Today I've attended my first meeting with the English department. We were six people: three English teachers (one of them is the Head of the department), a French teacher, my colleague Mireia and me.
They use to meet once a week to hold ideas in common and to talk about their English lessons, the activities that they are doing in their own groups - whether they need to work more on an specific area such as speaking or listening-, if they have to arrange some extra activities - like going to the theather to see an English play or organize student exchanges. All the decisions must be approved by the head of the English department.
There were some issues to be discussed in this session:
Firstly, they've talked about the next week's student exchange. The head of the English department, Isabel, our tutor, is in charge of welcoming and organizing activities for the new 2ESO Dutch students who are going to come next week at IES Lluís Vives. I think that we will be able to meet them as well, as there's gonna be a huge dinner with both the Spanish and the Dutch students, so it's going to be a great chance to get to know students from an other culture!
Secondly, they've discussed the way in which they'd organize the "B hours", that's to say, the hours in which the groups are splitted in two. They all agreed that, from now on, they are going to work more on the speaking skills because there's an oral exam in the "University Entrance Examination" also known as "Selectivitat", so they need to be really prepared in order to pass it. That's why students must improve their speaking skills through pronunciation, dialogues and individual or team presentations, amongst others.
Actually, one teacher told us that he has started an activity related to Halloween for their 2ESO students: he asked them to be storytellers. They are going to have to tell a Halloween story with the vocabulary, the verbs and the expressions learned in class. It seems a pretty funny speaking activity. He then has given us a website about useful Halloween stuff.
Then, we have had a look on the new book that they have bought in order to improve the listening and speaking skills (from 1ESO till 2Batxillerat). It's called "Real Listening and Speaking" and it's written by Sally Logan and Craig Thaine. It's definitely a useful book which deals with pronounciation (that's a really important point, and I think that it should be the first thing that children learn when studing a language), vocabulary, dialogues, presentations, lisetings and so on. Hopefully, we'll have the chance to have a closer look at it and work with it during the next few months.
Finally, the other English teachers have decided to invite Mireia and me to attend some of their lessons as observers this Friday. They've told us that the groups we are going to observe are 1ESO and 2ESO.
I think that it has been really useful to attend this meeting (and the following ones), because it's a good way to start getting familiar with the high school system and filosophy. Besides, it definitely helps you to understand how an English department works.
They use to meet once a week to hold ideas in common and to talk about their English lessons, the activities that they are doing in their own groups - whether they need to work more on an specific area such as speaking or listening-, if they have to arrange some extra activities - like going to the theather to see an English play or organize student exchanges. All the decisions must be approved by the head of the English department.
There were some issues to be discussed in this session:
Firstly, they've talked about the next week's student exchange. The head of the English department, Isabel, our tutor, is in charge of welcoming and organizing activities for the new 2ESO Dutch students who are going to come next week at IES Lluís Vives. I think that we will be able to meet them as well, as there's gonna be a huge dinner with both the Spanish and the Dutch students, so it's going to be a great chance to get to know students from an other culture!
Secondly, they've discussed the way in which they'd organize the "B hours", that's to say, the hours in which the groups are splitted in two. They all agreed that, from now on, they are going to work more on the speaking skills because there's an oral exam in the "University Entrance Examination" also known as "Selectivitat", so they need to be really prepared in order to pass it. That's why students must improve their speaking skills through pronunciation, dialogues and individual or team presentations, amongst others.
Actually, one teacher told us that he has started an activity related to Halloween for their 2ESO students: he asked them to be storytellers. They are going to have to tell a Halloween story with the vocabulary, the verbs and the expressions learned in class. It seems a pretty funny speaking activity. He then has given us a website about useful Halloween stuff.
Then, we have had a look on the new book that they have bought in order to improve the listening and speaking skills (from 1ESO till 2Batxillerat). It's called "Real Listening and Speaking" and it's written by Sally Logan and Craig Thaine. It's definitely a useful book which deals with pronounciation (that's a really important point, and I think that it should be the first thing that children learn when studing a language), vocabulary, dialogues, presentations, lisetings and so on. Hopefully, we'll have the chance to have a closer look at it and work with it during the next few months.
Finally, the other English teachers have decided to invite Mireia and me to attend some of their lessons as observers this Friday. They've told us that the groups we are going to observe are 1ESO and 2ESO.
I think that it has been really useful to attend this meeting (and the following ones), because it's a good way to start getting familiar with the high school system and filosophy. Besides, it definitely helps you to understand how an English department works.
