Seasons and feelings (LS-RO-574)
My name is Puscasu Oana-Alexandra and I have been teaching English as a foreign language for twelve years, in a small village from the county of Bacau, in the east of Romania. I am interested in developing my students’ life skills which can also be considered 21st century skills, such as empathy, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving. To achieve my pedagogical goals, I get my students involved in projects and competitions in order to enable them to take hold of their own learning.
Summary
The lesson consolidates students’ knowledge about feelings, the weather and their favourite seasons, through an interdisciplinary approach, by using text, music and visual aids in order to address students’ auditory and visual learning styles. The lesson can be taught efficiently, both online and face-to-face.
Starting from songs related to feelings and the weather, students are motivated to make a connection between moods and seasons. They will mention how each season makes them feel. While songs and flashcards enable students to repeat the previously learned vocabulary and to learn new words, the UK weather forecast worksheet will help them practice their reading skills and prepare them for a more complex activity: that of predicting, writing down and presenting the weather forecast for the following day in different parts of the UK.
My reflections on the lesson:
During this lesson, students were actively engaged to participate due to the combination of visual and auditory cues which enable students with different learning styles (visual and auditory styles) to have a better understanding of what they learn. I have noticed that students enjoyed the lesson also due to the fact that the focus was on what they feel, what they think or imagine. I tried to successfully integrate the four skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing, but in a very pleasant atmosphere with musical background and coloured flashcards. I paid attention to building a secure and pleasant learning environment in order to subsequently have my students interested in the lesson. Working in groups has enabled them to take on the real-life role of weather forecaster for different parts of the UK and this has contributed to their cultural knowledge about the British culture, as well as to their overall capacity of being independent learners. In the end, I asked them: “Have you enjoyed the lesson?” and they answered: “YES, we have!!!” This kind of feedback is, at the same time, a reward and moral duty for me, as a teacher, to do my best for my students’ wellbeing and education.
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Public Domain Mark 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Nationalmuseum, Sweden.