Ok, so this clearly has limited interest to other people, but I have at certain times in my life been in love with Disney's early Silly Symphonies. I was pleased, then, to discover that using The Tortoise and The Hare film during a language group with Early Years pupils provided much to talk about.
The Learning Objective of the session was: to show an understanding of descriptive language such as fast and slow. My plan was to show the film and interrupt certain sequences (as annoying teachers do) to ask the children their opinion of who would win the race.
For a start I was surprised to learn the children didn't innately know this fable - I thought it was one of those examples of inherent cultural memory - but in any case these children didn't know the outcome. This was perfect as they were inclined to say that the hare would win. Asking them why allowed for the students to experiment with language and ideas around what physical attributes (i.e. those which can be determined through sight) were conducive to running fast. For example: "long legs", "bigger", "stronger", and apparently just being "better." Additionally, the same can be applied to the tortoise - why do you think he will not win the race?
Throughout the race the Hare cartoonishly shows off. This allows the children to further predict whether this sort of behavior will win him the race. It was interesting to see how the children's perceptions of the Tortoise changed over time - as the Hare continued to be distracted the Tortoise takes on the role of 'the runner', producing comments such as - "he's fast now" etc.
The very nature of the Silly Symphony cartoons is to exaggerate and almost systematize the physical motions and attributes of characters. For Early Years learning, especially in language use and understanding, they provide excellent material to exemplify certain concepts such as fast, slow, strong, big, small, scary, happy, sad, etc.. I hope to use more of these cartoons in language classes.
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