Anka Zapart

Crumbs #83 Clouds or Working with the vocabulary

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Ingredients:

  • just a set of words that you are working on
  • flashcards, wordcards, a page of the coursebook with all of the vocabulary to be introduced and practise
  • a board to display the category or a powerpoint to display them in an online less

Procedures:

  • Introduce and drill the vocabulary as usual, with flashcards, electronic flashcards or realia
  • When the kids feel comfortable enough with using and prounucing the word, move on to the second part of the presentation / controlled freer practice that this activity is
  • Display the question and ask the students to answer it. When we just get started with this activity or if the group is small, we do it together as a class, later on, the kids do it in pairs for a moment or two.
  • The whole activity is a categorising task, according to the kids’ preferences and opinions.
  • I started doing it with my online students and the questions were presented in the form of colourful clouds on the slides, hence the name of the activity.
  • All of the options that I have come up with and used with my kids include: I like / I don’t like, It’s interesting / it’s boring, I’ve got it / I haven’t got it, It’s made of metal / plastic / paper, It’s easy / it’s difficult, I always and I never, It’s big / small, Tell me more about…

Why we like it?

  • It is a low-key, (almost) no-prep activity.
  • It gives the kids an opportunity to use the new language together with the familiar structures, in a few different ways.
  • It is not quite creative but it is personalised because the students categorise the words according to their ideas and preferences.
  • The lower levels (i.e. pre-A1) can only categorise the words, the higher level kids (from A-1 upwords) can provide a simple justification for their choices.
  • The most productive of them is ‘Tell me about’ but it might not be feasible with all of the topics and vocabulary sets.
  • It is not very challenging so all the students can complete it.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #82: An Advent Calendar

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Ingredients

  • 31 words for December (yes, we are extending since we are learning almost until the end of the month and not until the 24th)
  • a noticeboard
  • a simple December calendar to cross things out

Procedures

  • As a part of our hello circle, we check the calendar and count the days since the last lesson. We have classes only twice a week so it is 2 (on Thursday) or 5 (on Tuesday) and we pick as many cards from the bag.
  • We read the words, the teacher writes the date on each card and the word (we are working on our literacy skills, too).
  • The teacher puts up all the words up on the board.
  • One of the students crosses out the days on the calendar.
  • Then we play with all the words we have so far.
  • Things that can be done: read all the words, mime the words for the kids to guess, play ‘What’s missing?’, read the words (if special word cards are prepared) and play riddles (It’s an object / person. It’s big / small / medium. It’s red and green. etc).

Why we like it

  • It is a great way to learn new vocabulary and to revise all of the words that we already know. It is not getting in the way of our regular vocabulary and topic. It is done on the side.
  • All the words are on display and we can see how we move through the unit and the month.
  • We are also learning about the calendar and the month.
  • We are preparing for the New Year’s Celebrations and by the time we get there – we will know all of the words.
  • It is a nice addition with new games, miming and, eventually, songs that are Christmas-themed.
  • This particular activity is very seasonal but even though we have just started, I can already see its benefits and the big picture and I really want to use the concept for some other topics. My first idea is the next seaon peak – spring and Easter. I am thinking.

Happy teaching!

New year and new preschoolers! (and an old teacher:-)

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There has not been a school year in which I would not actually go to school, not since 2007, anyway but, somehow, every year is different, in its own way. This year I went back to teaching a lot of students individually, online, and then back to groups of preschoolers offline.

The classroom and the resources

Long story short: Nothing happens overnight, nothing happens in a blink.

Naturally, I hope for all of us teachers out there, that we enter the classroom in a kindergarten, in a language school, in the student’s home or in a language studio and everything is just as we imagined and the classroom is just perfect, teacher and student-friendly and we have all of the resources and organised beautifully.

In case it is not (and, most likely, it will not be so, in about 99% of cases), it will take some time to get it into shape.

During our sessions on the course I keep telling teachers that it is the most precious thing, to have this ideal pre-school classroom at the back of your head because it will help shape the real environment in which we find ourselves with our students.

This year, it has taken me about two months, to turn the classroom into a place that we all enjoy being in and which works out logistically, with our routine and with our numbers.

It is not a very big place and we have to share it with some other classes, groups and adults, but we have enough room for the small chairs and the hello circle, one big table for our writing and craft and a bit TV and room in front of it for dancing and singing. We have two small cupboards for our resources and lots and lots of walls for our posters and materials.

I have already figured out the layout of the resources and I have organised the flashcards, too. I am not using a basket this year but I have a box for all of the resources for each group where I keep all of the resources for the unit. It makes preparing for each group a bit easier without putting them all away every single day. And, at the same time, I can put them all away not to get in the way when someone else is using the classroom.

The teacher

There is only one thing here (a word from an old hand): dear teacher, be good to yourself. We want the best for our students, we work hard, we teach, we prepare, we reflect and do a better job next time. No two groups are alike and but, with a little bit of time and patience, we can get good results. Kids Can! Teachers Can!

