Anka Zapart

Beware of the trainer. YL clichés.

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My name is Vader, Darth Vader. I am a teacher and a teacher trainer, I work with VYL and YL teachers.

Well, not really. I would like to think that, as a trainer, I smile a lot, I am supportive and open to questions and debates and I only shout at football matches. But there are those moments, on the courses that I teach or just in the everyday mentoring life, when I feel I am taking on some of Mr Vader’s traits. Although even then it is more in the style of the Darth Vader in the photo above.

One of those Darth Vader moments is defnitely induced by some of the concepts and beliefs related to teaching English to young and very young learners. They are out there, in the world, and although they are entirely ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect’, they have already become some EFL YL clichés that can cause more harm than good.

In the post below I will share with you my top five ‘Think Twice Concepts’ in the early years EFL. A very subjective approach, I must warn you. Are you ready? Fasten your seatbelts! Let’s go!

courtesy of Юлец

Bad behaviour

There is nothing that could be labelled as ‘bad behaviour’, not in the EFL classroom full of pre-schoolers. There is curiosity put to practice, there are emotions in action, there are boredom- induced replacement activities. There is fear that materialises itself as agreession and a general lack of goodwill. There is tiredness, hunger, possibly, or, on the contrary, the high levels of sugar from the chocolate bar eaten five minutes right before the lesson or the memory of the morning visit to the doctor and the unpleasantness of it that still lingers in the air (although the arm really did stop to hurt after a jab about three hours ago). There are, also, plenty of examples of ‘I will do what I have always done in such situations and if it has always worked so far with mum, with nanny, at home, at pre-school and at the playground, it is bound to take the required effect here, too!’

There is no bad behaviour, although sometimes we get to deal with ‘the unwanted behaviour’, that might be getting in the way of our lesson or other children’s physical or mental well-being.

Solutions: first of all, react, ideally to stop this unwanted behaviour, or, at the very least, to signal that it is not what we want to have. If one thing is certain, it is that it is not just going to happen, all by itself. Then, after the lesson, when everyone has already left and when the dust has settled – reflection. Was the first time that it happened? Does it always happen? Is there any chance that some triggers could be identified? Was it in anyway related to the activities, to what the teacher did, to what other children did? What happened later?

It is always a good idea to talk to the parents or carers, too. Not to complain or to blame the child or the adults but mostly to understand what really happened and why. And perhaps (but just unfortunately ‘perhaps’) this information will come in handy the next time it happens.

Egocentric

I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive Piaget for using this particular adjective to describe the little kids’ attitude to the world and to the people in it. It is a perfect example of a concept created by adults and used to refer to people who are not adult yet and whose attitudes and reactions are what they are simply because they have not had a chance yet to grow and to develop fully. In the EFL terms, it would be like sending a seven-year-old beginner to take an FCE exam and then scolding them for failing while they are simply not there, not yet and they should be seen nowhere near the exam room.

Of course, pre-schoolers might struggle with sharing the box of crayons, they might want to always be first and always hold the teacher’s hand. They may not like to sit next to Pasha today and they will not want the other children to touch the car they brought to class, to show off a little bit. They will not be happy about leaving their picture in the classroom for the teacher to display on the noticeboard. And they will all want the princess flashcard. But all of that happens because they are just learning how to be a person in the world full of people and a person in that particular group of children learning English.

Solutions: The most important of them comes from Mick Jagger because, indeed, ‘Time is on my side, yes, it is!’. The group of children starting to study together in September will be changing, from lesson to lesson, and even after a week or two or three, they will be a completely different bunch, only because they have had a chance to interact with each other, to do something together and to find out that a group is not Anka and five other someones but Anka and Sasha, Pasha, Kirill, Mitya and Olya, some of whom we like a little more, some of whom we like a little bit less.

Apart from that, there are also all the tricks that the teacher can use throughout the course, to help the little people bond and start noticing the other children and start to learn how to share the lesson with them.

So, no ‘egocentrism’ but ‘social skills that are still developing’.

A typical five-year-old child…

Apart from the knowledge of the language and the knowledge of the methodology, the knowledge of the child development stages is one of the three areas that an EFL teacher working with young learners needs to be familar with (Mourão, 2018: 429) and it is great to see that a summary of these characteristics have made it into the professional literature ( Mourão, 2020: 33 – 39) and are easily available online.

At the same time, there is a danger that teachers will be looking into these and applying them too religiously, without considering the differences between the individual children. As Mourão (2020: 215) says ‘Children develop holistically, show individual differences in development and progress at different rates’. That means that even if we had a group of only five-year-olds, all of them coming from similar environmenta and all of them provided with the same opportunities and, even, why not, all of them born on the same day, they could all develop their cognitive, motor, social or linguistic skills at completely different rates. As a result, despite the fact that the group would be theoretically homogenous, a teacher would still have to deal with a mix of abilities. It seems that a teacher equipped with a little knowledge and induced by this knowledge expectations of the children and of the lesson might be even more damaging that no knowledge at all. Because typical five-year-olds don’t exist.

Solution: an open-mind and an organic approach to the little people sitting in the classroom. Instead of applying strict frameworks and checklists and trying to make the kids fit in the tables (which they are more than likely not to be able to do, as a group or as individuals), reading and researching the age group in a close connection with the specific students whom we teach at the moment.

Short attention span

This is, without any doubt, one of the most important differences between an adult and a child learner and this is the one that gets highlighted most frequently. For a reason, too.

However, at the same time, any attempt at specifing what that attention span is or, even more, at quantifying is, simply, pointless. Much as it may give the (false) impression that once the concept has been assigned a number, it is not as scary and it will be easier to deal with, especially for those of the teachers who have little or no experience of working with the younger children. It is from them that I often hear that ‘an activity should not take more than five minutes’ or, even, ‘it is the child’s age plus one minute’.

Well, I wish it had been that straightforward.

In real life, the attention span will be very much dependent on a number of factors that nobody is able to predict or enlist, and, as such, it is simply impossible determine once and for all. Children’s attention span will be related to their age, to some extent (although it will materialise itself in a way unique for each child) but it will also be affected by absolutely everything that might have had an impact on the children’s mood before and in the lesson and the teacher’s mood before and in the lesson. Such as? Such as the first snow of the year, a spider in the classroom, a visit to the doctor just before the lesson, a swimming lesson just before the lesson, a birthday party attended, a grandma’s visit, candy eaten before the lesson…Or a teacher who has had an especially tiring or stressful day, any malfunctioning technology or a handout lost. Any of these and the tried and tested activity that has always worked with the same group or the same age group, that has had the kids in awe and involved for five or even ten minutes, can quickly turn into a failure or the most boring and unappealing activity in the entire world.

