I have a dream: Discrimination and US History

I do have a dream.

While working on a project about discrimination with my teenage students, I wanted to share with them some important events about the U.S. History. The challenge I had was to plan an interesting lesson, not one in which they start to hate learning about the past. Luckily, I remembered a video my classmates in the teaching training programme have shown us about "Dreams". The video was part of the film "Tangled", kind of a version of the old fairy tale Rapunzel. 

I've prepared this worksheet to deal with the topic. The idea is to start by asking them how they feel about learning History. Then, we will discuss whether they have dreams and they will be able to speak about them.

After that, I will show them the video Tangled - I have a dream (lyrics) and ask them what they think this sentence means:

“We’ve got a dream… so our differences ain’t really that extreme”

Finally, I intend to speak about the famous speech delivered by Martin Luther King about equality in the United States. This will be an introduction for the presentation of  their case studies, regarding not only racial discrimination but also gender discrimination, discrimination against women and bullying. 

I will encourage them to find out more about this topic at home. Hopefully, students will remember this key event by laughing at the video and sharing their own dreams and hopes. 

Trace Effects

Today I was first introduced to this video game, TRACE EFFECTS, which aims to help students learn English while having fun. Since I've been really into The Sims, a life-simulator game, I found Trace Effects awesome!

I didn't have the time to discover many details about the game itself, but I do know that the main character, Trace, has come from the future accidentally and wants to go back. The game consists of helping him achieve this objecitve. 

It's especially designed to teach English so it provides tasks to learn and practise the same language points that appear in the game. Another advantage it gives is that it is available to play online. You can find more information in this link http://americanenglish.state.gov/trace-effects. As soon as I try it with students, I'm sure  I'll have more to share. 

I'm back!

I am sorry it's been so long since the last time I updated my blog. I'm really glad to start blogging again. 

I'm very enthusiastic about sharing the materials I produce as well as those different tools I find interesting.

During the time I haven't posted, I've been learning to use new tools to teach English, as the interactive whiteboard. I have also tried out some websites and games that proved to be motivating for learners. I've designed a wide range of activities and tasks, some of which were meant to be part of an assessment process. I will be sharing and writing about all of them soon!