Three activities for strategic investment and to lower anxiety in the classroom (Aulas Felices)

In this post, I have picked some interesting activities from Aulas Felices which I think they can be very useful to be implemented in our classroom and they may increase motivation. I hope you all find them as useful as I do:

ACTIVITY ONE: Advertising and counter advertising

Level: Primary and Secondary Education.

Objectives: Critical analysis of advertisments to develop creative strategies in order to create positive advertisments.

Development: Advertising is present in several subjects within the curriculum of primary and secondary education, we can take advantage of it to implement this actitity in any of the subjects, but we will do it in English. We can start thinking about what is advertising so we can have a brainstorming activity analyzing media.

First, we can ask our students to search for a negative advertisment (meaning an advertisment which contains negative connotatins) and bring it to the classroom, for example, the ones using sexist content, misusing environment context, using the image of exploited workers or child labour, unhealthy products (alcohol, tobacco, fest food, etc.). We can choose some adverts displayed on different forms such as newspapers, tv, or radio, and then analyze their features: language, images, sounds or purpose.

After analyzing them, this activity will become creative, students will be asked to design a new advert, for every negative advert, they will create a positive one (counter advertisment) which, taking into account the original message, will show a different connotation. It will strengthen positive attitudes such as equality. The final result can be presented using different formats, for instance, paper, ICTs or video.

Resources: Adverts, images, laptops to create their own ones and get new information.

Observations: This activity can be organized in small groups so they can share ideas.

ACTIVITY TWO: Perception

Level: Primary and Secondary Education.

Objectives: Observe an image and check that depending on who is looking at it, it can be different.

Development: The teacher displays an image to the students. Then we start a small debate asking questions such as, is there just a single point of view? What is happening? Do you all think the same? What do you think they are doing? Also, we can divide the classroom in groups, and they can defend different opinions to discuss about the topic.

Resources: A laptop or projector to display images, for example images showing real environments or optical illusions.

Observations: It may just take half an hour.

ACTIVITY THREE: Debates changing roles

Level: Primary and Secondary Education.

Objectives: Improve fluency and speaking skills. Learn to switch roles and feel on the shoes of other people.

Resources: Speaking sills is one of the most important skills when learning a foreign language. So, the teacher chooses one topic related to the content in the curriculum, and the students will take a stance in favor or against. They will need to think about the reasons why they are in favour or against to justify their opinions. The topics may be debate topics, for example, an argument between people, society conflcts, environmental issues, etc. One example can be monarchy, so students will get into groups wither in favor or against. They can prepare a list with their reasons to justify their opinion. Later, they get into two groups and the debate can start. The most interesting part is how students change their opinions according to the group they are in. Finally, they can compose a personal reflection, either individually or grupally, oral or written, so to reflect on the usefulness of the activity.

Observations: It may take just half an hour.