The true story of Snowhite!

Which is the true story of Snowhite?

All of us know the Disney’s adaptation of this film, but… It really was like this?

The Grimm brothers version, tells the story in a violent way. In it, the queen tried to kill Snowhite three times, instead of only one.

In the first one, the queen tried to hang her with a tie, however, the dwarfs arrived on time and took the tie away. Within minutes, Snowhite regained her awareness.

The second time, the queen sold her a poisoned comb. The queen put it on Snowhite’ hair, and she fainted. Once again the dwarfs took out the poisoned comb from her hair. Snowhite had only a small injury, so she was saved.

The apple arrived in the third attempt. From here, the story is similar to the Disney’ one. The dwarfs thought Snowhite died, and they build a glass ferret to observe her until the prince arrived. When it happened, the prince fell completely in love with her, and he asked for permission to take her to his castle, and the dwarfs accepted. Thanks to the movement during the castle’s road, the piece of apple went out from her mouth, and Snowhite woke up. The prince wanted to marry with her, and she accepted; so the wedding’s setout started.

Meanwhile, the queen asked the magic mirror who was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. The mirror answered, that the most beautiful woman was the future queen, but without revealing  that the girl was Snowhite. When the queen listened to it, she got very angry, but she didn’t know who could be that woman.

Shortly after, the queen received a royal wedding’s invitation. In the ceremony, Snowhite recognize her, and she told the story to her husband. When the prince listened to it, he ordered to punish her. A pair of iron shoes was created for her. They were heated red hot, and the queen was ordered to danced with them until she died.

 

As we saw in class, Disney’ stories are adapted those versions to children. However, the Grimm’s versions are very violent. This is a good resource to work in class with the students. In this way, we are working the literature, and children learn the different versions of a tale they already know. Moreover, we can link the different stories with the alternative endings the student’s propose.

On the other hand, we can tell the Grimm’ versions to the students of the third cycle of primary, and they could promote and develop the communicative skills comparing the story they just learned with the one they already know. =)

Theatre in class =)

In the third seminar with Raquel, we did an activity which consisted on reading some sentences with the right intonation and enthusiasm. At the beginning we did it really bad, but trying it for some times, we improved.

The intonation we give to sentences when we are telling something is very important, not to be monotonous. We have to take into account this when we are acting or doing a piece of theatre.

In my opinion, working with children the intonation, and practicing a theatre, is an excellent resource we can use in order to promote their socialization and they are going to improve their reading skills using correctly the punctuation signals. Acting in front of their classmates will help them to lose their shame. Moreover, if they try and try to memorize a piece of text, they will develop their memory too.

In conclusion, it is a good way for children to enjoy and learn at the same time!

SONGS IN CLASS

What do you think about working in class with the lyrics of a song, and even with the song?

When we find a song that we like, we listen to it a lot of times, and without realizing we start to learn its lyrics; but, what happens when it is in a different language? In my case, I search the lyrics on the Internet and I use to read it while I am listening to the song.By reading the lyrics, I can understand better the song’s sense, and I am also improving my listening skills.

Nowadays, there exist a lot of songs that we can use in a class in order to improve the student’s listening. For example, in English class, we can select an appropriate song according to the level and to the cycle of the students and print the lyric with some missing gaps they will have to complete while they are listening to the song. I remember when I was at school and the teachers brought us a song to complete… those  were the most enjoyable lessons!

Moreover, we can take advantage that at the moment a lot of songs have been created with many different contents: mathematics, language…, and overall sciences. There are a lot of songs we can use to introduce and involve the children in the topic, and also to motivate them.

It is a very nice activity that I’m sure all of us remember fondly, all our future children will enjoy too! In my opinion, it is a way to connect with the children, and they could learn more easily the contents of the subject with a song, instead of using the book. It is a quick learning.

What do you think about it? =)

Freezing Films!

