PLAN DE TRABAJO DE LOS MOMENTOS

DE INTERCAMBIO CON DOCENTES DE

INGLÉS DE SECUNDARIA EN
CONTENIDOS CIENTÍFICOS Y
METODOLÓGICOS DE LA ENSEÑANZA
DEL IDIOMA

Elaborado por: Rosa Acevedo Fanny Álvarez, Róger Amaya and Lesley Wang.
I Presentation
The Ministry of Education, in this first phase of training for
English teachers, has the goal to continue improving students´
learning with useful strategies that will lead teachers to
share their own experiences while learning how to implement
new English teaching techniques, learning exercises and
communicative activities.

II Introduction
This module has been designed with the purpose of helping
teachers facilitate learning in the classroom specially in
large group classes regarding inclusive education, and
exercises related to reading and writing. In addition, it will
provide information about useful websites for teaching and
learning English by using interactive exercises that will lead
students to develop basic communicative abilities.

III Index
page
Presentation, Introduction 2

Development, Objectives 3

Scientific and Didactic Contents 3

Methodologies and strategies 4

Presentation of contents 6

Inclusive activities 6

Teaching Reading and Writing techniques 9

Teaching Strategies and Materials 14

Useful websites for English Teaching 20

Sources 23

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IV Development

This module is divided into four essential components. The

first component focuses on teaching strategies which address
groups with inclusive attention. The second component focuses
on providing English teachers with models of a variety of
techniques, exercises and activities which enable teachers to
make effective learning for the students. The third component
is aimed at the development of teaching reading and writing
techniques with different exercises and activities. Finally,
the last component points to the use of websites for teaching
and learning English.
To accomplish the goal of this workshop, we have made it into
four sections. For each section we will apply communicative
and experiential methodologies and give teachers opportunities
to communicate and collaborate with each other by providing
models of practices that teachers can develop in their
classrooms. At the end of the workshop the participants will
demonstrate what they have learned in each section to verify
their understanding.

V Objectives

1. Participate in different activities related to the

inclusive methodology and cultural contextualization.
2. Demonstrate teaching strategies and materials by creating
new models according to the contexts.
3. Encourage teachers to improve their teaching skills and
language proficiency.
4. Enhance teachers´ reading and writing techniques through
different reading genres.

VI Scientific and Didactic Contents

Inclusive activities
Participants will practice different strategies that attend
the inclusive education in secondary school.
 Inclusive strategies
 Increase of motivation
 Increase of engagement
 Improvement of language skills
 Teacher’s role

3
 Teaching Reading and Writing techniques
 Pre-reading

 While reading

 After reading

 Writing

 What is genre?

Teaching Strategies and Materials to encourage

students’ active learning
 The Jigsaw Strategy
 Reading game
 Bingo game
 Word wheel
 Grammar wheel

Useful websites for English Teaching

 Useful websites for English teaching

 Websites where teachers can find ready-made resource

VII Activation of Prior Knowledge

Elicit from the participants their background knowledge of:
inclusive activities, teaching reading and writing techniques,
teaching strategies and materials and useful websites for
English teaching.

VIII Methodologies and Strategies Implemented in

Presenting the Content
Warm up: First teachers will introduce themselves through a
common warm up activity called minute mixer. Have participants
find a random partner and form a large circle with one partner
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standing closer to the center of the room. Each participant
will then spend 2 minutes talking to their partner. They will
discover each other’s name and something about their background
— where they work, what they like to do, why they are attending
the class.

Inclusive activities

The class will be organized into groups of six participants.

Then, they will share their previous knowledge regarding
inclusive education. Once they have shared this information,
the facilitator will introduce some useful strategies and case
studies of children with certain disabilities.
Then, participants will read information related to different
types of disabilities. Finally, each group will work on the
presentation of strategies to use when having children with a
specific disability in the classroom. It is important to
mention that teachers need to employ an inclusive student-
centered, communicative teaching methodology by developing and
using contents that represent Nicaraguan culture, history and
values.

Teaching Reading and Writing techniques

For this section, the facilitator will start by asking trainees
what reading techniques they apply when teaching reading in
order to get an idea of their background knowledge, then will
introduce the importance of having the first step “pre-reading”
when learning reading techniques. After that, the facilitator
will elicit information from the participants to share differ-
ent techniques teachers use with their contexts. The facilita-
tor will show the phases of reading by providing some strate-
gies and activities to apply in the classroom. In addition,
the facilitator will provide some contextualized texts of Nic-
araguan culture and history. At the end the participants will
model the activities to verify their understanding.

