Material didáctico para profes español y AUXILIARES DE CONVERSACIÓN

El año pasado tuve la suerte de participar en el programa europeo "auxiliares de conversación". Para quienes no estén familiarizados con este término, se trata de una beca que otorga el MEC gracias a la cual estudiantes del último curso de una licenciatura relacionada con lenguas (traducción, filologías...) y estudiantes recién licenciados pueden trabajar durante un curso escolar como "auxiliares de conversación española" en colegios e institutos de países de la Unión Europea. En otras palabras, que si quieres vivir un año en el extranjero, cobrando alrededor de 800 euros al mes y trabajando como profesor@ de español entre 12 y 14 horas semanales (hay mucho tiempo libre para buscar otro trabajo) esta beca es la mejor opción.

Yo tuve la suerte de impartir clases en un buen instituo de Lyon (Francia) y trabajé tanto en primaria como en secundaria y bachillerato. En este blog quiero comentar algunas actividades que puse en práctica con mis estudiantes y resultaron muy divertidas y educativas, sobre todo comentaré clases que mis propios alumnos votaron como "las mejores". Así pues, invitó a tod@s los auxiliares de conversación a compartir aquí consejos, anécdotas y material didáctico que resultó un éxito.

How to teach English to 3-4 years old children?

Believe it or not, I used to teach English to 3-4 years old children and I would have never imagined how difficult it is to teach a foreign language to children that cannot neither READ neither WRITE. If you start teaching English to so young children you will soon realize that there is not enough material online to work with students that cannot even read or write in their mother tongue. I realized the best way to teach these little students is through images, because they cannot read but they can start associating ideas/images/concepts with sounds (teachers should focus more on pronunciation).

 My favourite game with my young pupils was a game created by my imagination so I have called it "Rainbow". It is a simple and funny game. The teacher takes several markers and each one has to be a different colour and then the teacher puts on the floor the different markers.Then the teacher yells a colour, such as "yellow" so the students start running and the first one that takes the pronunced coulour, yellow in this example, is the winner. Children love dynamic games where they can run and move and this game is perfect for this. Therefore, this game uses the Total Physical Response Methodology. If you want to be more familiar with how this teaching methodology works watch the video called "Total Phisical Response". However, remember that this methodology is old (nowadays there are more innovative methodologies) and that there is not any "perfect" methodology. Actually, the methodology will vary depending on our students characteristics(age group, motivation, etc). Nevertheless this methodolgy is quite succesful for so young children because it is based on the way children learn their mother tongue.
Once they have learned the colours the same activity can be done with other vocabulary and using pictures. You can also play the well-known memory game with the same pictures that you can use for this game. Attached you will see more vocabulary and its pictures. With the body parts vocabulary you can play "Simon says..." (when I play this game I called it "Bego says", because who is this Simon?) which is the perfect definition of what a Total Phisical Response game is. I hope you use my material and...enjoy it!