The kids

My students are, of course, amazing. Some of them have been with the school for some time, studying with some other teachers in the past, some of them are new to the school and to learning English. The approach is just being open-minded and working, step by step, towards the routine that I would like to have.

The older group have got used to it pretty quickly and it was relatively easy to just work effectively, with an established routine.

The younger group is still work in progress because we get new students joining in. As a result, wee have been at the stage of ‘building the routine’ since September, simply because every time I think ‘oh, I think that’s that’, there is a new student and, in a way, we go back to square one.Everyone needs a fair chance and the time necessary to figure things out, to get to know the other children and to learn the ropes. It does help a lot that the ‘old’ students (aka those who have been in the group since the start of the year) are our beautiful role-models and we are catching up again.

The activities (and the pairwork)

Our hello circle is quite a long one and in every lesson we talk about all of the following:

  • Homework check
  • My name is…and I want…(kids introduce themselves and ask for something, I draw it on our mini-whiteboard)
  • What’s the weather like today? (asking and answering questions and then putting the relevant pictures up on the board)
  • Hello song
  • Clothes: Who’s wearing jeans?
  • Christmas Words Advent Calendar (only in December)
  • Literacy practice (only the older group)
  • A revision game (based on what we have covered so far, different, depending on the group)

The older group have started doing pairwork and it has worked amazingly well.

  • They have been in one group for two years already and they know each other very well
  • They have had a chance to lead certain activities
  • I have used the seating from the hello circle (small chairs in a circle, we only moved them a bit for the kids to face each other)
  • We have used an activity they already know well (a set of flashcards and a question – answer: Are you scared of…? – I’m scared / I’m not scared /I’m brave / I like..). We have done this activity a few times with the teacher leading and with a student leading for the whole group.
  • If you are interested in setting up pairwork with a beginner group, have a look at the earlier post here.

The other activities that have been a hit this year:

  • Secret words here
  • Soft toys: for body parts, for prepositions, counting and colours
  • lots of adjectives for emotions (now we have 16 to choose from) for our hello circle
  • Funky Envelope
  • Little hearts for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ and a very big heart for ‘I love’ which the kids requested))

Happy teaching!

Leaves or Thank you, Georgia!

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Teaching English Through Art

The language

If you follow me and read these posts regularly, you already know that every English through Art lesson has three elements and that the most challenging and the most fun part is always combining these three in one short lesson and finding the connection between the English curriculum and the Art.

If you are a thorough reader, you may have also found out that sometimes, when you really (really) want to do something, you may turn the blind eye or the deaf ear to this beautiful equlibrium and just do it. And Georgia’s lesson is a perfect example of that kind of an approach. Why? Because I just wanted an Art lesson.

It doesn’t always have to be that way and if you go back, to my first lesson with leaves (here), you will see that it is a perfect lesson for the beginner learner because what you really need is the colours and it can be beautifully used with just that kind of linguistic input and practice. If your students are in year 1 of pre-primary English.

For my year 3 kids, we used it as an opportunity to bring autumn to class and to close the unit. We worked as usual, revised all of the vocabulary and just had a nice end-of-unit lesson. And then we did Art.

The artist

As you can see in the photographic evidence above, I went to school collecting leaves on the way. I wanted us to have something real to look at and to compare them with the painting. I put the leaves on the big table, before the lesson, and I was not really surprised that as soon as the kids entered, they started to touch them, to look at them and to smell them, just because and despite the fact that they definitely do not belong to the category of a luxurious product, there are literally piles and piles of them absolutely everywhere you look.

But I liked their reaction because it just proved what I knew anyway, that the topic and the task will appeal to them. We looked at some of the leaves, called out their colours and checked if they had only one specific colours or a mix of many.

Then I showed the copy of Georgia O’Keeffe’s leaves on the screen and introduced her briefly and we had a quick voting regarding which leaves kids like more, the real ones or the painting (answer: real or real and painting).

The art

Previously, in my Georgia lesson, we used the old favourite – crayons and watercolours, a perfect combination for that piece and a perfect combination for the first Art lessons. The only problem was that, after the relocation, at the moment, I have absolutely no idea where my collection of kids aprons is and I really didn’t want to just use paints in class without any protection…all these beautiful t-shirts and sweaters that my kids are wearing…

After having spent a whole day with a face of Oscar the Grouch (I call it ‘angry brainstorming’), I finally found a solution! We were to draw the layout of the leaf with the crayon and we were to use the watercolours but to print, with cotton pads! One set of watercolours in the middle of the table, minimal amount of water (and potential spatter) and cotton pads that can be just disposed of. A box of wet tissued to clean the hands. I tried and tested the technique and yet, the cotton pads are perfect for printing and the only problem I encountered (the watercolours get dry pretty quickly and you need to have some supply of water) was solved when I found, in my own bathroom, a tiny bottle sprayer (that never got used for it was meant to be, helping me travel with a tiny amount of tonic or micellar water). Finding it literally made my day.

