THE ACIENT EGYPT
1. Introduction
The topic of this project is the Ancient Egypt and it is planned for pupils of Year 5. I chose this topic because I think that it is interesting and motivating for pupils. Furthermore, it is really different from the typical ones like the animals or the solar system.
It is known that in Catalonia, history doesn’t appear in the curriculum before year 5, but children won’t have problems to understand the Egyptian’s way of life. Ancient Egypt was one of the greatest civilizations of the past. The monuments and tombs of their Pharaohs continue to stand intact today, 4,000 years later. This is worthy of being explained and I believe that pupils will enjoy discovering things about the Ancient Egypt.
Along the project work, students will achieve the knowledge by doing different kind of activities that connect different subjects as History, Science, English, and Maths. It will provide to students a wider view of the topic and they will be able to develop a larger range of competences.
All the activities make pupils main actors because they encourage participation and attribute responsibilities to the students. Some of these activities will be individual and in others they will have to work in pairs, in small groups or with the whole group. It is important to work together as a team to promote cooperative learning, solidarity and respect to the other’s opinions and so on.
As teachers, what I want to achieve through this project work is that pupils are able to learn English while they are learning important aspects of such a big civilization too: I want to teach content through language; language through content; basically I want to develop a CLIL methodology.
2. Time-line for the different sessions
This Project is planned to be carried out during 9 sessions of 1 hour each one. So it can be done in one month. However, this time-line can be modified according to pupils’ learning rhythm and students’ needs. Teachers can add or reduce sessions if necessary.
Here there is an example of the distribution:
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| 1st session:What do we know? | 2nd session:What were their seasons? What did they eat? | 3rd session:Who lived in the ancient Egypt? What did they wear? | ||
| 4th session:Let’s discover how Egyptians wrote! | 5th session:What do we know about Egyptians Gods? | 6th session:How did Egyptians count? | ||
| 7th session:Let’s build a pyramid! | 8th session:Let’s remind! | 9th session:How much do I know about the Ancient Egypt? |
3. Competences
Without doing it on purpose, we have developed every single competence within all the activities we have done. This fact can reflect clearly the intention of doing a wide range of different tasks: We did it in order to be able to get to the whole class. As we are aware of the individual differences that exist among learners, we wanted to motivate all of them and not only a few, to foster learning in them all.
Although we considered all the competences, we focused more on some of them.
The linguistic and audiovisual is probably the most important due to the necessity of a good communication during the project. Pupils will have to understand what they are being taught in another language. They will also have to be able to speak and communicate with their partners and the teacher in order to do the activities correctly.
And finally, we also want to mention the personal, social and civic competence. It is the one related with our topic: the Ancient Egypt. We want our pupils to learn English through History. And we know that the point is not only learning new things about the Ancient Egypt but also to practice and learn how to use the language. However, we need them to be sensitive enough to understand the way they lived, what they ate, their religion and so on.
4. Contents
Language:
- Vocabulary related to Egypt (clothes, weather and culture).
- Grammar structures (comparatives and superlatives).
- Personal description.
- Egyptians gods’ description
- Pronunciation of typical Egypt clothing.
- Pyramid related vocabulary.
Social science:
- Egypt characteristics
- The three different seasons.
- Egyptians’ food.
- Hieroglyphs history, meaning and use.
- Egyptian’s writing.
- Egyptians’ gods.
- The different groups of people of the ancient Egyptian society and what they did.
- Typical Egypt clothing.
- Pyramids history, meaning and use.
- Egyptian culture.
Maths:
- The different hieroglyphics that represent each number.
- Mathematical expressions.
- Sums and Word.
New technologies:
- Main characteristics of Glogster (to insert text, pictures, videos and sounds)
5. Aims
- To be able to explain orally the knowledge they have about Egypt.
- To compare its own country and Egypt through specific grammar structures.
- To use the language to make questions and answer them correctly.
- To understand the different seasons that Egyptians had.
- To know the food that Egyptians ate.
- To practice asking and answering questions.
- To understand the structure of the Ancient Egyptian society.
- To know how they got dressed.
- To learn how Egyptians wrote and how to use them.
- To practice and learn English language using hieroglyphs.
- To discover how Egyptians Gods were decoding hieroglyphs.
