scholarly journals The Cranky Ballerina by E. Gravel

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Gil
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Junior High School Students ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
School Students ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Extra Curricular Activities ◽  
Good Resource

Gravel, Elise. The Cranky Ballerina.  Katherine Tegen Books-Harper Collins Publishers, 2016.Ada is a cranky ballerina – she doesn’t like ballet! This picture book is written to encourage children to use their abilities in activities they enjoy, even though they may feel upset about not being good at activities in which their parents have enrolled them. The illustrations are attractive with many bright colors and details included, such as funny items or posters. Although they are not related to the dialogue or plot, children will enjoy spotting these fun details. The words change in size, color, font, and shape. This adds interest and accentuates the characters’ emotions. Because children aged 4 to 8, the intended audience, may have been enrolled by their parents in extra-curricular activities that they did not enjoy, they may be able to relate to this story. Not only does this story encourage children to refocus their negative emotions into finding activities they enjoy, but it can also be encouraging for parents. It can help parents to identify activities that will use a child’s apparent weaknesses as strengths and, in turn, improve the child’s mood. Other adults, such as teachers and instructors, will be reminded that every child has different strengths and abilities and that problems that they observe may be arising due to incompatible environments and activities.The characters portrayed as the ballet teacher and karate teacher are examples of patient and encouraging adults. The ballet teacher repeatedly tries to help Ada learn ballet, and the karate teacher compliments Ada on her spins and kicks. The ballet terms used, such as “plié”, “jetés”, and “arabesques”, would likely only be understood by children who have had ballet classes. Simple vocabulary, such as “spins” or “jumps” could have been used to make it easier to understand for children without prior knowledge in ballet. Overall, though, this picture book can be a good resource for teachers or parents and would be an interesting and a fun read for children. It should be available in school and public libraries.Highly Recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Stephanie GilStephanie Gil is a University of Alberta student of linguistics who enjoys working with children and new immigrants. She spent a year teaching English as a Second Language in Japan to kindergarten and junior high school students.

scholarly journals Outstanding in the Rain: A Whole Story With Holes by F. Viva

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Borle
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Junior High School Students ◽  
Upper Elementary ◽  
Elementary Children ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
School Students ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
New Immigrants

Viva, Frank. Outstanding in the Rain: A Whole Story With Holes. Tundra Books, 2015.Frank Viva is an illustrator and designer, so design, rather than storyline, is the strength of this work. The illustrations are a simple, retro-modern, cartoon-like style. Viva uses a palette of five tints: blue, yellow, red, brown, and white. This gives Outstanding in the Rain a “vintage” look.This children’s picture book is a collection of oronyms, words or phrases that sound the same but have different meanings, woven into a simple story about a boy’s trip to the amusement park. For each oronym pair, Viva incorporates a die-cut hole into the text. Words from the following page are shown as part of the sentence of the page being read. When you flip the page, the die-cut reveals a different picture and the second part of the oronym is also revealed. For example, the words “night rain” in the phrase “The night rain is just beginning to fall” turn into “night train” in the text of next page, “The night train is coming-I hear its call”. The combination of die-cuts, oronyms, and rhyme is complex and clever. Even the title and subtitle, “Outstanding in the rain” and “A whole story with holes”, both include plays on words.Children will have fun playing with the words in the same way that Viva has played with them. This book would be a great tool for teachers to introduce having fun with language, specifically oronyms. Upper elementary children would have the most fun with the double meanings, but even adults would enjoy this book.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Stephanie BorleStephanie Borle is a University of Alberta student of linguistics who enjoys working with children and new immigrants. She spent a year teaching English as a Second Language in Japan to kindergarten and junior high school students. 

scholarly journals Just a Lucky So and So: the Story of Louis Armstrong by L. Cline-Ransome

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Borle
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Junior High School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The People ◽  
New Year’S Eve

Cline-Ransome, Lesa.  Just a Lucky So and So: the Story of Louis Armstrong.  Holiday House, 2016.This is a children’s level biography of Louis Armstrong.  It is a difficult book to rate.  The watercolours are superb and rate 4 stars but the text is lacking and rates 2 stars.  While it is clearly a picture book and meant for children, the text seems like it might have originally been written for adults and then modified a little for children.  There are too many big words for a picture book and the story is choppy and sometimes too condensed to be understood. There are sometimes big gaps in the information.  For example, at a New Year’s Eve celebration, “shots were fired… Little Louis joined in with his stepfather’s gun. All his scrapes with the law added up, and at eleven years, Little Louis was sent away." We are not told why Louis was arrested, while it appears that firing guns in celebration was a normal thing to do. At one point we learn that he had a second wife, but up to that point there is no mention of marriage at all.  The writing does not flow and is not always easy to read.James Ransome’s images, however, are wonderful.  In keeping with the theme of luck in the book, all of the people are happy and smiling.  These are well-executed works of art.  The picture of the cornet inside the front cover is beautiful.  In the picture of Louis’s family when he was little, Ransome has perfectly captured the shape of a small kneeling boy with his head thrown back in laughter. The music message of this book is both historical and inspirational, showing that it doesn’t matter where you come from or how little you have, you can still do great things in music.Because there are relatively few biographical works of famous musicians, and elementary and junior high school students often have to make presentations on famous musicians, this book, in spite of its weaknesses should be in public and school libraries.Recommended:  3 out of 4 stars Reviewer:  Sean BorleSean Borle is a University of Alberta undergraduate student who is an advocate for child health and safety.

scholarly journals Teaching English through Online Games for Junior High School Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sastika Seli
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Junior High ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Online Games ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Junior High School Students ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
School Students

Teaching language is an attractive activity both for the teacher and for the acceptor. They can interact together in this act. Teaching English is a challenge for the teachers to make the students interest in English because as we know English is not the first language for some countries in this world including Indonesia. There are various ways and ideas to teach English so that it can be fun and interest to be taught and to be learnt. But those ways and ideas also should be an up date method and also use a modern technology to be implemented. Along with the development of modern technology, the teachers should involve with it and make it as a part of English teaching tools. Two of the famous and sophisticated tools are computer and the internet. These things have a close relation to be urgent equipment for people. In this article, the writer wants to purpose the use of online games as a way to teach English for junior high school. Te article aims to give another teaching alternative in attracting the junior high school students to learn English in funny and enjoyable way. Through online games they do not only can play the various games but also indirectly they do the exercises of English skills.

DEVELOPING READING MATERIALS FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS BASED ON CONTENT AREA

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anggita Kasanra Lubis And Rafika Dewi Nasution
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Content Area Reading ◽  
Junior High School Students ◽  
Content Area ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
School Students ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Reading Materials

Reading is the basic in learning every subject. The more understanding the text, the more information students can gain. However, the reading materials that the students use is not appropriate based on syllabus. Therefore, the reading materials should be developed to fulfil the syllabus and the students' needs also. Because English is included Content Area Reading, so the development of reading materials is based on content area which focus on strengthen the vocabularies, specifically the unfamiliar ones, by giving glossary and related pictures. The developed text is only focus in the first semester which is descriptive and recount text. The research was conducted at SMP Muhammadiyah 7 Medan. The data was taken from interviewing the English teacher and distributing questionnaires for 30 students in grade VIII-4. The data showed that students need materials which is related to their environment and constructed by familiar vocabularies. Based on the result of the study, conclusion and suggestion are directed to the English teacher who is teaching in that school to provide reading materials based on syllabus and students' needs regularly.

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