02. Session 1

To use language as object of communication to explain what they know about Egypt.

Methodological(Learning to learn)

To apply and assimilate the content to make questions using comparatives and superlatives.

To apply the content and to use thinking and cooperation skills.

Personal(Autonomy, initiative and decision taking)

To develop and to participate in activities actively and with positive attitude.

-To compare its own country and Egypt through specific grammar structures.

-To use the language to make questions and answer them correctly.

-Vocabulary related to Egypt (clothes, weather and culture).

– Grammar structures (Comparatives and Superlatives).

– Adjectives related to measurement, size, and weather, and so on.

-Compare Egypt and its own country by using comparatives and superlatives

-Make and answer question using comparatives and superlatives

-Vocabulary that comes from pupils’ contributions (pharaoh, pyramids, mummies, name of clothes, and so on).

-Adjectives to describe temperature, size, etc. (warm, cold, big, long, large…)

– To present some characteristics about Egypt in order to make the students compare this country with its own country.

-Formulate and answer question to compare both countries using grammar structures.

… is more beautiful than…

… is the biggest…

… is the most beautiful…

Is … bigger than… ?

Is… the smallest… in the…?

As you will see in the following sessions, after greetings, pupils will recite an Egyptian poem, but, in this warm-up activity, students will not recite the poem because they have not learnt the poem yet. At the end of this session (activity three), they will learn the poem, so in the following session they can recite it.

However, after greeting, pupils will know that the class begins because the teacher will start quickly with the first activity development, attracting pupil’s attention.

-Glogster.

http://ebiblemovies.com/watch/the-prince-of-egypt-moses/online-free/

Nevertheless, pupils will only watch some minutes of the beginning of the film, because our final aim is not to watch the complete film, if not we only want to watch some minutes to contextualize pupils into the topic and to start with the activation of their previous knowledge and with initial questions.

It’s important that, before watching the video, the teacher explains to students that after the video they will have to ask questions such as: “What could you see in the video? What are they doing? Where is the country? Which topic do you think we are going to study?”” Asking these questions after the video, pupils will watch it with an objective: finding the answers to these questions.

After watching the video, the teacher will ask again these previous questions and pupils must answer them according to what they could see in the video. At this point, students should know that the new topic that they will work during the sessions of the project work is related to the Ancient Egypt.

Once the teacher has contextualized pupils into the project work topic, the first activity of this session will be used to activate and observe the previous knowledge that students have about Egypt. To do that, the teacher will ask to children: “What do you know about Egypt?” Furthermore, he/she will ask some particular and specific questions to guide students to show, explain and activate their knowledge. She/he will ask questions about specific topics like: “Where is Egypt? What food do they eat? What is the weather like in Egypt? Do they have the same seasons like in Spain, or is the weather different? How are they wearing? What clothes do they use? How do Egyptians write? And, what do you know about their mathematical concepts and number symbols? Does Egypt have famous buildings? Do Egyptians have Gods?” With these questions, the teacher will activate pupil’s previous knowledge related to all the topics that form the whole project work. Students will elicit content and knowledge that in the following sessions they will learn, consolidate and interiorize.

On the other hand, to collect all pupil’s previous knowledge, the teacher will use a glogster, where she/he must pick up the content and the knowledge in the glogster while students are saying and explaining it. Furthermore, the teacher will collect right and wrong knowledge because this glogster will be used for observing and showing to pupils their personal learning and progress at the end of the project work. In the last session, students must develop their own glogster, where they will write the right content and knowledge that they have learnt during the session. After that, they can compare the final glogster with the initial one, checking the wrong knowledge that they had initially and observing their personal learning. On the other hand, when the teacher is collecting and writing the knowledge, she/he can allow pupils to express their ideas using Catalan or Spanish, because at the beginning of the project work they will not know the majority of the words in English. However, in the final glogster they will have to use English vocabulary and grammar structures because they will have learned it during the entire project work sessions.

