Dictioclassroom

      "Ahora miramos al techo o al tablón de anuncios y leemos cómo se dicen en inglés, además podemos ver en la cartelería junto a la pizarra la todas las cosas que se pueden hacer ahí  y todo gracias al trabajo de la clase entera".

 Alumno de 1ºESO A

     "Dictioclassroom", o "Diccioclase" en español, es proyecto de Bilingüismo para plasmar de la manera más gráfica posible gran parte del vocabulario y expresiones necesarias en una clase en inglés. 

     Los alumnos de 1ºESO A con José Luis, su profesor de inglés, han habilitado su aula como un diccionario activo y tridimensional donde poder aprender, repasar o descubrir gran parte de la terminología en lengua inglesa ligada al aula, junto con sus significados y pronunciaciones correctas. 

     El proceso ha involucrado a un alumnado con un número importante de estudiantes con dificultades en este área, haciéndoles partícipes de cada fase: elección de los elementos incluidos, diseño, ilustraciones y maquetación para finalmente pasar a convertir un aula normal en una clase mucho más especial gracias al fruto del trabajo de todos y cada uno de ellos, con el resultado final de un total de más de un centenar de términos y expresiones que decoran la clase de manera muy gráfica.

Ukrainian boy sticking a picture of his flag.

`Sorry I am late'or `Can I go to..?' by the door.

Students' illustrations for school subjects.

      `Dictioclassroom' is the result of weeks working together in 1ESO A, a class where English is not the favourite subject but now, at least, this subject has become closer and more interesting. They have turned an ordinary classroom into a place where lots of vocabulary items related to education can be adquired just at a glance.

Actions and expressions related to the use of the whiteboard

     More than a hundred terms and expressions decorate our classroom now: after been chosen and found out by our students, these terms have been organized into different types. First, objects in the class, we can find labels next to an object which read the word, its phonetical transcription and its Spanish translation, just like dictionary. A second group consists on charts of words of different fields (Countries and nationalities, School subjects and School materials) which together with pictures by the students decorate some of the walls of our dictioclassroom. And another group is made by sets of expressions related to elements in the class (computer, doors, the teacher...), so for example by the whiteboard we can read useful sentences like `Clean the board' or `Can I borrow your marker?'.

     This project by the bilingualism program of our school has brought English closer to some  students who find it difficult and in the meantime it has reached different goals: it has been great enjoying their team work and watching them working on stuff they consider their own, for instance when they were designing their favourite subject boards or drawing their nationalities' flags, also it has added interest on new fields like computer document designing or even phonetics.

George rules

     As we have already been mentioning, our Kiwi friend George Harman, whom we have blessed this year with, is a great help for all the teachers here, and both bilingual teachers and those not so have counted on his activities to add a different colour to their lessons.

     This year is the first time all the classes have had the chance to enjoy the English auxiliar's lessons at least once, so that we all have got much closer to that distant place, New Zealand, through George's entertaining speech about his awesome country, which now we all love.