Solution: first and foremost, switch off your adult thinking of what happens in the classroom. The kids, young or very young, they will not be just sitting behind the table, patiently waiting for you to start what you have prepared for the day AND they will not stay involved in it for a prolonged period of time as long as you think they should. Second, while planning a lesson, think about it from your student’s perspective and ask yourself what your students might find interesting about an activity. Is there anything that would motivate them to engage in in? Anything else that just the mere fact of this being an activity done in a lesson.

Then, in the lesson, itself, keeping your eyes open and adapting to who (and in what state) you have in the classroom on the day is the best way of dealing with all the implications of the short attention span. And, although I would argue that this applies to all the age groups and levels, being ready to let go and teaching the students and not the plan, not the coursebook, not the handout and not the activity.

‘They don’t like singing’

Sorry, permission to disagree here and yes, even before I have seen you in the classroom and before I have met your little students. I don’t think it is true, simple as that. Why do the teachers say that then?

Partially, it is because, again, the adult perception of what song and singing is and should be gets in the way. On the one hand, when we listen to songs in our non-teaching life, we do just that, we listen and take pleasure in it, hopefully. There is nothing wrong with it, and, indeed, I believe that listening for pleasure should be sometimes included in our lessons, too. The only ‘problem’ with very young learners is that they might not be familiar with that kind of an exercise and after a minute or two, with no other task, they will be getting bored and distracted. And, possibly engaging in other, unwanted, activities.

On the other hand, when we use songs in the EFL lessons, we expect the students to sing these songs and in case of pre-schoolers or even primary school children, it will take them for them to master all the elements of the song, the music, the rhythm, the lyrics, before they are actually ready to sing. If the teacher expects a real performance in the lesson in which the song was introduced for the first time, they will be disappointed. Again, the children might remain focused for a minute or two and then, again, they will find something else to do and the teacher will arrive at a conclusion already mentioned in the heading to this paragraph.

It is true, that the word ‘singing‘ could be replaced with absolutely any type of a YL activity, ‘craft’, ‘miming’, literacy’, ‘animals’, ‘this game’ and the implications would be the same or almost the same. It is also true that music-related activities are more likely to feature here. Mostly because teachers often worry that they themselves cannot hold a tune or that they are not confident enough to sing in front of others.

Solution: forget about you and your pre-conceptions, your teacher previous knowledge and try. It might be that you yourself are not the world greatest fan of Baby Shark and of pretending that you are a…melting ice-cream (btw, one of the real ideas suggested for the miming game by my students) but the simple truth is, if the teacher does not make an effort and if the teacher does not get properly involved in a song or in an activity, it is almost a given, that the students will not, either. Especially, the little ones. And, really, the most amazing thing about the VYL audience is that they really do not care whether their teachers sing well or badly. The only thing that matters is whether they put their hearts in it or not.

And as for the other problems, be it music or craft, scaffolding and lesson planning is the answer and no two ways about it. If you need any more convincing to why we should use songs with children, please have a look here and if you are looking for some ideas of what can be done with a song to maximise language production, you should definitely look at this post here.

Coda

This post is not only about me having a little venting session on a Monday morning. It is not a critique on the people who use these terms and it is definitely not about my ‘What not to say’ list that I will be handing in to all my teachers and trainees from now on.

I decided to put this post together because it seems that all these clichés start in the very same place and that is when adults try to apply adult categories, labels and concepts to children and to how they see the world, how they learn and how they grow which might lead to misunderstanding, confusion and frustration in the classroom.

Perhaps there should be one more thing added to the list of skills and areas that a VYL or YL teacher should be equipped with, apart from the three mentioned by Mourão (2018)? The knowledge of the subject and of the appropriate methodolody is absolutely crucial and so is the awareness of the child development stages. They are an absolute must and a starting point. Still, they are going to be of little use in the real life if a teacher is not going to be willing to switch the perspective and to try to see the lesson and everything that happens in it from the point of view of a three-year-old or a seven-year-old.

As everything in teaching, nothing happens overnight, and it takes time to develop the ability to observe and to analyse your students and their behaviour and to learn from that. The good thing is that the very willingness to accept the fact that a different perspective is needed is already a big step towards success.

Sometimes, changing the perspective physically can make a real difference, too. In our teacher training courses, we sit at the big tables (of course, we are adults!) but there always comes the time when we transfer to the little stools in a small circle. We do it to practise different games and to reflect on them but this is also a great opportunity to experience how the furniture and the set up can influence the activities and the emotions.

This blog post can hopefully be a good first step, too!

What do you think, dear reader? Are there any other terms that you would add to this list? Please leave your commetns below!

Happy teaching!

P.S. All the amazing animals in the photos live in the streets of Yaroslavl. Mr Vader found a home in a coffee shop Free-da there. All photos – mine, apart from the rooster taken by Юлец and used here with her permission.

References

Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (2012), to be downloaded here

Mourão, S. (2018), Research into teaching of English as a Foreign Language in early childhood and care, In: S. Garton and F. Copland (eds), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Milton Park and New York: Routledge, p. 425 – 440.

Mourão, S. & G. Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children, Stuttgard: Delta Publishing

When you suddenly land on Mars: Top 10 Favourite Resources

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It is one of those lines that you deliver, sometimes carelessly: ‘This is my favourite ….’, often followed by a softening line, ‘Oh, well, at least one of the top 10.’ I do it all the time. Carefreely. Until, last week, one of my readers and fellow teachers, commented, ‘Ok, but what are the other nine out of this 10?’

And I thought that it will be a perfect idea for a new post. So here we are.

One: Dice

Definitely, one of my favourites, the one that I always have in my bag and the one that I have managed to use with the little ones and with the older ones. There is already a post on that. You can find it here.

Two: Noughts and crosses grid

Another ‘love of my life’, something that I have been using for ages and adapting and perfecting on the way. Obviously, right now, I cannot simply live without this resource. Nor can my students. Some of the ways of using it, there are a few posts that you can read: here – a post about using noughts and crosses with primary or pre-primary, here – another one on using noughts and crosses in storytelling, here – on using noughts and crosses with visuals.

The super important advantage is that, if needed and there is no template and no handout, it can be easily re-created on the board or even by the students, on a piece of paper and filled up with words, phrases or even pictures for the students to use later.

Three: Wordwall

This is the online tool, (www.wordwall.net) that, for me personally, was the number 1 discovery of the lockdown times. For those of you who are not yet familiar with it, it is an online community that shares online games which can be used to learn English among subjects. There are a great number of templates available such as simple cards, a spinner, a quiz, a wordsearch etc. Anyone can join the community and the community library for free. Those teachers who want to create their own games and to share them with the said community, have to choose a plan. That part might be a bit of a hurdle for some, but $ 2.50 or $3.50 per month is a ridiculously small amount of money to pay for the privilege of creating an unlimited number of activities for the particular texts, coursebooks or videos that you want to use with your students, especially if you teach a few groups of the same level / coursebook or, if, like me, you want to share these activities with all the teachers in your school.

