During this month, our Primary students have been giving their parents Spelling lessons. These are practical sessions where the children themselves take centre stage and show off their spelling skills to the audience. Very useful for all of the adults attending!
This is just the same as happened last month, in January, with students showing their parents how they learn Maths at School, by giving them a Maths lesson. This was called: how to help your child at home! Getting up on stage and speaking in public are two very normal skills, which students at the British Council School are certainly not afraid of. They are very used to showing off their skills in a theatre.
Spelling and handwriting are key elements in language learning. Practicing in class is very importat because correct pronunciation and good handwriting are essential learning basics which contribute towards more effective communication.
Conscious of the importance of spelling and the difficulties our students can have, the School organised a presentation for parents, “Cast a spell: Helping your child with spelling”. This suggested learning strategies to help children with their handwriting at home.
One has to keep in mind that, compared to Spanish, which is a phonetic language and is written as it is spoken, English, on the other hand, has the problem of not being a phonetic language. Consequently, writing can be a little bit more difficult. It is also true that within a language there are homophone words which sound the same, but are written differently.
To get over all these difficulties there are awhole range of strategies, methods and games which can be used at home and which can provide our children with help to learn to spell more accurately.
And, whilst we are all teaching our children to spell better, we should all remember Fernando Pessoa´s famous phrase: “Grammar is more perfect than life”.