The drum story

We have chosen the option 3 where we are going to create a musical instrument  and relate it to a story , song or rhyme to work with. In our case, we are going to relate it with a story.

The best way to learn a language is to do it in the same way that we learned our mother tongue, that is, by receiving a constant INPUT (Krashen language acquisition hypothesis). Stories respects the natural language form and is a huge source of input in classrooms.

 

Finally, this resource will help us to work on values and will be a tranversal axis in the education of students, being able to work with it, such as: environmental education, educación for peace or for equality. Stories can link not only between the world of the classroom and beyond. Stories provide a common thread that can help unite cultures and provide a bridge across the cultural gap.

 

We would like to create a positive attitude on our students related to the stories. Some stories for children of the third course of primary school, can be : Three little fairies, The mind reader, The carpenter and painter story, The cheerful granny, Marie and the orange fish, etc. The criteria that we have followed to choose our books are bases on Salaberri`s theory: inclusion of stories that learners know from their mother tongue, stories where the content is easily predictable, including repetition of language, rhyme and rhythm, quality of illustrations, etc.

 

We will organize a didactic unit with 3 sessions in a third year of primary education. Our class , we can find with 3 immigrant students, a Bulgarian boy, a Rumanian boy and a Chinese girl, a Bulgarian is a ADHA ( Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder )  boy but with no significant curricular adjustment . Write the assessment criteria, standards and contents.

 

Current research in the field of foreign language teaching states that students` motivation and interests are among the most important factors when learning a foreign language. One of the ways of improving teaching effectiveness and students` interaction is creating a positive atmosphere. Storytelling is essential for our students to acquire a second language in a natural and attractive way. This didactic unit is called  “ The Drum “ and it is developed in the month of March , before Easter time.

 

For the development of the 3 sessions of this didactic unit we are going to pay special attention to:

 

1)    To understand simple messages.

2)    To help in the process of reading and writing simple texts.

3)    To learn to value the foreign language as a means of communication.

4)    To create reading habits.

 

Through this didactic unit we are going to help our pupils on the acquisition of mainly 4 competences:

 

-        Linguistic competence. We will work this competence through all our activities.

-        Digital competence. Using in a real time the ICT specifically along our sessions through white-board activities.

-        Learning to learn. Giving the students the initiative of learning in an autonomous way involving knowing, understanding, appreciating and valuing the different cultural and artistic demonstrations

-        Social and citizenship competence. Creating a positive attitude when interacting with others.

 

One of the basic aspect of the curriculum in Castilla y León are the block of contents, which are related to the assessment criteria and standards. For the development of this didactic unit , the students will acquire these contents along the 4 different blocks:

 

 

-        Block 1 : Comprehension of oral texts.

 

As a content “use of non-verbal language to support comprehension”. Related to the content and as assessment criteria, the students are going to identify the general sense of a simple text related to the story.

 

-        Block 2 : Production of oral texts: expression and interaction.

 

As a content comprehension of the message with clarity, differentiating the main idea. Related to the content and as assessment criteria, the student are going to apply the basic strategies to produce a simple text related with the tale.  And according to this and as standard, the student makes simple presentations.

 

-        Block 3 : Comprehension of written texts

 

As a content use of previous information about the task and the topic. Related to the content and as assessment criteria, the students are going to apply the basic strategies to understand the global sense of a text related to healthy food. And according to this and as standard, the student understands essential information about the story.

 

-        Block 4 : Production of written texts: expression and interaction

 

As a content expression of the message with clarity, with the support of some models. Related to the content and as assessment criteria, the students are going to know some basic information about the tale and to apply them to a written production. And according to this and as estándar, the student write simple texts taking models into account.

 

In order for the pupils to acquire these contents, the methodology we are going to use follows three main approaches:

 

-        The total physical response by Asher. We will use this approach because it is very motivating for every kind of student and it doesn`t require oral expression from th beginning, encouraging shy sudents and students with special educative needs to participate.

-        The natural approach by Krashen and Terrell (1995) . Following this approach, we bear in mind that we, as English teachers should create situations in which students are motivated to communicate. The input must be interesting and we should provide our students with the maximun amount of English as posible and bearing in mind the comprehensible input, this means that we should provide our students with an input little bit more advanced than their competence level. The understanding will be more important than speaking, the vocabulary development is more important than structural accuracy and the absence of error correction. Definitely “Language is best taught when is being used to transmit messages when it`s used explicity for conscious learning”.

-        Finally, we bear in mind the constructiivsm view by authors like Piaget, Ausubel and Vigotsky, by which we give a lot of importance to the previous knowledge to get a significant learning an to the individualization.

 

According to Saliberry, our activities related to storytelling will be grouped in : “before you tell , while you tell and after you tell”. Ellis and Brewster suggest that “before telling” the tale to the children that we will prepare them, that is, that we anticípate the story for it, we will work on the content, concepts, keywords, etc. Next, “while you tell”, we will involve the student in the tale by asking questions, such as , what will happen in the story or we offer a story in which there are mistakes and they have to correct it. Finally, in the “post-storytelling activities”, we will do consolidation activities through role play, theater, projects, etc.

