January - Services and Political Organisation of Spain

©Tripadvisor

In January, we reviewed what we had learned about villages, towns and cities in December. I threw my small blue, fluffy toy, 'Pepito', to different students who had to answer questions like 'do you have flats in villages?'. This is a great trick for getting the quieter students involved and participating!

Then we played a guessing game where students had to pick village, town or city but not tell the others. They came to the front of the class and students had to ask them 'is there a... shopping centre / church / train station etc'. This was a great review and students seemed to remember the differences between villages, towns and cities very well. 

Political Organisation of Spain

This was one of the most challenging things to teach in English. Especially as a foreigner, as I had to learn all about the political organisation of Spain myself before teaching it. First, we went through the organisation in a PowerPoint, where I interacted with them as we went through different slides. I asked them who the president on Spain is, who makes rules in Andaluica and in Alcalá too, before we did a role play where they had to think about decision making and what politicians do. They really enjoyed the role play and it helped them understand in English about politics and decision making. We also looked at national and regional health services. 

Review of Services

This week we reviewed the different services in Alcala and towns in general e.g social services and health services. We drew a table and they had to work out what contributes to each service e.g hospital in health services. They were engaged with this but loved it more when they used white boards to write their answers. They had 15 seconds to work out which service the photo on the board belonged to. Then they wrote on their boards and shouted out the service together. For this, they had to think quickly and practise their spelling. They also used investigator skills to look closely at the photo, because sometimes it could be more than one kind of service! 

December - Village, Towns and Cities

Photo Source ©BT

In December, we learned about villages, towns and cities. First of all, I wanted to show them some British culture through these different types of places. It is my role as a language assistant to show them some British culture and develop their intercultural skills, after all!

I explained the definitions of villages, towns and cities with lots of pictures from across the UK. They loved seeing the UK and especially my home town where we could review landscape work we did last month. We discussed what different things you can find in differently sized places. For example, I asked them, 'Can you find an airport in a town?' and they had to think, answer and then eventually ask each other similar questions. This got them thinking about the differences between the places and particularly between Alcalá and Seville.

We did an interactive PowerPoint together where they had to identify different kinds of places in villages, towns and cities. For example, a bakery, a library, an airport, a pharmacy etc. Then they had to classify pictures of villages, towns and cities into the correct piles. The team that finished quickest would win! They also did a book activity where they stuck the correct pictures of shops etc under the correct kind of place (village, town or city). They worked individually in this activity and had to focus.

Christmas!

At Christmas time, we went to see Frozen 2 together, in English of course! It was great to go on a field trip with the students as it was a way of getting to know them in English outside of the classroom. It also meant that the week after (before Christmas break) we could play a game of charades using Frozen 2 characters! One student at a time had to act out a character in front of the class (or something else Christmas-esque, like carol singing). Then, the other students had to guess what was being acted out. They loved this game and had to practise their English sentences by asking each other, 'are you Else?' etc.

We also looked at Christmas in the UK so that they could think about how different cultures celebrate differently! We looked at some pictures of food and games played in the UK over the Christmas period. I also asked them what they do at Christmas so they could practise conversing in English about what they do and love at Christmas time. Then we did a Christmas Bingo to learn some Christmas words.

November Landscapes

In November, we learned about natural landscapes! I think this is an important topic for the students to know about and talk about in English because they will be traveling and want to understand the different landscapes they see. It is also helpful for when they progress into the older year groups and learn about how climate change is impacting their favourite landscapes!

After introducing the landscapes with some beautiful pictures and interacting verbally with the students, asking them if they prefer a mountain landscape or an ocean one, for example, we did some refresh games. This involved me running through the photos really quickly and the class had to shout out the correct landscape. They had to recognise the landscape really quickly, which was a good challenge and by the end, they seemed to recognise all the landscapes.

Next, I handed out photos of different landscapes on their tables. They had to pick one and describe the landscape to their partner. For example, 'there are trees on the left and water on the right'. They had to try and guess which landscape their partner was describing. If they got it right, they got to keep the picture. This worked really well as they got competitive and really listened to each other and asked questions in English.

Finally, we did a survey where the students asked each other 'What is your favourite landscape?' and recorded it on a survey sheet.

We also watched a short video with British landscapes and I would pause the video and ask the students what landscapes they could see.

They definitely like this topic and I think it is making them curious about exploring the world one day!