I am using these activities with all levels and age groups, both with my students and my trainee teachers, sometimes in class, sometimes as an additional homework.

Here are a few examples of the templates and the activities that we use them in

  • simple cards, instead of electronic flashcards, here ‘My day‘, just to introduce the vocabulary
  • a similar set of simple cards but used with a specific structure(s). This one here was used with my primary students to share opinions about different activities.
  • boxes used in a speaking game ‘Tell me about it‘: students choose one of the boxes and talk about the object, animal, person. They have to produce a required number of sentences and they get a certain number of points in each round.
  • pelmanism online. Here students have to match a country with a product and we used it as an introduction in a lesson on the passive voice.
  • a quiz to develop the early literacy skills with pre-primary. This one here was used to practise the letters, sounds and the key words for each of there.

Four: Mini-whiteboards / earasable notebooks and markers

In my classroom, we actually have both, three mini-whiteboards and about ten erasable notebooks and we use them with all my groups. With my pre-primary students and the first and second year of primary, they are our main tool in all the literacy-related activities. Holding a big and thick marker is easier than managing a pencil or a pen, writing on the surface which is smooth and almost slipper means that the students do not have to apply so much strength and can produce a line more easily and, last but not least, even if they make a mistake (or if they are not very happy with what they produce), it is very easily to repair a mis-shaped ‘a’ or ‘n’. All these features make these resources especially suitable.

With my younger students we use these in the following activities:

  • doing the lines (rarely, I prefer to set it as homework)
  • copying the words from the board
  • the game of ‘fake scrabble’ – students in pairs, using two markers of different colours, take turns to add more and more words to the initial word set by the teacher, during a set amount of time. The students earn points for each letter in their words. The longer words they add, the more points they earn.
  • the game of ‘scramble, unscramble’ – teacher dictates words, letter by letter, in a random order. Students write these down and try to unscramble the word. This is not a competitive game, no points are awarded.
  • the game of ‘how many words’ – teacher writes on the board a sentence in English ie ‘We love to play games in English‘, students work in pairs and try to make a list of new words that can be put together using some of the letters in the sentences, for example ‘lamp’ because all these letters feature in the sentence. Students can reuse all the letters, for example they can use the letter ‘s’ in quite a few words but the words which contain more than two letters ‘s’ because there are only two of them in the sentence. This is a competitive game and there are points at the end of the game.
  • the game of ‘lazy bingo’ – students simply make a list of seven or ten words from the set that is being practised at the moment ie toys. Teacher then calls out the words in a random order, the student or the team which crosses or erases all their words first, wins the game.
  • depending on the set up in the classroom, I sometimes use the erasable whiteboards to put up the langauge that I want the students to use or the questions to discuss, especially if we are sitting away from the board.

We use the same games with my older students but, apart from that, we also use these in these activities:

  • a variety of quizzes – students write their answers, either full words or simply letters ‘a’, ‘b’ or ‘c’ in multiple answer quizzes
  • short story writing – writing a Flyers or KET story, whole class writing in which the students contribute only a sentence or a word at a time and then exchange the notebooks, etc.
  • the game of ‘A to Z’ – students work in pairs, write the letters of the alphabet in a column. Later on, their main task is to come up with one word for each letter of the alphabet within a certain topic. There is a time limit and the team or pair who can make the longest list, wins the challenge. In the follow up, we reflect on these words discussing the questions such as: What is the strangest word here? What is the best word? Are there any words you don’t know? Which words you don’t approve of? This game works best at the start of a new topic and it helps the teacher to understand whether the new topic is actually new to the group and, consequently, to adapt the classroom procedures.

Understandably, in all of the activities, the mini-whiteboards or the earasable workbooks can be easily replaced with a simple piece of paper and a pencil and the activities would work just as well. Using the whiteboards simply adds to the excitement and it can be a nice way of spicing up the lesson.

Five: Tornadoes aka Points cards

Long, long time ago, at one of the trainings, someone showed us how to play the game of ‘Guns, Bombs and Lives’. I do not remember who it was (but thank you, anonymous benefactor!).

It was a very simple game of gamifying any boring activity such any typical controlled practice exercise. Students were giving their answers and uncovering the boxes in the grid. If they found ‘a gun’, they lost one of their three initial lives, if they found ‘a bomb’, they could steal a life from one of the other teams. If they found ‘a heart’, they did gain an additional life. There was a similar version of the same game, called Tornadoes’.

It worked very well and it helped to encourage the kids to get involved and to stay involved in the controlled practice activities but, even with the older students, I did not like the idea of all the guns, bombs and natural disasters, all the destruction that I personally would be bringing into the classroom. The other contributing factor was the fact that, at the time, I desperately needed a system points that I could also use with my 1-1 students. The regular grid would not work (it was always created by the teacher). Our game of Tornadoes had to transform into something else.

It did. It underwent a proper evolution as with my student, Nick, we did come up with new ideas, cards and tasks and we would play it for a few times, like proper gamers, and then, based on the data collected, we would accept these new rules or reject them.

At the moment, in its 4.0 we have the following cards:

  • the simple: 1, 2, 5 points
  • donate 1, 2, 5 points (you give away some of your points to one of the other teams)
  • lose 1, 2, 5 points (you lose some of your points, no one gets them)
  • add 50% of the number of your points
  • lose 50% of the number of your points
  • multiply your points by 2
  • take away 1, 2, 5 points from one of the other teams
  • shield which you can use to protect yourself agains any bad luck which, if not used, turns into 10 points at the end of the game
  • the crown – whoever picks the crown is the ultimate winner, regardless of the number of points collected. We add this card to the deck only for the final round.

You can see the cards in the photo. I have been using them for about three years now and I have just realised that it is the high time to print and to laminate them…Here is my new resolution for the new academic year.

Six: Magic wand

Well, yes, this particular tool is used only with my pre-schoolers, but it is an absolute staple food with this particular age group.

Magic wands can be found in many different toy shops or kiosks but it is so much fun to be making one! It is actually so easy that it can be turned into a craft activity with preschoolers. At the same time, a magic wand is not even necessary. Kids are amazing and, really, if played properly a simple pencil will do the job just as well. For that reason, when we used to study online with my students, I was using my handmade magic wand and my students were using markers, pencils, whatever was lying nearest!

Magic wands are used in one activity that can have many different variations. Whoever is wielding the wand is responsible for casting ‘the spell’ of their choice. The whole group, including the teacher has to perform the action and to mime. We use a simple rhyme ‘Abracadabra, 1, 2, 3. You are…’ with many different endings:

  • verbs ‘You are dancing’
  • nouns ‘You are a cat’
  • nouns with adjectives ‘You are a happy cat’, ‘You are an angry princess’

Seven: Word picturebooks

If I were to go to Mars and take one set of resources, I would love to take a set of visuals. If, however, I had a limited space in my bag and / or no access to google, I would take the printed version (because I am lucky to have the hard copy) of Cambridge YLE Picture Wordlist, Starters, Movers and Flyers. These are beautifully done picture scenes, especially useful for those of us who prepare kids for YL exams but, at the same time, so lovely and colourful, that I could actually live with them in a teen or adult group.

