My granny!

Today’s activity was prepared for working on reading abilities. Related to families again, I explained them the story –a fictitious one, but at first I told them it was real- about my grandma. I tried to invent it as more bizarre and extravagant I could, to get their attention. And it worked! At first they were asking me questions about my grandma, trying to discover if it was the real story about my grandma or not. When they saw my cousin was Rafa Nadal, they laughed a lot at me, telling me that was a strange story.

When I finished explaining the story –miming a lot for them to understand-, I gave them the different sentences of the PowerPoint –one for each- because I wanted them to work in groups to put sentences in order. I realized that some of them were following the instructions of the sudden leaders that appeared immediately after telling them what to do, but others weren’t paying attention –at least the attention I want them to put on the activity-, so I decided to give them the role of judges, to motivate them. Then, when the complete text was in order, they had to take one sentence again –a different one from what they had at the beginning-. I showed them different questions and they had to answer the questions –working with the whole group-. They had to answer with what they remembered and using the sentence they had –that’s why they had only one sentence, to cooperate with the others: “I don’t know what your sentence is, but I can tell you what mine says”-

I realized that maybe it could be better to work with smaller groups, because it’s difficult for them to coordinate to work altogether if they are thirteen.