Air
The most immediately bodily technique to realize the importance of air is the work on the breath (BREATH), which can be faced in different ways depending on the numerous variables due to the type of class, environment, conditions of the context. For another business example of reflection on the breath refer to ' I am my environment. Greenhouse Workshop: What Keeps Me Alive? (what keeps me alive?) 'carried out with the students of the Spallanzani institute in Castelfranco Emilia.
The context of Systemic English in the context of Open Schools , in which this activity took place, was such that it was possible to do a work of confrontation with another vital function necessary, that of eating food, since we had just finished doing snack in the park of Villa Angeletti. F inita the snack that had concluded the previous activity , we remain seated in a circle on the grass, and we talk about another form of nourishment for our body: the air (AIR) and with it we bring attention to our breath (BREATH ).
As we breathe consciously, we use the English language to talk about the importance of breathing and to become aware of it.
LINGUISTIC FOCUS
Question word
How often
Verbs
B reathing and eating
With the question 'How often' the teacher stimulates reflection on the importance of air compared to that of food.
How often do you need to eat?
(How often do you need to eat?)
How often do you need to breathe?
(How often do you need to breathe?)
What do you do more often?
(What do you do most often?)
What do you need to do more often?
(What do you need to do more often?)
The answer requires some linguistic pre-knowledge:
- The pre-knowledge of the question word How often (how often) and of the interrogative structure (recognize the auxiliary 'do' as functional to the structure of the question)
- The linguistic pre-knowledge of the expression 'once a ...' (once a ...), 'Twice a ..' (twice a ..), 'three times a ...' (three times a ...)
-The pre-knowledge of the adverbs of frequency 'often', 'always', etc.
-The pre-knowledge of the comparative form 'more' (more).
These structural linguistic pre-requisites are all study topics foreseen in the 1st year program of the Aldini-Valeriani Technical Institute, and were carried out in class following the guidelines of the textbook adopted 'Performer One' Zanichelli editions, which in the The first year includes the development of units 1 to 8. Students who did not remember the linguistic aspects studied in class were helped to express themselves by their peers (peer-learning) or by the teacher.
Once we have listened to the students' answers and helped to express themselves in such a way as to be understood by everyone (arousal phase - stimulation of attention to the topic and speaking - oral production) we move on to a phase of in-depth study and experimentation on the body. To work on the breath in this activity we use a tool (TOOL) dear to the Zen tradition, the Tibetan bell (TIBETAN SINGING BOWL OR MINDFULNESS BELL) and we become familiar with this tool to work on self-awareness (SELF-AWARENESS) while we focus on our I breathe.
LA CAMPANA TIBETANA - THE TIBETAN SINGING BOWL OR MINDFULNESS BELL
By breathing in the air produced by the surrounding trees we observe our interdependence with them and with the rest of the world. To foster this feeling of interconnectedness we do an activity with the Tibetan bell (THE TIBETAN SINGING BOWL OR MINDFULNESS BELL).