Let's be dinoexplorers!

By Carla Brau, Marta López, Júlia Ribas and Judith Parra

LET'S BE DINOEXPLORERS!

CONTEXTUALIZATION

This activity is planned to be implemented in the 4th grade. It is important to highlight that students' have been working on an interdisciplinary project (English, and Science) about dinosaurs, specifically, in the foreign language of English and they have been working on adjectives, so that thye have prior knowledge on this linguistic area.

The competences students will develop, and that have been chosen from the Primary Education Curriculum of Catalonia, foreign language area, will be: 

• • Competència 1. “Obtenir informació bàsica i comprendre textos orals senzills o adaptats de la vida quotidiana, dels mitjans de comunicació i de l’àmbit escolar.”

  • Competència 3. “Interactuar oralment d’acord amb la situació comunicativa utilitzant estratègies conversacionals bàsiques.”

In order to carry the activity out we will use a free app about augmented reality that is available for everyone. To implement this activity at school, we would have downloaded the app on all tablets previously to start the activity, so that students have it ready to use. 

This activity is designed to be implemented in two sessions, to ensure that students learn the vocabulary and they do not just recieve an input of information without sense, but the activity showed include both sessions' learning.  

IMPORTANT FEATURES

• Target group: 4th grade

• Competences worked on, from the Catalan's Curriculum (Foreign Language area):

  • Competència 1. Obtenir informació bàsica i comprendre textos orals senzills o adaptats de la vida quotidiana, dels mitjans de comunicació i de l’àmbit escolar.

  • Competència 3. Interactuar oralment d’acord amb la situació comunicativa utilitzant estratègies conversacionals bàsiques.

• Pre-task language scaffolding

Teaching of basic vocabulary, consisting on adjectives to describe, concretely, dinosaurs (that is the contextualization of the activity).

• During scaffolding

Once students have had the opportunity to practise the basic vocabulary on adjectives, more advanced vocabulary will be introduced,  so as to amplify their linguistic repertorie. Moreover, they will learn how to use those adjectives creating an oral sentence. So, during, the sentence structure will be also worked (adjective + noun).

• Post-task language scaffolding

Once students have practised those sentences orally using the advanced vocabulary, we will focus on its spelling.

ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION

Before using the app, we need to know how to get to the activity planned, so we explain the three steps we need. On the last one we need to say that every group will choose one different dinosaur for these to be different. So, we will let them time to familiarize with the app and choose a dinosaur.

Then, the adjectives will be introduced, and accompained by gestures. With this, we ensure studenst understand the meaning of each word.

Then, we will introduce the phrases students should use to put the adjectives into context and use them to describe their dinosaur. Those sentences represent the CALPs.

The, the advanced vocabulary will be introduced. This will be read and mimic in a more dramatic way (faster, bigger movements…). This would happen in the second session of the activity, because we would ensure students have enough time to practise the structures explained above.

Then, we would provide feedback on how we correctly spell the words of the more advanced vocabulary. Then, the pairs need to exchange their phrases with the vocabulary, and the other pair need to draw a dinosaur accordingly. Then, they change roles. This will allow them to use the vocabulary and, moreover, it will be an evaluation of th elearning made, because students will need to be able to understand the other pair's sentences so as to draw the dinosaur they are describing.