Nuevo proyecto: HI AMIGOS CLUB! (con Ms Kaplan)

Welcome! ¡Bienvenidos a Hi Amigos Club!

Welcome to this online part of the community of this amazing club!

We, Ms Kaplan and Mr Usero, are going to share with you many materials, resources, videos,... that will help you learn the language you want: English or Spanish. During our face-to-face sessions we will be focused on the oral skills with the help of our awesome students.

Ms Kaplan y Mr Usero compartiremos con ustedes una gran cantidad de materiales, recursos, videos,... que le ayudarán en el aprendizaje de la lengua que usted quiera: inglés o español. En las clases presenciales nos centraremos más en las destrezas orales, con la ayuda de nuestros magníficos estudiantes.

It´s going to be a good opportunity to the school community to build something important together, where everyone can add something from their experience to others with a same goal: be multilingual, be multicultural.

Esta va a ser una buena oportunidad para la comunidad escolar para construir algo importante juntos, donde cada uno puede aportar algo de su propia experiencia a otros con un mismo objetivo: ser multilingüe, ser multicultural.

Why multicultural? As an expert in bilingual education we can confirm that learn a language cannot be possible without the cultural components, that´s why we add cultural topics to our lessons too.

¿Por qué multicultural? Como experto en educación bilingue podemos decir que para aprender una lengua necesitamos de sus componentes culturales, es la razón por la que trataremos, también, temas de la cultura en nuestras clases.

I´d like to share with you all my blog maestrousero.blogspot.com where you will find lots of posts about bilingualism and other articles and researches that may be interesting for you.

Me gustaría compartir con usted mi blog maestrousero.blogspot.com donde encontrará una gran cantidad de publicaciones sobre bilingüismo y otros articulos e investigaciones que podrán ser de su interés.

We appreciate your participation and collaboration in this innovative and enriching project.

Agradecemos su participación y colaboración en este proyecto innovador y enriquecedor.

Gracias very much! ;)

Ms Kaplan and Mr Usero

Why comics as a project in Early Childhood Education?

This post is a justification and reflection upon the project we are currently doing at the school where I work, Ninfa Laurenzo ECC. My project is about the profession of comic creators because my students decided to do it. I am glad to guide them in a project like that since for years I have been the coordinator of reading programs for children and families at different schools and libraries in the region of Seville, Spain.

Having a comic or a story as a vehicle for learning is not new; indeed, it is one of the most used procedures at schools and education all over the world. The literary texts that the students listen with attention raise their message with extra and enriching information: socio-cultural conditions that will allow listeners to know about events, information and signals. And by understanding the story, remembering it and expressing it according to their feelings and experiences, primary students will personally participate in the reconstruction of the literary message, value it and interpret its contents making them theirs even if they are in the new language.

The advantage of popular literature is that the content that children access has the peculiarity that they exist in almost every culture in the world. All histories share an underlying basis and a relatively invariant structure, despite some differences. Obviously, they have some aspects or parts in common, like an introduction or presentation of the characters and the setting; a plot, in which the action is developed; an end with a final outcome of events. Another important thing in common is the fact that children feel sympathy for characters according to their features; they predict the action of the wicked witch, for instance, and are sure that the prince will save the princess after conquering a thousand dangers and obstacles.

They can also anticipate moments or episodes in the story, like the climax around which the action is organized. As they expand their knowledge and the volume of stories they hear, they manage to structure the stories according to a repeatable internal pattern, those discussed above. They also delimit the different characters and roles they play in the story. And finally, they participate in creating the story, using their language or the new, with a motivated attitude, a meaningful behavior and a learning process as effective as pleasant.

In this early stage of education, working with language and literature with comics and storytelling is benefitial since they can start to understan how a language works, as a system of signs that structures and formalizes experience and reality. Language and literature are elements of culture that complement each other, hence the contents of this area should enable the acquisition and mastery of the language, as well as knowledge of the various literary manifestations for their formative value as a universal heritage. This shows the interest in initiating the student in children's literature. In line with what has been pointed out above, recent studies show how the student acquires better the knowledge of a language if it is taught as a subject studied and not as a subject of study.

Telling a story to someone who wants to listen to it, entertaining themselves by learning about the art of telling an anecdote or a joke: all are entertainments, but also interpretations or representations of real life. They can be models of behavior beyond history and that is why they tend to have a teaching, because we project them, somehow, with our reality, no matter how far we look at it. The existence of archetypes shows a need to organize within history so that the pedagogical contribution goes from simpler to more detailed and complex. The models used have formed and will form a common base and memory for the society that listens to them and many of the models of behavior or interpretations of reality will undoubtedly form part of a know how to act or know how to solve.

When working with stories, the content of the lessons becomes more important than the language itself and this means that it is easier to relate the lessons to the experience and self-interest of the students. In addition, as we have already pointed out, such work helps the learning process as students can associate words with functions, structures and situations with a particular story or "reality". It is clear that the association contributes to have a good memory and improve their thinking levels as well as motivation for learningl; and learning a language in a given context helps understanding and memory. 

