COOPERATIVE LEARNING AND THINKING SKILLS IN THE ENGLISH CLASS

  WHAT'S POLLY GOT? This cooperative learning activity helps pupils become actively engaged in their learning process and improve their understanding of the content ‘has got’. It promotes achievement, enhances retention, increases motivation, develops social skills, and builds self-esteem. Each member of the team is responsible for their own learning also for helping their teammates learn. Students work together to help one another learn. I have this strategy that can be done to help learning a grammar concept without the ‘grammar googles’ ..... Blanca Rosa González Martínez

 El Camino Olvidado I have been trying to use Cooperative techniques in my English classroom for some time now and even in the pandemic time we tried to do it keeping the distancing rules. It is true that, as Cristina pointed out, cooperative learning should be part of every lesson but it is not always easy, nevertheless, I tried to do my best under the circumstances and the class context. We have started a project for this second term and in order to be carried out, we are going to put into practice the Aronson puzzle or Jigsaw technique.Let me explain what my third of CSE students are doing. They have to work on El Camino Olvidado, since it is one of the St James´ways that goes along our village. The main objective is to enhance the cultural and natural heritage of this route; for this reason, the learning products will be uploaded on a padlet inserted on our school webpage. Let me tell you the procedures: I have split the project into four subtopics; in this way, we can divi

  This is a cooperative activity that I like to do at the end of the first term. I relate the activity to Christmas. Agrupation: The whole group. In Physical Education classes is important to keep some of the roles we normally have in the class , that is : • the role of “ Helper of the day” who is in charge of organising and supervising the materials we are using that day. • The role of “ Coordinator” who is doing the warm up and organises the teams making sure they respect the different turns when doing the activities. In this co-operative activity we also need three more roles: • Supervisor or Focus Keeper: this person makes sure that everybody “is doing What he/she is supposed to do”: they all move when is required, they are all wearing sporty clothes,they all do the warm up… • Quiet captain:this person makes sure the rest of the students are using quiet voices. • Recorder: the one in charge of recording ideas. The cooperative technique is FEEL,

  C'est quoi de Daniel Alonso Palacio This activity is for my students of French it is easy to adapt to the 4 levels of ESO. In this instance it will be carried out by the students of 3ºESO. In the month of March we are visiting the "Imagine Picasso" expo in Madrid. We will work on Cubism in the first part of the activity and complete the second part after the trip. We will use the pens in the middle and round robin techniques in groups of 5 people. The grouping will be done by the teacher trying to mix abilities and levels. The roles are up to the different groups to show how capable they are of organising themselves efficiently.

  One of the activities that children enjoy the most is two truths and a lie. It is an excellent way to review content. As an example, I would do it with a topic related to animals, as the five kingdoms. I would divide the class into 5 different groups, using flashcards with animals. I will give each student one card and they have to find their groupmates according to their kingdom. (The card includes the picture and the role) Then, in each group, there will be four roles: group manager who organices the group and checks the activity development, the writer, who takes notes and writes on the board, the speaker and the mediator, who helps in the group decisions and is, at the same time, the material manager. Each team has to write two truths and a lie related to the characteristics of the animals and write them in a piece of paper. Using turns, the writer will write the three sentences on the board and the speaker will read them aloud. The rest of the groups have to guess what is the l

  PACK YOUR BAGS AND GETTING THERE. This activity would be suitable for students in 3º and 4º ESO for about 2/3 sessions. Students will learn and work with vocabulary related to travelling and planning, clothes and accessories; they will work with grammar related to future tenses. They will be divided into 4/5 groups of 3 or 4 students and each group will have a different task and in each group there will be a leader or manager and a secretary, but all of them will be resource collectors. They have to create a plan for a two-three-days trip (the whole group will decide where they want to go to. • One group will be in charge of packing their bags. • Another group will be in charge of booking their flights. • Another group will be in charge of booking a hotel or looking for an accommodation. • Another group will be in charge of planning which activities they are going to do there. • *Another group will be in charge of finding pictures or videos of e

  ROUND ROBIN This cooperative structure consists of working without speaking in which the students have a sheet and they have to communicate through it, so this is a silent activity. In addition, during the activity they must check and correct what their classmates have done as they go rounding the paper. The activity I have designed will be done by the students of 5th grade of Primary School in the English class where they are working with the present perfect tense, so they have to create a story using this tense. Besides, they have to use storyteller dices and they can use at least five pictures of them. In that way, they will have to write the story using these vocabulary words and tense. In case they need to talk among them, they will write on the paper so that they can share many different ideas. They will have all the session to do the activity and there is no limit in rounding the sheet to do the activity. Related to the grouping, the group will be composed by four students

  We were dealing with body systems in third grade so we made three groups of five members and two groups of four to develop the activity. They were mixed-ability groups decided by the teacher according to their level of spoken english and their capacity to work autonomously. They were thought previously, but the students got a colour sheet on their table when they came into the class so the grouping looked out of luck. Roles. Bob the builder. It's responsible of making a list with the things they need and give it to the teacher. Nick the watcher. It's responsible of keeping everybody focused on work. Molly the timer. It's responsible of letting the teacher know how are they doing,things they they still need to be done. The activity consists on searching for information about a body system and explaining It to the class by using an experiment,drawing the parts in a poster or another idea they can think of. There is a brief previous explanation of each System as a whole g

  When we start a new game or sport I prefer not to explain the directions. First, I ask them for doing groups. For example, I have a class in 4º ESO with 9 students. They have to do groups of three persons. In each group, the students are going to become “experts” on a specific part of the rules: the goal of the game/sport and how to score points/goals, the pitch and the equipment and general rules: what is allowed/forbidden. Then, the experts of each part must join in a new group where they are going to learn about their topic. I give them notes and youtube video links to learn about it. After 5 minutes, they have to come back to the starting group and share their knowledge with the rest of the classmates. At the end of the activity every group will be known the rules of the game/sport and they will be ready to play. This strategy offers a way to help students understand and retain information while they develop their collaboration skills.

  INVENT A STORY It is aimed at students in year 4 of Primary Education. It will be carried out in two sessions ranging from 40 to 60 minutes each session in the second term. The objective to be achieved in this story are: To identify and different vocabulary and grammar . - To exchange information to describe and identify animals. - To interact with other using the English language. Form groups: the class will be arranged in groups of 4. Students have cards with different numbers and students have the same numbers form groups. These groups are homogeneous teams. Distribution of roles: Quiet captain: using a quiet work. Recorder: recorder ideas. Gate keeper: equalizing participation . Checker: undestanding. Reflector: refecting grouping progress. In each group , Students have to write a story related to the grammar and vocabulary they have studied. The story have to start : Once upon a time. They have to include these conectors such as: first, second, finally, then .

  Cristina de Vega's Presentation

Click on the picture to watch the task.  What's wrong with this picture? Susana Tapia