Teaching Strategies and Materials to encourage

students’ active learning
In this section, the facilitator will start with a jigsaw
strategy in which the participants share information related
to Nicaraguan legends. The instructor will model how to make
different didactic materials to facilitate the learning of
English. The trainees will make their own didactic materials
which will be adapted by choosing a specific content of the

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curriculum of Secondary school.
Useful websites for English teaching
In the last section, the facilitator will show some useful
websites for English teaching in order to share resources of
materials, games and activities and improve the level of Eng-
lish teachers’ proficiency.

IX Presentation of Contents

8.1 INCLUSIVE STRATEGIES

What?

Use of target language

(English) in the classroom
through routine competition
and “student interaction”
activities. The routine
competition consists of
dividing the class into two
teams (the teams are the
same in every lesson) and
giving a point for any
positive participation in English. The teams can be “A and B”
or they can be given names of cities, football teams, etc. At
the end of every lesson, the teacher says, “Let’s count the
points.” The team that gets a point in the overall competition
wins, for example, the winning team gets a prize (little
sweets, listening to a song in lesson, etc.). The student
interaction activities are varied, but here are some examples:

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 1. Colored sentences:
The teacher writes different sentences on
the board with different colors. To win
a point, the teams or the whole class
need to shout out the color of the
sentence the teacher is reading before
he/she finishes reading it. If they do
not guess it in time, the teacher gets a
point.

2. Slow reveal:
There is a text or set of vocabulary
on the board. The teacher hides it
with a card above or a picture above
and slowly reveals the words. As
he/she does it, the class slowly
reads. This is excellent for
modelling pronunciation while
engaging the class.

3. Repeat if true / beat the teacher: The

teacher has the vocabulary and pictures on
the board. He/She gets the students to re-
peat each word after him/her, but sometimes
he/she will say the wrong word. If the
class/teams repeat the wrong word; the
teacher gets a point, if the class is in
silence or says the right word, they get a
point.

7
 4. Learning the language through history and
historic photographs. Example: Incorporating
the Second World War in learning past tense.

5. Debating with students the use of new media

and its effect on language. Using “text lan-
guage” for short activities like code breakers,
etc.

6. For example, Use of symbol @ -

Chic@s in Spanish and I am @ the bus
stop for “I am AT the bus stop”.

Benefits:

Increase of motivation/engagement,
particularly in boys, promotion of
cultural awareness of countries of the
target language.

Awareness of changes in language and

comparison between Spanish and
English. Increase of engagement.

8
8.2 Teaching Reading and Writing techniques
8.2.1 Pre-reading
Definition: Pre-reading provides an overview that can in-
crease reading speed and efficiency. Pre-reading typically
involves looking at (and thinking about) titles, chapter in-
troductions, summaries, headings, subheadings, study ques-
tions, and conclusions.
Pre-reading techniques Examples:
1.1 The funny balloon: Consists of filling up a balloon with
stripes of paper containing unfamiliar words from the reading.
Procedure: The teacher divides the class in groups of 4 or 5
and give each group a balloon containing the unfamiliar words.
One student in each group blows the balloon and ties it, then
when the teacher says Go they start playing touching the bal-
loon for 20 seconds, when they hear the teacher saying Stop,
the student who gets the balloon has to explode it and read
the words to discuss the meaning of each word, then as a whole
class each group has to share the meaning with the rest of the
group and the teacher practices correct pronunciation if
needed.
1.2 Another pre-reading activity: You show a picture of the
reading you are going to use in order to elicit students´
opinions and predictions. This type of questions could be:
What does the picture illustrate? What do you know about this
picture? etc.

8.2.2 While Reading

Definition: While reading activities are defined as
activities that help students focus on aspects of the text to
understand better. The goal of these activities is to help
learners understand as much as they can as if the text is
written in their L1 (first language).
While reading techniques examples:
2.1 Identify the topic sentence (the main idea of a paragraph).
2.2 Student-to-student conversation (you can ask students to
have a conversation after they have finished a paragraph so
they can clear up any confusion they might have).
2.3 Identify the connectors (words that link ideas within the
text such as: and, but, however, because, since, although, as,
and others).
9
2.4 Identify prepositions (a word governing, and usually
preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to
another word or element in the clause e.g. for, by, on, to,
in, of, with and others).
2.5 Coding text (involves teaching students a method of margin
marking so they can place a question mark next to a statement
that they do not understand or an exclamation mark next to an
expression or something that surprised them).
2.6 Content words identification (verbs, adjectives, nouns and
adverbs) in which the student has to identify each of them by
circling or underlining.