It was absolutely crucial that we do everything step by step, not only because of this particular activity but because this was our first lesson and I was expecting that the kids might not be ready for a structured approach to art. And I was not disappointed.

As soon as I showed them my picture (‘Look, we have the real leaves, we have the painting and now we are going to make our own…’), I got literally flooded with questions. Imagine, only 4 kids on the day, all of us around the big table, everyone can see everything and then within 1 minute, about a hundred questions like that: Are we going to do it? But can I get the paints? Where are the cotton buds? Will you help me? I don’t know how to draw the leaves? But can I do it the way I want or do we have to draw everything you drew? Can you help me? Where are the paints?

It is at the moments like these that you find out the power and the necessity of the verbs: ‘Stop’, ‘Wait’ and ‘Look’.

Here are the steps:

  • show the finished picture, call out the colours, draw the kids attention that each leaf has its own set of colours, lots of them, just like the real leaves and just like Georgia’s
  • demonstrate the whole process, from start to finish (the resources were ready in the middle of the table but for this stage, I put them away and I was bringing them one by one): step 1: draw the leaf / leaves with a crayon, the wax will help the paint within the lines and it will not seep or get distroyed in contact with water, step 2: put one box of watercolours in the middle of the table, on some scrap paper and spray it with water, step 3: fold a cotton pad, dip it in the paint and stamp, stamp, stamp on the leaf / leaf, step 4: put the used cotton pad into our mini-bin (aka a small bag or box, in the middle of the table), step 5: proceed with another colour
  • give out the paper, an A4 sheet of watercolour paper (or cardboard) and crayons, draw the leaves. With my youngest student we did the piglet follower (хрюшка – повтарюшка) aka I draw a line, you draw a line, I draw a squiggle, you draw a squiggle. Put the crayons away. Wait for everyone.
  • give out the cotton pads, 5 each, sprinkle the paints and start working. Stress that ‘we are working together’ (a gesture here:-)
  • at the end, call out all of the colours everyone has. We can use ‘I’ve got’ so that’s exactly how we did it.

About the lesson

First of all, I was really happy that I decided to introduce Art to my new group. Good decision! They loved it and, after a month of hard work, we really needed ‘something different’.

All of the students completed the task and I loved watching how they were approaching it. My youngest student needed help with the drawing but he did it and his leaves were beautiful. One of my older students, at the very beginning, announced that ‘my leaf is going to be unusual’ and that it was. It reminded me of some tropical flowers, of unusual shapes. The other students made their own artistic decisions and even included ‘The Titanic’. It must have been a very small ship or a very big leaf but they looked amazing.

I am really happy with the adaptation of the teachnique. It was monitorable, with a very little potential for a disaster, easy to execute, easy to clean and generating amazing pictures, too.

So yes, thank you, Georgia!

Happy teaching!

Your very first Kandinsky. Teaching English through Art

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Teacher’s Creation

The truth is…I just wanted to do Art.

This year is different and now, or for now, hopefully, I am not teaching Art. And it was only before I came up with this lesson, with Kandinsky, that I realised how much I miss it and, that, really, at heart, I am the Art teacher. As if to confirm, shortly after that, I got a message from one of my students from last year and it went ‘miss Anka, you’ve been my favourite Art teacher and I miss our classes’.

So this is how I get back – to writing here (after a few months’ break) and to Art in class. I don’t have any full time Art in English classes but I have lots of English classes and I will be trying to bring Art into them. Starting with Vasilyi Kandinsky.

The language

We are at the begining of our journey into English with my student and, so far, what we have at our disposal is some functional language, emotions and colours and that is basically what the lessons have been about. We practice a lot, we find colours around the room, we sing songs, we do some online colouring (in the mode of ‘you say, I click’) and we talk about it. But I really (really) wanted to include something practial and something creative. And this is when I remembered about the video from the 2nd edition of Playway to English (CUP, Puchta, Gerngross) and the storyline there: Max, the creature tries to make a picture but due to some mishaps he almost destroys it and gets very upset. Until he finds out that modern Art is basically non-figurative and that he created a masterpiece. I looked at his picture and I thought: Kandinsky!

The artist

With my student being 6, and with us studying online and still getting adjusted to the format of the lesson, I wanted to keep this part of the lesson short, just to include the bare minimum: introducing him by the name (there was a photo, too) and looking at ‘Composition number 8’ to call out some colours and patterns that we were going to use.

This stage can be extended, of course, it is a great piece for introducing and practising shapes, too and if your students are older, you can also include the music connections (apparently, this one got inspired by Debussy’s music, and there is another lesson that I taught based on that, here). We just went on to create.

