Tuesday, April 24, 2012

A Taste of My Students´Speeches

I have such a great time listening to my students! I feel so proud of them: they are so brave standing there in front of their colleagues (can there be a harder audience than your peers?) telling them about their -short- lives.

I understand most of their speeches; I must admit I have to pay extra attention to some of them but that is the idea: if I get their message, then the goal is achieved, at least one of the goals -communication- because I want to achieve several things with these speeches:

1. the students´reflection on their lives: I want them to remember the different stages they have lived so far -primary, junior high, high school- and I want them to think about how different those parts are and how different they themselves were so that they realize how much they have changed (and not only physically as Carlos pointed out)

2. a memory for the future. I know I will remember some anecdotes of all the speeches I have heard so far (both this and last year, when I first started with this project) for a long time, but I am sure those who gave the speech will remember this experience for a longer time, and many people in the audience as well. The lip-dub, for example.

3.  helping them remember important people in their lives. Giving them time to think about those people who influenced them some way or another and encouraging them to thank them in public makes them think positively about people and life.

4. giving a speech 
    for the first time
    in English. ( 3 ideas in 1)

The first time of some experiences stays with you for a long time and I am really happy to have given these boys and girls their first time for a speech. 
I feel really sad when I hear people (so many people!) criticize the classes of English language in Spain and their number 1 complaint: our kids cannot speak English. Well, how many of those people would be able to write and give a speech like this? -especially if we consider the following:

  • I have two 2nd BAC groups this year, one with 20 students and the other with 35 - it is not easy to teach to such a big number of students, believe me.
  • the classes last 50 minutes (this is so in every level in our school)
  • the students have three periods of English a week (this is so in every level as well)
All things considered, our students are not that bad, are they? Judge for yourselves.

By sheer serendipity, I came across these videos that my students had uploaded in "YouTube." I asked for their permission to embed them here; they were much better alive but here they are for those of you who missed them.

Let me introduce Ernesto, Ignacio, Amir, Sara and Guillermo:











The speeches have been optional this year and I know the idea of getting extra-credit for them is appealing but  if you still hesitate whether to do the speech or not, think about Felix´s idea, "dressing up for school is cool."


2 comments:

  1. Anonymous07 May, 2012

    Hi Your blog is so great and so professional. If you would like to see my blog at

    http://lilyviewlands.edublogs.org/
    Lily :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your words, Lily!
      I did have a look at your blog. I can see you are a real animal-lover.... I was really surprised, I just hand´t expected so much information about animals. Really entertaining!

      Best wishes.
      Rosa

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...