8.2.3 After reading (main ideas)

Definition: After or post-reading techniques provide students
a way to summarize, reflect, and question what they have just
read. They are an important component of the pre-, during,
and post-reading strategy and is the core of good
comprehension.
After reading techniques examples:
3.1 Using teamwork: After the students have read the text,
ask them to make groups of five or six. Set a time limit of
five minutes and tell them they have to brainstorm as many
facts about the text as they can in that time. The group that
can recall the most is the winner.
3.2 Chain game After the students have finished reading, tell
them to go through the reading and try to remember some of the
key points and details. If you teach a large class, split the
students into small groups of about five or six students. Ask
the students to sit in a circle. Student 1 has to recall some
information about the text. Student 2 then repeats that
information and adds something new. Then student three repeats
both pieces of information and adds their own. This process
continues until the group runs out of ideas.

3.3 Speed chatting Prepare three or four simple questions

related to the content of the reading. Ask the class to make
two rows facing each other. Then, encourage them to ask each
other the questions, but warn them that they only have 60
seconds to do so. Once the 60 seconds are up, one of the rows
rotates so each learner has a new partner. Repeat the process
several times.

8.2.4 Writing Session

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Marjorie´s Life

She´s Marjorie and she lives in Siuna with her parents and her
brothers. She´s the oldest in her family. She turned 36 last
week. Her brothers are Eduardo, 33, and Octavio 20. Eduardo is
very polite and he always helps her with housework, she guesses
because he´s the youngest one.

She goes to a university near her house and she really enjoys
it. She has a lot of friends there and she enjoys studying.
Her favorite subject is English probably because it´s the most
important and easiest too! Her most difficult subject is Math-
she´s terrible. On the weekend she spends a lot of time with
her best friend Grethel and Angie. They do everything together
and they are the most important people in her life, apart from
her family of course!

4.1 Writing activities

Based on Marjorie´s Life do the following:

 Translate all or part of the text into Spanish

 Re-write the text in the first person

 Re-write the text negatively

 Re-write the text in a different tense

8.2.5 What is a Genre?

A genre is a broad term that translates from the French to mean
'kind' or 'type'. In entertainment, this can translate to hor-
ror, romance, science fiction, etc. In general, these types
differ for all sorts of reasons, from the actions in their
plots to the feelings they elicit from the audience. However,
in literature, there are some more defined genres. It is im-
portant to know which genre a piece of work falls into because
the reader will already have certain expectations before he
even begins to read.

Non-fiction and Biography Literary Reading Genres

Non-fiction Genre

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Nonfiction's specific factual assertions and descriptions may
or may not be accurate, and can give either a true or
a false account of the subject in question. However, authors
of such accounts genuinely believe or claim them to be truthful
at the time of their composition or, at least, pose them to a
convinced audience.

Example of a non-fiction Genre

The Death Cart

If you suddenly hear a carreta—a wooden cart pulled by oxen in

the middle of the night, you better not sneak a peek through a
window, no matter how small the orifice is. It may be the
Carreta Nagua.

La Carreta Nagua is noisy, as if the way is not paved as the

wheels hit rocks and the whole content of this dark carreta is
shaken at every second. In the lonely quiet streets, the clat-
ter is louder and scary. Those brave enough to look through a
window say that is an old carreta, bigger than the standard
carretas which is covered by a white sheet.

It is driven by the Skeleton of Death in white robes with its

traditional scythe on the left shoulder. This Carreta Nagua is
pulled by two skinny steers; you can see their ribs, one is
black and the other light. It never turns around corners. If
it must turn in any corner, it disappears and reappears in the
other street.

The reasons for the Carreta Nagua’s travels are unknown. Some
people believe that it announces the coming death of a person.

12
The basis for this belief is that someone in town that was
healthy suddenly appears “bad” and dies the next day of the
appearance of the Carreta Nagua. So, people say that the Car-
reta Nagua took him or her. Moreover, others affirm that the
Carreta Nagua is not pulled by steers, but it walks alone by
its own power. Its path is feared by every Nicaraguan. Would
you dare to see it?

