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 😛
It was a couple of years after I graduated when I took part in a contest by Macmillan and won a book. Any book from their offer, I remember it well. How wisely did I choose deciding on a book called 700 Classroom Activities by David Seymour and Maria Popova from Macmillan Books for Teachers series! It appeared to be the best book a teacher could get – at least, a teacher like me.
I’ve written about one of my favourite games, Once Upon a Time… and today I present a lesson plan to cover introduction to storytelling.
One of the best activities in the classroom for students of all ages is definitely playing games. And one of the best and most creative games is Once Upon a Time by Atlas Games. If you check their website you will find some teaching tips, but I use it in a different way, simply because it is hard to tell a story for pre-intermediate level students – writing is easier, especially when they have dictionaries and work in pairs to make it even funnier.
During many years of my school education I’ve encountered too many teachers stiff as if they had a nice stick up their bums. I’ve also met quite a lot of those who wanted to be students’ ‘friends’ – the point was we didn’t really enjoy the idea. When I started teaching I soon realized that finding the right place between those two attitudes would be the key to identifying my own way of being a teacher.
Explaining Present Perfect can be tough… but it’s my absolutely favourite thing to teach! I need a kraken, or a zombie – and boom! everything is clear!