For teachers and students of English

viernes, 29 de abril de 2016

Jobs - Vocabulary

Dear Year 5 students,
This is your homework for today.  It will introduce you to the main vocabulary in Unit 8 and help you to develop your listening comprehension skills.
Go to the link below and listen to the song about jobs.  You can listen to it as many times as you want.  Then, answer the questions in your English notebooks.

SONG: People Work

QUESTIONS:

1.    How many jobs do they mention in the song?
2.   Which jobs are also on your vocabulary list?
3.   Do you know anybody who does any of these jobs?  Write down their names.
4.   In the song, where do people work?
5.   When do they work?
6.   Why do they work?

I hope you enjoy the activity!

Janine

lunes, 25 de abril de 2016

First Conditional

Dear Year 6 students,

Below you have some activities that you can use to practice for your English test.

Remember: With the First Conditional you are reviewing two structures that you have already seen:

PRESENT SIMPLE TENSE
FUTURE WITH WILL.

Present Simple Tense Review

Future with WILL Review


Structure for the First Conditional
Condition + consequence
                        OR
Consequence + condition
·         What will we do if it rains
·         If it rains, we’ll build a shelter.
                       O        
·         We'll build a shelter if it rains.

IF + PRESENTE SIMPLE (for the condition)
WILL / WON’T + INFINITIVE (for the consequence)


Videos:

To extend and deepen your knowledge


I hope you find this useful!

Janine

BE GOING TO VERB

Dear Year 5 students,

Here are some resources to help you to prepare for your English Test.

REMEMBER:

USE: We use this structure to talk about future plans or intentions and also as a warning (ÇBe careful, you're going to fall!)

STRUCTURE:  The correct form of the verb BE + GOING TO + INFINITIVE of the main verb.

AFFIRMATIVE SENTENCES
SUJETO
BE  GOING TO INFINITIVO
En Español
I (yo)
am going to    watch  TV.
Yo voy a ver la tele.
YOU (tú)
are going to    do        your   homework.
vas a hacer los deberes.
HE (él)
is    going to    visit     his grandma.
Él va a visitar a su abuela.
SHE (ella)
is    going to    play     tennis.
Ella va a jugar al tenis.
IT (para objetos y animales)
is    going to    eat       some food.
Va a comer un poco de comida.
WE (nosotros)
are  going to    go       to the park.
Nosotros vamos a ir al parque.
YOU (vosotros)
are  going to    see     many animals.
Vosotros vais a ver muchos animales.
THEY (ellos)
are  going to    have   lunch.
Ellos van a comer.

NEGATIVE SENTENCES   * We join BE and NOT to make the SHORT FORM
SUJETO
BE  not GOING TO INFINITIVO
Forma corta
En Español
I (yo)
am not going to     watch  TV.
-           
Yo no voy a ver la tele.
YOU (tú)
are not going to     do        your   homework.
aren’t
Tú no vas a hacer los deberes.
HE (él)
is not   going to      visit     his grandma.
isn’t
Él no va a visitar a su abuela.
SHE (ella)
is  not  going to      play     tennis.
isn’t
Ella no va a jugar al tenis.
IT (para objetos y animales)
is  not  going to      eat       some food.
isn’t
No va a comer un poco de comida.
WE (nosotros)
are not going to     go       to the park.
aren’t
Nosotros no vamos a ir al parque.
YOU (vosotros)
are not going to     see     many animals.
aren’t
Vosotros no vais a ver muchos animales.
THEY (ellos)
are not going to    have   lunch.
aren’t
Ellos no van a comer.

QUESTIONS
* The order of the words changes.  
BE
SUJETO
GOING TO INFINITIVO
En Español
Am 
I (yo)
going to     watch  TV.
Yo voy a ver la tele.
Are
you (tú)
going to     do        your   homework.
vas a hacer los deberes.
Is  
he (él)
going to     visit     his grandma.
Él va a visitar a su abuela.
Is  
she (ella)
going to     play     tennis.
Ella va a jugar al tenis.
Is  
it (cosas /animales)
going to     eat       some food.
Va a comer un poco de comida.
Are
we (nosotros)
going to     go        to the park.
Nosotros vamos a ir al parque.
Are
you (vosotros)
going to     see      many animals.
Vosotros vais a ver muchos animales.
Are
they (ellos)
going to     have    lunch.
Ellos van a comer.

SHORT ANSWERS
AFIRMATIVAS
NEGATIVAS
Yes, I am.
No, I’m not.
Yes, you are.
No, you aren’t.
Yes, he is.
No, he isn’t.
Yes, she is.
No, she isn’t.
Yes, it is.
No, it isn’t.
Yes, we are.
No, we aren’t.
Yes, you are.
No, you aren’t.
Yes, they are.
No, they aren’t.

domingo, 24 de abril de 2016

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE READ?

