Week 3 Task #1

Week 3 Task #1
We need to consider:
- The topic: sometimes it's better to get a book about what you are working. For example, with my students, during the adaptation time, we worked with Spot's books. The first one Spot goes to school, so you can motivate children and show another way to learn or to prove that what they are learning is funny and nice.
- Their language level: of course that for my toddlers I can't get a book with hard language but you can retell the story using only the images or I can pretend a story based on the images. They just need to enjoy the story, it doesn't matter if the book is telling this or not.
- the age: we know that depending on the age they don't have a big time of concentration so we need to adapt the book for each age and group.
- Puppets or flashcards: It is so nice when we have something with us, to make a surprise and tell the story, a puppet or a flashcard, according to the book we use something to call the studends attention and to be funnier.
- Give opportunity: be open to wait for the students' questions or the students' ideas, but be always open to see what students can give to us.
Storytelling is like circle time - a unique moment so we need to enjoy these unique moments and every moment is different from the last one. We have cases in which children do a very different thing from the one we had planned, but this makes them enjoy, participate, learn, grow, and show us how "independent" they are. They can "choose" the way they want.

Comments

  1. Danilo RibeiroApril 24, 2016 at 2:38 PM

    You've made important remarks! Age is quite a key factor. They do have a short attention spam and adaptation is key!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carol FerlineApril 27, 2016 at 11:08 AM

    Yes, Danilo Ribeiro with toddlers sometimes it is difficult. I saw now that I wrote in the wrong place.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Juan UribeApril 28, 2016 at 11:45 AM

    Carol, 

    I could see that you know your storytelling!
    Topic, age, timing, props, graded language and being open to whatever comes from them are the components of memorable storytelling. 

    I once read that the attention span of a child is their age plus two. I am not sure how accurate this rule is, but in a way it gives us some reference. A 4-year old would then have an attention span of 6 minutes and an 8-year old 10 minutes. 

    An important thing to always remember is to retell the same story in different ways. Students are not only exposed again to the language but they can produce and play with it spontaneously. 

    Enjoy your storytelling moments, storyteacher!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Carol FerlineApril 29, 2016 at 1:02 PM

    Thanks. I agree. Retelling the story is the best way to work. It's like us, when we watch a movie twice we see different details. So imagine children, all the time they will discover a new thing. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TASK 2: Getting ready for storytelling.

TASK 2: Getting ready for storytelling. I have a group of 12 kids ranging from 7 to 8 years old. They are already familiarized with the characters of the book (Tina the tortoise, monkey, own, duck and rabbit). The leading character is Tina the tortoise. This is a pre-teaching activity and I bring realia objects to the classroom like: football, a coat, socks, a cap and a mug. I ask kids where Tina is: where is Tina? ( I act like I'm looking for her..) Oh look! Tina is in her shell! Tina come out and play! ( sound of a negative answer) Help me kids! Repeat: Tina come out and play! ( sound of a negative answer again). Let's try again but louder! Tina, come out and play! Tina answers: No, no! It's cold outside! I say: Tina let's swim! ( I make the gesture) Tina answers: no, no! It' cold outside! I let children have ideas showing the objects inside the box! Let's play football! Children keep trying to convince her (Put on a coat! Put on a cap! Put on your socks!). A...
Read more

Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when...

Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals? Imagine asking a ten-year old student to write about the impact of the economic collapse in the USA. This student will not have much to say and he/she will feel frustrated. Now imagine asking a 17-year-old student to write about his/her favorite toy. This student will not feel excited to write about this because it is not part of his/her reality anymore. Of course, these are extreme examples, but we do have to take into consideration many aspects such as students's age, background, reality and interests when designing writing activities. Besides relating to students lives and realities writing acitivities should also cover three moments: pre writing, writing and post writing. In the first stage, we should activate students memories, feelings and senses providing them with the ...
Read more

Discussion task #2

Discussion task #2 Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals? 1) I try to personalize writing as much as possible. I usually start talking about myself to get students at ease and more open to share their own feelings and ideas towards the writing topic. Then I adapt the task to allow students to express themselves in a comfortable and confident way. 2) Finding the right audience is definitely a key issue in all writing tasks but it's even more important with young learners as they need to feel their writing is authentic and will be read by real audience. That's why I try to do peer check/correction before I read it myself. Whenever possible, I try to have students write to each other and reply back. As a different version of it, we created at our center (A wise owl) which students write to and get personalized replies...
Read more