Mija Selič: Visual Story for Grammar Learning

Presentation focus

We will create a visual story using flashcards to demonstrate how such a story can be used in the classroom. Through the visual story, we will create affirmative, interrogative and negative sentences and introduce auxiliary verbs to show how grammar can be visualised, thus making it easy for children to understand, read and write. C00lSch00l teaching tools will be used.

We will start with storytelling in order to create a context for the follow-up activities.

Why have you chosen this topic for your presentation?

We will then create a visual story based on the story that has been told by finding the correct flashcards in the C00lH0use (where the flashcards are stored). The chosen flashcards will be placed on a chart, next to question words, to form sentences. Reading the sentences chronologically will tell the story. The activity will show how children can relate words to question words and thus be introduced to parts of speech (subject, verb, object and time adverb), word order and prepositions, while at the same time gaining experience in reading and writing.

What do you want participants to take away from your presentation?

At the end, we will change the positions of the flashcards and add appropriate auxiliary verbs in order to make interrogative and negative sentences. The activity will show how children visualise and execute changes in the word order to form different types of sentences and thus better understand the process.

All of the activities will demonstrate how to establish a basis for the visual presentation of grammar (word order, question words, the use of articles, the plural of nouns), while at the same time providing a good opportunity for reading and writing, thus transforming an abstract concept of grammar into a concrete and visual concept.The participants will be actively involved in all of the activities and will have an opportunity to ask questions during the activities and at the end of the session.

Bio

Mija Selič is a teacher, teacher trainer and executive assistant to the CEO at the C00lSch00l private language school. She is an innovator in finding new ways of teaching and in developing teaching materials for very young language learners. She has a master’s degree in primary teaching and a degree in English. She also holds a certificate in convergent pedagogy.