The storytelling, on the other hand, allows to deepen in the issues that arise with depth and rigor and develops reactions and feelings in the students that, otherwise, can not demonstrate with so much clarity in a textbook. The teacher's work, in this type of approach, provides a personal touch to the lessons, since it is the educator who knows the pace of classroom learning and of the students - and their needs - in particular, when they need more vocabulary or require communicative experiences.

Este obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional.

Motivation & CLIL - How motivation affects Foreign/Second Language Acquisition/Learning

We know that motivation is a great part of our learning process. This video sums up how motivation affects our efforts and results when learning.

In the following document you can read about motivation and other aspects, authors and theories that contribute in Foreing/Second Language Acquisition/Learning.

CLIL step by step to Multilingual Programs

CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning.

First of all, we would like to start by defining the concept of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning - coined in Europe in the early nineties (Coyle et al (2010)), and those concepts and key aspects around this approach. Many of which will need to be considered when designing activities for the CLIL classroom that will not help our students develop and improve their communicative and foreign language skills, but their learning process.

Why CLIL?

The 21st Century educational landscape has undergone important innovations in the last decades, one of them is the introduction of technologies in the classroom and the other notable change is related to the teaching of languages ​​being part of a connected and globalized world, it should be one objective that everyone in the world can talk other languages ​​in addition to the mother tongue. This method started in Europe, due to the great language and cultural diversity of the country members of the European Union.

These two aspects, the introduction of ICT and the learning of languages ​​are well reflected in the White Paper on Education and Training: Teaching and Learning - Towards the Learning Society published in 1995 by the Commission of the European Community and in later publications1 where Action Plans to promote language learning and the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) are established. Both points are among the priorities for the member states in the document published in 2012 Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes where the priorities are "To increase the supply of transversal skills that increase employability, such as Entrepreneurship, digital skills and languages ​​"and" Intensify the use of ICT-assisted learning and access to high quality OER "(p.17).

I would like to highlight this excerpt from the “White Paper on Education and Training”:

“Building skills for the 21st century

Transversal and basic skills

Efforts need to be concentrated on developing transversal skills… Modern, knowledge-based economies require people with higher and more relevant skills. CEDEFOP forecasts predict that the proportion of jobs in the EU requiring tertiary level qualifications will increase from 29% in 2010 to 34% in 2020, while the proportion of low skilled jobs will fall in the same period from 23% to 18%. Transversal skills such as the ability to think critically, take initiative, problem solve and work collaboratively will prepare individuals for today's varied and unpredictable career paths. …particularly entrepreneurial skills…”

This is not happening only in Europe, but worldwide. And I would like to add something more than preparing future workers or employees as it is said, since from my point of view the socio-emotional aspects of students are empty in this document, and nowadays many researchers have proved the importance of those aspects.

Learning is a beautiful part of our lives, since it opens our eyes to new landscapes and windows that go beyond our native communities. Learning lets us go beyond, above all, foreign language acquisition and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) since the current conditions of living are globalized and it is our duty to prepare good citizens equipped with a lot of skills and tools to live in this globalized world. Opportunities can be given in any point of the world and we should be ready to get them, regardless the nationality or other bureaucratic issues. I am talking from my own experience: a Spanish teacher who has educational experience in many countries besides of my home country, Spain. Nowadays I’m teaching in Houston, Texas (USA).

Multilingual programs

In this context, a great number of bilingual programs have been implemented over the last decade, many of which use the AICLE approach in Spanish: Integración de Contenidos y Lengua Extranjera; EMILE in French: Enseignement De Matières Par Integration D'une Langue Étrangère or CLIL in English: Content Language Integrated Learning. This method can be used with any language in the world.

D. Coyle et al. (2010) distinguish two main reasons for the interest in CLIL within a country or region. One of them is a proactive reason, as a way to promote the learning of a language for political, economic and social reasons. This is the case of the French immersion programs of Canada, as a way of supporting bilingualism, or the CLIL programs that promotes the policy of the European Union to strengthen relations and mobility between the countries of the same. The European Union has essentially become a territory without borders, where all citizens have the right to live, study or work where they wish; However, not knowing languages ​​still represents an invisible barrier to free movement that needs to be eliminated and bilingual programs are one of the most effective measures.

From a pedagogical point of view there are many reasons why bilingual and CLIL programs are recommended:

First, they offer advantages for students' cognitive development (Bialystock, 2009).

They bring significant gains in the target language (L2) as evidenced by numerous studies on language immersion in Canada and CLIL in Europe.

They favor the collaboration of teachers with each other and with the administration of the center since much of the community will be involved in learning the language and content.

He observes how in the following video Hugo Baetens, referring in bilingualism and CLIL of the Vrij Universiteit Brussel (VUB) alludes to the expressed in the previous point.

