5/2/2008 8:43:00 AM
TES 2 May
Press pause. Children’s films can boost literacy skills and help youngsters analyse what’s in front of them. Film has a language of its own. Characters and stories are portrayed through a lot more than just words. Stick on a bit of scary music and you have a villain. But in the next scene, the music changes and you are building up, not just a mood, but a deeper understanding of the character.
The revised Primary Framework places a new emphasis on teaching literacy through film. In response, Film Education, the charity producing materials on movie making for schools, has come up with Picturacy, a CD-Rom resource for key stage 1. It includes short clips and stills from a range of movies for younger audiences – from computer animations such as Chicken Little and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie to the classic Heidi series – to demonstrate aspects of story writing, such as how to describe a character. “A lot of children, when asked to describe somebody, do so in terms of appearance or behaviour. But Picturacy helps them think in terms of personality as well,” says Dawn Summersby, deputy headteacher and literacy co-ordinator at Lawford Mead Junior School in Chelmsford, who has trialled the resource with key stage 2s and the Year 2s in the adjoining infants’ school. Film Education resources are normally geared towards secondary schools, but Picturacy is the first in a projected series for primary. Its six sections – character, colour, music, narrative, setting and camera – explore how different aspects contribute to the meaning of what’s on the screen. Paul Ramsey, a teacher at Icknield Primary School in Luton, has used Picturacy with his class. “The children found that the music and sound effects had a big effect on the meaning of the scene,” he says. “You can watch a scene with and without the music and it’s totally different, not just in mood, but in what’s being communicated about the character. We watched a short clip from Chicken Little where the music shifts from creepy and scary to something more grand and heroic.” The TES Magazine has teamed up with Film Education to offer 10 primary schools a copy of Picturacy, (normally costing £50, including a full licence for every teacher and pupil). Fill in the coupon in this week's magazine.
www.filmeducation.org
TES
SYNTAX IS TOO TAXING FOR MANY TEACHERS
TES 2 May
Ignorance of grammar dents their confidence .Teachers who were not taught grammar at school are struggling to teach it today, according to a government-commissioned study. The major review of research on how best to teach secondary pupils to write complex English has revealed evidence that their education is suffering because of some teachers’ “limited confidence with grammatical terms”. “For English teachers, who themselves attended schools when grammar was not part of the English curriculum, there is a significant issue of lack of assurance in grammatical subject knowledge, leading to difficulties in addressing grammar meaningfully,” the report from Exeter University said.
Research into trainee teachers’ subject knowledge showed that they “may not have enough understanding of the writing process themselves to teach it effectively”. Academics report that the pressure of high stakes testing and league tables can force teachers to “reduce writing to a formula, stripping it of meaning and purpose”. “There is research evidence to suggest that in order to secure development in pupils’ writing, there is a need to ‘skill up’ teachers in terms both of their subject knowledge and their understanding of effective teaching strategies,” they said. John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said teachers should be surveyed to see what on-the-job training they needed to help them fill in gaps. “I think there is an issue about understanding grammar,” he said. “The danger is that this will be seen as teachers’ fault when it isn’t.” Mr Bangs said staff who went through teacher training colleges in the 1970s and 1980s were most likely to be affected.
‘Effective Ways of Teaching Complex Expression in Writing’ is at www.dfes.gov.uk/research
Curriculum / Quality Assurance
E-mail a friend |
del.icio.us| Bookmark|
Permalink |
Comments
(0) |
Post RSS