In the current page I will explain Rose Mary's Case, which has been the project that I created with three other students of the university, to implement in the English class. The following sections will explain the project itself, but as a brief introduction, the project consists in the case of a wealthy woman called Rose Mary that is asking for help because she has been stolen while she was abroad. To solve the case she selects four schools to help her and each school will be in charge of one aspect of the project, but they will have to collaborate within the four schools.
First of all, I would like to introduce the group of the students with whom I implemented the project in my internship. I was in the school Lluís Millet which is located in the village of Masnou. The project was implemented with fifth graders. It must be said that in the group there is a big difference among the English level of the students. For that reason several actions were taken, like the groupings made by the teacher, because I considered the students' weaknesses and strenghts to promote diversity but also equal opportunity to all the students. Thus, the students were not used to work by projects because the school follows a traditional approach and English is taught through books. With regards to the group itself, there are twenty two students and they were all involved in the project. If you want to know a bit more about the group, I recommend you to press the following button. That would redirect you to the webpage created through the implementation of the project, and you will see the description that the students made of themselves. Moreover, I encourage you can take a look at the webpage because is the one that has been used to conduct Rose Mary Case. As it was supposed to be a "secret page" the students had to discover the password for entering to the blog, so you will be asked for it, which is COTEACHING.
Secondly, I would like to introduce the teachers that have worked with me with this co-teahing project. As I mentioned before, the Teaching Unit was created by three other students (a part of me). Each of us have been implementing this project in her internship. If you want to know about her experience you just have to click on her picture and that would redirect you to their blogs to know a bit more about them. Do not hesitate to take a look of their experiences!
English Primary Teacher
English Primary Teacher
English Primary Teacher
Characteristics of the Teaching Unit
If you want to access to the detailed grid explaining the project, press the following button which will redirect you to the grid I created to explain the contents, competences, objectives and other aspects of the project created.
Explanation of the project session by session
SESSION 0: INTRODUCTION OF ROBBERY CONCEPTS - ACTIVITIES
Introducing robbery vocabulary: In order to learn the vocabulary that was going to be used in the project, a presentation was shown in which the key words were presented. First a picture related to a word appeared, and the students discussed what was that word, then once they checked the name of the picture, they had to orally try to give a definition, and finally we compared with the definition provided of the picture.
Games to practice vocabulary: To practice the vocabulary presented in the presentation, three corners were created in which they had to use the vocabulary shown. As this session was carried out with half of the class the number of the students was reduced, so in each corner there were four students approximately. The first corner, asked the students to complete a wordsearch in which the same definition shown in the presentation was provided and they had to write the name to which it referred. Also, they had as a visual support the pic of what the word referred to. The second corner was a memory, in which there were cards of three different colors, the definition, the picture and the name. As a memory they had to match the three cards that correspond to each other. Finally, the third corner were several games created with Quizlet, such as an activity where they had to match name and definition, another in which they had to write the name of the picture. All the activities used the same pictures and words introduced in the presentation. ​
​Sharing learning: The last five minutes will be devoted to sharing how did the students feel when realizing the corners, in which they presented more difficulties and their questions upon the vocabulary introduced.
SESSION 1: INTRODUCTION OF ROSE MARY'S CASE - ACTIVITIES
Seeing a Poster of Rose Mary asking for help: The class will start with the teacher explaining the students that when she was coming to the school she saw a poster in which a woman was asking for help. As there will be posters all around the school the students would have also realized about it. So we will take the poster of the corridor, read it and analyze it all together.
Watching the video and doing the listening comprehension: We are going to watch the video and we are going to play it three times while pupils individually do a listening comprehension to assess their listening skills.
Writing the email to Rose Mary: We are going to send an email to Rose Mary presenting the group and asking her to participate. To do so, first an example of an email will be provided in order to follow the same structure. Pupils are going to be asked to volunteer to write the email, each of them can write part of the sentence, so that most of the class participates. The rest of the pupils provide language support by spelling the difficult words. We are also going to take a class picture to attach it to the email.
