Notice how children eat?
I have 4 small children and I can relate to this.
If I want to have a peaceful meal, I will eat on my own.
If I choose to have a piece meal, I can have the 'pleasure' eating with them.
Children, bundles of joy, INDEED!
Kids love sand.
I would raced ahead to the water but my children would start gawking and be amazed.
Locating a spot for picnic would be a tug of war as they constantly kicking the sand, picking up shells
and whining for us to stop and sit down.
They made houses of all shapes and sizes. Amateur works mainly.
I love how their ideas flow, imagination taking its course but I just hate becoming a referee when power struggles emerge.
I think, making something it is just human nature. It is an innate ability.
Parents and teachers should let the creativity flow once in a while in the classroom.
Through proper time and channel, pupils will be empowered in their learning and be accountable towards it.
My grandma's was a wooden house built on stilts and have 2 staircases. One for the front door and back.
It was a small house with 2 bedrooms, wet and dry kitchen and a hall.
I remember playing with my cousin at my grandma's house when I was little.
We used to stomp our feet because we love the sounds of the wood.
While the elderly find it chaotic, we love to do it until they chased us off to the ground!
This is an extraordinary holiday!
It suits a child's imagination.
I just hope the author would end the poem in a bang!
A bird, easily distinguish from the rest of the gang.
As a child, I can identify this bird (in pictures, of course) in a blink of an eye!
In this poem, it portray the bird as a guest knocking on door. Unfortunately, the host is not in and the Woodpecker keep on knocking without understanding.
Questions:
1. Why does the Woodpecker keep on knocking?2. It is in his nature to keep knocking?
3. What is the difference between the woodpecker and a person knocking on doors?
4. If you are the Woodpecker, what would you do?
5. What do you think of this poem?
Teacher can post these questions to spark some discussion on the bird.
Teacher can create curiosity in pupils by throwing questions.
They might not know the answer but it is enough to poke their mind.
Woodpecker from Asniem CA
This poem allows for variety of kinaesthetic activities for children.
Children love to move about and do things because they learn by doing.
I find this type of activities suit most type of learners in particular the weaker learners.
Weaker learners feel less intimidated as the language learning is camouflage by the movement.
The repetitious nature of the activity enable them to listen, do and say until they are able to produce it.
I love to use kinaesthetic activity during my teaching days as I can get full attention and participation.
The poem is about a girl having fun at the playground. However, her fun time was cut short as she fell into the puddles.
What I like most about the poem is the use of past tense verbs depicting actions that have occurred on the playground.
Pupils can relate the action to the things at the playground.
The poem is short and easy to understand.
The poem brings back my childhood memories where I used to hang out at the playground.I played with my friends, on the swings and slides, chasing each other around and giggling the whole time.
I miss those carefree days....
I think I should bring my children regularly to the playground, I know they will enjoy it too!
Let us look at this book.
We can use concept sort as one of the activities in literature.
Steps:
1. The words in focus.
2. The categories for these words are:
The execution and flow of the lesson can be viewed here.
We can use concept sort as one of the activities in literature.
Steps:
1. The words in focus.
- Anil
- Friend
- Kites
- Help
- Sew
- Fabric
- Mother
- Mend
- Cut
- Thread
- Silk
- Paper
2. The categories for these words are:
- Character
- Materials
- The things they do
The execution and flow of the lesson can be viewed here.
Concept sort can be one of the activities during the teaching and learning of contemporary literature.
My suggestion
ESL learners usually will need some help with the vocabulary, therefore teacher might need to explain (you can try gesturing too!).
Having understood the words, depending on the level, teacher can reveal the categories and ask the pupils to sort OR get the pupils to determine the categories on their own.
Subsequently, pupils can fill in the categories with the words.
The later stage is very important.
Collaboratively, teacher and pupils check the words in the categories.
Teacher must provide explanation on wrong answers but must not forget to give positive reinforcement on correct answers (many forget this!).
The ability of pupils to understand concept sort proved their ability to understand words and their affiliation.
The double reinforcement (drilling done in ambiguous way) of this vocabulary activity will further strengthen their vocabulary power thus increasing their intrinsic motivation.
