This year I was given a new group, nine-form students. These students were a "Terra Incognita" for me. And I had to face a BIG problem: 90% of the group were kinesthetics and I'm not the patient one. They could not absorb any new information from listening, audio or writing. May be visual aspect (reading texts, the visual support - photos and pictures-, spidermaps) was half effective. So they could remember some information only in the form of the plays, dialogues and games. And we, my partner Julia Imamova, decided to read a new text and after it to play the game. It could be 'Crocodile', 'Napoleon', 'the Fortune-teller' - whatever. But there was one rule: STUDENTS HAD TO USE THE WORDS FROM THE THEME OF THE LESSON. And student started to absorb the new word easier.
I must say that our children were really artistic gifted and every dialogue became a real theatrical performance. When we had the theme 'Nature's Fury' one boy tried to play a hurricane!
I tried to bring the new material to them carefully. The main 'muse' in this case became spidermap and small talk about their own experience, or their favourite kind of music. The spidermap helped them to feel themselves 'in the subject' and refresh the old words. F.ex.: before we started to read the text 'The Viking' I brought some visual support about Vikings (photos & pictures) and we tried to compose a spidermap, but they had to use their background knowledge. And when we started it was so much easier for them to absorb the new information & they felt themselves much more comfortable.
And songs! They enjoyed the song "We Are The Champions" by Queen. Plus we found out some new words. From my own experience I know that it's much more easier to remember words from a song than from a text.
I must say that our children were really artistic gifted and every dialogue became a real theatrical performance. When we had the theme 'Nature's Fury' one boy tried to play a hurricane!
I tried to bring the new material to them carefully. The main 'muse' in this case became spidermap and small talk about their own experience, or their favourite kind of music. The spidermap helped them to feel themselves 'in the subject' and refresh the old words. F.ex.: before we started to read the text 'The Viking' I brought some visual support about Vikings (photos & pictures) and we tried to compose a spidermap, but they had to use their background knowledge. And when we started it was so much easier for them to absorb the new information & they felt themselves much more comfortable.
And songs! They enjoyed the song "We Are The Champions" by Queen. Plus we found out some new words. From my own experience I know that it's much more easier to remember words from a song than from a text.
