Once Upon a Time...

This year I have been working with Primera C (or Year 1C) in developing their basic English grammar and vocabulary knowledge. Fairy tales involving Princesses and Royalty are very popular with children in all cultures. As such, it was decided that this would be a good topic to use as this would engage their imaginations whilst encouraging them to learn every day words and sentences used in the English language. A story is always a great way to learn as the pictures are visually stimulating and children find it more fun to learn this way.

England was chosen as a setting for 3 reasons; the first and arguably the most important reason being that Universal English throughout the World is derived from the Queens English - as written in the Oxford Dictionary. Although there are variations of English, such as American English and Australian English, it is the “Queens” English that is most widely used. The second reason is that England is most famous for its Royal Family and historical castles. Lastly of course, it is the country I was born and raised in.

The stories all follow the same general path, explaining details about the Princess’ life and family, with a focus on home, living, family and appearance. Firstly, I worked in small groups of children and we drew the pictures. Then I created a slide show with each page showing their work on the story with approximately nine narrative pages on average per student. I would create a title focusing on the topic of that page of the story and as it progressed on each slide, the children’s pictures emphasised each part. The 9 pages generally follow the same pattern (as shown below) and some of the slide shows can be viewed on this blog.

Page 1 – A front cover sheet with the student telling their name and age, and explaining (in English) that this is their first tale written in English.

Page 2 – A Castle showing where the Princess lives.

Page 3 –A Castle and a map of Britain showing the general location of the River Thames in London and the starting of the story with the traditional: “Once upon a time..” This is a phrase very common in children’s stories.

Page 4 – The Shop shows the Princess buying items for home and school such as a pen, pencil, book and a sword to kill the dragon in the story.

Page 5 – The parts of the body. The students would draw a picture of the Princess labelling each body part in English.

Page 6 – The Face. This would continue from the last slide with a picture of the face with the children labelling in English each parts of the head from eyes to ears and mouth.

Page 7 – Foods. Next we advanced to various every day foods – essential vocabulary for the students if they are to learn English or indeed, any other language.

Page 8 – Family Members. Here the main members of the family are mentioned.

Page 9 – Animals and how they move. Finally we focused on different animals common in England as pets.

There were a few children who drew extra pictures and these mainly focused on Christmas and also one or two extra illustrations showing where the Princess lives.

All in all, it is vitally important that children learn the basic and essential vocabulary used in every day English as this will be of great benefit should they ever travel to an English speaking country later in their lives. I feel that the topic chosen was largely successful as the children have begun to point out certain things in English such as stationary in the classroom and certain foods at lunchtime – both of which were emphasised in their stories.