Give a Big Hand To Our Class

Make lage hand cutout by tracing your hand on an overhead transparency, then projecting the image onto colored posterboard. Trace the handprint on the poster, cut it out, and add the caption: "Give a BIG Hand to Our Class." The students' names are on smaller handprint cutouts. During the first weel, students can make these by tracing their own hands on different colors of paper.

Blasting Off Into Learning Bulletin Board

Materials:

Dark blue fabric (enough to cover your bulletin board)

Different size stars shapes

A large quarter circle (decorated to look like the earth)

A large rocket cut out made of brown construction paper with your name on it

Small rocket shapes (one per child)



Cover te bulletin board with the dark blue fabric and place the stars on it to make it look like outer space. In the corner of the board place the quarter circle (earth). On an angle pointing away from the "Earth" put the large rocket cut out. Give one small rocket shape to each child to decorate with their names, then have children place their shapes around your rocket to look like they had also blasted off behind you. The bulletin board caption reads "Mrs. _______ class is blasting off into learning!"

(Elisa Marquez, 4th. grade)

Listen and draw / Listen and write

Listen and draw

1. Read out a short text while the students follow the instructions, e.g. Draw a big table. There is a book on the table and a pencil under the table. To the left of the table there is a chair. An old man is sitting on the chair. Now color your picture.
2. Award a point for each key word. In this case there would be eleven marks in all for the exercise.

Listen and wirte

1. Write out a short text with words missing or with a  choise of two words in key points.
2. Give a copy of the text to each student.
3. Read out the completed text while the students write the missing word or underline the correct one, e.g. Bobby and Jane are in the (kitchen/sitting room). They are (watching/looking at) TV. Bobby is wearing (jeans/shorts) and Jane is wearing a (blue/red) dress...
4. Award a point for each key word.

Making an assessment plan

When preparing your assessment plan you should bear in mind the following.

• Your assessment should be made up of four basic testing areas: - continuous assessment of classwork and any homework - oral tests - written tests - general attitude and effort.
• You should always take into account individual abilities. If you only use written tests, it is difficult to take into account the different abilities in your class. One of the advantages of using a mixed assessment atrategy is that you can encourage the students who have difficulties in English by rewarding good general work done in the classroom.
• Assessment should be often and in small quantities. Don't forget the age of your students: they learn quickly but they also forget quickly! It is a good idea to test again and again throughout the year. Give small mini-tests on specific language areas as you finish teaching them.

Evaluation Techniques

Assesment of your students' progress is essential for your preparation and programming. At primary level we are not concernd with our students learning a lot in terms of quantity of vocabulary and numbers of structures. Rather, we aim to provide them with small quantities of material that they will gradually build on and learn to use in a varety of situations. It is important to remember that we are concentrating primarily on developing the students' listening and speaking skills. For this reason, traditional tests consisting of gap-filling exercises or conjugating verbs are of little use to us.

Sort and draw

Materials: Colored pencils, paper clips, paper, pictures of musical instruments: Violin, trumpet, piano, drum, maracas.
Preparation: Draw five columns on a sheet of paper for each student.

Distribute paper to students. Have them label each column with the words: eye, ear, nose, hand, and tongue. Have students identify each cutout and say which sense(s) we can use to know what it is. Move the cutout to the different columns on the poster to show students how we use different senses at the same time to find out about what something is. Then ask students to draw the picture of the object in the corresponding column(s) on their paper.

The surprise object

Explain to students that people use their five senses to learn about the world around them. Ask students if they can name the five senses. Then put the teddy bear inside of the bag and close it. Pass the bag around for students to touch, shake, smell, etc. The only rule is that they cannot look inside to see what it is. Tell them to guess what the object is. After everyone has had a turn, open the bag to see what is inside. Discuss how students made their decisions.