You can download them from here: Starters, Movers and Flyers, and if only anyone even mildly related to Cambridge University Press is reading this, here is my message: please, print them and sell them! We are going to buy them.

Eight: Small pieces of paper (basically)

Well, this is so basic that it is almost disappointing but, looking at the regular proceedings in my classes, I have to be honest and say that, yes, small pieces of paper (A4 white or coloured cut up into 16 or 32) appear there regularly and frequently.

Sometimes, I prepare them myself, they are typed up, printed and cut up but, since this whole series is devoted to the minimal resources and last-minute solutions, I will not include these here. The main assumption is: no time for any pre-lesson preparations. All of the activities mentioned before start with the teacher giving out a number of cards to each student, pairs or teams.

  • vocabulary: My Words: working with a set of vocabulary (connected by the topic or the text), each student has to choose five favourite words (the best, the worst, the most unusual, the strangest, the most interesting, the most difficult) and write them all on separate cards. Students can explain their choices, ask their partner a question with the word, make riddles with these or exchange their cards and guess their partner’s choices. Afterwards, the students repeat the activity with another partner.
  • vocabulary: write five words from the set of the key vocabulary, work with your partner, take out one of your words, randomly, put it on the table. Compare the two words, either using comparatives (works best with animals, transport, countries etc) or just say if they are similar or different taking into account their meaning, pronunciation, use, the part of speech they are etc.
  • vocabulary / functional langauge: Have you got…?: it is one of my favourite games with all the students, based loosely on Go Fish (or at least this is where it started). There is only one set of words that is necessary and students can help make these. The game is played best in 3 or 4 teams. Each team gets a set of the key words and the students take turns to try to guess what they partners have. As soon as someone guesses the word, the team loses it and puts the card away. The winner is usually the team that managed to keep all their words secret (ro the team that has most cards at the end of the game). Everyone has to listen to everyone else, collecting information and drawing conclusions. With my younger kids, we often play with ‘Have you got’ or even with ‘Blue, please’ during the first lessons of the course. With my older students, we turn it into proper themed mini-roleplays, for instance while practising the airport vocabulary, they have to ask ‘Excuse me, where is the departure lounge?’ and their partners reply with ‘It is next to the souvenir shop’ (if they have the card) or ‘Sorry, I don’t know’ (if they don’t have the card)
  • grammar: write five questions to ask your partner using the key structure (ie Did you go to the cinema yesterday?) or write five time expressions to use in the past to later ask questions with these words etc.

Nine: Puppets

Thinking about my classrooms now, I think there are at least two puppets occupying the shelves there, Angelina and the Flying Cow in the older kids classroom and Teddy and Orange Cat in the pre-primary classroom. If you want to find out how we use them, please pop in here.

Ten: The indispensables

This short (?) will be devoted not to teaching resources per se but to a whole selection of objects that I cannot imagine NOT being in my classroom

  • a clock, a big one, on the wall, right above the desk or behind the students’ back so that I can always be aware of the time and to proceed accordingly
  • a big box of felt-tip pens because we all like a bit of colour and a bit of variety when it comes to writing materials. The students always have a choice between a pen, a pencil or felt-tip pens and very often they choose the latter. Colour rules!
  • a roll of painter’s tape because you can use it to attach things to the walls (treasure hunts), to the floor (the plan of our ideal city), to the tables and chairs (assigning who is sitting there) and clothes (who is who today). The best thing – you can write on it so the teacher does and the kids do, too!
  • a big fat pencil case full of colourful whiteboard markers which we need to make the boardwork more appealing and to write in our erasable notebooks

If I ever went to Mars to teach, these are the things that I would be putting into my Mary Poppins’ rucksack. And you? What would you take?

Don’t forget to look out for the series of posts ‘When you suddenly land on Mars…’ in which I am going to share my ideas for lessons with pre-primary, primary, teenage and adult students, based only (or almost) on what we can find in every classroom: pen and paper! I have already started writing them and I will be sharing shortly!

Happy teaching!

When you suddenly land on Mars…

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What do you mean you can’t suddenly land on Mars? Sure you can! You get ready for something else, as far from space travel as only possible, you arrange all the bits and pieces, you make your copies (because you assume you are preparing for teaching) and then, suddenly, due to a combination of factors (although the Russian phrase стечение обстоятельств somehow fits better here), you open your eyes, you open the door of what turns out to be a rocket and, ta dam, you find yourself on Mars!

Naturally, everything that you have prepared, on paper or in your head, is, all of a sudden, absolutely useless. The whole lot of it, so, immediately, it lands in the bin or, what we refer to as with my kids, ‘Our Tresure Chest’. Hence the photo.

Congratulations! One of the most amazing adventures of your teaching life (probably) is about to start in…3…2…1…

What really happened?

It was supposed to be a short summer course, for kids, primary, whose main aim was to be a revision and reinforcement of everything that the kids knew, based on games, speaking activities and project. It was a programme I prepared myself, a programme I had run in the past, a programme that had been tried and tested. There are no coursebooks.

However, on the day, due to this amazing combination of factors, all of a sudden, there are four great kids sitting in the classroom, a ten-year-old, a seven-year-old, an almost-seven-year-old and a five-year-old. As regards the levels, one of them is more of less a Starters level and three false-start beginners which means that they know an occasional number, a few colours and a pet or two. Plus, they have had some exposure so, rather than run away, they make an effort to listen and to follow instructions.

Of course, since it is the first day, they trickle into the classroom (a new routine is building up, also for the parents) and the lesson takes off three times in a row. It is an interesting feeling to become aware of the fact that the lesson is 120-minutes long (or very very long), especially when you have nothing ready.

By nothing, I mean ‘literally nothing’. All of the materials and the lesson plans I had prepared were lying on the nearby table, I could see them from the corner of the eye throughout the lesson. I knew that they were entirely irrelevant at the moment and that maybe, if I am lucky, I might use them later on, with some other group. Maybe, not during this particular lesson that I was very much a part of and responsible for.

What I learnt from this experience

Spoiler: Plenty.

First of all, finally, I was able to pinpoint what ‘being experienced‘ means. It’s been a while since I started teaching and another while again since I could label myself as ‘experienced’. At the same time, I have never really thought what exactly it means to me. Because, normally, you don’t think about it, do you? Unless, sometimes, you are asked to add the number of your teaching years while putting together a bio for one conference or another…Or when you bump into ‘a student of yore’ and you notice how much they’ve grown. And how much time has passed.

