A carpentry at the service of the school needs

The elaboration of this project has not been easy for me and the development and realization of it has been not easy for the pupils either. I think the main reason of that is the fact that instead of creating a new project I have tried to convert in English an activity me and the pupils were already doing in Catalan (the carpentry workshop). I have done that without changing the basic features (number of sessions, processes to be made by the children, quality of the final product...) of the project because we didn't want to lose them. And even more, I have introduced some extra activities and processes than we were not doing in Catalan and were required if I wanted to do it in English. The result has been a lack of time to do everything as it should be done and the feeling that the use of English has not been enough relevant. The pupils were not motivated to speak and write in English, they just wanted to work in the carpentry, and the linguistic activities were more and obstacle than a learning opportunity or a way to accomplish a real objective. Nevertheless, the accurate planning of the sessions and all the scaffolding provided to the children allowed us to finish the project successfully and, at the end, the remaining feelings are positive.

In conclusion, I think during this formation we have acquired some very useful methodological skills and conceptual frameworks to be able to develop other successful GEP projects in our school. However, to be able to motivate the pupils and involve them hundred per cent in the learning of English we should find relevant and real contexts in where English should not be a teacher requirement but an authentic necessity. I think that something like an English magazine, podcast or mailing exchange with English speaking pupils to share what we do in our GEP projects could accomplish this function.