Last week Raquel taught us a new activity related to films that, when we become teachers, we can use it with our students.

In my opinión, this is a very good resource to motivate children, and to make more dynamical and participative the classess.

It could be called "Freeing Scenes" or "Freezing Films". It consisted on by groups, we had to freeze a specific scene of a popular film; (for example, Disney' films), and then, we had to representate it to the rfest of the class, and they had to guess what film was, and also explain what was happening in each scene.
I think it is a good way to make the students participate in the class with topics they find attractive and familiar; ans also with it, children practice the speaking.

On the other hand, with this activity, the teacher can ask for an alternative ending, so children are also increasing their imagination.

It was a very funny class, and I'm sure I will do this with my students when I become a teacher =)

Very different tales with the same structure!

Last week, Raquel told us a story about a little princess, a dragon and a knight. She started doing a lot of gestures about the story and also, a gesture for each character and also gestures that helped us (and moreover children), to understand better the tale.

After this class, all of us, divided in groups had to create a similar tale following the structure of the example.

It looked a bit difficult, but really it wasn’t. With it, all of us have realized that following this simple structure, we can create and invent a lot of stories very easily for our future children! =)

NURSERY RHYMES

 

Last Wednesday we had our first practical lesson of “Exploring Children’s Literature in English”.  We were exhausted after a morning full of classes, but suddenly everything changed… We were victims of a magic spell and, suddenly, we moved backwards to our early childhood and a marvelous feeling involved us. The magic spell was made by warming-up bounding with familiar thoughts and a little of new knowledge, in order to be able to adapt, create and produce the final spell, NURSERY RHYMES.

One of the most important reasons why we moved backwards so easily was that Raquel motivated us to be active and participative, and she made the topic close to us. First, she told us to think if we knew what “Nursery Rhymes” were, and if we could remember any from our childhood. Little by little, we went deeper into the proposed topic, listening typical nursery rhymes and doing different activities and exercises about it. In the last part of the lesson, we learnt different techniques to work with Nursery Rhymes and we showed them in a performance. In groups of 5 or 6 people, we chose one of the Nursery Rhymes worked in class, and we sang them twice in front of the rest of the class.

Nursery Rhymes were the approach to new language since we were only 3 years old, and consequently very important to us, although we didn´t understand what the song was about. Nevertheless, that strange lyrics and hard and old vocabulary, today makes more sense because Nursery Rhymes were not originally created to entertain children but to hide political subversive messages.  Nursery Rhymes are very useful for every year of Primary Education, if we adapt the contents and the activities to the level of each class, and can be done both at the beginning of the class, as warming-up, and at the end of the class. The students learn new vocabulary, practice pronunciation and improve fluency while learning about English culture, historical events, poems and typical places, such as in “LONDON BRIDGE”. The sentences in the Nursery Rhymes are simple and repetitive so are easier to learn and remember. These activities can highly motivate pupils because they have an active role during the lesson.  

In our opinion, the development of the class has been wonderful. We have learnt a lot of new things about the topic and how to apply it as future teachers in the classroom. Also, we have realized the steps that the teacher has followed in order to give us the lesson, in which scaffolding was everywhere.

In our Nursery Rhyme, “London Bridge is falling down”, we have used different types of Choral Speaking techniques, such as ANTIPHON and CUMULATIVE. In the video attached to this post we show the little performance that we made in class. Could you help us to find how we have introduced those techniques?  What do you think about the activities done in class?  What do you think about the methodology Raquel followed? Would you do it in another way? Which types of Choral Speaking techniques have you used and why have you chosen them? What do you think about Nursery Rhymes? Do you think you will use this tool when you become a teacher one day? Did you sing Nursery Rhymes when you were younger?

 We would be very happy if you want to share your thoughts with us!

(Noelia Barroso, Guiomar Caballero, Clara Vilches, Sandra Anaya, Sara Blanco, Leticia de la Serna)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuHNcPts0gI