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Elementary school project.

"theories" which we take as self evident.

First of all the text books and their grounding notions:

Here are some common distinctions and opinions.

The distinction of experts between "Acquire - learn".

Effective learning, long term remembering

"Children learn their mother tongue without grammar knowledge".

- plenty of techniques of repetition, focus, reply stimulus, patterned dialogues. Absorb refers to a whole day context. Total.

PHRASE BOOK

Have you finished? have you eaten it?

Why did you… What did we…

It’s gone. It’s here.

Are you coming? We’re staying

An example might be of the sort.

"What is Julia doing (rather then the "natural" "What’s…)

-Julia starts to jump, and all shout:

"She’ jumping".

"We should offer a "natural" language material.

Media schools go too fast while wasting time on inessentials.

So at Elementary level lets keep the material very focused, limited but endlessly recycled in varying activities.

"We should not use translation".

Translation is OK

    "Music is an idea learning vehicle for children".

    Music is fun, but music can (as in supermarket wall paper music) become deadened by overuse. The content of a song should spill over into other activities.

    6. So we need:

  1. Song/

  2. games/

  3. movement /

  4. drawing /

  5. the use of beautiful child made "kits" /

  6. wall charts /

  7. listening material -

  8. nursery rhymes etc /

  9. poetry - made and homemade /

  10. small extracts of film -

  11. funny adverts /

  12. use of video camera for their activities /

  13. story telling - made and home made /

  14. dictionary making /

  15. learning by heart - nursery rhymes and songs /

  16. singing games / (ie. song + movement of the sort described by Iona Opie.) etc

  17. pop songs

  18. folk songs

  19. "My favourite Italian words in English

  20. "My favourite story in Italian.

  21. Vocabulary kits in phrases. These are best as felt pieces to place on a "backround felt.

  22. coloured phrases to combine with Italian "translations".

  23. picture vocabulary sets.

  24. pairing games - played in Italian. The child makes pairs of English words and the justifies it in Italian. Bread + Jam "Si mette marmalatta sul pane etc

  25. chanting rhymes for main English structures.

  26. Ready made plays that are concentrated on a grammar structure - though still in natural fashion. See out grammar plays for past tenses or 2 futures. These avoid all need for "grammar" explanation while still aiding the child with the kind of focus that the mother gives in L1

  27. Plays made in Italian around familiar situations. The teacher translates them and later gives the English version for performance.

  28. Copying games. As in A and B pairs. A runs with message to B B carries the message back to the teacher. If there’s a mistake B runs back to A. If A had forgotten he runs back to the originating teacher.

  29. Run to a wall, read and then go and write down what you remember. Good for phrases and vocabulary learning.

  30. Circle games. A repeats a phrase and calls "F" who has to repeat. These phrases or words can be "read" from a picture chart or from a whisper from the teacher.

  31. Relay games. Adaptation of Chinese whispers.

  32. Exercises of the puzzle sort. "What is the missing word".

  33. Pick it out. An English word is put amongst an Italian sentence.

  34. A- word or phrase- a- day. Each week a semantic area for vocabulary or a situation for phrases is chosen as hub for 7 items.

  35. objects trouves’. Children bring in objects that are hung on the wall and labelled.

  36. Immediate translation of Italian among the kids to help meorise useful English that arises.

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