Activities

 Underline the adjectives, comparative or superlatives

 Circle all the verbs in the past tense

 Change the past verbs into the present tense

A Biography Reading Genre

A biography is a written account (although it may come in other
forms such as recorded or visual media) of events and circum-
stances of another person’s life. Most commonly written about
a historical or public figure, it profiles a person’s life or
life’s work.
An example of a Biography Genre

Arlen Siu was born on 15 July 1955 in Jinotepe, Nicaragua.

Her father, Armando Siu Lau, was born in Guangdong, China,
and immigrated to Nicaragua in the late 1940s after serving
in the Communist Revolutionary Army.

13
Siu was 18 when she joined the Sandinistas. She had already
attained a level of national celebrity as a talented song-
writer, singer, and guitarist by the time she joined the
movement. She was killed August 1, 1975 during an ambush
near El Sauce, Leon, Nicaragua, by soldiers from Anastasio
Somoza Debayle's National Guard. She was twenty years old.
She is considered by many in Nicaragua to be one of the
earliest martyrs of the revolutionary movement. Her artis-
tic works and critical essays on Marxism and feminism served
as an inspiration to both the Sandinista movement and the
Nicaraguan Women's movement. Her picture was often dis-
played at FSLN celebrations throughout Nicaragua. Managua
and El Rama have neighborhoods named after her, and a park
in León is also named after her.
Activities
 Underline the main idea in each paragraph
 Circle all the prepositions
 Write down all the people and places mentioned

8.3 Teaching Strategies and Materials to Encourage

Students’ Active Learning
8.3.1 The Jigsaw Strategy

According to Elliot Aronson, the “Jigsaw” is a cooperative

learning strategy in which students are organized to
collaborate and achieve success as a consequence of paying
attention to their peers, asking good questions, helping each
other and teaching each other.”
In this strategy each student in a group takes responsibility
for one part of the content, in order to share information with
other group member. Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle students
14
fit their individual chunk together to form a completely body
of knowledge.
Here is the basic way this learning strategy is used in
classrooms:
1. Students are divided into groups of 4 to 6 students per
group. Try to have the same number of students in each
team.

2. Divide your content into 4 to 6 parts, trying to have the

same number of parts as the same number of students in
each group.

Vegetables

Seeds

Example: Gardening Herbs

Flowers

3. Assign one chunk of content to each person in the jigsaw

group. Each group has one person responsible for one part
of the content. That person will be expected to teach the
part to the rest of the group. At this point, students do
not really interact with other peers. They just read and
study their own independent part of the content. The role
of the teacher is to monitor students around the classroom
to make sure they are working at the same time and make
questions about the topic. Example: Could you tell me what
you are reading about?

4. Have students meet in Expert groups. After each student

has studied his/her own content independently, they gather
with all of the students who have been studying the same
part which is called the Expert groups. Students share
their ideas working together to prepare some kind of
presentation. Here is a good opportunity to clarify mis-
conceptions and important concepts can be reinforced help-
ing each other. Teacher monitors again and asks questions
about the topic in each group.

5. Students return to their original jigsaw groups and each

one takes a turn presenting their information. The other
students listen carefully, take notes and ask questions.
As each expert teaches the content the others in the group
are learning it.

15
 6. Assess all the students on all the content. The assessment
could be a simple quiz to make sure all students get a
basic understanding of all the material. Teacher could
include a discussion to share what they learned and write
down the students’ ideas on the board.

The Jigsaw Teaching Strategy’s Advantages

 The jigsaw method gives students a sense of ownership and

belonging – feelings hard to experience when working
alone.
 It could also improve the quality of teacher instruction.
Students are not so reliant on listening to every word
the teacher says.
 Teachers do not have to lecture on every detail they want
students to understand.
 Teachers monitor the room offering support and insights
where they are needed most.
 The jigsaw method offers you a chance to neutralize the
problems of competitive classroom behaviors and build a
cooperative environment.
 This is an easy technique to boost the learning,
relationships, and collaboration in your classroom.

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8.3.2 Reading game

Through this activity students practice all the grammar

structures in an interactive way.
To do this activity students need to write sentences on
cardboard in order to be completed.
Materials:
1. Cardboard in different colors
2. Markers
3. Scissors
4. Ruler
First, cut the cardboard into stripes and write sentences using
the grammar structures that students need to practice. For each
sentence draw a square for students to complete the missing
word. Then, cut small squares and write verbs, nouns,
adjectives, or prepositions. To make it more challenging you
may assign students more than one missing word.

