miércoles, 15 de octubre de 2008

The M U S I C



"..there is strong evidence supporting the use of music in the ESL classroom. Language and music are tied together in brain processing by pitch, rhythm and by symmetrical phrasing. Music can help familiarize students with connections and provides a fun way to acquire English."
Bob Lake

Songs are a good resource for English Teaching:
They are funny.
They promote mimics, gestures, etc. associated to the meaning.
They are good to introduce suprasegmental phonetics (stress, rhythm and intonation)
Students play a participative role.
They can be applied to comprehension stages (listening) or production (singing).
There are songs for all levels and ages.
Students learn English very easily, through echoic memory.




Anyway, if you want to use songs in your class, it is not enough to play a cd or to say 'Let's sing a song'. We have to introduce activities to promote student's comprehension and acquisition of the rhythm. How can we do that without the students getting bored? There are good ideas.

ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE COMPREHENSION

1. Hands up!! Students have to put their hands up when they hear the word X. We can increase the difficulty: 'When you hear the word 'tomato' put your hands up. When you hear the word 'carrot' close your eyes'. (We can add a new request each time, the activity will become a funny 'dance' at the end).
It is good to use meaningful gestures if possible. For example: 'Make the monkey when you hear the word 'monkey'.

2. The chairs. Put some chairs in a circle. All the students sit on a chair but one, who will stay in the middle. Put flash cards under the chairs. There must be two flash-cards of each word (two monkeys, two lions, two elephants, etc)
Now, play the music. When they hear the word 'monkey', the two students sitting on the chairs with the monkeys have to stand up and sit down on each other's chair, but the student in the middle will try to get one of their chairs. There will be always one student without a chair.

3. Fill in the gaps. The most common and traditional. Students are given a copy of the lyrics and they have to fill in the gaps.


LISTENING ACTIVITIES
(Activities that make possible to play the song many times without the students getting bored. These activities promote an unconscious learning of the song. They are useful if we want the students to sing the song after a few lessons)

1. Pass the ball. Put all the chairs in a circle. The students sit down. Choose one student to start the game and give him/her a ball (or any object). Then play the music. They have to pass the ball following the rhythm. (Each student has to pass the ball to the student on his/her right). Suddenly stop the music. The student who has got the ball when the music stops has to stand up and answer a question. If the answer is right, s/he can sit down again, and the game continues. Otherwise, s/he will be eliminated.

2. The ring. For very young children. The traditional ring, dancing in a circle, falling down, etc.

3. The cage. We make a ring like the traditional one, with young children. The difference is that we put a small circle on the floor (the cage). We play the music and we start to circle. When the music stops, the student in the 'cage' will go to the middle of the ring, and so on.




Students love listening to music in the language classroom. Music can provide schools with benefits such as:



Stimulating both hemispheres of the brain.
Providing a relaxing, calming, soothing working environment
Reducing and managing stress levels of pupils, students and teachers
Enhancing concentration and stimulating the learning experience
Reducing hyperactivity and psychological distress in classes


miércoles, 8 de octubre de 2008

D A N C E


Dance is an art form that generally refers to the body movement used as an expression form of social interaction presented in a performance setting. Dance has envolved many styles and dimensions.
First we can mention the ritual dance, is the kind of dancie our ancestors used to express respect to their Gods or just representing important and significant situations in their lives.
Another dimension is when people dance just for leissure. Here we have all those popular styles like salsa, rock and roll, country, break dance, and hip hop. Young people get together and dance havin good time.
Other interesting dimension is when people dance in competitions, there are events where contestants poerform dances before a judge for awards or monetary prizes.
When people have troubles with their physical or mental health, dance is a good option, doctors recomend dancing as a therapy.

And finally we have the performance dance, it is the expression of creativity and imagination of this kind of art, generally a choreographer works with dancers in order to perform something in front of a public.
Dance is an essential tool to express feelings, ideas, and emotions. Is the type of art has been inherit to the human since ancient times and it will be always an important part of our lifes.



Advantages and Disadvantages of watching TV

Nowadays, television has become the most popular media of human kind. It’s also the indispensable device in our daily life. Television has been very popular, and almost every family have the access to it. By watching TV , we can see many things happened in the world . The advantages of watching TV are very considerable .

  • Watching TV you can get a whole look all over the world.
  • The appearance of television and television broadcasting enriches our entertainments .
  • Many events and competition can be watched “live”.
  • Many exclusive movies are presented as well .
  • Television specializes into many channels , each one satisfies the different audience’s taste such as news , sports, and film .
  • You can learn and meet many interesting places watching discovery channel or national geography channel.


But beside those benefits , there are some disadvantages that we must notice:


  • Wasting time is one of the inherent disadvantage of watching TV.
  • Television programme are not always suitable for all ages.Sometimes , there are some movies containing sexual material and violence which affected the stormy phase of growing of children and teenagers.
  • The government control the information so we can not believe all we watch in TV.
  • Families rarely comunicate each others because they have had watching TV as a normal activity during the whole day, even for dinner , brakfast, or lunch time.
  • If you don`t care about how many time you spend in front of TV you may turn in a "couch potatoe".




Finally, we have reached a conclusion that nowadays television would be indispensable, TV benefit our life getting us informed enough about things happening all over the world, on the other hand watching TV affects our lifes,thoughts and habits. Life without TV doesn't turn us in a better person but gives us more time if we are wise enough, and who knows, someday it will be replaced by computers.

domingo, 5 de octubre de 2008

FRANKENSTEIN

Recently we saw a movie with teacher Ana Maria, in Literature class. The movie Frankenstein was directed by James Whale, the play was written by Peggy Webling, but the original novel was written by Mary Shelley.


The story is about a scientist who had a secret laboratory and he was interested in creating living with human exhumed corposes. The main characters were Dr. Henry Frankenstein, Dr. Waldman, Fritz, Elizabeth, and the monster Frankenstein.


Dr. Henry and his assistant Fritz nedded a brain for his project and they decided to steal a brain from Dr. Waldman laboratory, they accidentally took a brain of a criminal . When the monster was born they realized that they created an agrassive monster.


Honesty I was bored at the begining of the movie, but latter I noticed that I didn`t know that story before and I was interested about.

What I would recomend is to read the book, the novel, because is an horror classic and reading you use your imagination.

sábado, 4 de octubre de 2008

A lesson in Caring

The author of this article was moved to do volunteer work, maybe because he wanted to give a good lesson to his daugther, Nora... He mentioned that he had been delighted at how much Nora noticed in her world, but she had grown and now she was noticing suffering and poverty.


When the author saw an article in the newspaper he was interested in doing volunteer work. I think, this experince was really good for them because they could see how lonely elderly people live.


Nora was who finally tought an important lesson, she was friendly and kind with strangers no matter how different or poor they were. The opportunity to receive something enjoyable was for the author and his daughter .


I consider Nora and her father heroes because they decided to help others sharing their time and belongings.