miércoles, 14 de enero de 2015

TRIP TO THE MUSEO DEL PRADO


The culmination of a fantastic first term was a trip to the Prado museum. Three of our classes and teachers from various departments visited Madrid's largest art gallery.

The students were given a specific painting before the visit, and were tasked with writing a presentation on it and delivering it to their schoolmates in front of their painting. I was truly impressed with the fantastic work that the students had done in preparing their pieces and the confidence with which they delivered their presentations in front of the groups.

The students seemed to love the experience of visiting one of Madrid's real treasures. It was also a wonderful treat after a first term that I had really enjoyed. Seeing the progress that the students had made with their speaking especially made me realise quite how rewarding the term had been.







The children and I outside the Prado Museum

Class Workshops and Progress


At the end of the last term I was working with my Primero B class on improving our writing and understanding of tenses, specifically the present simple and present continuous. I am happy to report that with just a couple of concentrated lessons we were able to make huge progress. They my sound like simple concepts but the confusion amongst the two forms of the present is vital to the use of good English and their misuse is surprisingly common amongst non native English speakers.

We have also been working on presentation skills. In this photo I am running a class workshop on this topic, focusing on students bringing a photo of their own choice into the classroom and then using three methods to bring the photo to life for the group. These are summarising, locating and speculating. Locating vocab, such as here, to the right/left, in front of etc are vital, practical terms foreign speakers of English need when they visit and anglophone country. I am confident that we can advance on the excellent progress of last term as we move into the post-Christmas period.







Sharing and describing photos in class