I was teaching, peaceful and quiet, thinking that ‘It’s ok. Everything is going to be alright. The patient will live’. I was not happy because I really hate coming into the classroom not having planned my classes. I was not excited about the potential challenge and an opportunity to experiemnt and learnt. But I was angry, scared or even stressed out, just teaching. Anyway, the kids were in the classroom already so, if not for anyone else’s sake, it would be recommended that I behave for them. I don’t know if it works for everyone in the exact same way, but for me, yes, the students’ presence (insert here: kids, teens, adults, trainees) has a calming effect on me. All in all, that would be the definition of ‘experienced’ for me.

Then, this particular lesson (or the course) has made me think again about the case when students, who belong to different age groups but study together. Of course, there is a reason why we take these two factors into consideration: the age and the language level and we want to provide the best service, always suited to the individual students’ needs. There is no doubt about that. However, at the same time, over the years, I have been in a situation when the younger were together with the older and it did work. Because it did work in that case, too. It has worked, rather, (we are not done yet) and I am trying to understand why and how.

I don’t fully understand it yet, I am collecting evidence, so to speak, but whenever that happens, I always think of siblings playing together and doing things together, despite the age gap.

The most interesting part of it was the teacher’s brain at work. At one point in the lesson, I realised that it was working on as many as four levels simultaneously. One – because I was actually fully involved in the activity that was taking place at the moment, a game that we were all playing. Two – because I was thinking fast on my feet, trying to plan the next few activities, until the break. Three – because there was also the second half of the lesson after the break and I had to plan this part, too and four – because I was doing all that and also reflecting, on the go.

It was not all about killing the time and making sure that the kids leave the classroom alive and kicking, happy and healthy. It was about making sure that the children learn something and that we meet our lesson aims, although, admittedly, these were the aims that were set in the course of the lesson. All in all, it was a successful lesson. We learnt and practised some vocabulary and the kids learnt the room as humans who can use ‘I like’, ‘I don’t like’ and ask the question ‘Have you got?’ because we needed it in a game. If I had been observing this lesson, I would have given myself a ‘To Standard (strong)’ or maybe even ‘Above standard’. What a relief:-)

The only problem with it is that the brain gets really, really tired with such entertainment. As soon as the kids left, I just slumped on the desk and took a 15-min power nap, then lunch. Then, I was good to go, as if nothing ever happened.

Coda and the follow-up

Last but not least, it made me think about all the less experienced teachers and how they might react in such a situation and what I could tell them to help deal with the stress and the students in such a situation.

For that reason, next blog series will be about that, landing on the teaching Mars and surviving. I am planning a post on the top ten resources that might come in handy and that will help to save the world (kind of) and on a three posts in which I am going to share my ideas for the lessons based almost entirely on paper. Soon in cinemas near you!

Happy teaching!

‘

Dice – teacher’s best friend?

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Good news: I am working on a proper article at the moment and having lots of fun with that.

Bad news: This one article is a priority at the moment and all the creative energy needs to be going towards that. Or I will never ever finish.

Good news: I have an article that I commited for the IH Journal in spring 2019, in which I am sharing some of the ways of using dice in the EFL classroom. Two years on, dice are still one of my favourite tools, so here you are, if you are looking for ideas.

You can find it here.

Happy teaching!

PS And as a bonus, here are the two posts from Naomi Epstein, my blogger friend.

This one here, the introduction to using different types of dice. The other one, here, about D.G., the angry dice. I really liked the story of D.G. and I am planning to use it in a revision game with my students as soon as they get back from their holidays. Something along the lines of ‘Roll. Give me 7 examples of…’ or ‘Tell me about. You have to use…(roll) 5 sentences’. Or something like that. We will definitely get back to it:-)

English, kids and Igor Stravinsky

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There are many roads that lead to Rome which here will be a synonym of a good lesson. Sometimes it is boredom, when the teacher cannot even bear to look at the coursebook and the official educational materials. Sometimes it is the students, when they bring their world with them, when they learn quickly or, why not, when they don’t behave in the way that we would dream of. Sometimes, it is a random resource, a storybook or craft materials, that you really (really!) want to use.

Sometimes, however, you also find yourself in the middle of a film, Off the Record, a documentary on Laurent Garnier, the DJ, and you gasp because you find out how among all the other things cool that he has done and does, he also takes part in music lessons in a small school, somewhere in a French village, and there, with teens, he explores the meaning of different music styles, he gives them a chance to experience different kinds of music and he guides them into translating these impressions into visual art…

I gasped because I could not decide which reaction I should go for first. Shout out loud ‘Laurent, I love you!’ (just because he finds time to do something for his community and because of all things, he chooses to teach)? Shout out ‘Laurent, me, too! We do it, too!’ (because we entertain ourselves with my students with a similar exercise, albeit on a much smaller scale, when we play the Musical Challenge)? Or shout out ‘Pause the movie, for a moment, for heavens’ sake! I am being flooded with ideas and I need time to take notes!’ Because the Musical Challenge I have put together, good as it was as a warmer or a speaking activity, turned out to have a lot more potential and it be a brand new direction and at the same time an opportunity to combine teaching English through Art that I have been toying with for years now, craft and project work that, I was sure, could help me generate lots and lots of English. What’s not to like?

Crumbs # 19: Teaching English Through Music: Igor Stravinsky

The notes below constitute the outline of a 45-minute lesson I taught during the summer to my primary students aged 8 – 9, of a strong A1 / YLE Movers level whose speaking and listening skills are closer to A2 / YLE Flyers. I had only two students on the day so we did all of the activities whole class.

Revision

  • A revision game: adjectives – opposites, with the wordwall cards and then a miming game (one of the students choosing the word to mime for the other kids to guess). Another option are the present tenses or the verbs that the kids might need for storytelling.

Russian fairytales

  • Illustrations of the four traditional stories : About the Fisherman and the Goldfish, the Three Pigs, The Hen Ryaba and The Firebird
  • Kids turn turns to retell the stories. There is no pre-teaching of any vocabulary, the teacher feeds in the words on the go.
  • Kids choose their favourite story and talk about their favourite Russian story

Listening number 1

  • Teacher shows the photograph of Igor Stravinsky, introduces him briefly
  • Teacher tells the students that he wrote music for one of the four stories
  • Teacher plays a short piece of the Firebird (for example 38’40 – 40′) and asks the students to guess which of the stories the music could illustrate
  • Feedback, teacher tells them that the music they heard is called ‘Firebird’ and that it is one of the most popular pieces of modern music.