Here is the original amazing piece.

The art

Before the lesson, I asked the student’s mum to prepare a piece of paper, a pencil and crayons for us and when the time came, we went through the list to check that everything was there (‘Have you got…?, with me showing my bit to the camera, and waiting for the student to show hers).

For this particular lesson, I chose seven different patterns that we would draw: a circle, a square, a triangle, a rectangle, a line, a zigzac and a wave. I drew them on my presentation and we looked for them in the painting. Then I told my student that we are going to draw three of each, with different colours and we started.

Each element was executed in the following manner:

  • the teacher calls out the pattern and demonstrates drawing to the camere on the demo sheet
  • the teacher chooses three markers / crayons, shows them to the camera and then draws on the actual piece of paper, i.e. a yellow circle, a green circle, a red circle, in the most random manner (seemingly, because, of course, all this time we are working on the composition:-)
  • the teacher asks ‘What about your colours? Show me three colours (pause) and draw three circles’
  • the student completes the task
  • the teacher describes her picture (I’ve got a yellow circile, a green circle, a red circle)
  • the student tries to describe hers in the same way
  • and we move on to the following item on the list.

It might seem that there is a lot of commentating here, on the part of the teacher but it is done on purpose. The aim of this task is to create something that the student will want to talk about and to model the language that we are hoping to produce. Without it, it would be just a lesson of drawing (which is amazing) but since it’s a language lesson, we (I passionately, obsessively and lovingly) strive for more language production. Always.

I prepared seven items to draw (times 3) but I was ready for the option of not including all of them if the student got tired or lost interest, especially that it was our first Art task in an online lesson and I was not quite sure how it might go. And Kandinsky, or any non-figurative painting, was perfect for that. On the other hand, if we had time, we could still add other elements such as stars, hearts, semi-circles, or shading. As it turned out – seven was just a perfect number for us and for that lesson.

I am really very happy with how it went. We managed to include all seven items, we went step by step and we produced a lot of language. She was quite involved in the process so there was no talking while drawing but, after each item was added, she showed the picture to the camera and told me all about it.

I loved the lesson (see: I miss Art in class!) and so did my student which I could see myself in class and which got confirmed after the lesson, in our chat with mum. I can’t show you her work but, as it often happens, it was much, much better than mine. You will just have to take my word for it this time.

So, if you are wondering, what kind of art to include in the beginning of the course for primary or pre-primary kids who speak very, very little English, Kandinsky is your man!

Happy teaching!

A box in the attic. Saying goodbye

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Me, Dex and a bag of junk going home

A box in the attic is what is left of the past two years in my bilingual primary school. I mean, to be specific, there is one big box and a few smaller boxes, the attic is not quite the attic but this special storage space, not the actual attic and, of course, it was not a school where I worked and NOT my actual property of a bilingual school. But, apart from that, that’s what it is. I have packed up the experience of two years in a very special environment and I put it away.

This post will be kind of on the personal side and I really have no idea if there is anything mildly useful to anyone else out there but, the thing is, I really want to write it. Spoiler: it is a part of the whole process of saying goodbye and closing down.

Things to do in the classroom

Aka cleaning which one is the number one thing and the easiest thing to do. Me and my (self-diagnosed) OCD – we just loooove cleaning, clearing out and taking out the rubbish and then breathing peacefully in a space that is a bit neater.

Getting rid of the rubbish that, inevitably, piled up throughout the year, that was very gratifying, sorting out things and finding out bits and pieces that I thought I had lost or I forgot I had bought – this was fun. Moving around the furniture or tearing things off the walls – that was just great. I hated throwing out things that I just could not keep, like mountains of kids’ paintings (those that I could not keep or those that were left after I gave out things to people). Looking at my classroom, suddenly just a room with bare walls and a window, not a place where we have achieved so much, where we have suffered so much and where we have laughed so much, that was beyond sad, no other words.

However, walking to the metro, for the last time, with my dragon dinosaur sticking out of the bag, I was almost giggling because I realised that the school location is so much off the beaten track for me that avoiding it to avoid all the memories and sadness will be super easy.

Things to do with the kids

Somewhere along the way, I realised that I made a decision to have the best two weeks at school for my students, the best possible. In class, during the breaks, during the concert, the final exams and tests.

It took a few hours to assemble the presents, a little bag filled with the silly junk that second-graders might appreciate: a capybara keyring, a few fluorescent party sticks, stickers and a UV marker and, the most precious of all the streamers popper extra piece that everyone got to play with at home (because I wanted to make sure that no one will ok with using the one during our concert). And, the most difficult of all tasks – I sat down to write a personal letter to every single one of my students. To tell them that they are fanstastic, hard-working and absolutely amazing. To thank them and to say good-bye.

I left the presents on the window in their classrooms and begged to open only after the show. Amazingly, they did hear me and they did listen. The final victory!

