We should admit that whenever we have dinner together, creativity is one more guest at our table. This time, we had help from 4 Santa little Helpers. Our own children had the original idea of a play during Xmas and the rest is history...

In Torre del Palau, the Foreign Language department believe that culture and literature are great sources of material to deal with languages in class. Moreover, who is going to talk about Shakespeare, Dikens or Moliere if we don't? Every Summer, our students have an interesting homework. 1st BTX students need to read The Xmas Pig, by JK Rowling. The original final product is a booktube they have to record based on that novel, so we took it as a starting point of our Christmas project. Batxillerat students also create a story in the shape of a book about it and also rehearse its Christmas play for a very demanding target audience: children who are just 4 and 5-year-old, all students from Sant Jordi school in Mollet del Vallès.

But there are other objectives in mind when dealing with this story, the SDGs. There are several that are present throught the tale:

SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production

SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

SDG 16 - Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions: The project promotes values such as collaboration, understanding, and creativity, which are essential for building a more just and peaceful society.

However, there are two more that both 12th Graders and infant students promote while involved in "Keep up the Xmas Magic":

SDG 9: Technology and Content Creation: The use of artificial intelligence and other new technologies for educational content creation (such as the illustrated story) is a clear example of how the project aligns with SDG 9. This integration of technology promotes innovation in education.

SDG 4 (Quality Education): Through reading the book "The Xmas Pig," creating content like Booktubes, performing in a play, and producing an illustrated story, students are immersed in a practical, engaging, and meaningful learning experience. Infant students have the oportnity to attend to a theatre play related to the vocabulary and language content relevant for the syllaubus in class.

If you want to know more, we suggest you to check our Red tape section.

Sounds like a bit challenge right? It was, indeed! but their reaction and way of working has been so extraordinary and surpassing that we thought it was worthy to share this simple, yet powerful teaching experience with he rest of World! And even present it as a candidate for the well-known APAC awards 2023, category B. 

At the beginning of the 2nd BTX course, our students learn about the main 2nd BTX project dealing with the book, a booktube, which is part of their speaking final 1st term grade.

Artistic and Escènic BTX students also receive the following video recorded by Maria, the English teacher from the infant education groups  in which she asks them for some help!

It was an excellent way to spice up the project from the beginning and engage Batxillerat students in doing something for a real audience.

After talking to our helpers, Maria and I decided to create a play. We used the AI (ChatGPT) to help us create the play. We did so, not because we were bored to do it ourselves, but we wanted to start experiementing in first hand how we could start embracing Artificial intelligence in our English lessons. Moreover, this is exactly what Maria is also researching for her PHD. 

The AI invented the plot of the story. What we did was to get the summary provided by Wikipedia and asked the AI to make a short story for kids and a play, afterwards. 

Furthermore, Àlex asked the AI to provide with some use of English mistakes (B2-C1 level) 2nd of BTX students could find in the text while reading it for the first time. Their main task was to correct the mistakes and provide with feedback to improve the play they were going to represent in front fo the infant education children in December. 

Here you have the play with the mistakes provided.

In the end, the play was given the green light and 2nd BTX artistic and escènic students had to 3  rellevant jobs to do:

• A story for the kids (artístic / escènics) to be printed and used by the infant education teacher in order to prepare the vocabulary and the play beforehand.

• Illustration for the story (artístics) that supports as scaffolding fo the above story.

• Representation of the play (escènics) in which finally, in December students from Batxillerat visit the infant education children at their school. 

productsproductsHereHere you have the 1st final product related to the story in question: Tales for 4 and 5 year old students.

2nd of BTX learners got the play and uploaded it in the AI app. Some chose Chatgpt, other Bing and others Claude2.

Surprisingly, or not, none of the groups were satisfied with the result. The teachers already knew it, we had tried it first. However, they got the text provided as a base for their final products. It's been an enriching experiment to directly assess the effectiveness of artificial intelligence in their foreign language learning, sparking insightful discussions in class about its merits and drawbacks. This experience has opened up a significant space for reflection on both the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing AI in education. 

Here you have a checklist of what was being taken into consideration when assessing their stories. The students engaged in a collaborative process, conducting peer assessments of their classmates while also self-assessing their own work. 

Here you have the final products with the ebooks of the story. Below you can see some examples. We hope you enjoy them! 

Batxillerat students have sent many different digital versions of the same tale in order to prepare young students for the theatre play in December. 

Some of them are quite difficult but with support from their teacher they end up understanding what is going on and its sweet ending.

The main source of material is The Xmas Pig, a novel written by JK Rowling. Students read it during summer, as it has already been explained in step 1. All 2nd BTX students deal with this book and we usually have to create a Booktube, which is the source of a speaking grade at the end of their 1st term. However, this year, we also did everything we describe in this website.

In order to make a booktube, Batxillerat students are given some scaffolding and examples:

Booktube scaffolding -Learn all about this task with Wizer.me

Example provided by the teacher in order to serve as a "good model"

Do you want to see some of their Booktubes? Our student's booktubes

Here you can also find the rubric teachers in Torre del Palau use to assess and provide feedback for this activity. Hope you find it useful!