Listening number 2 / Art

  • Teacher gives out the template and tells the students that it is a cover of a record / CD with Firebird and that they they are going to design the cover and the illustration.
  • Teacher says that they are going to listen to another piece of music and draw what they hear. Teacher tells them that perhaps it will be for people who don’t know the story of the firebird, who don’t know Russian fairytales at all and that we need to help them understand what kind of music they might hear.
  • ‘All ideas are good ideas’ is the motto of all of our creative projects, it is good to bring that up again.
  • Teacher puts the drawing materials and ideally there would be a choice of pencils, markers, crayons, finger paints, watercolours etc. Each student can choose their own.
  • Teacher plays the final piece of the Firebird (40′ – 46′) and the students are creating their piece. The length of the listening can be extended, either a longer piece can be chosen or the another excerpt can be added, depending on the group and their involvement.
  • If possible, the kids can be involved in discussing what the music might be illustrating. The Firebird is very energetic and varied, there is a lot of potential for that.
  • If there is time, kids can prepare two covers, based on two different excerpts from the suite.

Presentation

  • Kids take turn to present their album covers. They can use the following questions as framework: What is there in your picture? Why? Do you like the music? Why? What are you thinking about when you are listening to it? Kids can either ask each other these questions or use them to prepare a discourse.
  • All the album covers are displayed on the walls. If there is time, the group can listen to the chosen excerpt again.
  • Feedback and error correction.

How it went and what I learnt

  • In short: we loved it.
  • The kids produced a lot of language throughout the lesson (the teacher is happy).
  • The kids loved the fact that they could talk about the stories they knew and that they could paint (something that we rarely do). They seemed to enjoy listening to the music, too.
  • Observing how their ideas are born and shaped was a fascinating experience for the teacher, too. The first impulse was to draw a bird made of fire but, as they listened on, the other, better, more individual and special things began to appear. And they kept working on them, as the music led them.
  • Afterwards, they talked a lot about their pictures and the creative process. Normally, I ask if I can take the final product, if it is ok to photograph it or to put it on display. This time they were the ones to ask whether I was going to put them up on the noticeboard. It was a lovely moment.
  • The thing that surprised me most and that was the biggest challenge (or ‘challenge’) was the same thing that made the activity meaningful, motivating and generative, namely the fact that we used the Russian traditional stories as the basis. First of all, they had a lot to say about them and cutting corners (aka a short summary of the story) was out of the question. They wanted to tell me everything (as in: every little detail, significant or not). Second of all, because they were retelling the stories as they knew them, in Russian, they were very reluctant to give up on the beautiful, literary language for which they are not ready yet, in English and looking for those higher-shelf equivalents did get in the way and it did slow them down. Sometimes they were so unwilling to abandon the beauty that they used Russian. It was touching and it was beautiful and I still have not decided what I can do about it and how I can overcome this ‘problem‘ in the future. Because, of course, I want more!
  • What you can see in the pictures is a beautiful birch tree Daria and a tsunami, to which a sunrise was added, as an afterthought, a few notes later belongs to Antonina. Mine is the sunset which, lame as it is, I am quite happy with because only now did I make a connection between the firebird and the sun. Let it be.

Happy teaching!

P.S. Why Stravinsky? Apart from the fact that “Firebird’ is one of my favourite music pieces ever, it happened so that a few months ago, I used him as a reference with my young teens and their brains just went blank. They had never heard of him. Naturally, I decided to fix that. I rather like the idea that in about twenty years from now, my kids will hear the name Stravinsky in the conversation and their first association will be ‘Yes, we had this lesson once with our English teacher, Anka…’

Malevich and his Black Square are next in line, for the same reason.

So, Teaching English through Music anyone?

Free yourself! Forget about the coursebook!

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It is quite likely that the next few posts to come will be (heavily) influenced by the very intense experience of tutoring on the IH CYLT course. I train up teachers throughout the whole academic year, in one way or another, but that particular course is as engaging and absorbing as it is demanding. And, naturally, inspiring. Hence this post.

First of all, we love our coursebooks. We love our authors. We love our publishers. We would never give up and teach completely without the coursebook because we appreciate the curriculum, the ready-made activities, the photographs, the audio and the ideas. And we are beyond happy to be able to have a coursebook from a recognised publisher who has been in the business for decades and who is putting a lot of effort into putting together a coursebook. We have worked without coursebooks (not fun), we have worked with horrendous coursebooks from aspiring local publishers/writers (not fun) and, having been in business for decades (oh dear), we have experienced the coursebooks of the 70s and 80s (not fun) and it is obvious the coursebooks have become better. Much better, in fact.

But.

My favourite metaphor

A hammer is a very useful thing, no doubt about that, but would any carpenter let the hammer decide what the table should look like? A knife is a wonderful tool, too, but no chef would be asking the knife for advice on how to cook a steak. Scissors, another amazing creation, but no hair stylist would let the scissors take the lead and make decisions about the haircut. They are all tools and what matters here is the human that manipulates them, a human who understands when the tools contribute to the aim that he or she has and then they don’t and have to be put away (fixed, sharpened, and so on, depending on which part of the metaphor you choose).

In the same vein, with all due respect and no offence meant, the coursebook cannot make the decisions about the lesson. It is a tool, a great tool but only a tool that has to be used wisely.

‘Easy for you to say. You don’t have to teach and you won’t be assessed…’

…is actually something that one of my trainees actually said during the lesson planning session when I suggested (yet again) to put the coursebook aside. On a few other occasions not a word was said but I caught a glance or two that did express the same thought. As if I was the meanest creature in the world, asking the drowning man to let go of the swim ring they are desperately holding on to…

It is, of course, true, I am not teaching to be assessed (well, not on the course) and yes, it is easy to (carelessly) suggest putting the book aside. Why would I want to do that? Ok, here are the reasons:

  • The coursebook authors do not know the children (or the students) who sit in your classroom and, try hard as they may, they will never be able to come up with the activities that suit those students’ needs. Only the teacher who works with them can do it.
  • The students for whom the coursebooks are written belong to some non-existant category of children: they never cause any problems, they never misbehave, they always come energetic and motivated, they are always focused, they understand and follow instructions at the first attempt, they always match the coursebook level and the ministry description of what a seven- or ten-year old should be like and they are interested in all the possible subjects in the world. Unlike our Pasha, Sasha and Fedya.
  • The coursebook authors choose the texts or vocabulary or listening or grammar practice activities based on the principles that might not go with the abilities or interests of your students.
  • The summer courses are a perfect opportunity to let the hair down and see what teaching can be like, when the student is at the heart of everything that happens in the classroom
  • The training teaching practice on the course is even a perfect-er opportunity because forgetting the coursebook is done under the supervision and with the help of a tutor who will help to make sure that this grand experiment does not get out of hand and that there is a happy ending to that story. There will be also your peers and, obviously, seven heads thinking together are much better than one.
  • Forgetting the coursebook also means that the teachers set themselves free and start thinking about the lesson (or the course) in a more organic way. What topic do you want to teach? What vocabulary would you like to include? Which grammar structures will go well with that? What can be the main productive activity? What do you need to prepare your students for it? Do you want to include a song, a story, a video? How much time do you have for all that? And when all these questions are answered (and only then!), opening the book to check how many of your personal dreams can come true with whatever is in the coursebook. Not the other way round.
  • Adapting, creating or finding all the missing element will take time but the final product – a lesson that you want to teach, is definitely worth it. Even if it is not the best lesson you ever teach. Learning from mistakes is as important as learning from the great achievements.

