For those who know me well, to say that I'm not exactly into magical and fantasy stories would be quite the understatement. Nevertheless, I've been assigned to teach an entire month-long course on "Merlin: Arthur and the Unicorn" an adaptation from the British television series Merlin.
It's been a challenge to feign excitement about the topic, excitement for wizards and unicorns, dragons and potions, but I've learned a few things from the experience. Firstly, I learned a few things about the legends of King Arthur, about the television series of the young Arthur and young Merlin, and of other magical creatures. I also became very creative to come up with a variety of activities on the theme besides for the reading of the elementary level reader. Despite my students' panic every time I ask them to do something out of the ordinary and tell them I want them to use their creativity, a few of the projects have turned out to have nice results.
The project I feel best about was asking them to work as a large team (all 24 students) to create a magazine for the land of Camelot during a 1.5 hour-long class period. (The students are in their tenth month of English classes). The final result, after a fair amount of brainstorming, voting on ideas, and guiding them through the process, was quite pleasing. It was also evident that the students were proud of themselves, which was a nice thing to see. Most of them don't want to learn English and think they can use Google Translate for everything, but this project helped them discover that they do know a fair amount and that the internet doesn't always do a very good job of translating for them. They can sometimes do better. Below are a few images of their magazine called Magical Land.
It's been a challenge to feign excitement about the topic, excitement for wizards and unicorns, dragons and potions, but I've learned a few things from the experience. Firstly, I learned a few things about the legends of King Arthur, about the television series of the young Arthur and young Merlin, and of other magical creatures. I also became very creative to come up with a variety of activities on the theme besides for the reading of the elementary level reader. Despite my students' panic every time I ask them to do something out of the ordinary and tell them I want them to use their creativity, a few of the projects have turned out to have nice results.
The project I feel best about was asking them to work as a large team (all 24 students) to create a magazine for the land of Camelot during a 1.5 hour-long class period. (The students are in their tenth month of English classes). The final result, after a fair amount of brainstorming, voting on ideas, and guiding them through the process, was quite pleasing. It was also evident that the students were proud of themselves, which was a nice thing to see. Most of them don't want to learn English and think they can use Google Translate for everything, but this project helped them discover that they do know a fair amount and that the internet doesn't always do a very good job of translating for them. They can sometimes do better. Below are a few images of their magazine called Magical Land.
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