8.3.3 Bingo game

17
This activity is useful to practice spelling, reading, and
phonics.

Teacher says the words and students put coins or caps of bottles
on the word. The first student who completes all the words in
a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line says “Bingo”.

sheep keep beet clean

seed bee heel need
cheek seem three deer
feel feed queen peel

jump pool rule cut

must crew run clue
cool moon blue true
you rub under run

8.3.4 Word Wheel

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With this word wheel students can practice pronunciation in
order to identify particular sounds. For example: /ee/ tree,
three, bee, fee, see. When the wheel is done students spin the
circle and say the words they wrote.

Materials
Cardboard
Glue
Scissors
Color papers
Markers
Draw two circles on the cardboard and cut them. One of them
will have a square. Then make two circles on the color papers,
each one will have different color. Make a hole in the center
of the circles and put a spin in there. Write the phonics that
you want to practice with your students on one of the circles.
Teacher says the words one by one with the same sounds that
the circle has on it. Finally, students say the words in order
to practice.

8.3.5 Grammar wheel

This is an interactive material in which students can practice

different grammar structures.

Materials
Cardboard

19
Glue
Scissors
Colored papers
Markers
Make three circles with different sizes with cardboard. Then
cut colored papers like the same circles you cut before and
paste them on the cardboard circles. Draw lines on the three
circles to separate words students will have to practice
sentences. In the big circle write the subject pronouns: I,
you, he, she, it, we, they, you. In the medium one students
will write the verb be, or others forms your students need to
practice such as regular and irregular past tense verbs. In
the small circle, students will write verbs (ing), adjectives,
or adverbs.
Put a spin into the middle of the circle in order to be spun
and find the words that will make the sentences. Also you could
have additional words or pictures to expand changes of
vocabulary and sentences.

A good idea is to have two wheels connect to each other and

make longer sentences by using connectors such as: but, and,
because, where, when. We can put them between the two wheels.

Example: I am glad because she likes me.

8.4 Useful websites for English teaching

8.4.1 Websites where teachers can find ready-made resources

Times Educational Supplement (TES)

https://www.tes.com/

Light Bulb Languages

https://lightbulblanguages.co.uk/

Teachit

https://www.teachit.co.uk/

British Council TeachingEnglish

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/
20
English Club

https://www.englishclub.com/teach-english.htm

K12Reader

http://www.k12reader.com/

8.4.2 Websites where teachers can make resources

Puzzlemaker

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/free-
puzzlemaker/index.cfm?campaign=flyout_teachers_puzzle

Tarsia

http://www.mmlsoft.com/index.php/products/tarsia

ESL activities

https://eslactivities.com/index.php

8.4.3 Websites teachers can use with students to play

vocabulary games

Quizlet

https://quizlet.com/

Kahoot

https://kahoot.com/

Memrise

https://www.memrise.com/courses/english-us/

Duolingo

https://www.duolingo.com/

Socrative

https://www.socrative.com/

ESL Games

https://www.eslgamesplus.com/

21
8.4.4 Websites students and teachers can use

BBC Bitesize

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education

Voki

http://www.voki.com/

Wordreference

http://www.wordreference.com/

British Council LearnEnglish and LearnEnglishkids

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/?utm_source=Lea
rnEnglish&utm_campaign=gpd-cross-sell&utm_medium=top-menu

Hello English: Learn English APP

http://new.culturealley.com/

CBBC Newsround (news in English for kids)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround

8.4.5 On-line dictionaries

Cambridge Dictionary

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

Oxford English Dictionary

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/

Macmillan Dictionary

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

Oxford Collocation Dictionary

http://www.freecollocation.com/
22
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuCOq0gImMg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFFnO8b_fx4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUpjolceDSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk7OAvHRiw4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euhtXUgBEts
Catapano J:The Jigsaw Method Teaching Strategy
https://penandthepad.com/literary-elements-nonfiction-story-
2256.html Check tomorrow

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/topic%20senten-
ceRead more at http://reference.yourdictionary.com/books-lit-
erature/different-types-of-books.html#l1Tg6UrCdSmhiSUw.99

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/making-reading-
communicative

23