Implementation of ‘Changing Role of Women in Early 20th Century’ (SOI-RO-30)

Background

My name is Nadina Nicolici from Romania. I am teaching 30 students in the 9 grade, 16 girls and 14 boys aged 14-15. Most of them come from disadvantaged families (mainly economically), and their level of English ranges from A1 to B1. I teach them English (three times a week for 50 minutes) and French (once a week for 50 minutes). They are eager to learn and improve not only their level of English but also their general knowledge. They attend a class specializing in Hair-dressing, so they are very interested in dealing with aesthetics and arts.

Context

Before the lesson, my students studied a whole unit dealing with beauty and fashion, the lesson being mainly focused on developing their vocabulary related to the world of fashion, but also general knowledge – the history of fashion. This is one of the reasons why I decided to teach them this lesson dealing with women’s role in history, as the topic of the unit could be related to the topic of this lesson. After the lesson, they learned about the history of the USA, so they could make the connection to the history of at as well, comparing it to what happened in Europe.

Advice

I would advise anyone who would decide to teach this lesson to make it as fun as possible, so that students learn with pleasure, even without realizing it. I also consider very importantly to teach the vocabulary before the reading/listening/ watching part, so that students can really understand what they are exposed to. In addition to all these, involve students as much as possible, and try to connect everything to their previous knowledge.

Strengths

I would say that the entire lesson went well, as the level of difficulty was not very high. I chose the resources very carefully, and I adapted everything to my students’ level, which is also important if we want them to learn. The fact that I could bring some pictures and videos in the class made them really understand and remember what they learned. Moreover, it was really good to have them work in pairs and groups, and also give them a task after the lesson.

Weaknesses

The only obstacle which we encountered was related to time – some of the activities took longer than I expected, but we managed to perform almost all the tasks. I would have liked to be able to deliver this class for at least 100 minutes.

Achievement

My educational objectives regarded not only to improve my students’ knowledge of English, but also to develop some of the 21st-century skills, and here I name critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication. We managed to do all these in different stages of the lesson, by having students not only answer questions (which they are used to do) but also by asking questions. They worked with their peers, they shared, they negotiated, brought arguments and agreed. During the entire class, they used mainly English (about 85% of the time).

Further On

I consider that the fact that this activity was a successful one is also because of the fact that I could use Europeana resources, which are easy to find and which can be used in every single lesson we create. For instance, after this lesson, when I needed some pictures to accompany one of my lessons dealing with Music I searched the portal and I found everything I needed.

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Changing role of women in early 20th century created by Niina Vantanen

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