Recap - Checking for understanding and guessing what will happen: The students will do a short debate to reflect upon the situation, what could have happened to Rose Mary and if they believe that she will select us for helping her.
SESSION 2: UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS A TREASURE - ACTIVITIES
Reading Rose Mary’s answer and discovering the blog: The class is going to start by reading Rose Mary’s answer email and we are going to enter to the blog to explore it, read our mission (which is discovering which is the treasure), and to see our class picture.
Wikipedia’s worksheets: Pupils are going to be given with a photocopy of Rose Mary’s Wikipedia profile and by groups, using the class distribution of 4 groups, they are going to fill in a worksheet to practice their reading comprehension. Each group will be an expert on a different aspect regarding the worksheets that they need to complete: basic information, background and properties.
Checking the results all together: We are going to hang up the results on the blackboard and we are going to go through them all together.
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Comic running dictation: By groups they will have to complete the different comic strips. To do so, one student of each group will be in charge of each vignette. As it is a running dictation that student will have to go to the table of the teacher where there will be the comic with the letter and the student will have to go quickly and dictate the sentence to his/her group. Once the student has finished, the student in charge of the next vignette will do the same, until all the students have done it and the comic is completed. When all the groups finished we will put it in common and see that the comic explains what is a treasure.
SESSION 3: DISCOVERY OF THE 6 SUSPPICIOUS TREASURES - ACTIVITIES
Activity to remember what is a treasure: In order to remember what is a treasure, the students will be asked among them concepts that were worked in the previous class which answer can only be yes or no. The teacher will start with a question to a student, for instance “Emma can a treasure have economic value” ad after Emma answers she has to ask a question to another classmate.
Mindmap of previous ideas: what treasure could be the one that the thief stole to Rose Mary?
With the work groups the students will have to think which treasure could be the one that was stolen from Rose Mary. They will be allowed to choose until five options and write each idea on a Post-it. After that, they will share it with all the class reasoning why do they think that the treasure selected can be the one stolen.
Checking the blog and reading the clues that Rose Mary has sent us: Rose Mary would have posted that she needs our help because the police has sent her some riddles of the possible treasures but she is not able to answer them. The students will read the post and interpret what she says.
Riddles: Each group will be in charge of solving two riddles of the ones Rose Mary has post. Once they have solved it they will put it in common with all the class. A discussion will follow to see if the group is right or there are other possible answers. It must be mentioned that not all the riddles are own creation, as the following webpage was used in some cases http://riddles-for-kids.org
Writing the 6 main treasures that could have been stolen: After solving the 10 riddles the students will vote which of the solutions can it be the treasure of Rose Mary. Out of the 10 possibilities just 6 will be selected and the students will have to explain why, for example the reason why a teddy bear can not be the treasure.
SESSION 4: VOTE FOR WHAT, WHERE, WHO AND WHEN - ACTIVITIES
Entering to the blog: we are going to enter to the blog to check our next mission, which consists of voting the possible thief, place, treasure and time. Each of the suspicious, for each of the topics, is going to be described by the teacher so that pupils can decide what to vote. The students will analyze a poster provided by Rose Mary and the teacher will check that all the students understand the vocabulary.
Voting: each of the pupils is going to individually answer the questionnaire and voting the possible thief, place, treasure and time.
Debate: pupils are going to be asked to explain what they voted and why. To do so, a language support will be provided in order to help them to structure the sentence appropriately for explaining their opinion.
SESSION 5: RM ESCABE BOX - ACTIVITIES
Checking the blog: As always the class will start checking the blog, where Rose Mary will have created a post asking for our help. She will tell the students that the police has found clues, but they do not know how are related, so she will send us a copy of the clues to see if we can solve them and discover what is the treasure stolen.
