Yeiza

About Yeiza

I'm an English teacher. Currently, I'm teaching at IES Mª Inmaculada in Mairena del Alcor.

Posts by Yeiza Esther Fumero Martín:

Listening image

Tips and Resources to Boost Your English Listening Skills

In this post I include some useful resources and tips to help you improve your listening skills in English.  Improving listening skills can be fun and rewarding, especially with the right resources and practices. Here are some websites and strategies to help you get better at understanding spoken English:

1. Practice with Engaging Content:

  • BBC Learning English: This website offers a variety of listening exercises, including short clips on current events, grammar lessons, and vocabulary. The different accents and everyday language can be very helpful.
  • Elllo.org: The English Listening Lesson Library Online offers thousands of listening exercises covering different accents, themes, and topics, all for free.
  • Voice of America – Learning English: VOICE OF AMERICA provides news stories and feature programs in slow, clear English, perfect for improving your listening. This resource is especially good for beginner to intermediate students.
  • YouTube Channels: (there are a lot, you can search for the best for you)
    • English Addict with Mr. Duncan: This popular channel offers entertaining English lessons focused on real-life situations.
    • Rachel’s English: Ideal for pronunciation and comprehension, this channel helps you get familiar with American English in everyday contexts.
  • Listen a Minute: This site provides one-minute audio recordings on various topics, with transcripts and vocabulary support, making it perfect for short, focused practice sessions.
  • ESL Lab: This site has a wide range of listening quizzes from easy to difficult levels, covering everyday situations, which is ideal for practicing real-world English.
  • TED Talks: TED Talks provide interesting topics with transcripts available to follow along, which can improve both vocabulary and listening comprehension.

2. Tips for Active Listening Practice:

  • Watch with and without subtitles: Start by watching videos with subtitles, then rewatch without them. This helps you rely more on your ears than your eyes.  I advise you to start with short cartoons or series and then change to long documentaries or films.
  • Use Podcasts: Listen to English podcasts that match your interests. Try ESL Pod or The English We Speak from BBC: Learn British English phrases and idioms in short episodes.
  • Dictation exercises: Listen to short audio clips and try to write down what you hear. Compare your notes with a transcript if available, to see what you might have missed.

3. Strategies for Daily Practice:

  • Set Goals: Aim to listen to English for at least 10-15 minutes each day, gradually increasing the time. Consistency is key!
  • Shadowing: Repeat what you hear right after listening to a phrase. This helps with pronunciation, rhythm, and comprehension.
  • Create a Listening Journal: Write down phrases, new vocabulary, and even what the main ideas were from what you listened to.

Trying out these resources and tips regularly will improve your listening skills.  These free resources and techniques can help you strengthen your listening skills in fun, manageable ways. Start practicing today, and you’ll notice improvements soon!

Grammar image

Past perfect

In this post, you will find some information and activities to practice PAST PERFECT TENSE.

It’s time to practice…

Grammar post

There is/are/was/were + Articles and Quantifiers

, , , , , , , ,

 

“There is” and “There are” mean “hay” but… What’s the difference between them? Here you have a video to learn the difference.

You can see the theory in the following link: There is / There are / There was / There were + Articles and Quantifiers theory

**All exercises are included on agendaweb.org

Teacher image

LET’S KNOW OUR RELATIVES

LET'S KNOW OUR RELATIVES

Centre of interest: Biography (meeting people).

Level:

3ºD

Date: 3rd-17th February (2nd term).

Final Task: Flipbook of a relative’s biography.

Contextualization

My secondary school is placed in a working and humble neighbourhood, made up of a variety of  families of different sociocultural and socioeconomic levels. This requires the school to adapt its educational response.  3rd CSE-D is a mixed ability group, and it is quite heterogeneous because we can find different learning rhythms and motivation.  Some of the students roughly fall within the category of “basic users” of English, according to the CEFR.  There are four students who repeat the course and a student with ADHD.

Justification/Objectives

In the second term, the learning framework relates to past events.  Working on the past allows students to explore the lives of people who belong to their families and have made a difference in the world. It can also help students to develop their research, writing, and critical thinking skills, as well as their creativity, imagination, feelings and emotions.  Through this unit, they can discover new aspects of their families, express their socio-affective relations, and share their knowledge with others. 

 

The main goal is that students learn how to write a biography. In doing so, they are able to:

  • explore history, culture, and more through an individual’s achievements and experiences (stage objectives ‘c, j’).

  • find inspiration in stories of people overcoming challenges and contributing to the world (stage objective ‘a’).

  • practise expository writing and revise the use and form of the past tense (stage obj. ‘i’).

  • organise information chronologically and coherently for an engaging final presentation (stage objective ‘l’).

Description of the Final Task

The final task consists of writing a biography about one of the students’ relatives, making a flipbook and presenting it to the rest of the class.

