A Fortune Teller Visited English Workshop 3

July 7th 2020

Laura Bouzas and Gabriela Remedi, English Coordinators

With the purpose of teaching the Future Simple Tense, Ana Clara Pazos, the teacher of English Workshop 3 at Primary School, decided to introduce this grammar point in an out of the ordinary way.

On May 12th, another video conference class  was about to start. It was almost 3 pm. All the students were already present and waiting for the lesson to start.  To the children’s surprise  the teacher’s camera was off.  Suddenly a mystic music started to play. As the music was playing an embellished  skull  began to appear on the screen. All the students began to scream in sheer amazement. At that precise moment Ana Clara made her appearance dressed up as a fortune teller, with a psychedelic silk scarf as a turban and wearing dramatic makeup that included a third eye drawn on her forehead. The children were delighted with the show the teacher had planned.

After both the children and the teacher discussed what the job of a fortune teller involves the teacher told them that the aim of the lesson  was to  learn how to read the hand lines to predict the future! They loved the idea!! By using an online resource the teacher showed and explained the meanings of each of the  hand lines: the life line, the health line, the marriage line and so on.

After that, the students were asked to make  predictions about  their lives using the corresponding tense structure. They wrote about how many children they would have, how long they would live, and how wealthy they would be and so forth. It was a really memorable lesson for all of them!!

Since the very beginning of the pandemic lockdown, Ana Clara, as well as all the teachers,  did her best to adapt her teaching objectives to both the ClassDojo platform and the video conference lessons. The teacher assures that in spite of the special circumstances both teacher and students managed to both maintain their affective  bonds and keep up with their teaching and learning process. 

This activity has been one of the very many appealing and creative lesson plans that all the teachers have designed and shared with their children during this historic confinement.