I am using stories more and more often in my lessons as I believe my students greatly benefit from listening to them as well as reading them and writing new ones. Apart from inventing my own stories, my favorite source is The Comprehensible Classroom which has a wealth of fantastic resources and story scripts.
Another IGCSE topic is about describing where you live. First I had my grade 9 students watch this excellent video about a girl describing where she lives near Madrid (you can watch it with or without subtitles):
I then asked my students to produce a short movie like the one above about their local area.
Last night I watched Kon-Tiki which is about the expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands in a raft which took place in 1947. Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl wanted to prove that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times,
What is more fascinating to little boys than seeing a real astronaut on a mission?! That is what Chris Hadfield did as the first Canadian to walk in space. He said that “Space was too good not too share it“ so he tweeted about his life at the space station,
The great Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is in Berlin! I mean she has passed away but over 120 paintings and drawings are on display in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and it is one of the most extensive exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s oeuvre to date. I could not miss such an opportunity to share Hispanic culture with my students.
The thought of watching a Spanish or French movie with my classes has always appealed to me. It develops listening and comprehension skills which are keys to then improve pronunciation and speaking skills. By watching a moving in the target language you can acquire a lot of vocabulary and you can also learn so much about the culture,