This is one of my first activities to plan a CLIL unit with sports:

To know more:

Clil theory diapos per mindmap from jalberi2

EU Policy Documents

EU Languages ​​and Language policy

The White Paper on Education and Training: Access to the document in its entirety. Available for download.

Languages ​​in education: support page for language learning and linguistic diversity of the European Commission.

See the Eurydice Report (2006) a study on how and where CLIL was being implemented in the European Union.

Coyle, D., Hood, P. and Marsh, D. 2010, CLIL. Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Usos de recursos educativos abiertos para AICLE by Aprende Intef cursos en linea is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional License.
Creado a partir de la obra en http://formacion.educalab.es.
Puede hallar permisos más allá de los concedidos con esta licencia en http://formacion.educalab.es

How to create a comic with basic tools

The next comic has been done with basic tools:

- Camera to take pictures.

- Paint to modify the pictures.

- Word processor to add titles, bubbles and other comic characteristics.

First of all, a design of the story is strongly recommended, I mean, what story your students want to tell. You, as teacher/parent/educator, can help them with the topic of the story.
One idea is to ask for some topics they are interested in and the do a survey with all your students. In this way you encourage them to participate as well as they feel motivated. Once your students have decided what to tell, it is time to organize the story. In my case, I teach them that every story has three mainly parts, remember that it is focused on PreK students: beginning, middle and the end. And please, try to help them with examples of stories they already know (and even better, the most recent stories told in classroom) and let them identify each part.
The story decided to tell is about the recess time, since today it had rained early in the morning and some parts of  the garden were wet. I tried to help them by asking them how we usually prepare to go to the outdoor learning area. Then, one by one started to tell me how: they are in a line, the students in charge of the doors go to their positions,... other students wanted to share other ideas to use in the story. After that, I looked through the window and everything was wet, my next question was what would happen if you were in the garden. Again, help them, please, with connections to their experiences... until some of them can say something to add to the story; indeed, they gave us some ideas for the story. And eventually we got this amazing story with my "champions".

Recreo o no recreo by Paco Usero on Scribd

If you have a tablet with an ebook reader app you can download this file https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4elwj35ibmYNm9mLVFmX0hkMzQ/view?usp=sharing and they can read it.

Comic Patio Mojado

Publish at Calameo

Calameo is a free web that sets your documents as a traditional book. When you and your children finish your comic, you can save it as a .pdf file, then upload it on this web. There, you can have more options to choose and share it with your friends.

If you prefer to do it by using an app with music, you can use Adobe Spark Video. Open this app and add the pictures that you and your children have selected to create a comic. Besides, you can add some music.
Have you seen how easy it is? Do you think you can do one comic with your children? If so, it is going to be a good time to enjoy creating a story together.

If you want to share your beautiful and awesome story, please, leave a comment with your file.

By Mr Usero.
Comic-Creator Project.

Making apple popsicles by PreK students

After having learned about experiments with water and its states in the previous week, our PreK students apply that knowledge to a delicious and healthy snack made by apple juice: apple popsicles.



Cooking is a way to develop creativity and imagination, a funny way to apply knowledge that involves other senses that are not involved in other ways of learning: multisensorial learning.

Why gamification and digital learning in education?

Gamification of Learning

There are many reasons to use games and digital learning in schools. Our students are living in the Society of Information and Knowledge and they are ready to interact with them. They are already born with digital skills since we can see one-or-two-year-old children using smartphones and tablets, they can use their fingers to zoom images and slide pictures,...

In the following presentation Digital Gamification Benefits Presentation (Spanish) you can see all the benefits of Gamification and Digital Learning in Education.

“You create these communities around the game that do an incredible amount of intellectual work, and when they’re done with the work, they will leave the game and go to another game that’s more challenging. Can you imagine if we had that kind of environment in classrooms?” 

Constance Steinkuehler Squire Associate Professor in digital media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Webminar about Gamification and Education

(free translation)

In this webinar Gamification in education: from technique to methodology, Imma Marín Santiago, tells us how to apply gamification to the education and learning sector. 

In the educational context, gamification can assume the design of tasks and activities using the principles of gameplay. It is about taking advantage of the natural predisposition towards the game to improve the motivation towards learning, the acquisition of knowledge, the transmission of values, the development of competences, etc. 

Games overtake the "chain of failure" by allowing, as part of their design, multiple opportunities to carry out a task to their domain. KARL M. KAPP (Kapp, 2012) 

The gamification approach of some work proposals has been done for a long time as a way of reinforcing concrete learning contents. However, gamification is a new perspective. And if it were feasible to lead all the potential of time and experience of the students in the game towards learning? What if, moreover, we transcend the design of tasks and activities (technique) to put the game at the center of the teaching-learning process (methodology / strategy)? 

In this webinar we will learn to learn the principles of gamification and playing techniques to the education sector, achieving a greater predisposition towards learning by the students.