Raise your hand against smacking

Christmas time is the time of the year to spend with our loved ones, but anyway, children are the most important and the ones who live it with most passion... So it is a good moment, to spread the message of the new initiative of the Council of Europe.

There is a campaign on Spanish TV that I love. It is the campaign against corporal punishment for children, "Raise your hand against smacking" launched by the Council of Europe.

No religion, economic situation or "educational" method can justify hitting, smacking, spanking, abusing, humiliating, or any other practice that violates a child's dignity. It is internationally recognised in human rights law that children have a right to protection from all forms of violence, including corporal punishment in all settings – home, school, penal systems, care institutions. (Nothing can justify violence toward children on coe.int)

Christmas

Short video on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens on teachers.tv site


Synopsis

A quick burst of festive spirit, as Michael Rosen visits Charles Dickens' London home to explore his Christmas legacy.

Michael Rosen, Children's Laureate visits 48 Doughty St, the elegant townhouse in London where Dickens and his family once lived.

Now a museum, Michael looks at how the house could have inspired characters from Dickens' Christmas classic A Christmas Carol and views memorabilia from the time it was written.

The programme will give students and teachers an insight into how Dickens helped shape the Christmas we know today, as well as being a way to inject a bit of Christmas spirit in the classroom.

Read it here.

Learn more about A Christmas Carol here.
And here too

More methodology

Here you have some interesting tips on methodology. They are really good pieces of advice for language teachers. I strongly recommend this reading.

Orientaciones metodológicas. Junta de Andalucía.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

On 10th December is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

United Nations Office of the High Comissioner for Human Rights.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. FULL TEXT (pdf) or web

Read the related news on United Nations website.
Visit the Council of Europe related news website.
Read the related news on Unesco website too.

Unesco has developed six internationally-agreed education goals that are aimed to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. Read a short presentation for children in my Primary English blog.

Watch this video by Amnesty International.

Teaching English as a foreign language to children

Tomorrow we are doing a lesson on English teaching. We will comment on two basic documents, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the Primary English syllabus of the Balearic Islands.

But anyway, I would like to highlight some points that I always try to follow in my Primary English lessons. I strongly recommend the following pieces of advice:

1. Start working oral skills. Example: I like fish. It is good for me,
   
2. Sing - use songs to practise and learn vocabulary and grammar patterns
3. Storytelling. Examples: Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan in Neverland
   
4. Use pictures, gestures and body to explain meanings. Example: What's the weather like today?,
   
5. Do not translate
6. Use English as much as you can, especially at the lowest levels.
7. Introduce L1 only in difficult learning activities for example, when children have to think about grammar or about the way language works.
   
8. After having introduced oral skills, start with written skills
9. Write and draw lists of vocabulary
10. Check previous knowledge before introducing new contents. Example: Are there any computers in our school?
    
11. Integrate vocabulary into the related grammar patterns. Example:Ibizan animals
    
12. Use the language learned to communicate -although it is a simple and basic idea. Example: A tour around my town,
13. Take advantage of the festivals during the school year: Halloween, All Saints Day, Christmas
    
14. Introduce universal topics to meet CLIL standpoints: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Children's Day
    
15. Ask your students to do projects: specific final tasks in which students use all their language knowledge to achieve a goal -although it is a little goal. Examples: Introducing myself (oral project), My life (written project)
    
16. Ask your students to pay attention to the Art part of their final assignment/project/task. Example: My monster
    
17. Engage your students in doing their own Language Portfolio -electronic or not. Examples: Primary blogfolios
18. Use ICT to support your constructivist methodology
    
19. Work on children's attitude towards language learning and other important concepts: autonomous language learner, lifelong language learning, self-assessment. See the Portfolio web site to develop these standpoints.
    
20. Be a blogger. Create a blog for your subject. Example: We like English!

Interesting documents

Here you have got some interesting documents on e-learning:

HIGHSCHOOL.COM

BLENDED LEARNING GUIDE

LEARNING SOLUTIONS. E-MAGAZINE

DEFINING INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA DESIGN EDUCATION

And another really interesting matrix:

No Strings Attached: Wireless Laptops in Education.

