Teaching Tip: Organization of a Professional Teaching Group - 4

Name:

Ana Catalina Muñoz Vargas

Economy:

Chile

School:

Osorno English Teachers Network

Subject:

English as a Foreign Language

Tip:

How to Work to Organize an Extra-Curricular Project

Osorno Province English Network (OPEN) is an organization where elementary and secondary teachers share our experiences on teaching, methodologies and various activities we do in our classrooms and schools, since the end of 2003, recognized in 2004 officially. It is supported by English Open Doors Program of the Ministry of Education. Our meetings are once a month and they last 3 hours, in the afternoon. Our meetings include presentations made by our colleages, group projects, discussions about our teaching practices and administrative information.
All the activities mentioned before lead to some projects and one of our traditional ones has been an “English Festival”, where our students have the opportunity to show their abilities in relation to music, as well as, oral production of English language. Moreover, students, especially secondary ones, are involved in the organization, which means to participate as announcers, models, designers of programs, coordinators on stage, singers and musicians. Along these five years, teachers and students have been engaged with this activity. Every year, teachers, with their students, prepare their presentations considering the use of language, which means intonation, fluency and pronunciation, as well as, dressing and musical accompaniment. During our meetings, the necessary commissions are organized. The commissions are in charge of coordinating the different activities involved in this event.

When we began with this project we had to establish rules that must be respected by every participant. We established two categories, elementary and secondary levels. Elementary students have the possibility to use a track to follow the songs, but secondary students have to use musical accompaniment. Based on these rules, teachers and students engage on it, making efforts to accomplish the success. It implies teachers from different schools working in a collaborative way and motivated students using a second language in a real situation. After this event, we evaluate every aspect of the event, including teachers’collaboration, students and teachers’participation, results and so on. We use a rubric to include suggestions for next year’s event.

To finish, we could say that the main objectives of this kind of activities have been accomplished.

Teachers and students have worked as teams aand students have used language in a real situation.