 

Now let`s continue with the development of the 3 sessions. We, as teachers, will bring to the classroom a drum made by us and there will be a final session in which the children will make their own drum with recycled materials and therefore, it would be ideal for the Arts and Crafts teacher to collaborate.

 

So let`s see its structure bearing in mind in third grade we have 2 hours and a half per week, therefore we are going to have 2 sessions of 60 minutes and 1 session of 30 minutes. Let`s see the scheme of the first session, which lasts 60 minutes:

 

1.    Warm up (5 minutes) : Good morning song and review questions

2.    Story  (10 minutes) : The drum story

3.    Flashcards introduction ( 5 minutes ) : Brainstorming

4.    What is your dream? ( 10 minutes ) 

5.    T.P.R ( 5 minutes ) : Say “stop”

6.    Relaxation ( 5 minutes ) : Nature sounds !

7.    Worksheet (10 minutes) : Let`s have some music

8.    Game ( 5 minutes )  : Musical statues

9.    Goodbye song ( 5 minutes ) : It is time to say goodbye !

 

 

During the warm up we are all sitting down on the play-mat in a big circle. We will sing the “Good morning” song ( 2 minutes ) and then we are going to ask our pupils some words related to instruments, In addition, we will ask our students what instruments they know and we can complement it with the art area by asking  them how can we make an instrument and what recycled materials  would  they use.

 

After that, we are going to continue with a short story called “The drum” , where we will show our students the drum made by us and we will tell them that as a final task each student will do theirs. FInally, we will tell our students the story  that we summarize below.

 

 

 

 

“ THE DRUM STORY “

 

This story is about a poor boy's dream of having his own drum. His mother is very poor and cannot afford to buy her son the one thing in the world that he really wants. The poor boy's dream takes him on one of the most unlikely journeys and ultimately leads to attaining his dream. The folktale begins with his mother bringing home a magical stick that was given to her by a strange, little old man. The boy takes the stick with him on his journey and along the way he finds people in need of help. He offers them what little he has and they of course repay him with whatever they have in return. By the end of the story, his series of good deeds leads him to a traditional wedding ceremony where he saves the wedding day for the bride and groom when he presents them with a horse. In return, for his good deed, he receives a drum like the one he was dreaming of at the beginning of the story.

 

We will continue with flashcards introduction. We will start by brainstorming the children to tell us what instruments do they know and what instrument would they like to play and why

 

Then we will follow with the question : “ What is your dream ? ”  Once the flashcards are presented , we will ask our students if they ever had a dream and what things they could do to achieve the dream .

 

Then, we are going to continue with the T.P.R . With this activity, we will make sure our students understand our instructions.

 

The instructions that we will give to our students will be:

-        Play the guitar.

-        Play the piano.

-        Play the drum.

-        Play the violin.

-        Play the saxofon.

-        Play all instruments.

 

After that, we will continue with a short relaxation. It is called Nature sound. Our students will listen to background music with sounds of nature while the teacher tells them a story making them participate in it. Doing the relaxation is a good way to work with emotions, feeling and control them through English. It also helps us to crate positive attitudes as well as a pleasant atmosphere.

 

Then, we are going to continue with an interactive worksheet called :

* Let`s have some music .

 

Then we continue with the game “ Musical statues ”. The teacher will play music and when the music is turned off, all the children have to stay still, as if they were statues. Children who move are eliminated. The  music is played again, and so on until the child becomes more still.

 

We will finish the session with the song “ It is time to say good bye “.

 

In the second session, we are going to do similar activities but:

 

-        In the story,  the students will watch the story on video.

-        In the worksheet, our students will have to write the missing letters in the boxes of each musical instrument name.

-        We will make the game of  What`s missing ? with flashcards .

-        The game will be “ Musical sounds “, where students will listen to an instrument and have to guess which instrument it is .

 

In the third session of 30 minutes, we will make a small drum with recycled materials such as, a can of a peach jar , a plastic, a piece of string, etc. Then , they can decorate it with cardboard, flowers, etc.

Finally, we will end the class with the song : The music man.

 

We, as teachers, have to respect the different levels and rhythms of our students, at the same time we would like to mention that every school has got an integrative caracter through which we can help our students with special needs in order to be able to acquire the correct learning at the correct level.

 

In relation with the assessment we would like to mention that we are going to evaluate them through a direct and systematic observation, and also our own practice through the feedback received.

 

Finally, we should bear in mind that every student is different. As we have mentioned before, we have to use a great variety of materials in order to develop our didactic unit. We don`t have to forget that we evaluate after introducing evry kind of activity if they are effective to our students, of not we will change them in order to reach the final aim of learning a second language: the acquisition of the Communicative Competence.

 

To sum up, we can say :

“ We all enjoy a good story. We tell stories every day without even realizing”

Tobias

 

Susana Barba