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RM Escape box: Rose Mary Escape Box is a box that contains several activities that are related and must be solved to discover the treasure. As Rose Mary said in her post, the first thing that the students need to do is gather some pieces that will show them the instructions to follow. That is, inside the box there will be the following puzzle which explains exactly how to solve the box. That would be the key to succeed with the escape box.
First of all, it asks the students to find a material inside the box in which they will need to connect some points that will form 5 draws. The first letter of each drawing is a key word if you want to access the secret web of the thief. Once they solve it, they will have the password (that is paint) to access the blog of the thief, but they will need to look for the link of the blog. To do so, they will have to find a paper which needs to be read upside down or using a mirror to discover the page.
When they solve it, the students will be able to access the web of the thief using the tablet. On the blog they will find the secrets of the thief. One of them will be the key for answering encoded texts. They will have to look in the books of the box, because one of them and encoded text hides.
After solving the encoded text, that would say that they need to connect the different cities marked on the map (that will found in the box). Because those cities are not the places the thief visited, those are the initial letters of something very important related to the treasure. The encoded text will give them the instructions on how to connect the points of the map. Finally, if they enter the three letters as a password (that are VVG) to the blog of the thief titled TREASURE, they will find a QR that shows what the treasure stolen is.
Sharing the results: Finally, one spokesperson of each group will share with the other classmates what they have found in the Escap Box to see if the results coincide with the ones of the other groups. In the following pictures you can appreciate the results of the session.
SESSION 6: CREATION FINAL VIDEO - ACTIVITIES
Explanation of the functioning of the lesson: pupils are going to be explained about how the recording is going to be carried out. The teacher has to distribute the scripts taking into account the language skills of the pupils.
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Colouring the script: they will have 10 minutes to colour and decorate their script, although they can keep on doing that while their classmates are being recorded.
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Recording: the teacher is going to record the pupils in groups of two or three. In addition, some other pupils are going to be asked to volunteer to also appear in the video showing the material of the different activities. Finally, the teacher will gather all the class to say the place where the treasure is hidden all together.
SESSION 7: CLOSING ROSE MARY'S CASE - ACTIVITIES
Watching the video: they will watch the video and discover that the florist stole the paint the fourth day and that it was hidden in the hotel. An explanation of why this happened is going to be provided.
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Sharing the reward: The students are going to be given with the reward that Rose Mary promised, which consists of sweets and a little message from Rose Mary thanking their work.
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Assessing the T.U: pupils are going to be asked to assess the T.U and the performance of the teacher using a grid that evaluates different aspects.
Activity to close the TU: As a short closing activity, I will ask the students to say one word that defines for them the project of Rose Mary.
Strenghts of the teaching unit
Digital resources
One of the strengths of this teaching unit is that it promoted the use of digital trends in the English project. The ICT was used to acquire language learning in different situations. Even though the resources have already been presented in the explanation of each session, in the following list you can appreciate the resources that were used autonomously by the students:
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Quizlet
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Blog: Rose Mary and the Thief blog
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QR
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Google Questionnaire
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Attention to diversity
The project focused as well in attention to diversity. Due to the fact that there were students with huge English level differences among them several actions were taken in order to promote equality of opportunities among the students.
The first action taken was to arrange groups according to the students’ abilities to ensure diversity among groups. That fact promoted collaborative peer interaction as there were students with different levels in each group.
Moreover, several supports were provided for the completion and understanding of the activities. For example, the video included subtitles to help pupils to follow what Rose Mary is saying and to find key words that may appear in the listening comprehension.
The teacher also reproduced physically, through mimics, what is the protagonist saying paraphrasing if they did not understand some words. Another example, could be the visual support that was provided for the questioner and the fact of using pictograms instead of words when they had to complete it.
In addition, language support was provided according to the specific needs of the students and that attended to the diversity of the class.
Finally, the activities promoted different intelligences and skills. Thus, not all the activities asked for high writing or communicative skills. As there were other activities in which artistic or cinestetic intelligences were used.