Our students

Nowadays, Arangoiti ikastola have 70 pupils. From two years to twelve years old, here they offer education of preschool and primary. Students are separated into classes, but in each class there are two courses. Therefore, first and second grade are together, third and fourth grade are together… In preschool also, children who have 2 and 3 years old are together and in the same way, children who have 4 and 5 years old. In each class are around 15 students and to do secondary education they go to Zangoza.

In our class, there are 12 children between 4 and 5 years old. In generally, the group is fairly homogeneous. The only differences between them are the age and the mother tongue. There are some children who have vasque parents, others have only a mother or father that she/he know vasque, others have spanish parents, but there is a child that she has english parents. There aren't any children with special needs or any foreign children. Also, all families have medium economic level, although we can find a minority with low level.

The students here, have a very important role. There are very important, because the teachers work depends on the interests and needs of children.

Consequently, we decide that the best age to start learning a third language is between 4 and 5 years old. In many cases, people think that children are too young to start with the English, but they are more capable than we think. It is the best period to start learning english, as long as, activities sound rather inviting and entertaining. Also, with the teaching english in preschool we are preparing children to pass to primary and continue learning english. Therefore, we should trust in our students! They can!

Changes in our project

After seeing how it works in the Arangoiti ikastola, we decided to change the age which is headed for our project. In this ikastola children are divided into different classes, but each one have two different ages. In total, there are 5 classes:

Preschool:
1. The class of 2 and 3 years old
2. The class of 4 and 5 years old

Primary:
1. First and second grade
2. Third and fourth grade
3. Fifth and sixth grade

Therefore, our project will head to the second class of preschool (children with 4 and 5 years old). 

Eddi´s balloon

With the following video, we can show children a beautiful and simple history in english. Eddi´s balloon, can be channelled into encouraging some values, such us, the friendship and cooperation.
We think that it´s very convenient to put something like this in a class of second grade of preschool. Therefore, we believe that we might put this video within our project activities.

A beautiful video!

In that video we can see that is better if we work in group! It is very nice to see children between 3 and 5 years old.

TVE has launch "Let's Clan" to encourage the english learning

This Television and The British Council have made an arregement to learn english, so the children's series of Clan have arrives with an English version. The initiative is supported by a dual version and it is reforced with didactic file.

There will be series and materials from Pepa pig, La abeja Maya, Dora la exploradora...

and we think it is interesting for children to learn english in a form that they love among other things (which is watching TV)!

Other tools to teach english

Hi!
We have seen that the entrance of some tools we had wroten in this blog, has been interesting for you. So we have found other tools, not at all like the other one, but it can be usefull for you.

In this link, that part of the site is for teachers working with children. It offers a range of activities and lesson ideas which are based around online materials from the British Council's LearnEnglish Kids website. Most of the materials can be used either online or can be downloaded and used in the classroom.

So when we found this, we went directly to the page the mention, that it can be used by kids, parents and teachers. It is compound by different games, writing actibitys, spelling, reading... so we think it is a complit page to learng english.

We speak you will like them!
Big hug!

SANSOMENDI

In this text we have read about different methods of working with students, and this are ones we like to then into acount to our proyect. This are some methodologic propose, we like this because are interesting to be success:

- More than one teacher in each class and if it is no possible some voluntary people like parents,  grandparents, youth people of the school (for example in secondary grade) and any voluntary will be accepted. We think this is important not only to help the teacher with the children, also to interact and play with them, and have another example. It is rewarding for children.

- What it is named like interactive groups, it seems to be the best methodology and we like a lot because it consists on children who understand the materia have to explain children who doesn´t understand. So, it works with children like principal protagonist in their class.

- Another important idea that we think that is interesting is that older children go to little children´s classroom and teach them different things, like songs, reading, projects... One of our group see that in her practice. In that case, children of four or five years old came to the two years old children and narrate stories or another activities that were very enriching for the smallest children. With activities like this interact different ages children and we think that is very good for the development of every children.