dimarts, de març 06, 2007

Two brain hemispheres

The session today started with an exercise to practice the connection between the two brain hemispheres. As you know the right hemisphere rules the left part of our body and vice-versa. Sometimes the orders given by one hemisphere come into conflict with the orders given by the other one because our sight sense sends deceitful signals to the brain. We could prove that with the following exercises:

All of us were sat down in a circle with both hands on the table and with the fingers extended. We had to tap the table once in order: first one hand and then the other one keeping on the next person and following a direction. If somebody tapped the table twice, the direction changed.
Then we crossed our arms with the classmates on either side of us in such a way that our hands were as follows: - my left hand, my classmate’s right hand, my classmate’s left hand, my right hand., and so on. We had to tap the table in the same way as the previous exercise and made a lot of mistakes because when we were looking at one hand we thought it was ours, but it wasn’t.

Following this we did an exercise with an object, for example a pen. We had to pass it to the person on the right hand with this dialogue:
a) “This is a pen” (and giving it)
b) “A what? (holding it)
a) “ A pen”
b) “Ahhhh… a pen!

Then this person does the same with the following but the question “A what?” is made to all the people who had passed the pen before and all of them answer “A pen”. The game became more difficult when we did it with two objects: a pen and a phone. The pen in one direction and the phone to the contrary. It was very fun and mistakable.

After that and in pairs we did a doodle, which consists of letting your hand draw lines freely on a piece of paper, with no aim at all. We usually do it when we are thinking, listening to a speech.., and things like that. We doodled with the two hands at the same time on an A-3 worksheet making a symmetrical picture first one person on the left side and later the other person on the right. When we finished we repeated it to connect both drawings.

In the next activity we were given some vocabulary concerning the sense of touch. We worked on some words, for instance tickle, stroke, nudge, thump, sniff, slap, munch, smack, pinch, squeeze, rub, clap, pat, hug, frisk, shove, wink and scratch. We mimed them. Tim told us all these words are nouns and verbs, except munch, clap, frisk, spit and tickle which are only verbs.

Then, three of our classmates, Juan Pedro, Mª Paz and Enna did their book reviews. Juan Pedro and Mª Paz before the breaktime and Enna later. By the way, Enna had prepared two Lebanese recipes to eat during the breaktime and they were very tasty. Congratulations Enna!

Next, Tim gave us a worksheet to keep about examples of cooking words when they are used with a metaphorical meaning. And to continue we moved on to metaphors connected with light and the sense of sight. In pairs again we matched some examples of metaphors with the following categories:
- Visibility and lack of visibility
- Understanding
- Complexity
- Goodness
- Badness
- Uncertainty

To finish the session we listened to the song “Always look on the bright side of life” by Monty Python from the film “The Life of Brian” (see the YouTube). We whistled the chorus and filled ten gaps with the missing words.

by Mª Luisa Blasco Casas

El curs de Competència lingüística (en anglés) s'acaba ací fins a setembre, que tindrem el de English alive que també impartirà Tim Herdon. Entreu a la pàgina del CEFIRE per a veure detalls. L'evaluació ha estat molt positiva i nosaltres destacaríem l'habilitat de Tim per incloure aspectes metodològics relacionats amb l'art, ja siga la música, la plàstica, l'expressió corporal o la dramatització (veieu els posts de cada dimarts) com es proposa a aquest Museums of the Mind.

Front a una realitat escolar que ens demana cada vegada més dominar les estratègies comunicatives de dinamització pensem que necessitem exemples de persones sensibles no només a les llengües en contacte sinó també als diferents llenguatges expressius.