Curricular elements

SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 1. Understand the general meaning and the most relevant details of oral, written and multimodal texts to respond to concrete communicative needs. Stage Obj.: e-l. Descriptors: CLC2, CLC3, MC1, MC2, STEM1, DC1, PSLLC5, CCAE2

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 1.1. Extract and analyse the global meaning and the main ideas from oral, written and multimodal texts on everyday issues.

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE) 

LEX.3.A.2. Basic strategies to understand oral, written and multimodal texts, and techniques to extract the main and secondary ideas.

LEX.3.A.5. Recognition of the context, organisation and structuring according to genre, textual function and structure.

LEX.3.A.7. Vocabulary of common use and of interest to students daily life: family, jobs and professions, verbs, etc.

SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 2. Produce oral, written and multimodal texts, searching in reliable sources and using planning strategies to express in a creative and coherent way. Stage Obj.: b, d-l. Descriptors: CLC1, MC1, MC2, STEM1, DC2, PSLLC5, EC1, CCAE3

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 2.1. Express orally medium extension texts, structured and appropriate to the communicative situation on personal relevance, to explain and describe in different supports and gradually autonomous.

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)

LEX.3.A.4. Commonly used communicative functions: introduce oneself, describe people, narrate past events, paraphrase and summarise.

LEX.3.A.6. Linguistic units of meanings associated with the expression of space and spatial relations, time and temporal relations, affirmation, denial and logical relations.

LEX.3.A.7. See above.

LEX.3.A.8. Commonly used sound, accent, rhythmic and intonation patterns.

SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 3. Interact with others orally and written with growing autonomy, using cooperation strategies to respond to concrete communicative purposes using respect and courtesy standards. Stage Obj.: a-k.  Descriptors: CCL5, CP1, CP2, CPSAA3, CC3

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 3.1. Plan and collaborate actively, through different supports, in interactive situations, on daily issues close to their experience, adapting to different genres, showing initiative, empathy and respect for linguistic courtesy, as well as for the different ideas, concerns and motivations of the interlocutors, determining responsible communication

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)

LEX.3.A.8. See above.

LEX.3.B.1. Strategies and techniques to respond effectively and with increasing levels of fluency, adequacy and correctness to a specific communicative need despite the limitations derived from the level of competence in the foreign language and in the other languages of one’s linguistic repertoire

SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 4. Mediate in everyday situations using simple strategies and knowledge aimed at explaining or simplifying messages, to transmit information efficiently, clearly and responsibly. Stage Obj.: a-l.  Descriptors: CCL5, CP1, CP2, CP3, CPSAA1, PSLLC3, CCEC1.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 4.1. Infer, analyse and explain brief and simple texts and messages, showing respect and empathy for the interlocutors, relying on various resources.

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)

LEX.3.A.1. Self-confidence and initiative. Error as an integral part of the learning process and an instrument for improvement. Respect for intellectual property and copyright on the sources consulted.

LEX.3.A.3. Knowledge, skills and attitudes that allow carrying out mediation activities in everyday situations.

LEX.3.C.1. The foreign language as a source of information and as a tool for social participation and personal enrichment.

SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 5. Expand and use personal linguistic repertoires between different languages, analysing and reflecting on their similarities and differences to improve the response to specific communicative needs. Stage Obj.: b, d-i, k  Descriptors: CP2, PSLLC1, CPSAA5, CD2

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 

5.2. Creatively use strategies and knowledge to improve the ability to communicate and learn the foreign language, in real situations with support from other participants and analog and digital tools adapted to an intermediate level of complexity for oral and written co-production.

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)

LEX.3.B.1. Strategies and techniques to respond effectively and with increasing levels of fluency, adequacy and correctness to a specific communicative need.

LEX.3.B.2. Commonly used strategies to identify, organise, retain, recover and creatively use linguistic units, lexicon, morphosyntax, sound patterns, orthographic, based on the comparison of the languages.

5.3. Register and analyse the progress and learning of foreign languages by selecting the most effective strategies to overcome the difficulties and consolidate their learning, carrying out self-assessment activities.

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)

LEX.3.A.1. See above.

LEX.3.B.3. Commonly used strategies and tools for self-assessment, co-assessment and self-repair, analog and digital, individual and cooperative.

SPECIFIC COMPETENCY 6. Value critically and adapt to linguistic, cultural and artistic diversity, identifying similarities/differences between languages and cultures, to act empathically and respectfully in intercultural situations. Stage Obj.: a-d, f-l.  Descriptors: CCL5, CP3, PSLLC1, CC3, CCEC1.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 6.1. Act adequately, empathically and respectfully in common intercultural situations, building links between different languages, rejecting any type of discrimination, prejudice and stereotype in daily communicative contexts.

