версия для

театра теней!

🍀🍀🍀

Мне очень нравится заниматься с Кирой, я вижу её любовь и её старание, то как хорошо она встречает все активити, (или почти все - вопрос к тому насколько хорошо я вижу её уровень навыков).

🍀 Первоначально обучение чтению не было приоритетной целью, но к концу первого месяца занятий я уже сделала акцент на навыках чтения. Это долгий путь и пусть Кира начнет его проходить сразу, ведь эти навыки будут основой, дадут зрительную опору, чтобы слова не улетучивались.

На этом фото Кира вполне справляется с активити:

Sort out the presents by the vowel:

Elf Sam gets the boxes with cvc: man, cat, bag, etc.

Elf Tim gets the boxes with cvc: pig, lip, bin, etc.

Elf Tom gets the boxes with cvc: fox, mop, etc.

Планы на ближайшиe 2 месяца:

1) Small talk, more on weather: sunny, rainy, snowy, windy

New question words: How's the weather? 

2) Лексика: погода + одежда, weather

Put it on, take it off (+части тела)

3) Грамматика: 

Местоимениe you + are

Вопросы: What, who, where

Where is it? - here it is on the floor

предлоги in, on

I have got

Rhyme: My teddy bear has two eyes... (Super Simple Songs ❤)

4) Чтение: 

Буква Uu, звук /ʌ/

Up - down

Cut, nut, bus, fun, sun, mug, cup

Sight words: put, he, we, are

Letter W: we, wow, wind, window, winter

Letter Rr: rat, red, ring, 

"Naughty" Rr: car, star, far, are, floor, four, for..

Переход от одиночных слов к словосочетаниям (in the box, on the table, go to bed, put it on, fat cat on a mat)

 

Книжки:

Easy Phonics by Usborn

Hop on Pop by Dr.Seuss

Grren Eggs and Ham py Dr.Seuss

travelling lesson #1

Lesson breakdown

Aim: Lexic + geography: Greece

Coursebook: Go Getter 3, Unit 3 p.34

Travel

Stage: warming up, eliciting some lexic

Look at the picture and describe what they have on their minds.

Tasya went on, she could describe every picture in those bubbles using her language - surprisingly she managed to put it in her own words - using not a single word from the book! Wow! It was an utterly different language. 

I stopped for a moment. Do I even have to teach her anything? She can express her ideas no problem. Is it a big deal if she says this:

"to spend a night in a tent" - instead of "to go camping"

or "to eat in a restaurant" instead of "to try some local food", 

or: "to ride a bike" instead of "to go cycling" 

or : "to listen to a guide" instead of "to go on a guidd tour" etc.

(Eliciting the target language)

However I listened to her carefully and took the notes. And then I said: There are so many ways to put ideas into the words, let's see if you can make the word combinations for the following verbs:

Stay - Where do people stayon holidays?

stay in the hotel

Visit - What do they visit?

Visit museums, galleries, places of interest

Do - What do people do on holidays? 

do watersports, new kinds of sports like horse riding, surfing, paragliding..

Go - Where do they go?

go sightseeing, hiking, swimming

Read - What do they read?

read books and magazines, guidebooks

Compound nouns: watersports, sightseeing, guidebook (mark the roots)

Stage: Practicing

Role-play a dialogue as if we've just met at the swimming pool area. I asked these questions:

What's your name? Where are you from?

The weather is nice, isn't it? 

How long have you been staying here? Where are you staying? Have you already seen anything special/ visited any places? Have you tried something new? What would you recommend to do?

Stage: Geography

Find Grece, Crete on Google maps.

Let's read a page from a guidebook:

What does this island look like?

What is its shape? Let's say it's like a long fish, shall we?

Does it sretche out from North to South? - No.

Then which way does it stretch?

From the left to the right? Let's say "from East to West". 

What country does it belong? (immediate testing :) - Greece! Right. What is the flag of Greece? - Blue and white, stripy, with a little cross on the top left corner.

Stage: Practicing target language

Take a look at the pictures and describe what you see:

To go on a boat trip, sightseeing, watersports

try local food

Would you like to try some of these octopuses?

no? They are deliscious! I love sea food.

to go on a guided tour, to explore the city

Stage: having fun :)

Let's imagine you are on the skype with your granny but your microphone is dead, you probably dropped it ito the water, so your gran can not hear you and you gonna mime, show what activities you've already had.

(I did my best not to give the right answer right away, just for fun, just to make her play more, show better, more carefully)

Ex 4. (not matching - GUESSing! Open-ended task! Your version. I've covered the part of the exercise with the picture of the castle - in order to make the ex. OPEN-ENDED (freer practice).

Homework

Write to your friend about Anapa. How it is a good place for a holiday?

This is how she performed her writing task (with lots of spelling mistakes - but she is never short of words - which is good! It took her not more than 5 minutes to compose this, isn't she good?

Shopping #2

You're so HOTS I want to role-play with you. 

The more I teach Tasya the more I think what a bright student I am dealing with. I would love to be wise enough to always encourage her frolics and sence of humour and not to push hard enough to perform well in close ended tests.

Recently I've discovered that she may somehow fail to find opposites to simple words (such as heavy/light, strong/weak, etc.) which worrield me for a wile. But at the same day she showed herself as a pretty good communicator and a story teller. Testing is tricky. Don't fall into its trap. I've analysed that Tasya prefers the  tasks that engage Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) more than those of the Lower ones (LOTS) (according to Bloom's taxonomy, check it out).

Taya can be very creative and comes up with very nice ideas for another word of the day comic strip. She loves to role-play any life situations very emotionally applying all her artistry and charm. She is my dream student! 

