My dream was to enable my learners to see “real” animals and not just those they see on television so that when we talk about them in class it will be real for them and they will be able to communicate more easily about them. My dream was to take the learners to the zoo.
We were all excited to go on the wonderful outing because most of the learners had not visited the zoo yet. When I was informed that the bus was outside, my class cheered because their dream was going to be come a reality.
On arrival at the zoo, the gibber of the gibbon monkeys welcomed us. The learners were happy and could not contain themselves. Even the rain did not dampen their spirits and they refused to seek shelter from it. They observed the cheetah for approximately 15 minutes before I could convince them to move on. The attention seeking chimpanzees also gained much attention from the learners especially when they danced, laughed and showed off. The learners were fascinated when they learned that chimpanzees were only one gene short of the human being. We had a hard time getting the learners to proceed. (They enjoyed that the most).
On the other side we walked through the aviary with its rare and colourful birds. We saw the lion, the lioness and cub which was great for the learners because they did the young, gender and sounds of animals in class prior to us visiting the zoo. The other animals that caught their interest were the snakes (especially the anaconda), swans, storks, pelicans, llamas and alligators, etc.
Learners enjoyed the outing so much that they have since brought pictures of animals and information on them into class up to the last day of this term (23 June).
Learning Area and Learning Outcomes that were achieved in this outing were
Learners observed the animals and described their features. E.g. Cheetah has tear marks and has lean body. They mentioned prior knowledge like the Cheetah is the fastest land animal.
Arts & Culture (Learning Outcome 1 - Creating interpreting and presenting):
Learners used scrap paper to do a collage of their favourite animals or did a simple 2-dimensional drawing.
English (Learning Outcome 4 - Writing ):
Learners wrote a report about our visit to the zoo after we had discussed it.
English (Learning Outcome 6 - Language Structure and Use):
Learners had to spell familiar words correctly; learners worked in groups or individually in the class and collected pictures. Then they wrote names of animals on the board and used a dictionary if it was wrongly spelt. The names were then written on the chart by one learner from each group.
English (Learning Outcome 2 - Speaking):
I asked learners what they had enjoyed the most and all of them mentioned the chimpanzees. They spoke endlessly for a few days after the outing. They had to answer questions and describe the animals they had seen as well as make the sounds of the different animals (this was their favourite thing to do).
Life Orientation (Learning Outcome 1 - Health Promotion):
Learners saw the zoo keepers cleaning up cages and feeding the animals. When the learners saw how the animals were fed and that the workers go inside the cages they were afraid because they thought that the animals would hurt them. They were amazed to see the food some of the animals eat and asked questions about how they are fed. They were amazed how the zoo keepers clean the cages and that they keep everything spotless.
Thank you very much to Teachers Dream and the Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation. Our dream really did come true. We shall certainly continue with the lessons learnt from our visit to the zoo in the next term, but will do them in isiXhosa, our second language. I have planned to ask our isiXhosa educator to translate some vocabulary for us.
