Advanced level teaching at City and Islington Sixth Form College
A2 Spanish
Description of lesson – Exploitation of Children and Child Labour
Teacher – Magdalena Pickton
The four video clips below show the first half of an A2 Spanish lesson, where students revisit last week’s lesson discussing ‘Los Gitanos’ and are then introduced to the new theme of ‘Los Ninos Explotados’. The lesson follows a logical progession as can be seen from the lesson plan (doc, 89KB). The teacher starts the lesson as she means to go on, with instant and continued use of the target language and with good use of ICT with varied and differentiated activities. Students are able to practise all four language skills throughout the course of the lesson and are given the opportunity to discuss an involved and engaging topic in a variety of ways and at a high level. After the break (see lesson plan) the topic is further exploited by using a different set of activities which culminates in the students being asked to prepare a campaign and write a letter to their embassy.
Starting well and revisiting last week’s theme using a game The teacher introduces the themes for the lesson clearly in the target language, her oral use of the language being backed up by a written presentation of the objectives. She gets the students interested instantly by her promise of introducing a new mystery topic, then reinforces the previous week’s learning by using a ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ quiz to revise and check students’ understanding of the topic of gypsies, an activity they clearly enjoy! View Video »
Introducing a new theme in an interesting way The teacher shows the students an object and asks them to guess what the new theme might be. The students come up with some good answers, but not necessarily the right ones.
With good use of ICT and images, the teacher helps them to reach the right answer and the students are instantly interested in what they will be discussing next. The teacher exploits the theme to get the students to practise formulating questions, something which learners often struggle with. View Video »
Engaging students in a new theme
Students are told that by the end of the lesson, they will be able to see if the questions they have formulated (see previous clip) will be answered. This encourages students to pay attention and look out for the answers. A range of language skills are exploited in the task as students have to listen carefully, read the information on the board, and compile their own written list of children’s rights. Students are engaged and participate well. View Video »
Provoking a genuine discussion
Students are asked in small groups to list the most important children’s rights in order of priority and are then asked to defend their views to each other. This results in a quite polemical dicussion, with the teacher skilfully managing the discussion to ensure that the less confident students have their say. View Video »
Learning vocabulary in an interesting way
Students have to write their own definitions of particular children’s rights and then ask their fellow learners to guess which right they are referring to. An interactive mix-and-match exercise with key vocabulary helps students to absorb new words through ‘doing’, rather than having to memorise long lists of vocabulary View Video »
Interview with the teacher:
How do you encourage students to speak Spanish in your A level classes? Hear the teacher describe how she builds the confidence of the students of all levels and encourages everyone to participate. View Video »
How do you deal with the presence of native speakers in the lessons? Listen as the teacher describes how she deals with a class which contains some bilingual students. View Video »
