! Claudia Valentini Welcome to my Origami Page


	THE USE OF ORIGAMI IN PRIMARY EFL TEACHINGŠ By Claudia Valentini

HOW ORIGAMI WORKS

Origami is cognitive challenging and is relevant to the children experience and interests. While folding paper into origami, ideed, children assume always an active role, manipulate the reality, construct it, work it out again.
Learning to fold paper into origami takes only a bit of practice: trying to simplify the steps for our children is certainly a positive way to strenghten their motivation because badly performed models are not congenial and incomlpete ones give only disillusion.
After all to learn this art we do not need specific knowledges, we need only to achieve, gradually:
- the ability t o manipulate paper;
- the ability to read images;
- a degree of folding accuracy;
- knowledge of the basic tecniques;
- experience.

When folding paper figures we must follow precisely some simple rules to obtain a good result and avoid the little difficulties that could be encountered.
1- Fold on a flat, smooth, not sliding surface.
2- Make sure the paper is square.
3- Make the folds accurate and neat.
4- Press the folds into place by running the thumb nail along them.
5- Look after the folding while doing it.
6- Try to take great care on obtaining the right result before going on.
7- Read carefully both the figures and the written explanation text to integrate the information.
8- Always monitor each passage.
9- Be calm and patient.
10- If a fold or a whole model does not work out, do not give up hope. Put the fold on one side and come back to it another time.
Here follow the basic origami steps, the platform from which begin to build a new operational and cognitive competence: it is an out and out visual code to which link L2 in the EFL teaching.

top down

point

turn

fold twice

decrease

enlarge

push

turn upside down

turn left

turn right

hold

blow

insert

reverse fold

fold ... times

unfold

cut

fold repeated once/twice/three times

pull

"x-ray"fold