Reading does not evolve naturally as speech does.  It has to be learnt and taught.  In order to understand how we read, we must also know why we read. 
Reading is not just a mechanical or cognitive process, it is also socio-cultural as Clemente and Dominguez argue in their book on the teaching of reading (1999).  Even today, there are many oral cultures that survive very well without the need for a writing system.  In three quarters of the world’s populations however, reading is not just widespread, it is essential (Roberts, 1994).  Yet, at least 25% of students have difficulty accessing the written code (Nicolson, 2008).  The consequence is general underachievement across all subject areas.  It is no wonder then that reading has received so much attention in the pedagogical field, especially in the last few decades.

What are the Cognitive Processes Implicated in Reading?

Different theories have evolved out of the hundreds of empirical studies conducted on reading to explain what happens when we read.  These have given rise to a variety of approaches to the teaching of reading.  The model that is currently most widely accepted by reading experts however is the Psycholinguistic Approach.  This approach stems from the idea that there are two main routes to meaning: one is the Phonological Route and the other is the Direct Route.
In order to extract meaning from a text, we follow a very complex cognitive process which can be divided into two main blocks.  The first involves recognition or identification of the written word and the second is concerned with reading comprehension.  In order to put into operation our higher-order comprehension skills where we read to learn, we must have automatised the lower-order decoding skills which give us our first level of access to the written word thus allowing us to break the code. The process, from word recognition to text comprehension, starts with the identification of written words. Once we have been able to recognize or identify a word, we assign a meaning to each word read in a sentence.  We then construct an idea of what is being communicated.  Each sentence must be understood within the context of a text.  This requires comprehension of what has been read and a construction of the structure of the text based on an understanding of the relationships between its parts.  Finally, we assimilate the text into our existing or prior knowledge of the subject so constructing new knowledge and understanding (Clemente Linuesa, M. and Dominguez Gutierrez, A.B. 1999).
Effective and mature readers use both routes to access, process and extract meaning from written text to integrate into and transform their own schema.
Our concern here however is with gaining access to the written code at a very basic level. Following is a description of the two routes upon which we depend to make sense of written text.  

The Phonological Route

Dependence upon the Phonological Route or Indirect Route in reading requires an understanding of the relationship between the sounds of the language that we speak and the written codes that represent them.  Words are recognised via their sounds through a conversion or translation process from one code – written or oral - to the other. It involves a number of mental operations starting with a visual analysis of language in its written form.
According to Clemente and Dominguez, when we see a word on a page, we translate each of its graphemes or groups of graphemes in the case of some languages like English, into phonemes through a process of grapheme-phoneme conversion.  Once the pronunciation of the word has been recovered from the part of our brains where the pronunciation of words is stored the information is carried to our auditory lexicon.   Here the auditory representation is matched to the corresponding sounds.  Recovery of the auditory representation activates the semantic system where our personal lexicon is stored.  Here a meaning is assigned to the word. For all of this to happen efficiently, we need to have adequate verbal skills in the language in which we are reading (1999).
Via this route, we are able to decode words that follow orthographic conventions which we have previously learnt.  We can also decode words that are unfamiliar to us even though we do not know what they mean.  Decoding skills are often tested through the use of nonsense words following regular orthographic rules (1999).
Thus, an understanding of the mental processes involved in reading has a direct impact on early reading methodologies not just for L1 but for language L2 as well.    ESL students can learn to read many new words through decoding that can be incorporated into their growing English lexicon once automaticity has been achieved through frequent exposure.  Later on, once they start reading with a certain measure of fluency, new vocabulary can be learnt through printed text.

The Direct Route

The Direct or Visual Route depends upon our automatisation of words allowing for rapid recognition upon visual contact with its written form.
Through frequent exposure, words are automatised leading to more dependence on the Direct Route.  Via this route, we are able to read words that are familiar to us but not unfamiliar ones.  We can however process irregular words that have become familiar to us.
The process followed to extract meaning from a text through dependence on this route involves visual analysis of the individual graphemes of a word after which the information is transmitted to our visual memory where orthographical representations of words are stored.  Once identified, the semantic system is activated and meaning is given to the word (Clemente and Dominguez, 1999). 
It certainly is faster reading via the Direct Route, as the name suggests, but requires familiarity with the words being read. 

NEXT: How understanding the cognitive processes involved in reading helps us in the classroom

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Clemente Linuesa, M. and Dominguez Gutierrez, A.B. (1999). La Enseñanza de La Lectura: Enfoque Psicolingüístico y Sociocultural. Madrid. Píramide

Nicholson, T. (2008). Phonics Handbook. Chichester. John Wiley and Sons Ltd.


Roberts, Cheryl A. (1994). Transferring Literacy Skills from L1 to L2: From Theory to Practice. The Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 13, 209-221. Downloaded on 14 April 2016 from http://www.edtechpolicy.org/ArchivedWebsites/transf13.htm