Our final show was amazing and we have great videos and photos to look back on, to reminisce. The kids loved it, the parents loved it and, miraculously, everything went to plan.

We wrote our final exams, we did the speaking part and we even managed to write one more letter to our pen-pals in Turkey. It was not an easy week but it was beautiful.

Things to do with the parents

I saw most of the parents during these last three days and we managed to say good-bye. I wrote to everyone to thank them for everything and, in exchange, I got lots and lots of messages that made me believe and confirm that it was not all in vain and that we did a good job, over those two years.

Things to do with self

When I came home after the last proper school day, I was just exhausted. The day was so emotionally charged that I was ready to reboot and to go to sleep almost immediately after walking into the flat. And that is what I did. The next few days were basically a blur and I just tried to focus on the daily routines. One of my colleagues asked about the plans for the future and I remember answering ‘I am unable to make any decisions at the moment. In fact, I mustn’t make any serious decisions at the moment. I have enough of brain cells power to decide what’s for breakfast, nothing more’ and it is amazing how accurate that was.

Then, after everything was packed and the project was closed, it was necessary to take things easy, slow down, do nothing for a while or do your favourite things. And, only then, when the dust settles, start thinking of the next step.

It took about two weeks for me to be ready to deal with all of the things that I brought from school, the resources that were mine, books, craft junk and the precious markers, and the most precious of my students’ works that I would never like to throw out. All of that had to be sorted out, looked through, packed nicely and, yes, eventually, put away, in boxes.

‘What’s next?’

I have heard this question about a million times over the last few weeks. I am talking, I am considering and, most importantly, I am thinking. I am in my chrysalis state. We’ll see what will come out of it.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #81 3 letters!

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Ingredients:

Almost nothing, only a whiteboard and a marker. And, of course, a set of words that you are planning to practise. In case of all the young learners, they will probably be coming from one vocabulary set i.e. transport, pets, clothes, etc.

Procedures:

  • Teacher revises all of the words from the unit / set, using flashcards or the electronic flashcards.
  • Teacher writes only the three letters of the words, students guess the whole word. The easy version: the first three letters, in the correct order. The more challenging version: any three letters of the word in the order they appear in the word. The super difficult version: any three letters of ther words in a random order.
  • In the early stages of the game / unit, the teacher writes all the other letters of the word before moving on to another item.

Why we like it:

  • It is super easy and it requires no preparation whatsoever.
  • The length of the activity can be adapted to the needs of the lesson.
  • The level of challenge can easily be adjusted to the level of the students, the level of literacy and the level of familiarity with the particular set of words.
  • The game is challenging and it teaches the kids to focus on the accuracy and it helps them practise spelling accurately.
  • With the support of the coursebook or a set of flashcards, the students can play the game in pairs or small teams, with one student setting the task and the rest of the group guessing.
  • The game is fun, it is challenging but also achievable since we are working within one set of vocabulary or theme. It draws the students’ attention to spelling, all of the peculiarities of different words and their spelling.

Teaching children online. Where to start?

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What a teacher’s table looks like after an online lesson in primary…(realia, toys and adjectives)

Instead of a preface

I am writing this post as a response to many of the enquiries that I get from the trainees of the teacher training courses that I have been running for a decade now. Of course, this question rose to popularity with the year 2020, the pandemic and the fact that we have all embraced the online world since.

I have not always been a huge fan of the online education but, like many of my colleagues, I was forced to at least try exisiting in the online classroom over the period of the lockdown in the spring – summer 2020. And, because of how the world has turned to be, since the pandemic I have been spending about one third of my teaching life one: teaching all my young learners online during the pandemic, teaching online and hybrid in the crazy 2020 – 2021 academic year, teaching adults and my teenagers online permanently and teaching pre-schoolers, the regular EFL/ ESL and teaching English through Art, too.

As a result, today, when my teacher trainees ask me about teaching children online, I say: Yes, sure, it is just one of the classrooms that I work in.

This particular post is intended to be a set of ideas and suggestions for teachers who have never worked online and who want to start. These are not all the answers, only how I would get started, with a brand new group of kids. Maybe someone will find it useful)

Before the first lesson

The most important part of the course, before it even starts, would be talking to the parents. What I would like to find out would be:

  • as much as possible about the children as humans: how old they are and what their interests are, how they spend their time and what they like to do
  • as much as possible about the children as learners: whether or not they have learnt English before or interacting with English in any capacity and whether they have had a chance to learn anything online
  • as much as possible about the parents’ expectations regarding learning the language

Depending on the answers to the above questions, the conversation with the parents would have take into consideration to make the lesson successful and effective:

  • the working space for the child. It might be obvious for the parents that the child needs a special place to sit down, i.e. a table and a chair (not the bed or the carpet in the playroom), but a chair that can be moved aside if the movement stage of the lesson comes up. This should be a place that is quiet, away from the TV or the busy living room or the kitchen where the rest of the family hangs out.
  • the set of resources that might be necessary. It can be a list of standard resources that you will be using in every lesson, a notebook, a set of markers or crayons and handouts, all depending on the age of the child, as well as some specific resources needed for the particular lessons.
  • the presence of an adult who will be helping the little student during the lesson and what kind of a support is going to be necessary. With younger children (pre-schoolers), it might be necessary for an adult to be around all the time, although it might be necessary to highlight that the children need to be developing their independence
  • the length of the lesson that will depend on the child’s age and the previous online learning experience. Even if the optimal length is estimated at 45 minutes, it would be recommended to start with a shorter lesson. If the kids have not studied online before, they will not have enough attention span to participate and to focus to make this lesson effective. It is better to start with 20 or 25 minutes and extend it to one academic hour over a few weeks. And, of course, explain it to the parents.
  • the potential resources, the most important being the potential for printing resources at home. If the parents can do that – you will be able to use a little bit more, if not – in that case the lesson will be based only on the electronic resources.

The platform

There are a lot of platforms available and, in the end, everyone chooses something that works for them. It has to be the tool that you know very well and the tool that works in the classroom. I personally like to have a platfrom that lets me share the screen and see the students faces at the same time, that is not very tricky with the sound sharing but I don’t really care about the whiteboard option or the drawing on the screen option for the kids. Just a choice and I know that some teachers use these a lot. For the older primary students studying in groups, I like to have the breakout room option for some of the activities (although, again, that is for the groups only and that is not something to do in the very beginning of the course but something to aspire to).

The resources

Please remember that I am myself a dinosaur and I have always been a lazy teacher or a minimalist teacher (save for the special occasions when I splash out). The same applies to the resources in the online lesson. During the early stages of the pandemic, there has been this panic to find and to incorporate as many platforms, games, resources in the lesson as possible. Basically, every week was THIS NEW THING that you had to learn about and to use with your students. That was overwhelming, to say the least, because the most important thing in the lesson is the teacher and the methodology and the tools, no matter how fancy, cannot replace a good structure and a plan.

For that reason, what you see below, is a very basic list, the things that I am using at the moment but that is not everything out there. That said, I am always on the lookout for the new solutions and new things to inspire me, so feel free to use these ideas and keep your eyes open for more!

  • the coursebook, if applicable, the paper copy for the kids
  • the self-made handouts that I send to students if the parents can print them
  • the mini-flashcards that we prepare with the students, if the parents can print them. Usually, there are four per A4 paper, the parents cut them before the lesson, the kids can colour them, I have my own set and we use them for riddles, for testing each other (T: show the card, S: say the word, then swap the roles), substitution drill with the new structures, What’s my secret word? (guessing which card from the set the T / the S is holding) etc.
  • online games – for the lesson and for the homework or revision.
  • bamboozle games, although for the younger or new students, I start with one team games (‘we are collecting the points for us’) or with severly adapted power-ups list
  • some of the Games to learn English. This is a good example of why it is good to continue checking and searching. I have known this resource for ages but I haven’t used it for a year or so but I visited it last week and so much has changed. There are some new games, focused on a specific structure and the past tense or the prepositions. It definitely feels like a new best friend.
  • traditional (and not so boring) powerpoints which is my homemade online board replacement. I used to use the professional online board but, admittedly, it became simply overwhelming. I use the powerpoints in the same way, T: moves/uncovers the item, S: say things and I like it more because I can organise them by the team, copy them for each student etc.
  • the realia that you have and that the kids have at home. Luckily, with the online world, we are truly blessed, practically everything that we teach in primary and pre-primary kids have at home, toys, clothes, colours, sport equipment and even the pets or the family member. They should be used in the lesson to make the langauge real. It might be a good idea to inform the parents before the lesson what will be used in class, just to make them aware that the kids might be walking around and bringing things and that it is for a reason.
  • the craft resources such as plasticine, coloured paper, glue, scissors, crayons or markers or whatever else you want to use. Craft online is a bit more challenging but not impossible. It might be a good idea to leave it for later in the course when you and the students know each other a bit more and when they understand how the lesson works. Again, the parents need to be notified ahead of time, to prepare the materials or even to check and to confirm that they are available. Of course, if a kid is at home, the coloured paper or the glue are lying around at home but it is always better to confirm ahead of the lesson time.

The lesson

Again, this is the lesson format that works for me and it does not really differ much from what we do in the offline classroom with my students.

Regardless of how long the whole lesson is, I divided into three sections: Revision, New Material / presentation, Practice. They are more or less even, without being to strict with the time slots.

