Learning vocabulary: the family.

I like to teach and review family vocabulary with my students through a genealogical tree, as the one you can see in the image. When they understand the diagram (it may be difficult for those on 1st ESO), it is easier for them to remember the names of family members. We see this diagran and then I ask them to draw their families and we see what their families are like, this usually makes them feel well and it is a good activity to do in the first days.

We also see other famous family trees, like that of The Simpsons and we make sentences of the type: "Bart is Lisa's brother", so we  revise the Saxon genitive too.

We also play other games like this one I found at English Flash Games to Learn Vocabulary, with three different levels. My students like it very much. We do this in class with the help of WIBs.

Have you tried doing these things? Do you learn vocabulary better this way?
Leave your comments and tell us!!

Ending the course

Present from my class.

This year I have started teaching in a new high school, not that it is new for everybody but it was for me. I was given a tutorship of a 1st ESO course and I was a bit nervous because it was a long time since I wasn't. It has been a long and hard course, many have needed a lot of help and I have done my best.
They are great little people, who will become great adults, each of them is special for one reason or the other and we have learnt a lot together about English and English culture, about adult life and  also about blogging, some of them are followers of this blog, they have learnt to leave their comments... some of them are also bloggers themselves (you can have a look at their blogs if you find them in the members of this blog).

Today, when I came to my class, they were hiding because they had this surprise prepared for me!! You can see in the photo, they offered me a nice, elegant clutch bag  and a poster of a mixture of their photos and a group photo of the class.

I wanted to thank my students, and their families; studying in a public school may be difficult but it gets easier if we work together, the families and the professionals.

Do any of  my students want to leave any comments? Any teachers? Parents? Please do!!!

New page for families.

As a teacher I feel it  is very important to take into account, not only the students, but also their families. As teachers, we encounter lots of situations in which we have to help families and I think this is also a nice part of our job; it also happens the other way around, that is, we need help from the families most of the time at home but sometimes even at school!!

This is the reason why I wanted to have a part of my little space for them in the internet. Today  I am going to introduce you to the last thing I have prepared. It is written in Spanish because I teach English in Spain and many of the parents of my students have studied French or do not feel confident enough to read in English.

I hope this helps parents and they can also help me through this space where all commentaries will be welcome,   even in Spanish. I have linked it here, though it is at the top where the rest of the pages of the blog are permanently.

What do you think of this idea?
Leave your comments and tell us!!