And on top of that she has just become an independent reader. She has her bed time stories in English and I think I should do some research on how to provide her with more authentic literature. (Today she read Pippi Longstockings on her own, I could hardly believe it, my dear).

LESSON BREAKDOWN

Duration: 60 min.

Course book: Go Getter 3rd, SB  P. 23, Audio 35, 36, 37

Topic: Shopping 

Aim: Lexic

Stage: Warm up

Roleplay game. We used our toy shop set 'A vegetable stall' with some plastic goods, basket, scales, cash desk and money. Taya loved this game because now she knew how to say this everyday language:

How can I help you?

It is our special offer.

Here is your change and the receipt.

Would you like to pay in cash or by card?

*In terms of common usage it's often shortened to just "cash or card", so you'll probably most often hear "You can pay with cash or card" in shops. Sometimes a cashier will just look at a customer and ask "cash or card?" as the whole sentence.

Stage: new lexic with a focus on spelling 

Guess what's the phrase:

* to stand in a queue (the word 'queue' sounds the same with the letter 'Q')

Taya's got sense of humour! See what the word 'queue' should look like - written in red letters below the picture:

it says: Qyghery

She must have known the word ought to be tricky: it takes more letters to write it than sounds to pronunce! And since those letters are silent why should she care what those letters are? There might be silent friends "ght" whatever! :D

3 words to memorize: queue, receipt, cashier

Focus on pronunciation and spelling, silent letters.

We role-played the situation:

A husband is in a que, calling her wife on the phone, who is still roaming around the store:

- What might be keeping you, honey?

- I've been looking for my favourite squash caviar, darling. Now I've got it, but where can I find you?

- I am standing in a queue, catch up soon!

- Sure!

- I don't want to keep the cashier waiting too long.

- I'm coming! Which queue are you in?

- The cashier number 5.

- Right, I can see you now.

Audio 1_35

(A litlle of TPR) Listen and jump up when you hear the new words:

• Queue, 

• cashier, 

• special offer, 

• receipt, 

• change

Picture p.22

Ex. 2,3,4

ex. 6 and 7

Stage: home task - make the word of the day comic strip

Isn't it adorable? ❤

Shopping #1

Lesson plan. 

Duration: 60 min.

Course book: Go Getter 3rd, SB  P. 24, Audio 38, 39, 40

Topic: Shopping 

Aim: Lexic

Stage: Warm up

Snow ball game:

In my shopping bag there is a carton of cream.

In my shopping bag there is a carton of cream and a can of corn.

In my shopping bag there isa carton of cream, a can of corn and a jar of jam. 

(I used beautiful alliteration here! Can you make the list longer by adding up one item at a time and starting over each time?)

Stage: Lead-in

Word map for shopping:

• Shopping bag, basket, list, trolley, center…

• To do shopping, to go shopping

• Who usually does shopping in your family?

What is shopping?

Tasya believed shopping was about buying some clothes. I explained that we do everyday shopping when we want to bring some milk and bread home.

Stage: Pre-listening - pics

Tasya performed this task amazingly! She said: There must be something with her bag, that made her worry, because she frowned her face. And on the second picture I can see the boys are surprized. There must be something wrong with the delivery, it is not what they had expected.

Listening.

The audio story about Harry and George was funny. 

Stage: post-listening ex.2, reading the prices, matching

Lexic: 

Remember the opposites:

Size: (Big/small) 

Weight: (light/heavy)

Price: (cheap/expensive)

Design: (nice/beautiful/ugly)

I've noticed how hard she gets through this type of task: words don't come easy. She can not say what's the opposite to 'hard'. It took a while till she said 'easy', and I accepted that. But she tried to think of another meaning of 'hard' (as hard as stone) and then she could not come up with any ideas at all, till I said: "is it the word 'soft' that you are trying to call to mind?"

It keeps me thinking - was the sask tiresome? How can she fail with this "Lower Order Thinking Skills" and perform brilliantly with "Higher Order Thinking Skills" anyway?

Comparatives: 

Big-bigger-the biggest

Bad-worse-the worst

Expensive-more expesive-the most expensive

I reminded her the episode from "Frozen" where two sisters see each other for the first time on the ceremony of coronation.

Elsa: You're beautiful!

Anna: You're beautifullER. Oh, no! sorry, I didn't mean 'FOOLER' but 'more beautiful'.

Tasya knew it quite well, the comparatives for short and long words okay, still I believe it was worth paying attention to. Done ✔

****

But Tasya fell off her chair because she could not sit still without putting her feet above her head and prop them against the wall. She pushed the wall too hard so it made her chair topple over LOL :D

 Shall I set the rules for her to remember how to sit, how to behave and show respect - or probably add some TPR activities...

However, we went on with the task and listened to the second part of the audio (it made her relax a bit and forget the chair accident)

****

The boys ordered a toy bag by mistake. 

Inferred meaning:

Granny: Do you like my new bag?

Boys: Yes, it's a good, big bag.

New listening episode: 

https://www.esl-lab.com/easy/shopping-centers/

The story is so sweet! It is about a 6-7 year old girl trying to buy a present for her daddy using some money from her piggy bank.

Target words: wallet, purse, piggy bank

Did you like the dialogue?

What title would you give to it?

Did you hear the jingling coins? What does it say? (money from a piggy bank) isn't it sweet?

She has been collecting it for days and days by helping her mom around the house.

What would you do if you were a shop assistant?

Stage: Post-listening

Do the quiz (on the same webpage)

Done ✔

Tasya learned to read the prices, numerals like $34.99

Target phrase: Let's say it went on sale.

****

60 min Lesson is over.

Tasya gets the "Hometask" which she goes on doing immediately ♥ My girl!

Production Task: Make a dialogue.

She did! A cartoon! Good job! I made a video of her reading it. Watch here