  • A song to get us started, a proper Hello song or just a song that we like.
  • Revision: saying hello, talking how we feel, what we are wearing etc, depending on the age/ level of the child, actually revising the vocabulary, playing some familar and favourite games.
  • New material presentation: in the middle of the lesson, when the kids are already warmed-up but still with enough energy and focus for something new, this is when I introduce the new vocabulary or the new material and when we do some controlled practice, too.
  • Practice: more productive games, more freedom for the kids.
  • Goodbye: a new song, a video, a story, to finish on a high note.

Coda

If you are just starting in the online world, good luck to you! Remember that in many ways, this is a just a new lesson with student or a new group, doing a new thing and in our early years world, it is very rarely that things work from the word go. It is the routine, the repetition and the familiarity that make things look like we want them. Quite frequently, a new activity done for the first time is just like a preview. If something does it work, reflect on why it didn’t and then try to change some things around and do it again.

Make sure you keep in touch with your students’ parents. Feedback is always necessary but it is crucial during the early stages of the new class because apart from building the routine with the student, you are also building the trust with the parents. And it is a process.

Happy teaching!

‘This feeling is a message from my brain!’ Talking about feelings in primary.

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How do you feel today?

Easily, the emotions (and adjectives) have always been a great passion of my professional life. One reason is that they are a little bit unappreciated in the early years EFL world (a personal opinion) and they can make a huge difference in communication, even for the little speakers. The other reason is that they help the kids describe how they feel and, apart from that making them want to talk because they are sharing something personal, that is a precious something for the teacher to know. Having 9 happy preschoolers and 1 angry preschooler in the classroom or having 5 happy, 3 sleepy and 2 sad preschoolers makes a huge different and, whether you want it or not, it will have an impact on your lesson. Basically, it is better to know than not to know, in order to prepar and to adapt, if needs be.

And then we found the song…

It was only last week that, together with my students, we were trying to remember what was our first Hopscotch song. It was, probably, The Fractions Song. What a hit! Itt really (really) helped us get the concept and to memorise the fraction vocabulary. Not to mention the catchy music and the hilarious plot. And when, after about three weeks of listening the song, we found out that each (more recent) song includes bloopers…we were collectively in love.

I had never heard about that channel before so I got down to researching and I found piles and piles of treasures. Some went into the category ‘subjects’ and some, the really delicious bits, into the category ‘oh, my, the langauge we are going to pick up here!’. One of the latter, was the Feelings Song with as many as 56 beautiful adjectives.

Quite a few words, actually, and some of them from the higher CEFR shelves so I decided that we will just sing the song and aim for picking up a few words, such as hangry, disappointed, overwhelmed or inspired.

It was only much later that I decided that the song will fit perfectly in our end-of-year concert as it has a plot, all the emotions have been neatly divided into groups, like almost 5 acts of the play, there is an introduction and a funny ending, too. And a beautiful message. So, having sung and listened to the song for about two months, we took to staging it and really looking into the other words.

A conversation

At this point in the game, we had been starting every single day with a conversation about our emotions. ‘How do you feel today?’ ‘I am…because…’ and to help us with it, we use about twenty different emotions such as angry, sad, sleepy and confused which we have on posters on the walls of our classroom.

I made into two additional lessons in which we learnt and revised the feelings from the song (or most of them, I still decided to skip a few). We went through all of them, clarified the meaning, practised pronunciation and devoted time to talking about our own examples when people might feel disappointed, overwhelmed, angry or inspired.

A self-reflection

I admit, initially, I only wanted something to write. My kids, now in their year 2, when putting letters in the Latin alphabet is no longer scary or tiresome, take pleasure in writing (insert: a little joyful dance that I can actually say this!) and we are now working on writing neatly, without mistakes, remembering about the punctuation marks and spacing. We write the date and the topic and we sometimes take little notes. This is exactly what I wanted to do last Tuesday, just write something neatly. I figured out that it will be a feasible and open-ended task if we all finish the sentences: I always feel…I never feel…I sometimes feel…I rarely feel…

It was amazing how the kids took time to think and to decide how exactly they feel in certain situations.

Showtime!

Somewhere in April, when we started to discuss our plans for the end of the year concert, I realised that this is the song that I want us to do. Initially, I was even considering turning it into a theatre show, with a few acts (one act = one set of emotions) and some conversations in-between, a musical of sorts. But then, the end of the year itself, the tests, the whirlwind of May took over and I decided to scale down. The plan was as such: we are going to sing the entire song and we will present the emotions to the audience as there will be parents and younger kids.

In order to turn it into ‘a video’, we started to prepare illustrations for an emotion or for a pair of emotions. I prepared the cardboard (A4) and the drawing materials, I also wrote the emotions on them, in big letters and I prepared a few examples, to show the kids that the emotions can be illustrated either by the situation (i.e. our ice-cream drops onto the floor = we are disappointed) or the associations (i.e. the rainy day, colour blue, wilted flowers = we are sad). We got down to work.

