Everyday we
rehearse the rules of the class as part of our English Daily Routine. Every
child must follow the captain of the day when saying the rules and using the
gestures which we made up.
It is said
that our brains learn in five ways: by seeing, saying, hearing, doing and
feeling. That’s what our students are doing when they recite our RULES CHANT:
they see the signs, hear the rules, say the rules, make the gestures and have
the lovely feeling of having fun, thus, be happy- (as they claim at the end)!!
So there’s learning for everyone!
We’re also
involving at least four out of the eight intelligences proposed by Howard
Gardner in his 1983 book “Frames of Mind:
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”, and these are: Musical-rhythmic and
harmonic, Visual-spatial, Verbal-linguistic and Bodily-kinaesthetic.
If the
teacher is addressing the class and some kids are talking and not listening,
there’s no need to call anyone down or say any names- the teacher just stops,
holds up one finger and loudly says “Rule number One!”- every kid in the class
repeats rule one energetically with gestures. This signals the violators to listen-
and they do!- so the lesson can go on. (Technique taken from “Whole Brain
teaching”)
Rules
#1:
Listen to the teacher and classmates
#2: Follow
directions quickly
#3: Raise
your hand to speak or walk
#4: Respect
yourself, respect the others, respect the school
#5: Be
quiet and sit down properly
#7: Keep
your dear teacher and classmates happy
Another
technique adapted from “Whole Brain Teaching” are “Mirror” and “Teach”. Anytime the teacher wants the class locked in to what is being said the “Mirror” technique can be used: The teacher, the captain or the student leading the class says “mirror, please” and all the students respond “mirror, ok”, then they snap their hands into the air ready to mimic the gestures.
A variation is “mirror (and words), please” and the students repeat the words of the leader as they mimic the gestures.
Here four
brain activities are involved: seeing, saying, hearing and doing.
When the piece of information with gestures has
been presented to the students, they must “Teach” it to each other using
mirror, and when they are told to, they switch to guarantee that every student
in the class is equally involved in speaking and listening. The talkers
illustrate what they are saying with gestures and the listeners, so that they
stay focused,(silently) mirror the talker’s gestures.
The chunks must be short
for the children to remember them easily and be eager to show off how well they
are doing!!! It’s effective, just see how well can Carmen remember the sentence
after a few days. Now, whenever I see a pencil case opened I just say “If I
don’t close my pencil case…” and they all finish the sentence and check if
theirs is closed at once!! They are Great!!
