LIVING HISTORY

When it comes to telling our students about some very famous and important figures that made History the challenge is

HOW CAN WE TRY TO ENGAGE THEM AND HELP THEM UNDERSTAND THE IMPACT THAT THOSE MEN/WOMEN HAD IN THE PAST AND STILL HAVE TODAY?

Has it ever happened  to you to talk about somebody with as much passion and excitement as possible and look at your students and have the impression that they think you are coming from Mars... that you are some sort of an alien who talks about something which was in the past and has nothing to do with the present and the time they are living now?

Well... it has to me.

So this year we tried to change thing a little bit, and not just as regards the English language. Each teacher had to choose one or two figures that made History and are considered important for the subject they teach. Each "historical VIP" was assigned to one student. Each student had to read and study this man/woman, write down a few questions and answers and perform the interview in front of the rest of the class. During the live interviews, students had to pay attention and take notes. All the interviews have been recorded and shared with the students. 

Needless to say, this project made History come to life again. 

As regards my subject, I chose two girls to represent Rosa Parks and Emmeline Pankhurst. 

I gave them two books to read and work on.

These are the videos of their interviews. I was so proud of these two girls for working so hard on this project. They showed linguistic competence in reading, understanding and speaking. I asked them and their parents permission to post their videos on my blog and also to use their interviews for future students. I think this is a wonderful way to foster culture and History learning. 

ROSA PARKS' S INTERVIEW

EMMELINE PANKHURST'S INTERVIEW

ps: In the Rosa Parks video there is a mistake. It should be "let me have those seats ( and not sits)". Please forgive me but I realized it once I was looking at the final video but I could not change it anymore. 

Thank you, 

Miss Alex

MY FRANKENSTEIN

Reading and teaching a classic literature book to twenty-six teenagers in four hours at the end of April: is it a "Mission impossible"?

I do not think so. 

At the beginning of the year I booked tickets to go to an English play at a local theatre. Students love going to the theatre and I have to say that we have watched many different plays perfomed by this company and they are really interesting, engaging and motivating. 

This is the link to the company:

ARCADIA PRODUCTIONS

This year's show was FRANKENSTEIN. The company sends you the script and all the material to prepare the students for the show, together with some worksheets to work on after seeing the show. I have always used that material and found it really useful but this year I wanted to do something different. Being that the story was taken from Mary Shelley's book "Frankenstein" I wanted to have my students work on the book. 

So I used the Usborne's version of Frankenstein and started from there. 

I took pictures of some pages of the story and distributed them randomly to my students. Each page had a number on it and students ( they worked in pair) were given a post-it note with the same number. 

Students had to translate and briefly summarise the story. They could use dictionaries and computers. 

After this comprehension task, each group read its part of the story to the class. They could either read it or explain it or tell the story using their own words.

Students had to pay attention to each part of the story because they had to try to put them in order. Each time the students in line had to re-read their part so they the others could check if the story was making sense or not. I have to say that this whole activity took two hours and by the end of the lessons the students had put all the parts in the correct order and they knew the story. 

After this pre-play phase.... we went to the theatre!

My students LOVED the show so I decided to work on the story a little bit longer even after the play. 

I found some free Frankenstein comics online 

FRANKENSTEIN COMIC

and asked my students to add dialogues. They could change the story and use their imagination. What came out was really interesting and a lot of fun! They used a laptop and edited the stories with Powerpoint or Google Slides. 

So my answer to the question at the beginning of the post is "DEFINITELY YES!". It is possible to teach teenagers about classic literature, we just have to find new ideas to engage them and motivate them!

Thank you for reading,

Miss Alex