(Continuation of the project: Let’s Read in English)
Why not end the last lesson of the week having fun with tongue twisters.
Not only are they a great motivational tool, but also a literacy workout. Tongue twisters challenge our capacity to enunciate the individual sounds in each word, so we don't trip up. We must pay careful attention to the precise sounds in each word. Mastering the individual sounds in words is a critical skill for reading success.
To help my sixth graders (classes A and B) with some difficult words and tongue twisters I had some special visitors come to our school. Two students from Eça de Queirós Secondary School, Bárbara Moreira dos Santos and Maria Miguel Campos Oliveira and their English teacher, Iris Seixas stopped by to help.
I said the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to get the ball rolling and let the students absorb the word for a few seconds before repeating it slowly and carefully. Then I asked them to repeat it. Sitting upright and having been transfixed by their unprecedented struggle to say such a long word, they were totally immersed in the lesson and after a lot of giggles, some were able to say it correctly.
The students then moved on to sing a difficult sequence of words from the lyrics of a song. Next come the tongue twisters.
First, we did: “She sells seashells by the seashore.” Besides trying to say the words, students watched a short video on Mary Anning and her fossil hunting skills.
Then we moved on to:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Other tongue twisters were tried until the end of the lesson. When the bell rang students gathered up their page of tongue twisters, happily trying to say: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” and other tongue twisters, as they exited.
The lesson was fun for all.
A professora de Inglês Carla Seixas
Projeto: Let’s Read in English
No sentido de ajudar os alunos do sexto ano, turmas A e B, a melhorar a sua pronúncia em Inglês e a desenvolver uma leitura mais fluída, na sexta-feira passada foi dada continuidade ao Projeto: Let’s Read in English com uma aula de trava línguas.
Mais uma vez, este projeto teve a colaboração da Escola Secundária Eça de Queirós. As alunas Bárbara Moreira dos Santos e Maria Miguel Campos Oliveira deslocaram-se à nossa escola na companhia da professora Íris Seixas, tendo sido uma ajuda valiosa para que os alunos levassem a cabo os exercícios propostos, praticando vários travas línguas.
Com boa disposição e algum riso, foi possível concretizar esta atividade, na qual algumas alunas revelaram um traquejo deveras surpreendente.
A professora de Inglês Carla Seixas