TOP 100 TOOLS FOR LEARNING 2008

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, Knowledge, Skills and Tools for the Learning 2.0 Age

Visit the web

Technology Integration Matrix

What is the Technology Integration Matrix?

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students.

Technology Integration Matrix

Obama on Education

I think it could be a great language and teaching practice if we checked what Obama has said about Education during his compaign.

Would it be possible that a Spanish politician could say the same? Would Spanish teachers accept a plan like this?




Not bad...

NO CHILDREN PORNOGRAPHY

The Universal Children's Day is on 20th November. Post this picture on your blog to join the blogcampaign against pederasts.

Teaching through competence-based curriculum

Here are some documents about competences.
Our new law of education, LOE, focus on competence teaching as you all know.
But the Council of Europe has been developing the competence theory for a long time.
Here you've got some interesting documents about key competences.

KEY COMPETENCE FOR LIFELONG LEARNING. A EUROPEAN REFERENCE FRAMEWORK

Council conclusions on the European on the European Indicator of Language Comptenece

Don't forget the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages as it focus on linguistic comptence as we have said in older posts.

Special Needs Education Defined

I am sure you will love this video!!!!!

Special Needs Education Defined video

And here you have the text of the video. Enjoy it!

MY UDUTU

UDUTU is a new elearning platform. It's one of a number of "rapid elearning" tools now avaliable on the market thanks to web 2.0.
It's an elearning course authoring tool, which means that you can do your own lessons. It's quite complete as it supports video and audio, tests and it doesn't seem to be very difficult to use.
Anyway it's just another tool to give your students more learning opportunities but you cannot get any information of their work and marks in the course.

Here you have got two pretty good examples:

Begginer guide to online course design -What is online elearning?

Bill Gates steps down course

Happy Teachers' Day!

Today is WORLD TEACHERS' DAY! So, enjoy your day!

Teachers matter! is the slogan of this year by UNESCO.

"Teacher shortage, insufficient training, society’s lack of respect for the profession and the policies needed to tackle these challenges are the emphasis of World Teachers’ Day on 5 October 2008." (taken from UNESCO education website)

Read the World Teacher's Day message 2008 by UNESCO.

A new school year!

The school year is about to start!
Let's start singing as I would do with my Primary pupils. I have chosen a special song, very popular and meaningful for people but even more special for teachers.
Look at this video: Robbie Williams singing "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) at the Royal Albert Hall (London).
The audience is excited as we all may be now because of the new school year.
Let's transfer it into education too. I really believe that the sense of teaching , and the final goal, is that our children can grow as human beings and be able to live a happy life. So, that at any moment in their lives, not necessarily at the end, they can say about themselves that they have lived "their way".
Afther this simple thought just enjoy the song with the fantastic voice of Robbie Williams.

European Day of Languages

26th September is European Day of Languages, launched by the Council of Europe in 2001.

The Day has a wide variety of aims that we could summarize as follows:

# Increasing plurilingualism and intercultural understanding.

# Promoting -preserving and fostering- the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe.

# Encouraging lifelong language learning in and out of school for all kind of puposes (study, professional, mobility and pleasure.

The European Day of Languages is addressed to all citizens, but I think that we, as teachers, have to feel especially concerned about the Day and its message.

Let's all spread the slogan in our schools:

Celebrating linguistic diversity,
plurilingualism, lifelong language learning

Great statement!

I have found this statement and I really love it:

Technologies should be like the sails of a ship
if well woven and operated by skillful sailors, the captain only has to indicate the direction.

You can find it in the following web: seed
Could we transfer it to our schools?
Are the sailors the teachers in schools? Is the captain the headteacher? Could ICT be truly integrated in schools by teachers able to manage it and the headteacher only be needed to coordinate the implementation?

You may also enjoy this other web: red-ink doctoral school.
The goal of Red-ink is the understanding of eduational technologies and e-learning.

First day ppt

Look at this powerpoint presentation. It seems to be the introduction of a class teacher in the first day of class. Notice the organisation of every important item such as behaviour, homework and activities in class. Really interesting, well done but maybe too strict and harsh.


Find more videos like this on Classroom 2.0

Teachers today

Do you really think that teachers do all this today? Or maybe, is it that teachers today should do all this?
Can we really change the world?

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