- To comprehend descriptions (reading and listening) related to Egyptians gods.
- To understand the structure of the Egyptian Counting.
- To resolve word problems in pairs.
- To learn how Egyptians built pyramids.
- To use the language learn and learn new language in order to solve a problem.
- To summarize all the content learnt in a Glogster.
- To review all the contents they have learnt
6. Assessment
In order to assess the students’ learning, the teacher is going to carry out a continued assessment, where he will assess the behavior, the participation and the acquisition of the objectives of each session.
In order to revise every session the each student’s grade of acquisition of the objectives marked before, teacher is going to use the rubric of the Annex 23, which is going to be completed by observing the work in class. The teacher is also going to have taken account the assessment criteria showed before in each session to determine if students are able to do what they are supposed to do.
Moreover, he is going to revise and evaluate all the productions that students are going to do, as worksheets and specially the Glogster. It is going to be the final product of the project work; in the Glogster students are going to show to the rest of the world what they have learnt along the unit and the teacher has to check if there are all the most important content they have learnt and if they use the vocabulary and the grammar structures used in class.
7.Bibliography& Webgraphy
- Mandy Barrow. Ancient Egypt. http://www.chiddingstone.kent.sch.uk/homework/Egypt.html
- Katrina Lybbert and Aja Shoup. An Egyptian week. http://www.letteroftheweek.com/egypt.html
- Yurgen Ilaender. Egyptian poems & songs. http://www.mrichildrensmusic.com/cds_ancient%20egypt.htm
- Student Recruitment, Admissions and International Development Division at The University of Manchester. About History: Ancient Egypt. http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/history/?swfpath=history/egypt/hieroglyphs.swf
- Mark Millmore. Ancient Egypt hieroglyphic writing. http://www.eyelid.co.uk/hiromenu.htm
- Javier Gómez. Los jeroglíficos egípcios. http://sobreegipto.com/2008/03/02/los-jeroglificos-egipcios/
- Antonio Liriano. Los jeroglíficos egípcios. http://lirianoantonio.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/los-jeroglificos-egipcios.html
8. Example of a session
| TITLE: The Ancient Egypt TERM: 2nd Term SESSIONS: 9-10 sessions AGE: Year 5 |
| AIMS |
To discover, understand and explain the main facts of the ancient Egypt culture.
| CONTRIBUTION TO COMPETENCES: |
Although almost all the competences are included along the project, these two are the once you can constantly find along the Unit.The linguistic and audiovisual is probably the most important due to the necessity of a good communication during the project. Pupils will have to understand what they are being taught in another language. They will also have to be able to speak and communicate with their partners and the teacher in order to do the activities correctly.The personal, social and civic competence. Pupils will learn English through History. Students have to be sensitive enough to understand the way they lived, what they ate, their religion and so on.
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LEARNING OUTCOMES (STUDENTS WILL)
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| COGNITION |
- Predicting information
- Making comparisons between their country and the Ancient Egypt, between the Gods, etc.
- Making hypothesis while building the pyramid.
- Developing ideas.
- Interpret the hieroglyphics in order to solve problems and discover new facts.
CONTENT
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| COMMUNICATION (LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS) |
| LANGUAGE OF LEARNINGYou can find it in the grid of each session. As an example I will write down the session 4:Key vocabulary: Egyptian clothes such as wig, dress, sandals, bracelets, necklace, headband… Egyptian culture such as ride a camel, pyramids…
Key structures: She/he is wearing… – She/he has got… –There is/are… |
LANGUAGE FOR LEARNINGYou can find it in the grid of each session. As an example I will write down the session 4:
Functions:Expressing opinions and thoughts.Making descriptionsWhat can you see? I can see… – I think this symbol match with the letter… – What is the hidden message? I think that the hidden message is… – What is the correct picture? I think it is… |
LANGUAGE THROUGH LEARNINGYou can find it in the grid of each session. As an example I will write down the session 4:-Language needed to express previous knowledge and to discuss hieroglyphs decoding.-Language coming across when making descriptions or deciphering the hieroglyphics. |
| CULTURE / CITIZENSHIPTo understand the Egyptian culture and why it was one of the most important civilizations in the past.Notice the differences between their own culture and the Egyptian culture. |
ASSESSMENT CRITERIACan the students…?Example session 5.
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