A spin-off from this activity would be:
-prediction of the story based on the words
-describing the book cover
-talking about the characters
Checkout this video if you have trouble understanding concept sort.
Give this method a try, and you will be surprise yourself!
My suggestion
- Teacher lists the vocabulary from the book based on these categories: characters, place, what are they doing? (do not tell your pupils!)
ESL learners usually will need some help with the vocabulary, therefore teacher might need to explain (you can try gesturing too!).
Having understood the words, depending on the level, teacher can reveal the categories and ask the pupils to sort OR get the pupils to determine the categories on their own.
Subsequently, pupils can fill in the categories with the words.
The later stage is very important.
Collaboratively, teacher and pupils check the words in the categories.
Teacher must provide explanation on wrong answers but must not forget to give positive reinforcement on correct answers (many forget this!).
The ability of pupils to understand concept sort proved their ability to understand words and their affiliation.
The double reinforcement (drilling done in ambiguous way) of this vocabulary activity will further strengthen their vocabulary power thus increasing their intrinsic motivation.
A spin-off from this activity would be:
-prediction of the story based on the words
-describing the book cover
-talking about the characters
Checkout this video if you have trouble understanding concept sort.
Give this method a try, and you will be surprise yourself!
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| Love this book! |
Browsing through the books used for the literature component excite me! The books are bright and colourful and the contents cater to multiple-level language learners.
The curriculum states that the books to be used during the language arts lesson, cultivating learning in fun manner and diversified.
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| 3 in 1 |
The vocabulary is suitable for young learners, although the fluent reader might find it easy, teachers can adapt the literature activities based on the pupils' ability.
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| Suggested activities |
I found there are many activities suggested on the internet, regarding the use of literature in teaching English. Fascinating indeed!
My findings!
What we can do in literature class?
1. We can get the pupils to respond to pictures in the book.
2. Pupils can respond on the morale value obtained from the book.
Source: British Council
4. Taping a recording of teacher reading the passage from the literature and playing it to the pupils allow them to practice pronunciation and intonation. Pupils can also tape their reading and play it to their peers allowing peer correction.
Source: Global Post
5. Reviewing vocabulary on the terms used to discuss literature. It might require repetition in every class, but as the time goes by, these vocabulary will come in handy thus expediting any literature discussion.
I might say, these words might be a little alien to rural English Language learners, especially here in Perlis, but we must set a standard, achievable with extra effort both on the teachers and pupils.
- Alliteration – a literary technique that uses the same sound at the beginning of a set of words (the large laughing lion languished)
- Antagonist – the person who comes against the protagonist or hero. The antagonist is often the villain. (the Joker is the antagonist to Batman)
- Author – writer of the book (Mark Twain was the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.)
- Climax – the emotional high point of the piece of literature where the reader does not yet know the outcome
- Genre – the class of literature to which a piece belongs (includes biography, romance, mystery and science fiction among others)
- Plagiarism – Use of another person’s words or ideas without proper citation
- Point of view – the perspective from which a story is told, usually either first person (I shall tell you of my grand adventure.) or third person (He spoke of lands unknown and people unseen by modern eye.)
- Protagonist – The main character or hero of the piece (Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
- Resolution – the completion or correction of the conflict in a story
- Setting – the time and place of a story (in The Help the setting is Mississippi in the 1960’s)
- Symbolism – using one person or thing to represent another (chaos is often symbolized by water)
6. Pupils also can be asked to discuss the characters from the stories.
Using the vocabulary above, pupils can analyze, compare and evaluate the characters based on their understanding.
Teachers must bear in mind the level of their pupils and create useful prompts in order to solicit information.
Source: Busy Teacher
In addition to all these, I found a slide on SlideShare outlaying the activities suitable for the year four literature books.
I have difficulties in trying to make up of the activities stated, but the suggested timeline for teaching the books is very useful!
There are a lot more that we can do during literature.
Understanding literature will help pupils see the application of the language and in the mean time make use of what they have learn in class in an authentic discourse.
Welcome to a wonderful world of reading!
