Portfolio tasks

Four portfolio tasks for the children in my class (grade 2-3)

1. Learning the first phrases in English using a movie

Connections to Lgr-11: In English the children should develop their ability to:

• understand and interpret the content of spoken English

• express themselves and communicate in speech

• adapt language for different purposes, recipients and contexts

Core content in years 1–3

Listening and reading – reception

• Clearly spoken English and texts from various media.

* Different types of simple conversations and dialogues.

• Films and dramatised narratives for children.

• Songs, rhymes, poems and sagas.

• Words and phrases in their local surroundings, Speaking, writing and discussing – production and interaction

• Songs, rhymes and dramatizations

When I start teaching English to a new group of children in grade 2 I often begin with watching the first movie in the series Kids English Zone: Hello. What's your name?

It is easy to stream this and other movies from Beta.Sli nowadays. You just have to have an account as a teacher at Beta.Sli, log in and stream the movie. The time when I had to order a movie from AV-media two weeks ahead of the lesson is gone. Wonderful!

In this particular movie the phrases of presenting oneself is introduced. At first we just watch the movie once and then we watch it again. Then I encourage the children to talk and sing along as we listen to the movie. After the movie has ended I summarize and repeat the phrases. Hi, Hello, What´s your name? My name is…Good bye! And so on. When we have watched the movie we have heard vocabulary and phrases presented in clearly spoken English. We can now say our first phrases and we use them to do our first little communication activity. We wander around in the classroom and when we bump in to each other we simply uses the phrases/words Hello! Hi! What´s your name? and Good bye! The children likes the movie and to wander around and introduce themselves. They interact and communicate from start…

 

2. Using Photo Story to make a presentation of a girl and her animals in English as a part of an interdisciplinary theme

Connections to Lgr-11: In English the children should develop their ability to

• understand and interpret the content of spoken English

• express themselves and communicate in speech and writing,

• adapt language for different purposes, recipients and contexts, and

Core content In years 1–3
Content of communication
• Subject areas that are familiar to the pupils.
• Interests, people and places.
Listening and reading – reception
• Clearly spoken English and texts from various media.
• Simple instructions and descriptions.
• Films and dramatised narratives for children.
Speaking, writing and discussing – production and interaction
• Simple presentations.

This year I have had a book that I have been reading loud in Swedish to my class. The book is called Hedvig! and is written by Frida Nilsson.  The book is the basis of the class year long theme “Undersöka med Hedvig” and we try to integrate all the school subjects (Swedish, English, math, art, science and so on) as we read the book discover Hedvigs world. As teachers in the class we use drama to act out different parts of the book to the children.

As we read the first chapter of the book we discovered that the Hedvig had a lot of animals. I wanted to integrate English and saw an opportunity to work with animals. I introduced all Hedvigs animals in English. I then asked the children if they would like to make a presentation in Photo story of Hedvig and her animals, and they did. We drew most of the pictures of her animals our self and then the children learned to present them in English. After that we made the Photo Story movie “Hedvig and her animals” and did put it on You Tube. The children had now learned animals, plural –s, and to say sentences about the animals in a context using ICT as a tool. They were very proud to have an English movie on You Tube (for their parents and friends to watch). This kind of presentation in Photo Story can be done with other subjects and topics too. During the past two week we have been working on new Photo Story movies about Hedvig: Hedvig and her body parts and Hedvig and her clothes.

If you are curious of how I look when I dress up like Hedvig and how the result of the movie was watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zthmIzuEt6E

 3. Using Skype to communicate

Connections to Lgr-11: In English the children should develop their ability to:
• understand and interpret the content of spoken English and in different types of texts,
• express themselves and communicate in speech and writing,
• use language strategies to understand and make themselves understood,
• adapt language for different purposes, recipients and contexts, and
• reflect over living conditions, social and cultural phenomena in different contexts and parts of the world where English is used.
Core content in year 1-3
Content of communication
• Subject areas that are familiar to the pupils.
• Interests, people and places.
• Daily life and ways of living in different contexts and areas where English is used.
Listening and reading – reception
• Clearly spoken English and texts from various media.
• Simple instructions and descriptions.
* Different types of simple conversations and dialogues.
Speaking, writing and discussing – production and interaction
• Simple presentations.
• Simple descriptions and messages.

 Skype is an audio voice chat that you can use for communication on a computer. With Skype you can make video calls to any one that has an account, a computer/Ipad/smartphone, an Internet connection and a web camera of course.

My sister lives in Australia south of Brisbane. She and I stay in contact via Skype. She rents out one of the rooms in her house to a man and his 9 year old daughter. Since our children according to Lgr-11 and the English syllabus should learn about countries were English is used I thought about getting my pupils connected with the girl via Skype and ask her questions about her life in Australia. I contacted my sister in Australia and she did set the arrangements for the Skype meeting with the father and daughter. I prepared the children in school that we would connect with an Australian girl on Skype and that we had to prepare questions to ask about her life in Australia and so we did. We e-mailed the questions to the girl and her father before the meeting on Skype so that they should get a chance to be prepared. When we had the actual meeting on Skype I did not expect that my pupils would dear to ask questions about her life in English, but most of them did! They thought this was really exciting and they learned how a girl in their age in Australia lives.

 

4. The British council Learn English kids
Connections to Lgr-11: In English the children should develop their ability to
• understand and interpret the content of spoken English and in different types of texts,
• adapt language for different purposes, recipients and contexts, and
Core content in years 1–3
Content of communication
• Subject areas that are familiar to the pupils.
Listening and reading – reception
• Clearly spoken English and texts from various media.
• Simple instructions and descriptions.

Last autumn when I had worked with the topics colours and wild animals I found a very nice activity on the British Council homepage that the children could do to repeat their knowledge of animals and colours. It is a game where the children listens to and read an instruction before the act (by painting an animal in a suggested colour). I like this game. It is easy to understand and the child gets an immediate response “good” or “try again” and it is clear in the design.
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/word-games/paint-it/zoo-animals
The advantage of computer games is the immediate response to the child´s performance and that the children often are highly motivated when it comes to computer games. The disadvantages, I think, are that there are not that much communication going on playing videogames. No talking and interaction…
And as we can se above, this kind of activities does not connect to the syllabus that very much.

Camilla Nilvius