As promised - part 1 - web sies

When in Japan I did say that I would post some useful websites - here they are. There are so very many more out there.

Websites and other online resources

Worksheet making tools

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/free-puzzlemaker/?CFID=10339146&CFTOKEN=23348529

http://quizlet.com/

http://www.triptico.co.uk/ (use with IWB for classroom activities)

Comic/movie making

http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/

http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/

Windows Live MovieMaker (part of the Office package)

http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/make.html Make fun animations with dialogues in seconds and then send them or embed them.

Discussion/voting/brainstorming websites

https://tricider.com/en/t/?wicket:pageMapName=wicket-6

http://www.voxopop.com/

Video on how to use this: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/voxopop/index.html

http://en.linoit.com/

Listening

http://www.elllo.org/

as well as the BBC sites, TV streaming sites, etc.

Recording/podcasting (many of these could also be used for listening practice)

http://my.brainshark.com/Home.aspx  Add audio to presentations

Video on how to use this: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/brain/index.html

http://mailvu.com/ MailVu allows you to send Webcam messages and can be used for lots of different things. It works with just 2 button clicks and one more to send the videos.

video on how to use this: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/mailVu/index.html

http://vocaroo.com/

Video on how to use this: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/vocaroo1/index.html

http://audioboo.fm/ Easy to use podcasting

http://www.podomatic.com/login Easy to use podcasting

http://vyou.com/ Students can create profiles and then other students can email them questions. The first student then creates  video answers to the questions so lots of speaking, reading and writing taking place.. You can listen to questions and answers on other profiles and even look up experts.

http://anmish.com/ Choose a famous person, imagine what you think he/she might say and then do the voice recording. Great way of getting students speaking and lots of fun. Takes about 2 mins to do

Music (other than YouTube…)

http://www.lyricstraining.com/

Blogs: there are lots of ideas on how to use technology, and links to websites

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/

http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/

http://www.teachingvillage.org/

Teacher Training Videos – lots of these websites were introduced to me by Russell Stannard via his Teacher Training Videos: worth subscribing to if you don’t already

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/Ancona/index.html

16 online tools presented in a video, e.g. Wallwisher

So sorry

Apologies - in particular to teachers in Japan! I am having some technical problems and it may take a bit longer to post the reading game on the blog. I will try to get it up as soon as possible.

I had such a great time in Japan. Thanks you all for your great enthusiasm and hospitality. I must say it's taking time to get readjusted to being home in England.

More soon.........

Activities for First lessons with New Classes

My favourite First Day with a new class activities – 10 year olds and older, including adults

The first lesson with a new class can be very daunting for teacher and students alike. It’s important to establish the kind of class dynamic you want for the year through routines and interactions. Do you want an energetic, collaborative class with a lot of peer support and plenty of room for creativity and self-expression? Then start as you mean to go on. And remember to give very clear instructions, otherwise the tasks will fall apart and you won’t achieve any of your aims.

1.  Write 10 - 15 sentences about yourself on separate pieces of card or paper, making around half of them true and half false,

e.g.

I can swim, ride and bicycle and speak French.

I have two brothers who are both older than me.

(My students never guess that I really don’t own a TV, car nor an ipad.)

Grade the language so it will not be difficult for the class.

Organise the class into pairs of threes.

Pass the cards around the class asking them to read the sentence together and discussing it decide if they think it’s true or false.

Once students have read all the cards, as a class get them to vote on whether they are true or false and tell you why they have made their decisions.

Why?

·        establish a collaborative dynamic

·        focus on thinking rather than just knowing the right answer

·        students can learn a lot about you (they won’t necessarily ask)

·        students, read, listen and speak

·        the focus is on meaningful language

Extension task

For homework or in the lesson, students prepare similar sentences about themselves and then work in pairs or small groups in class challenging their classmates to guess which facts are true or false. This encourages them to write with a purpose.

2. Arrange the class into groups of 3 or 4. Hand out a large piece of paper and a marker per group.

Explain that you want each group to write 3 sentences about your past, 3 about your present and 3 about you future.

