Learn English with Your Ears!

This week was very productive for me, because I have found new possibilities for teaching English with the help of the Internet. Bookmarking was a real finding and now I collect my favourite sites in Delicious (http://www.delicious.com/irumyantseva).

Another finding was learning English by listening (Learn English with your ears!). The Internet gives us great opportunities for organizing students’ listening by means of audio books, films, mini plays, authentic interviews, songs and even soap operas. Jazz chants are a fun way to practice stress and rhythm in the classroom. I am very thankful to teachers of English A.J.Hoge, Joe Weiss, Kristin Dodds from Sun Francisco who give free classes in the Internet (www.learnrealenglish.com)

I am fond of drama and my colleagues of the project were very helpful to share sites of mini-plays with downloadable mp3 files, students’ worksheets with activities and tips for the teacher how to organize the class.

I have read a number of articles for organizing storytelling and drama lessons, and the most interesting for me was “Storytelling and drama” (an extract from 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?sectionType=listsummary&catid=59393 ) by Carol Read which tells how to incorporate story-based lessons and drama activities into the English-language classroom.

I agree that drama provides opportunities for kinesthetic responses to stories and involves children in ‘learning by doing’. Through listening and responding to storytelling and doing drama activities, children use mime, sounds, gestures and imitation to show their understanding of the language. Before-drama activities provide a focus and support for children to use language from the story in an independent way and also contribute to building up their confidence and self-esteem. Drama also provides opportunities to develop critical and creative thinking skills and to work with others in a collaborative way.
As for my future project I think it should be something what students create themselves in collaboration using different skills and drama. I was amazed by the students’ video project on the latest news (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/school_report/resources_for_teachers/default.stm ). If only I could do something like that one day!
This week I have understood that if you want to be a real blogger you should spend in the Internet at least 2 hours daily.