Storytelling

It was half past four in the afternoon. I had just woken up from my nap and I was yawning and stretching. Grrr! I was tired and I didn’t really want to go anywhere, not even to the English course, but Shhh! Don’t tell the Tim! I told my husband, I’m not going to the course, but he was like: Tut-tut!, come on, you cheeky little girl, “you’d better leg it over to Sagunto and do what you have to do”. Well, I shrugged and that’s how I ended up writing this summary of last session.

We began with a warm-up activity. Following Simon’s instructions (what a bossy person this Simon is!) we spent some minutes standing up, touching our left ear with out right hand, jumping, sitting down, etc. At the end, it became a sort of contest and Enna won. (As in the film: The Immortals, she was the only one left). Second, we did an activity about idioms with parts of the body, for example: give a hand, face the facts, etc.

Then, we continued with some activities from the book: 700 Classroom Activities by David Seymour. First, we learned some vocabulary related to body movements and gestures like: smack, nudge, wink, frown, etc. We were divided into groups. Each group prepared definitions for some of the words and the other group had to find out which words they were talking about. It was a fun way to learn this sort of words. After that, we learnt some exclamations related to feelings. Some of them are similar to ours like Shhh!, Mmm and others are completely different like Ouch! (to express a kind of little pain, when someone pushes you, for example) or Oi! (to call someone’s attention when s/he is about to do something wrong).

During the break, someone said something about a “chutney.” I didn’t really get what it was so here is the dictionary definition: a pickle of Indian origin, made from fruit, vinegar, spices, sugar,etc. Then Tim suggested a gastronomic session. Please Tim, don’t forget it. I commit myself to cook something, maybe nachos dip or brownies (or maybe both).

After the break we became overwhelmed by the enormous amount of onomatopoeic sounds that the English language has, animal noises, metallic noises, non-metallic noises: purr, tinkle, thud, etc. Finally, we learned some interesting things about our senses. First, we tried to answer some questions related to senses as for example why we don’t like the sound of nails against the blackboard. Then, Tim gave us a text where we could find some possible answers to these questions. During the discussion of the text some interesting questions arose such as: are human beings the only ones that have sex for pleasure and not only for reproductive purposes? There wasn’t a general agreement on the answer. With these philosophical questions about human and animal nature we “almost” ended the lesson, and I say “almost” because the real end came when Tim played a Buenavista Social Club song and we all had to dance and follow the rhythm of the song with exclamations and onomatopoeic words. Quite an interesting way to put into practice what we had just learnt!

by Carolina

Aquest resum de Carolina en forma de conte ens suggereix que el contar contes a l'aula de llengua és una activitat molt eficaç didàcticament i que els ensenyants de llengua hauríem de saber utilitzar. Ací teniu un enllaç sobre el tema STORYTELLING.