Com que la intervenció està dissenyada per ser implementada íntegrament en anglès, les orientacions i els materials d’intervenció que es presenten a continuació s’ofereixen en aquesta llengua
Teaching guide
The page shows the step-by-step intervention procedures of six one-hour MMN: English sessions. Each session lasts around 1 hour. All six sessions follow the same procedures below. You can access to the intervention materials of six sessions and follow this guide to implement the MMN: English in classrooms.
Activity 1. Cartoon watching
Step 1: Play a wordless animated short film to the students and ask interactive questions.
Example: Did you enjoy the story? How many of you were surprised by the ending?
Activity 2. Model storytelling
Step 1: Play the model storytelling to students. Ask interactive questions
Examples: Did the retelling help you understand the story better? How many scenes were there?
Introducing story elements
Step 1: Introduce story elements one by one. Give examples.
Examples: There are some key elements storytellers use to structure their narratives. It’s important for us to include these elements to make a story complete. These elements are:
Setting: The time and place the story takes place. For example, this scene happens inside a train station.
Character: The protagonists of the story. They can be humans, animals, or any living things.
Problem: The conflict or challenge the character faces. For instance, the cookies didn’t come out of the vending machine.
Feeling: The character’s internal response. For example, she was frustrated, she was angry.
Attempt: The action taken to solve the problem. The woman ran into the machine.
Consequence: The direct effect of the action. The cookie fell.
Ending: The result or conclusion of the story. The woman put the cookies in her purse.
Activity 3. Vocabulary Training
Step 1: Introduce the first tip to be a good storyteller – using body movement
Example: To be a good storyteller, it’s important to use body language and gestures. In our next activity, we’ll focus on learning some vocabulary and how to use gestures to represent these words.
Fill in the blanks
Step 1: Show cartoon clips/screenshots. Ask students to fill in the blanks with the missing vocabulary. Teachers should use gestures to prompt students’ response.
Example: (Play the first clip) One afternoon, there was a short (gesture) old woman, with grey hair, big glasses (gesture), and a what (headscarf gesture)…?
A headscarf (gesture)
Inside a…? Train station.
Step 3: Play the model video clips. Ask students to focus on how the storyteller uses gestures and face to express the meaning of vocabulary.
Example: Now let’s look at the model, pay attention to the gestures. I want you to do exactly as the storyteller does. (Play the model clip)
Step 4: Ask students to imitate the model while reading the sentence.
Example: Now you repeat the sentence as the storyteller did. Use your body language!
Activity 4. Pronunciation Training
Step 1: Introduce the second tip to be a good storyteller — using a clear and expressive voice.
Example: Besides using our body language to tell a story, the second tip is to use a clear & expressive voice!
Sound identification task
Step 1: Introduce the /I/ sound. Play the audios (e.g., hit & heat) once. Ask students to identify the correct one (hit).
Example: To make our pronunciation clear, we’ll practice some vowels that are often tricky. For example, the short vowel /ɪ/, which we sometimes confuse with /iː/. Now, we’ll listen to two sounds, and you will tell me which one is the correct pronunciation. Listen and repeat the correct one 3 times.
Hand clapping task
Step 1: Introduce sentence stress. Give tips on finding & producing sentence stress — higher pitch, louder voice, longer time.
Example: We can make our story more engaging by using sentence stress, which is the emphasis we place on certain words within a sentence to express the meaning and our emotion. These words are usually higher in pitch (give an example of a low pitch Ah (L) and high pitch Ah (H)), louder in voice, and longer in duration.
Step 2: Play the audio & ask students to listen & focus on the sentence stress.
Example: Now I want you to listen to the audio and pay attention to the word in bold, which the storyteller puts stress on.
Now, I want you to listen to the audio again and hand clap on these stresses.
Now you say the sentence and do the hand clapping at the same time.
Activity 5. Question Answering
Step 1: Introduce the third tip to be a good storyteller — including all story elements. Reviewing each element.
Example: Remember what we learned about the elements that make up a story. To be good at storytelling, it’s important to include these elements. In this task, we’ll review each element together. I’ll ask you several questions, and I want you to respond in complete sentences, using your expressive voice and body language.
Step 2: Ask questions related to each story element
Example: What happened? / What’s the problem?
Step 3: Teacher models/recasts the answer (in a complete sentence, using the gestures) and asks the whole class to respond together.
Example: Teacher (Recasting & Modeling): the cookies got stuck (gesture) in the vending machine. Remember to use gesture (gesture) T: Now everybody, what was the problem? 1, 2, 3…
Step 4: Teacher recasts again.
Example: Teacher (Recasting): Yes, the cookies got stuck (gesture) in the vending machine
Activity 6. Peer Retelling
Step 1: Group the students into pairs (they can choose their partner they like) and introduce the task.
Example: In this task you’re going to retell the whole story to each other, as the model does. Now let’s watch again how the storyteller did it.
Step 2: Show them the screenshots of key plots, icons and keywords. Clearly instruct them to use expressive voice and body languages to retell, and to mark the elements the partner has said in the checklist, during his/her retelling.
Step 3: Start retelling [5 mins].
