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!
I want to share a really nice board game called Dixit. I used to play it with friends, but I decided to try it with my intermediate+ students who apparently fell in love with the game. It’s very easy to play and is perfect as an activity at the end of the course when the students know each other and are used to their specific ways of thinking.
That could be quite a nice homework for students – we all learn those boring parts of the body; but this might be a nice change
Mr. Graham Stanley made a really nice presentation at the IATEFL conference and I enjoyed it immensely as it covers my field of interest – games and creative teaching. I do recommend watching this video as it is short (20 mins) and really funny, but let me sum it up a bit.
Yesterday David Crystal officially opened Liverpool IATEFL conference with an awesome plenary – The world in which we live in: Beatles, blends and blogs. You may watch this session and hopefully enjoy it as much as I have, but let me share a couple of thoughts.
Dear students of groups H1 and H2S, you are to write a mystery story for your homework. I have decided to make you work on one of the most mysterious events of the 20th century – the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Since it is to be a mystery story, please, put aside your common sense and let’s dive into the ocean of conspiracy theories.
One of the most difficult tasks for me as a teacher is designing tests (and then test correction, I really hate it) – and the picture above explains why: it is virtually impossible to create a test everyone could find something they are good at.
Here’s a homework for my students: I want you to watch the video, understand what the girl says (shouldn’t be THAT difficult, but hey, that’s how real people speak) and write a short summary. Check the additional questions, please and be careful while doing science 😛