I think, in the end, we prepared about 40 illustrations and all of them were absolutely brilliant, either because my kids can really draw well or just because it was a fascinating experience to be going through the creative process and the creative decisions with my students. Some emotions were more difficult to draw (I dealt with them), some were really popular and so we ended up having about four pictures illustrating ‘love’.

I put them into groups, as they are in the song, and put them into a chain with coloured paper that had the text of the relevant verse on the back. Two of my more responsible students were assigned as the holders and as the verse would come up, they would pick up the big and beautiful streamer from the floor to present to the audience. And to peek at the lyrics.

The video finishes with the bloopers in which the emotions (represented by a cookie-like creature) are thrown out and up (Attention: don’t keep them in, don’t bottle them up, deal with them!) and we had a few ridiculously funny conversation how we could illustrate that without frightening the parents or the little kids with the year two kids suddenly making the ‘throwing up’ gestures…But we decided to go for the amazing streamers throws that one of my students suggested.

We rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed and my kids actually sang the whole long song, almost entirely from memory and it was a really touching moment, for all of us. Not only because we loved the song and because it was the end of year 2 but also because, while we were singing, it was already obvious that our school was to close down, for ever, and, naturally, we had A LOT OF different emotions to deal with at the time, all of us, kids, teachers and parents.

It was beautiful, it was touching and everyone was amazing. We gave a good show and we created fantastic memories. That is what will matter in the long run.

Happy teaching!

Materials May Vol. 2 Clay Portraits

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Last year, the month of May was one crazy ride. We made madalas, we made dreamcatchers, we used salt dough and it very messy and it was lots of fun. Naturally, May 2025 also became the Materials May.

We started with clay. And with portraits.

The language

Actually, the language was not the main priority this time. Just like in our materials lessons last year, the absolute leader in the lesson, the first place, the right of way, all of that was the material, the medium. The language was just something I picked up because we needed it for this particular lesson. This time it was the body parts, especially the parts of the face. We revised them, made up a new chant and played a bit with tell me about your person / monster using a set of pictures.

The artist

The artist of the day was not the most important stage, either, but I am very happy with the idea I had for this lesson and how it worked out. Instead of one particular artist, I prepared a whole collection of portraits for all of us to understand how diferent they can be. We looked at them, one by one, and tried to look at what the focus was: the face, the body, the place, the colours or the technique. I was hoping that it would help the children see many various styles in which they could execute their own portraits.

The art

The main idea for the creative part came from Princess Artypants – a face made of clay. I told the kids that they could choose to create a face, any face they wanted, their face or someone else’s, in a style of their choice.

I showed the kids a face I made before the lesson and I outlined the steps (1. clay (form, roll, shape) 2. draw (with sticks and plasticine knives), 3. paint (acrylic paints).

Before the lesson, I prepared the tables and all the resources and I was handing them out and picking them up as we went through the task. I was also making one more piece of mine to better illustrate the instructions.

In terms of the resources we used: a large sheet of paper, fitted with the scotch as the main workplace, a rolling pin to prepare our circles, clay (self-drying, ochra colour), sticks, chopsticks and small plastic knives, paintbrushes and wet tissues, acrylic paints in tubs (everyone got their personal blob of the chosen colours on their A3 piece of paper aka workplace), pieces of cardboard to transfer the faces onto and as their frames.

As can be seen in the photos, we created lots of different types of clay faces and, as usual, it was a joy to see how quickly everyone started to make their own decisions and to develop their own style. One of my students opted for creating the face of a cat, one made an absolutely beautiful abstract Pinocchio. One focused on the colours and one, completely out of the blue, asked for tinfoil because ‘I’ve got an idea, miss Anka!’

To be honest, the idea (for the dress aka the body made out of tinfoil) was so good that I wanted to make my own and this is how his ‘Mona Miss Anka’ was created and how my ‘Angel / Mermaid’ came to be, too.

I really liked the clay as the material because it is extremely flexible and user-friendly. It did require warming it up in the tub of hot water (I did it before the lesson, warmed it up and broke it up into blobs) but later on it was relatively easy to work with it. And it was easy to fix the mistakes in case they occured. We also did not have to wait for it to dry, we started to paint straight away.

It was definitely one of those lessons that finished with me, cleaning up the tables with a huge smile on my face. I loved it.

The pictures that were especially touching include the very basic Pinocchio. It was created by my youngest student and it was the first time this year that he prepared one piece and immediately asked for another piece of clay, to create more. I also love the coloured faced because it was created during a long process of collecting and combining different colours and shades. The outcome is the result of a lot of work and reflection. And, of course, the title piece here, that was a result of experimentation with tools and their opptions and the lovely print that came out of it.

I have already started to think about the adaptations and creating anything in clay, to use it with any EFL topic, fruit, food or animals. Body parts and faces, too, of course! Since it is so easy to create pictures with a stick, I was also thinking of a picture scene, a house, a Christmas tree or a dress. I am already looking forward to it!

Happy teaching!