We’ve had fun with DixIt, with Once Upon a Time, but at the moment my most favourite storytelling tool is called the Story Cubes. It may look like a simple set of dice with random pictures on them, but it’s in fact a real vocabulary booster.
When a student of mine showed me this video, it actually inspired me to bring my students at least one Christmas-related activity – and with Christmas approaching, I thought I may share it on my blog.
Yesterday, when I was on my way to work, I was thinking about the lesson – a group of pre-int teenagers and grammar + vocabulary revision. Not necessarily exciting thing, admit it.
Maybe I’ll give them a funny warm up at least, I thought – and I decided to make them write a poem, which we had never done before.
What needs constant revision, is vocabulary, especially on the more advanced levels – the students learn the words but don’t use them regularly. One way to make them revise vocabulary is to do short warm-ups in the classroom. I’ve got my favourite ten activities that I use regularly
I always have to be prepared when the students finish the task quicker than I expect, and suddenly I end up with 10-20 minutes and no idea what to do (there are days when you simply can’t be creative on the spot). To avoid this embarrassing situation I always have my little magic box of words.
Teaching teenagers is usually fun – at least for me, I really enjoy teaching the group unfairly claimed to be the most difficult (but I’d never ever take up a group of children aged less than 10 years old again!). One of the things I’ve learnt so far is that with teenagers you have to be prepared for everything.
Have you heard that even if you fake a smile, you genuinely start feeling happier? At least that’s what American scientists say, but is it true?
Me and my B2 group have decided to give it a try, hence the homework, perfect for grey November:
Don’t you find November the worst month in a school year?
To cheer you up I’ve collected some grammar-motivational pics and I thought that, if you’re overwhelmed by November, you may use them in your classroom. Have fun!
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!