Students have to use their powers of observation, deduction and ESP (extra-sensory perception) to decide what they write.

Give a minimum amount of words for each sentence: the higher the level, the longer the sentences e.g. B1 level – 9 words, C1 level – 14 words.

There will be a scoring system at the end. If a sentence is true, they score one point; if it’s grammatically correct they score one point, too.

It’s great fun as students become quite resourceful and imaginative doing this.

Pin up the paper on the wall so everyone can see it and encourage the other groups to decide if sentences are true and/or correct. They’ll need to explain what is wrong with grammar or vocabulary if they say it’s incorrect.

Why?

·        Great diagnostic activity – you can see what grammar and vocabulary they are able to use and how accurately

·        Students have to pay attention and give feedback on each others’ work

·        Again this task encourages collaboration

·        Great ice-breaker

·        Despite seeming very game-like there is a big focus on accuracy as well as creativity

·        Getting to know the teacher is quite often forgotten in a first class as the focus is usually on students getting to know each other and students do (really) find us a bit of a mystery!

3. Prepare as many questions as there are students in the class

e.g. What’s your favourite colour?

If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

What do you think is the best place in this town/city?

Make your questions age and level appropriate. If necessary you could give one question per pair of students.

Explain that the students are going to get one question each and they have to ask everyone in the class their question and keep a record of the answers as they will give a report on what they discovered at the end of the activity e.g. they can talk about the most common or most unusual answers they got. (If the class is big, you could divide it into 2 or 3 subgroups).

Students get their questions, mill around asking their classmates and then give their reports, which do not have to be extensive.(they could even me written up and pinned up on the walls).

Why?

·        Students move around, so they feel comfortable

·        They talk to lots of their new classmates

·        Asking only one question is not too demanding

·        Great for mixed ability as answers can be as long, short, complex etc as the interviewee wants

Happy New School Year!!!

Back from South Africa

What an amazing two weeks in South Africa...

This was my writing workshop!!!

South Africa

I'm off to South Africa tomorrow for two weeks. I'll be working on a very exciting and very important Primary English project, training up 140 local trainers, who'll then be able to train up all local Primary School teachers of English in the country. AND working again with the fabulous Caroline Grant. We worked together in 2002 and 2003 in Senegal training local Primary school teachers there.
As soon as I get back I am starting a six week stint teaching EAP at Brunel University in London.
Summer is always a busy time for me work-wise!

Hope you are all enjoying the summer whether you are working or playing.

Four things never to say to students, please

     1.  ‘Do you understand?’

Students will always say ‘yes’. They want you to be happy and to keep the lesson going. It is highly unlikely that one individual student will risk looking silly in front of her peers by admitting she hasn’t understood something, even if everyone is in exactly the same situation.

Concept checking is by far the better approach. So let’s say you have been introducing a tricky bit of grammar like 2^nd conditionals with an example like – If I had a lot of money, I’d buy a car. Ask questions like

Am I talking about the past? (because had could suggest to students that you are)

Am I talking about the present?

Do I have a lot of money?

Do I want to buy a car?

Top Tips for formulating concept check questions:

• Analyse the language and its meaning in the given context
• Define the essential meaning in simple statements
• Turn these statements into questions
• Keep the questions simple
• Avoid sentences that are not relevant  to the meaning of the language
• Avoid using the same grammatical forms in the questions as you are testing
• Ask yes / no questions as much as possible
• Plan them in advance – it is hard on the spot without practice

e.g. I’m playing tennis with Brad at 2pm tomorrow. (present continuous used to talk about appointments and plans in the near future which are definite)

Am I talking about something happening now?

Am I talking about the future?

Is it a long time in the future?

Is it a short time in the future?

It it sure?

2.  ‘Hurry up!’

