You must have heard of Quizlet and Kahoot!, but today I want to share my favourite quiz-making application: Quizizz. Apart from a name (try remembering which z is doubled!), this tool is not only useful and easy to grasp, but also fun to use, both for teachers and students. Quizizz allows people to create and use one another’s multiple-choice quizzes, so they can be used live as a form of classroom competition, or as homework.
Trying to broaden my horizons on the topic, I read a book by Jayne Moon “Children Learning English: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers”. As the author mentions in the introduction, “the book will help you to build on the knowledge and skills you already have, become aware of your beliefs about children and about teaching, re-assess your practice in the classroom, provide fresh ideas and new insights (…) and deepen your commitment to and enthusiasm for teaching children.”
I don’t think I can move forward in writing about RPGs without discussing the mechanics. If you haven’t played any proper RPGs before, you probably won’t know that this aspect of games has been discussed for years, and involved: fandom wars, friendships ruined (seriously, been there) and physical injuries (OK, I might exaggerate a bit here) by almost all RPG players (minus D&D players who simply watch from the sidelines and eat popcorn 😉 ).
Today I want to help everyone struggling with keeping up with English by sharing my favourite applications to learn English. You may recommend them to your students, but I encourage you to try them on your own – I do.
I find March a perfect month for online learning – long, rainy days, still cold and grey just made to stay in and study. I have a ton of books to read, but I simply cannot resist a good online course, so here we are with a set of seven fresh online courses.
After years of dealing with students who are interested in classes but not really with coursebooks, I came up with five steps that will help you in case you’re stuck with covering for a teacher who’s forgotten to leave the teacher’s book, creating a very short course or managing a course that isn’t supplemented with students’ copies.
It’s the fifth part of my Role-Playing Teaching series of articles and I can proudly say that we’re done with theory – today we’re going to start working on a proper RPG. Before we go on an adventure we need to create Players’ Characters. Since we’re going to talk on various topics during character creation, the minimum level required is A2+.
For a while now I’ve been sharing ideas on free online courses you can take up every month – hopefully you find them inspiring at least as much as I do. One of the comments I get is that while it’s easy to find a nice course and sign in, it’s far more difficult to complete it. Some people say that’s why paid courses are a better option as you feel the pressure on finishing something you paid for.
Long winter evenings of February may look picturesque, but if you prefer staying in, I have a good excuse for you to do so: free online courses. A lot of teachers enjoy their winter break, so if you want to procrastinate without the slightest feeling of guilt, you may enjoy one of the options I’ve picked for you.
Larissa Pahomov is a part of Science Leadership Academy, and the book she wrote offers not only her insight on creating an authentic learning environment, but also bears the mark of a true practitioner and some of the answers are the ones that make this book more than a guide for other SLA teachers.