CONTENTS (BASIC KNOWLEDGE)

LEX.3.C.3. Cultural patterns of the foreign language and sociocultural and sociolinguistic aspects of common use related to daily life, living conditions and interpersonal relationships.

LEX.3.C.4. Commonly used social conventions; non-verbal language, linguistic courtesy and digital etiquette; culture, customs and values of countries where the FL is spoken.

Methodology

Based on the Decree 102/2023. Art.6. Pedagogical principles, this unit follows a project-based learning (PBL) method together with learning stations and flipped classroom.  It helps students develop skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication, as well as deep content knowledge. Regarding a biography as a non-fiction text that tells the story of someone’s life, highlighting their achievements, challenges, and experiences, involves students in research, reflection and, at the same time, dealing with Sustainable Development Goals, by sharing knowledge about influential individuals and gender equality (4/5) and with the Andalusia’s culture as a cross-curricular topic.  This unit is directly related to other linguistic subjects (Spanish and French), art, in which students will design and draw their relatives’ portraits to make the flipbook and ICT, since students will develop the activity in google slides.

Lessons Sequence

All lessons include a warm-up activity (think outside the box, tongue-twister, word-ladder, brain teaser.  Regarding the grouping, students will work individually on learning stations.  As far as resources are concerned students will use their notebook, oral and written texts, worksheets and their flipbook.  As a final task, after every lesson, students will complete their learning logs.


The lessons/activities students will do in this teaching unit/learning situation are the following:

1

Initial assessment and working with vocabulary related to family, verbs, etc. Memory game, crossword and wordsearch, fill-in-the-blanks… + Google classroom (flipitty cards) for revision.   + Flipped classroom.

2

Read about what a biography is and how it is structured + apart from analysing the different information included in the text. Grammatical aspects: past simple liveworksheets and story cubes.

3

Listen to different videos dealing with biographies and answer some questions about them, paying attention to the different elements included in a biography:

Video-Audio Material

HOMEWORK: Watch a video about Writing a biography. (flipped classroom).

4

Reading comprehension about Marie Curie. Read a text about a biography and analyse the linguistic aspects such as: verb tenses and the vocabulary used and the structure of the text.

5

Answer a questionnaire: choose one of your relatives to write about their life. Research about the person’s life using reliable sources.  Contrast: past and present (plickers).

6

Create a timeline of the main events of the person’s life (Canva). Ask and investigate: How did this person contribute to the world? What were the main obstacles they faced? How did they overcome them? What can we learn from their life?

7

Write a draft, using the timeline as a guide. Write in the third person and in the past tense objectively. Start making your flipbook (google slides).  Revise and edit your biography, checking for accuracy, clarity, and coherence.

8-9

Present each biography. Use your flipbook to showcase your work. Reflect on your learning process and your final product: what you learned, what you enjoyed, what you found difficult, and what you would do differently next time… + co-evaluation time (coRubrics).

Attention to diversity and UDL guidelines

My students show different capacities to learn, activities with different degrees of complexity are designed to fulfil the learning objectives, varying the types of activities (learning stations) to suit my students’ multisensory modalities, following the basic UDL guidelines: 

  • Action and expression: provide meaningful ways that learners can present their projects.

  • Representation: make dictionaries available, highlight patterns, clarify vocabulary with pictograms, customise perception by posting charts so that all students can view them.

  • Engagement: provide feedback and self-assessment tools, promote expectations and beliefs that optimise motivation, and foster collaboration and community.  

My ADHD student will work as the rest of her classmates, but she will have a guide with the steps to follow, like a checklist and the different steps will be always visible in the IWB, to know the step they are in every moment, favouring the concentration in class.  

Reinforcement and Extension activities are available in google classroom to overcome any learning necessity, either the general group or the 4 students who repeat the course.

Assessment and instruments of evaluation

The evaluation of this unit and the final task will be carried out through a rubric, which will take into account the different assessment criteria mentioned above.  It will measure the students’ progress and achievement with some indicators of success for each criteria.

Initial assessment consists of discussing what students already know about biographies. defining the term “biography” and discussing its purpose by highlighting key elements such as factual information, achievements, and the significance of the person’s life.

Self-assessment strategies are used to help my students reflect on their own work during the project-based learning process. They write a learning log after each lesson in order to reflect on their own progress and identify their strengths/weaknesses. Co-evaluation will take place during the presentation when students value one another through the app CoRubrics.

Assessment of the teaching process and materials/resources.  It will also be evaluated by keeping a record.  The teacher reflects on the degree of attainment of the specific competency and the assessment criteria, and takes note of any difficulties concerning any particular point, by using a google form.  On the other hand, the suitability and interest of materials and resources will be evaluated as well.  As for the activities, it will be valued to what extent they were appropriate, interesting, attractive and engaging for the students.

EXTRA PRACTICE ON PAST TENSE

Click on this link to visit another post of this blog related to Past Simple.

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