The happy ending (because there is one!)

Breathe, dear teacher, it is not forever, of course. Nobody is taking the coursebooks away (we love them, remember?) but I can (almost) guarantee that one summer like that, at a teacher training course, at a summer city camp or at a regular summer camp in a far-away forest can change your approach to teaching forever, with young learners or with adults, with the priorities set right: the teacher and the students, the lesson, the coursebook and lesson planning will never be the same!

Happy teaching!

Instead of a coda, a song by the Chemical Brothers which inspired the title of the blog. I am thinking that I will have to a lot more of the Chemical Brothers’ songs

P.S. My trainees on the course were amazing and I managed to convince them to let go of the coursebook at least once while on the course, partially or fully. With great results. So there.

Teacher roles, teacher personalities.

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This is not a serious post.

There is no need for anything else serious now, not with the amount of work related to the end-of-year procedures, the amount of work related to the summer programmes kick-off or the very important teacher training course that has just taken off. If there are any posts to come in the next few weeks, they will be all of the following kind: light-hearted, frolicky, with a giggle.

A teacher = a chameleon, a teacher = a jack of all trades, a monitor, a manager, a mediator, a diagnostician and a teacher, experienced or not, talented or not, on a good day or on a bad, this very person juggles all these roles and a teacher multi-tasks, playing a few roles at the same time.

But there are the other roles that a teacher plays in the classroom. Here are mine.

I’m a coach.

I work hard with my players. Whenever they are there, I am there, at every single training session, those technical ones, those devoted to developing speed and agility, those before the important game. I have been a player myself, I know what it all feels like, I have learnt how to share this knowledge. I am sometimes light-hearted, sometimes very serious but I know what our aim is and I am going to do everything to get us there.

But, at the same time, I am not the one who is going to play this important game. I am preparing my sportsmen but they are the ones who will be performing themselves. I will not be able to be there and always hold their hand, not on the pitch. They will be on their own and they need to get ready for that. Our time in the training session has to focus on that, on giving them skills, developing their independence and confidence. And then they go.

I’m a gardener.

I have my patch, my garden, my orchard. I plant my seeds and my saplings. I hope for the sun and good weather. I water, every day or even twice a way. I protect from the insects and birds. I check out for the weeds. I look and check up on them regularly. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I worry about the wind, storm, temperature drops.

After a very long time and a lot of waiting, the day comes when a leaf appears, a flower, a raspberry here and a carrot there. And when it does happen, it is the best day every and I rejoice. And sometimes, I need to water more or move the pot into the sunnier place, or back into the house. Sometimes, I have plant the seeds again.

I’m a (kind) witch.

I am sweet (or so I would like to believe, at least when I am in the classroom:-) I smile a lot and I laugh a lot. I can turn a lot of difficult situations into a joke, to disperse the clouds. I wear funky socks and funky masks. Funky earrings, too. I am kind. I laugh a lot.

But I am also a witch and there can be no doubt (never ever) who is in charge, who is the boss and who has got all the superpowers. Which she will not hesitate to use. When necessary, the smile will be put away, on the shelf and the witch will do the witch’s things. If the world really needs it.

I know that these might be also referred to ‘teaching personas’ or ‘teaching personalities’ but I am going to stick to the concept of ‘a role’ here. Because ‘personality’ suggests something more serious (and that’s not the word for today, remember) and something more permanent and these described above are not traits, only characters that one assumes while entering the classroom. They can be different on different days, more or less prominent or obvious, they might appear every day or be held in the cupboards, kept for the special day…Perhaps we change as people because of the fact that we teach and that we teach English and that we teach English to kids and because of how we do it. Perhaps we choose our teaching roles based on what we are. Perhaps both. That is a conversation to be had on another day. Maybe.

In the meantine, if you want to share how you see yourself in the classroom, there is the comment box below. I am really looking forward to reading these.

Happy teaching!

Things kids bring to class. Life, early years and classroom management.

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This entry was initially a post on Facebook a year or so ago but the list has got longer and more interesting since. What’s more, what started as ‘a page in the photo album’, almost, with time turned into a reflection on professional life, early years development and its impact on the EFL methodology.

Based on one million true stories. Enjoy?

These are the things that my students brought to their offline or online classes:

  • a dead ladybird, handed to me already in the R.I.P state, as the most precious treasure AND a present
  • ten plastic jungle animals (all of which participated actively in learning and practising of the new vocabulary)
  • a bunch of toy dragons (which were not ‘angry dragons’, as I was assured)
  • a toy lion (also very active, answering questions and all that)
  • a toy parrot, Pepsi (Pepsi always asked for her own homework handout and always did her homework)
  • baby brothers and sisters who wandered in and stayed
  • Pasha, the invisible student
  • a few cats (purring loudly, only online, though, sadly)
  • a puppy (running in and out)
  • a hamster
  • a plastic shotgun (very realistic, online, yay)
  • a toy hen (came to visit and befriend our puppet Angelina, also a hen)
  • a broom, Harry Potter-style, wood, twigs and all
  • a cape, Harry Potter-style
  • a set of cars from the collection
  • flowers growing around (online, of course) and, inevitably, …
  • a cow, grazing around (online, of course)
  • the entire vegetable garden, toured via laptop
  • a snail in a jar (online, thank God)
  • a sling
  • flowers, real, plastic and paper
  • slime
  • a turn-on/turn-off blinking tiara
  • a half-eaten bread roll
  • a birthday cake with no prior warning
  • a bag of candy to celebrate birthdays, with no prior warning
  • a huge alarm clock
  • a piggy bank
  • and, to finish on the high note, the Black Sea with ships included (in the background of an online lesson)

Why does it matter?

We could look at all these from the angle of the teacher. This teacher is anxious, because, most likely, all these toys and animals will be a nuisance….As a source of excitement (for the owner and for everyone who will want to look and touch and play), a source of annoyance (for the owner, because even the well-meant attention might get unbearable after a while), a source of drama (because toys get lost or misplaced, sometimes), or, simply – a source of distraction. And, if anything can be said about a teacher of very young learners is that they do not need any additional elements that might, potentially, tilt the balance or make waves in the classroom. There is enough, as it it, by default. And that does depend on whether the teacher is experienced or not, working with a group or with individual students, online or offline.

That is why, on seeing yet another dinosaur in the doorway, the teacher sighs, trying to go over all the implications and the impact that the dinosaur’s might have event in the following forty-five minutes. However, this is a very quiet sigh, well-hidden behind a smile and another ‘Oh, wow!’ A very quiet sigh, indeed.

