Showing our own culture through a video

Last Monday, in our Democratic Citizenship lesson, our teacher asks us to find a video which shows something about our culture. So I decided to choose one which shows what happened the 23-F in Spain.

Firstly, before watching the video, you should know that the 23-F was an attempted coup d'état in Spain that began on 23 February 1981 and ended on the following day. It is also known as El Tejerazo from the name of its most visible figure, Antonio Tejero, who led the failed coup's most notable event: the bursting into the Spanish Congress of Deputies by a group of 200 armed officers of the Guardia Civil during the process of electing Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo to be the country's new Prime Minister. King Juan Carlos I gave a nationally televised address denouncing the coup and urging the maintenance of law and the continuance of the democratically elected government. The coup soon collapsed. After holding the Parliament and cabinet hostage for 18 hours the hostage-takers surrendered the next morning without having harmed anyone.

Once you have read the above information I would also like to tell you that the following video is about a musical playd by some actors in a very famous Spanish entertainment program, called "El Hormiguero". Although it is in Spanish, you can understand what is happening because of the show. It starts in the minute 00:58, I hope you enjoy and learn something about it.

 

Activities we can do in class after watching it:

1-      The main characters of this video are: Antonio Tejero, King Juan Carlos I and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo. What do you know about them?

In case your pupils are not Spanish, first of all, you should do an introduction to the topic and explain them what happened that day before expecting them to recognize the characters.

2-      What was the main aim of Tejero? From your point of view, what are the reasons why he did it?  

3-      Who and how avoid the coup d'état?

 

4-      From your point of view: what are the consequences of this fact? Has it made a repercussion in nowadays?

I think all of these questions can be asked to young as well as to more adult pupils. The much older they are the more complex their answers will be and the more elaborated will have to be our explanations about that historical fact.

Krashen´s monitor model

Krashen´s monitor model

Today we talked about Krashen´s monitor model in class. So this is an example in which a teacher uses the five hypothesis of this autor: 

The teacher brings English native pupils to the class and asks them to work with her own ones. The task consists of making a meal together separated in couples in which there are one native and one non native pupil. They non native pupils will have to use the already known grammar so they will be using the natural order hypothesis. Moreover, as it is done in a natural learning environment they will acquire the language, it will be related to the acquisition learning hypothesis. Furthermore, we consider that as they will work with pupils of the same age and also in small groups they will feel more confident to talk each other, and this is an example of the affective filter hypothesis. The most complicated hypothesis to carry out in this situation is the input one as it is very difficult to make sure that all the children are competent enough to overcome this situation. The following day the teacher does an assessment in order to check what her pupils have learnt; these ones will ask doubts about vocabulary and all together will look for it in the dictionary. In this way they will be working on the monitor hypothesis.

By Ana and Paula

If you want to go into this topic this is an interesting webpage where you will find more information:http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htm