ARTIGAL METHOD: READY FOR A STORY

Last day in class, I spoke about some aspects of Artigal’s methodology, which I saw in my Practicum. Here I would like to explain a little more of what is on the subject.

“Ready for a story” is an innovating method for preschool children to learn the English language as a foreign language. For this, a story is the mainstay. At the beginning the story doesn’t have visual  support, teacher tell children the story using body language and making them feel part of it; students and teacher stage jointly the story. Once children know the story, they start working it with pictures. This way, children learn English words and give them a meaning in relation to the story. When they see a word’s picture for which they know the word in their first language, they make a relation between the word they knew and the new one that both mean the same, what appears in the picture.

To tell the story with pictures and everyone together, this method gives children an especial material. It is a cardboard stage and the story’s characters that are stickers which can be glued and detached from the stage, so children can follow the story moving the characters stickers from one side to another. After they learn how to tell the story with that material at classroom, they bring it home to tell it to parents, brothers or sisters, etc. After that, they do more things in relation to the story, such as songs, card games, a wall, a drawing, etc. After that, they start with another story. Also mention that teacher speaks to students everything in English.

Finally say that I really liked this method, because at the Practicum I could see how children had fun and enjoyed their English lesson while they improved their English.