I also decided to experiment with a model that seems to be the best suited to my work environment (a private language school). I think it went pretty well as the first time and we still feel like experimenting with the Station Rotation model. If you want to try, Here’s a short sketch of the 90 minutes lesson.
They say being a teacher is being a learner too, and I quite agree with that! So, when I saw a new course on coursera focused on Blended Learning I’ve decided to give it a go. Yay!
I’ve come up with a couple of nice classroom activities regarding mostly short videos, but also some ideas about watching films.
I’m a teacher who does that only during the tests and I rather encourage my students to use their phones in the classroom on a regular basis. And teach them how to use their phones to help them learn.
Scaredy Cat is a project by Heather Franzen and I must say I fell in love with it the moment I saw it – in fact I’m going to buy this tiny book because it’s cute, adorable and I simply want to have it on my own 🙂 Now – it’s a lovely story and let me share its sweetness with you.
The most important thing when it comes to the unavoidable (one’s bound to encounter rebels when teaching teenagers, there is no escape from chaos – it marks us all) is to react immediately. Not for us Obama-like approach, no, we have to be swift and smooth and deal with the rebels changing them into the paragons of English students 😉 Or at least try – because in order to change our students (or rather their attitude) we must try to understand them… and it’s not easy, trying to understand people who don’t understand themselves!
What can we do with teenagers? Those sleepy, yawning, not really interested in learning teenagers? What can you do to wake them up, or make them switch off their mobile phones? Give them a nice warm-up, sure!
What can a teacher do during holidays? Theoretically – have some rest. But since being a teacher is not the best paid job in the world (sniff…), one may also decide to work in a summer school. And that’s what I did, hence the dead silence on the blog; but from now on I will try to update it quite often. New schoolyear, new resolutions, hah!
Teaching young adults I came to realize that most of them study English not because they want to, but because their parents make them. I will never forget one of my students, who bitterly commented my idea of brightening the classes with a grammar game. ‘Grammar games are like playing with the devil’ – said Ania and little did she know how inspiring her words were.
This is my absolutely favourite project ever. I love it, it has always worked for me and my students and I had a lot of fun with it!