Implementation of ‘The Powerful Women in Europe’ (SOI-RO-55)
I chose this learning scenario and adapted for a class of 30 Romanian students aged 12, learners of English as a foreign language (current level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: +A1). On the whole, it took us 115 minutes (2 classes of 50 minutes plus 15 minutes at the beginning of the next class) to go through the teaching-learning-assessing process about the influential women in Europe.
Main aim
The 30 6th graders had been working with the Past Tense Simple of regular and irregular verbs, in the affirmative, negative and interrogative. Therefore, this learning scenario was an amazing opportunity to reinforce what had been seen. It thus gave my students practice on Past Tense Simple for biographies, during an activity that proved to be both interesting and fun.
Step by step procedure
At the beginning of the first class, students were presented with the Europeana portal. First, I explained how to search for information. I also highlighted the benefits of using Europeana. Then, students looked for influential women in Europe using the Europeana Collections and the Europeana Exhibitions. Working in groups, they consequently chose one European woman who, in their opinion, had helped change the world. Then, they looked for more information about her on the Internet. Then they planned and created an A4 poster about her main achievement.
When the next class started, students presented their posters in front of their classmates. After that, in their groups, they wrote 2 questions about their heroines. They had to be answered orally by their classmates, after studying the common timeline created collaboratively using the tool recommended by the author of the learning scenario. We scanned all the posters and included them in the digital timeline uploaded to the website of the project. Eventually, I collected all the questions and at the beginning of our third class students answered them in a mock quiz show. The winner received a beautiful certificate, yet all the students felt like number one in this great learning adventure!
Final thoughts
I wholeheartedly appreciate Javier Ramos Sancha’s learning scenario, with the authentic context involving real-world tasks and tools. To sum up our accomplishments, I am sincerely satisfied with my students’ work and dedication during this project. I especially enjoyed their engagement in teamwork. Their gallant peer collaboration and evaluation also stole my teacher heart away every single minute during the project. Moreover, I revelled in the pride in their eyes when their work became extensively known, as it was offered to the school community on the corridor’s walls and to the public at large through the website of the project.
Did you find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario?
The Powerful Women in Europe created by Javier Ramos Sancha
Did you find this story of implementation interesting? You might also like:
- ‘Changing Role of Women in Early 20th Century‘, implemented by Nadina Nicolici
- Implementation of ‘Take the Quiz: How much do you know about women who pioneered Europe?’ by An Reyhan Gunes
- ‘Vintage VR‘, implemented by Marica Jurec
Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.
The featured image used to illustrate this article belongs to the public domain.