Title of Project: Goal Orientated Group Work to Aid Language Acquisition
School: CEIP Rayuela (Rayuela Primary School)
I have a background in teaching English as a foreign language and have taught in many areas such as schools,offices, etc. I began teaching children but later focused more on teaching adults. I had taught children at primary level before and thoroughly enjoyed the experience so i was very happy to return to the classroom situation.While teaching adults i found that group work is an effective way of maximizing the amount of time that students speak and always tried to get everyone involved.
I want the students to speak as much as possible and also reduce the amount of Spanish spoken.I want to give each student the confidence and ease of use when speaking English.I want to make the the activity as interesting and as fun as possible to keep each student focused and engaged, creating groups so that there is a mix of abilities and personalities to compliment one another.
I found that creating quizzes based on themes the students like such as sport, music, etc works very well in keeping their attention and interraction.
Later I introduced a point system and kept a record of wins and losses so that the quiz became something to look forward to every week as each team always tried their best to be in first position.
The activity worked very well and through having fun during the quizzes I gained the students confidence which therfore led to a better and more comfortable learning experience. Even the students who might have felt nervous speaking in front of the whole class soon forgot their shyness were contributing as much as the other more advanced students.If Spanish was used then one point was taken off the team in question which led to very liitle Spanish being spoken in the end. I found that as long as the students knew that I being the teacher had the final say as regards the answers and rules, then very few problems existed.