It’s easier for the adults (they either go abroad or stay in touch with a foreigner – and communicate on their own), it may be more difficult with younger learners simply because they have stuff to learn at school anyway, don’t really know WHY they may need English and lose motivation easily.
Sandra asked me to write something about gap filling exercises and tasks – I really like this kind of activity as there are so many things you can do with gap filing: revise vocabulary, sure, but also add elements of fun and creativity.
The reason why I love “Mystery of the Abbey” as the beginning of the course is that it helps students to start speaking the language from the first moment and, unlike usual introductory activities, it makes them see that they can actually communicate well enough to achieve something: in this case to solve the mystery.
Hiya, fellow teachers & students of English, just a short note today – there’s a new course on Writing for University Study by University of Reading, it’s free and it’s online!
The last time I wrote about music, and somehow I completely forgot to mention one of the masters of English, the funny, intertextual, one and only Weird Al Yankovic!
September, the month in my life when I face a bunch of disillusioned teenagers who haven’t met me yet but they already don’t feel like learning English (or they already did meet me and decided to suffer yet another year with yours truly) – rings a bell? Do you remember being a student and doing one of the most terrifying things in the classroom: sharing stuff about oneself?
I found this poem by Chanie Gorkin, and once I saw it, I thought I could use it on my very first classes, to make my students remember…. well, here’s the poem I make my students write down as a dictation, line by line (of course, I’ll have to adjust vocabulary to my students’ proficiency level, but what’s so difficult in replacing convince with tell etc.?):
With holidays over (holidays?! I had 2 weeks off, they do summer schools on holidays, after all!) I’ve decided that’s the time for some changes. I’ve noticed there aren’t many things that actually challenge me as a teacher and even if I’m not bored with my job, I feel an urge to try something new.
In his book, Jim Scrivener advises teachers to “be themselves”. I really respect those who can be both teachers and themselves at the same time. I’d rather not, thanks 😉 I support a more Shakespearean approach, simply, the classroom is a stage, I’m an actress and as a bonus, I also write the script 🙂 […]
Being a teacher means you have to learn at least as much as you teach, so when my language school got a copy of “Classroom Management Techniques” by Jim Scrivener I had to borrow it for a while. It’s easy to read and logically organised (I love properly organised handbooks) and, naturally, I’ve decided I might share some of my thoughts on the book.