Tu 10th Nov: Family Guy

Everyday, it's a gettin' closer Goin' faster than a roller coaster
And... the first official class I was to give had arrived! I had done one Reading activity that, in the end, had taken the whole hour... but, it was the ICT activity today and that sounded sooooo important...

There we were. Marta explained them it was me that day who was going to teach and that I had prepared one activity which required their attention and participation and so on.

While she was explainind that I was getting ready - I opened my USB and started peparing the power point I was going to show them. When I started, I wanted to make it clear that I wanted them to take part in it but in an organised way -they would have to raise their hand if they wanted to contribute and then I said that, if they felt like speaking, they would speak a lot in English at the end of the class. That was some kind of "punishment" for the ones that hadn't followed the rythm of the class.



The activity I prepared was based on one famous family: The family Griffin and Pewterschmidt (now I can write it, after some time!), who are also known on TV under the name of Family Guy. I hoped they had seen that at least once, because if not... it was going to be difficult to explain them who was who. That was my goal. I wanted them to play Who was Who and that they told me the role each one played, e.g. Peter is Lois' husband, etc. So I started by asking them if they had ever seen the TV serial. I could have never imagined they would be like that! They were so motivated, all paying attention, and participating...! (Not exactly as I had told them, but they were speaking English the whole time!)

With Peter Griffin -who was the first character that appeared- I remember I asked Ok, so, who can he be? If he is a man, he can be either a father... a...? What else? and they understood and started answering. There was a boy in class, who knows already a lot, that knew almost everything and didn't make any mistake. That's good, because he can help the others in any case. However, what I loved most of the activity was that everyone said something. This activity helped them, I think, to see they can already speak English. There was not much difference in level, because they all could contribute to carry on the class, and I enjoyed a lot thanks their attitude. I loved their reaction.

So the activity went on by asking them, at first personally and afterwards I started asking everybody at the same time, what did they know about the person they were seeing at the blackboard.

When the activity finished I ended up inciting them to talk about their family. I asked them to come with me, he stood up next to me and spoke about their brothers or sisters and how they were named. I used that to play with the names and when someone's sister was called Anna, and it coincided that there was somebody called Anna in class, I asked her to go on with the game. Maybe I kept doing that for eight people or so on, so we moved on to another activity. I asked them if they still had some problems with the vocabulary and they answered they still hesitated with some words. At the beginning of the class, as Marta had asked them to say a family member in English while she called the role, they had used all the chances up, of what they knew or what they had once heard. A pupil said brother-in-law, another nephew and niece, so I asked a boy if he could do me a favour. He stood up next to me and I said I'm married to him. So he is my...? And his parents are...? And his brother...? (Excuse me, do you have a brother? I don't know if you have, but let's supose you do...) and it was fun! They whistled and all, as if we were in love... but over all, they were involved in the exercise, they were living the English language and I enjoyed a lot seeing that and I hope they did too.

I was very excited when the class ended I spoke to Marta and she told me that she had loved what I had done. Really I'm lucky to have people like them around me. We have motivated and innovative teachers, good kids and good techniques to put into practice some of the things we learn in class. I used a digital blackboard, only at the end of class, but I'm going to try and use it in the next sessions for the curricular unit... which is starting NEXT WEEK...!

courage... as frogs say...