An English Experience III

Prize-giving at Claddagh Picture Framing

Sheffield Winter Garden

Out on the field trips, I must have said ¡vamos! and ¡rápido! hundreds of times in my effort to keep everyone constantly on the move - to catch all of the buses, trains and trams - but when back in the classroom, it was a much more relaxed atmosphere. 

With the students having settled into their surroundings during the first week, their learning stepped up a gear. For the remaining two weeks, in the mornings, the students were paired with an English student and took part in every lesson that was on the school curriculum and, in the afternoons they worked on a project for a total of 10 hours, in 4 lessons.

Bolsover Castle

Taking advantage of the dedicated ICT Suite, we produced a 4 page document that described many of the places that they had visited, using trains, buses and trams. Split into groups, each researched their chosen topics on the internet and wrote brief descriptions of the subject. Out on the field trips, each student used my camera to take photographs to illustrate their work.

At the end of each lesson, the students would save their work in a space on the school’s intranet and, in the evening, I would edit a MS Publisher document that I had prepared. I edited this ‘live’ in the classroom to look at any mistakes in the spelling and grammar that they had made.

With the document in full view on a large screen, the students were given the opportunity to offer constructive criticism of these mistakes themselves and they all learned as we worked with the project together. As a team, we produced a first class piece of work within the agreed deadline.

The Finished Project

I had no difficulty in motivating my students at any stage of the project but, after three weeks of hard work in the classroom, and walking many miles, the prospect of spending an afternoon at a local park and museum, was not appealing to them. By now, they had acquired a taste for shopping at Meadowhall and drinking coffee at a Starbucks cafe in Sheffield and they all just wanted to go home.

Glowing Edges Designs

In Clifton Park, I arranged a competition to give them some more incentive. Although some made only a feeble attempt and much preferred to laze around in the park or the cafe, the best students kept working until the end.

As an English teacher, I learned that, with the right resources and facilities and the time to get to know more about the students and their respective skills and abilities, it is possible to develop an advanced and interesting project.

Bolsover Castle