Apart from contextualizing student in the new topic and activating their previous knowledge, this first activity is also used for attracting pupil’s attention. With this activity the teacher can observe and know what pupil’s interests are, what they want to learn about Egypt and where they want to arrive.

Workgroups (4 students)

-Flags (Annex 2)

To start with, the teacher will show an Earth’s map (Annex 1) and pupils should situate where Egypt is. It is probably that students do not know the answer correctly at the beginning, but through teacher’s questions, pupils must be guided to the right answer. Once students know how to situate Egypt, the teacher will ask some comparatives questions, to allow students to practice with the English language comparing Spain (or another country) with Egypt. If we have pupils from different countries of the world, we can use this diversity comparing their countries with Egypt.

With the questions, pupils will put into practice comparatives and the superlatives structures. For instance, the teacher can ask: “Is Egypt bigger than Spain? Is Egypt larger than Spain? What is the biggest country? What is the largest country? Which country has the longest river? Is Spain colder than Egypt? Is Spain warmer than Egypt? Is Egypt more ancient than Spain? Is Egypt drier than Spain? And so on”.

It is important that the teacher gives to students a little explanation about how to use superlatives and comparatives, explaining how they have to use the grammar structure to form the sentence. Furthermore, if it is necessary, the teacher must also explain the meaning of the different adjectives that they will have to use like big or large.

After making these questions to pupils, the teacher will show different flags and pupils must guess and determine what Egyptian’s flag is (Annex 2). As in the previous activity, the teacher must give clues to guide pupils to the correct answer. Once pupils have guessed what Egyptian’s flag is, they should compare again the Egypt’s flag with others flags, using comparatives, superlatives or other sentences that can be used and that are appropriated.

This first activity with the map and the flag will be carried out with the whole class, because the teacher must introduce content and language to allow pupils to develop the following activity. Furthermore, we can use the following link to obtain ideas or additional activities to practice with Egypt’s map and flag: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/africa/egypt/

In the following activity, students must make groups of 4, and they will have to communicate, speak, interact and practice using the English vocabulary and the grammar structures learnt in the previous activity. This task will consist on: forming groups of 4 students that must be divided into 2 pair of two students each one. Each pair of the group must write in a piece of paper four comparative or superlative questions related to the previous map or flags. Once they have written the questions, each pair of students must ask to the other pair the questions, who have to answer them correctly. Then, the pair of the students who answered must ask to the other students their questions.

Apart from practice speaking skills, students will also practice the writing, because they will have to write both questions and answers in the piece of paper. These papers will be given to the teacher at the end of the session, because they will be an activity to assess pupil’s process and knowledge. Furthermore, the teacher will pass through student’s group works, observing their work, collaboration and participation.

The poem is called “E is for Egypt” by Anise Abdulla, and we have chosen it because it is an Ancient Egypt poem that talks about this specific country. We think that it is a good poem to use in this project work because it explains aspects about Egypt.

To teach the poem, first of all, the teacher must read it completely and introduce it to the students. Secondly, she/he must read each sentence, explaining its meaning, if possible in English. After the teacher, students must repeat each sentence, focusing on pronunciation and intonation. Students must repeat each sentence two or three times, to get familiar with the vocabulary and with the grammar structures. When the teacher observes that pupils are familiar with one sentence, then she/he can introduce another new sentence, until arriving at the end of the poem, where students will recite the whole poem.

Once pupils knew the poem, they can recite it together, introducing facial expressions, new intonations, different rhymes, percussion, movements, gestures, mime and so on. Furthermore, they can recite it using different ways: the whole class, by turns…

To finish with the class, they will listen to a song, where they can sing and make the actions and movements. With the song, pupils know that they have to pick up school material and that after the song the class finishes.

It is not necessary that songs were goodbye songs. Here we have found two examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcws7UWWDEs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEfhM3T4aV0