IN THE FOLLOWING SLIDE YOU WILL FIND A SET OF TASKS VERY MEANINGFUL AND USEFUL FOR STUDENTS. THE MAIN PURPOSES OF THESE TASKS ARE RELATED TO THE IMPORTANCE OF THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIAL

1. PRESENTED BY: NATALIA ANDREA CONTRERAS

2. “ Now tell me why there is not anything written in this small piece of paper, what was the problem this time? Well… it is a usual comment in the English classes of the sixth graders of a private school. A teacher´s concern focuses especially on this low writing skill development. Not only the teacher feels frustration due to the low performance students have in their writing skills but students who feel uncomfortable when writing as well. This has caused a big obstacle in the learning-teaching process which searches for improving every day students view toward English classes.

3. In this way it is possible to ask ourselves how to make students be more interested and identified with the English language? Maybe there are many ways to answer this question but not an absolute one. Bearing in mind those new and innovative resources and strategies to achieve that, this project will let students face some varied tasks that include interesting authentic material which related to a specific topic related to environmental issues will be useful for developing students´ writing skills.

4. This project is developed with a sixth graders group of a private school. They are 26 students who belong to a low and middle social stratum. Most of them are in the 10-11 age range. They have a low English level and especially some difficulties focused on their low writing skill development ( see appendix # 1 and # 2 graph 4) problem that has caused a low pace of learning-teaching process into the classroom. Although most of the students are motivated in English classes because of its usefulness and innovative resources and activities, they feel so insecure and uncomfortable in the moment to write a phrase or a short paragraph in English.(see appendix # 2) According to some findings collected through a short survey most of them have an easy access to the computers´ use and to internet (see appendix 3). It could facilitate the development of some of the tasks proposed to the project.

7. PHOTOS FOR GROUP 1

8. PHOTOS FOR GROUP 2 Taken from different internet sources(zveno.ru, lpda, mossos d´squadra)

11. WHILE-ACTIVITY b) After that, write 5 reasons explaining why you would like to have a pet and why you would not like to have a pet in your house, paste them on the wall to let other students stand up, read and write the answers they like the most WHY WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A PET? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ WHY WOULDN´T LIKE TO HAVE A PET AT HOME? ________________________________________________________________________________________

12. POST-ACTIVITY c). finally, the students will be divided in small groups whose activity is to design two advertisements; one will be promoting the advantages to have a pet at home and the other promoting the disadvantages. It might contain the message and a picture. Anyway, the design and content is up to you. EXAMPLE : TAKEN FROM: profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user...

13. 3.To divide the group in pairs and watch at the following video Then, the teacher will assign each small group three of the film animals to make a short description them but adding some new information related to the problems those animals have 3b. To go to page http://www.denverzoo.org/animals/fish.asp and read some other animals descriptions to learn more about animals and to know how to describe an animal.

14. IT HAS_______________________________________________ IT IS__________________________________________________ IT EATS______________________________________________ IT LIVES______________________________________________ IT CAN________________________________________________ ANIMALS´NAME Taken from: http://z.about.com/d/gouk/1/7/1/J/-/-/GiraffeBaby1.jpg To Describe The Animals Taking Into Account The Following Format example :

15. New information you can add: Write 5 reason explaining why those animals are in danger of extinction ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Write 5 ways you can help to prevent that animals extintion since your city ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________