It seems to me that speed has over the years become synonymous with cleverness. Children have definitely picked up on this. Just look at how satisfied they look, when they shoot their hands up shouting ‘finished’ on completing an exercise. They believe we’ll be pleased with them for being so quick, so clever. Somehow they have got the message from teachers that being slow is BAD. Of course, teachers are under huge pressure to get through a lot of material during a course, but we have to appreciate that thinking carefully, considering options, getting something written using an alien alphabet, deciphering a text – all these things deserve time to be taken over them.

It’s also worth considering if we have allowed the same amount of time for students to do a task. For example, when handing out worksheets do you start at the front of the class and work your way towards the back? Then are you surprised that the students at the front finish first? They have after all been working on the task for a good minute or two longer than their classmates at the back! Why not hand out paper upside down in front of students and ask them to wait until you say ‘go’ to turn them over, so they all have the same amount to do the work?

Research apparently tells us the average time a teacher waits for an answer to a question before moving on to another student is ONE second! Let’s slow down a bit and give the poor students time to digest the question and formulate an answer.

3         3.  ‘Shut up!’

Any shouting or aggressive imperatives should be avoided. A noisy class is just made noisier if the teacher shouts and none of us respond very well to such unfriendly instructions. How do you feel is someone shouts at you? We don’t want to create a negative atmosphere. Quite often students carry on talking to each other because they are focussed on what they are doing and don’t notice the teacher trying to get their attention. That’s actually great: it shows they are immersed in their work.

In a noisy class I tend to speak very quietly. Students notice that I’m speaking and that they can’t hear me. Their curiosity gets the better of them and they start shushing each other, quietening each other down until they hear what I am saying.

I also use different gestures to signal that it’s time for me to talk. For example, I train the students that when they see me standing at the front of the class waving my arms in the air, they should stop talking, face me and also wave their hands in the air. Some students do take some time to notice, especially if their heads are down or they are focussed on classmates. But other students elbow them or tell them and soon enough they are quiet and looking at me. This works well with younger students but I also have great success with this strategy with adults!

Different teachers have different successful strategies for getting attention and quiet. One teacher I saw in Croatia uses a loud squeaky plastic toy. A few squeezes and everyone is quiet. It’s fun, it’s friendly, it’s not aggressive and it works.

4.  ‘You’re stupid, lazy, bad etc’

When I was about six or seven years old, we started every school day with a hymn. I loved singing. It was joyous and energetic. One day as we were signing a teacher was standing next to me and when we finished she quietly commented ‘Oh dear, Olha, you can’t sing at all.’ After that I never sang in school assembly, I merely moved my mouth to look as if I was singing. In fact, I have never learnt to sing after all this time. That teacher (a very inappropriate label for someone who so demotivated a young child) had completely destroyed my confidence. The trouble is students, even teens and adults, tend to believe what teachers say. We are, after all, in positions of authority and who should know better than us?

 If we tell a student they are stupid, for example, one of two things is likely to happen.

(A) They will NOT believe us but consider us a very bad judge of students, lose all respect for us and ignore us most of the time from then onwards. They will lose motivation in the lessons and over time justify our judgement.

(B) They WILL believe us, be dispirited and stop making any effort, believing it’s a waste of time. They will lose motivation in the lessons and over time justify our judgement.

So our words become self-fulfilling prophesies.

We must be careful what we say. That teacher told me I couldn’t sing fifty years ago. I still feel a great sense of being wronged. Why didn’t she try to teach me to sing? Why didn’t she encourage me? Why didn’t she appreciate my joy of singing? Why did she have to say something so negative?

We should be very careful about what we say to students. They do hear us. We can undermine our mission or we can make our positive messages stronger.

Back to Almaty

I am on my way back to Kazakhstan tomorrow for 2 days of very intensive training with 20 Primary teachers. I find myself very motivated and even excited about this. As I pack my fingers puppets, markers, play dough, pipe cleaners, giant story books and bags of sweeties, I already imagine the sessions in action and the difference that learning about practical, realistic classroom activities makes to teachers with little experience in teaching little ones. My aim to to instill them with the excitement of the possibilities that teaching under 10s afford and hopefully to give the confidence to try out storytelling, using puppets, playing games etc to help language development once classes resume in September.
Back to my packing...