But there are also the kids’ angle. There’s been a birthday or a no-occasion present from gran, an item found in the park, a random and unexpected encounter. There is, finally, an opportunity to show the teacher and the rest of the group, all the treasures and ‘treasures’ that normally stay at home and that mum or gran or nanny stubbornly refuse to carry to school and back, just for the display purposes and which, finally, can be presented to the whole world (as one of the very few bonuses of studying online). Because it is important, right here, right now. Even if to the outside world it looks like a piece or unimportant junk.

For that reason, the kids entering the classroom, will be far from sighing. On the contrary, there will be a lot of joyful feet stomping, the pleasant adrenaline rush, excited whispers in the line in front of the classroom door and then, inevitably, a presentation by a proud and triumphant owner who, for the time being and for the next few minutes, is ruling the world.

The title of ‘The Most Dramatic Entry’ …

…and a proper showcase and a case study that I often present to my trainees, belongs to one big birthday cake, full of cream, sugar and chocolate that was grandiosely marched in, at the heels of a Sasha boy who was turning six on the day. Three minutes before the lesson, without any prior warning, agreement, permission.

You know how they say ‘his heart sank‘? Mine really did, no metaphors. Of course, it was a big day for Sasha. Of course, his mum wanted to include us in the celebrations. Of course, she meant well. Of course, Sasha and all the other kids were ecstatic. I am not a robot myself, I like cake! BUT.

I had three minutes to make a decision and here are the three options that I was considering:

a) Ask the mum to take the cake away. Meaning: Sasha is heartbroken (reason: the teacher is a witch who forbids him to enjoy his day), the mum is offended (reason: see above), the kids are upset (reason: see above), the lesson is in shreds (reason: nobody can focus anyway)

b) Put the cake away on the window-sill and celebrate at the end of the lesson. Meaning: Sasha is distracted (reason: the cake is on the window-sill, this is the only thing that he is capable of thinking of, also probably with time, the classroom fills with the smell of cake), the kids are distracted (reason: see above), the teacher is distracted (reason: see above), the lesson is in shreds (reason: nobody can focus anyway).

c) Eat the cake. Meaning: Sasha is happy and way too energetic (reason: sugar levels are through the roof), the kids are happy and way too energetic (reason: see above), the teacher is in trouble (reason: other parents will complain to the school about the stranger feeding their kids random foods, but at this point the teacher doesn’t know that yet, it is all to happen in the evening and on the following day), the lesson is in shreds (reason: too much sugar, too much energy and the festivities taking place in the start of the lesson. No matter what the teacher prepared for the day (Try to predict THIS in your ‘anticipated problems and solutions’), nothing is going to be able to come even close to the cake. Sigh).

Now, dear reader, please, pause for a minute. Faced with that dilemma, what would you do, I wonder?

I guess, I did know straight away what we would do, I went through the hoops of considering all the other options only to be able to say that I did try to be a reasonable and cool-headed professional. We ate the cake and we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Sasha.

Then I tried to save what was left of my lesson and in the following week, I kept myself busy sorting out the complaint from the parents.

Not sure what I would do today, and with my current groups and parents. Maybe it would not even be a problem because, by now, we have managed to negotiate an accepted list of potential English lesson snacks and we always celebrate with Kinder, Barnie and this one brand of juice. It is some kind of achievement, too, I suppose, that when the birthday surprise bags were brought into the classroom I did manage to pull off the ‘let’s-put-it-on-the-top-shelf-we’ll-open-the-bag-when-we-say-goodbye‘ stunt. It might be because I am more experienced and because a more effective set of rules and routines is in place. Perhaps, it’s because we have known each other for a bit longer than with the other group. Perhaps all three?

What to do and what not to do?

Luckily, not all the situations are as dramatic as the Dreaded Cake Day but the teacher still sighs when the (plastic) dinosaurs are arriving.

‘No toys in the classroom‘ is one of the options, of course, especially if agreed previously with the parents, carefully discussed and explained. And with time, children get used to the fact that even if the teddy (or the banana) come to school, they stay in the hallway.

‘Bring it on‘ is another. Turning the tendency into a part of the classroom routine might benefit the lesson and the kids. Bringing toys (or else) can be an opportunity to produce the language as even the youngest kids can answer the questions such as ‘What is it?’, ‘What colour is it?’, ‘What can you do with it?’, ‘Why do you like it?’…

‘They are sleeping‘ could also be an approach. If you have a table or a shelf, all the toys could be welcomed, interacted with and then, after having been granted the permission from the owner, left in this one special place. I am sure that they are tiny and very very tired. Ideally this place is out of reach but visible to everyone (especially the owner:-) and this way, the precious things are there, visible but out of the way.

The shameful thing is, perhaps, the fact that I got bored with both of these approaches. We used to have a beautiful poster in the hallway, in English and in Russian about toys staying behind, but to be honest, I was really more interested in all the treasure (and how a piece of real junk can become ‘my precious’). But I am not into cutting a piece of the lesson every single time and devoting it to random guests, either. Instead, we just mix and match. We always inspect the new arrivals and we look at them (in awe). Sometimes we have a little chat, sometimes not. Sometimes we put them away and sometimes they join as in the circle, to sing a song. Sometimes they play the games with us (which means twice as much production, YAY) but sometimes they don’t and they are just picked up later, already half-forgotten, at good-byes. I guess, I might call it the ‘Go with the flow‘ approach. And this what I preach at the moment.

I will happily blame the pandemic for that attitude. I rule in my little kingdom but it is easier said than done in the online classroom. On the one hand, it is a definite advantage that all these distractors do not physically invade the classroom . On the other hand, no physical presence means no actual control and, there is a lot more potential for the unexpected. No matter how good your lesson planning skills are, try predicting that a student of yours will be sitting outside, in the field, and that cows will be walking past and that, they, too, will become a part of your lesson!

Happy teaching!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the wonderful directory of all the useful things in the VYL world created by Sandy Millin. You can find it here.

Summertime, party time! End-of-course activities with young learners.

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Today is the 8th of May and, at least in Russia, we have about three weeks left until the final lesson with our young learners before they say their good-byes and rush to enjoy the summer. I don’t know about your students but mine have already started counting down the days.

As for us, the teachers, it is the high time to start thinking about the ways of finishing the course. I know, I know, we can just write the final tests, prepare the reports and diplomas, give them out and wave ‘good-bye’, to go for the minimum because it has been a long year and we are tired but I would like to encourage you to go one step further because this is how you build a community and how you create beautiful memories.

Here are my eight favourite activities for the final lessons of the course.

Main aims? To acknowledge the hard work throughout the course, to reflect, to praise, to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the summer.

Good-bye letters

This is an activity that I have always done at the end of my summer camp sessions and I wrote a post about it a while ago and you can find all the details here.

Storybird.com

This is the only tool that involves a website and, apart from the first stage of the pandemic and in a limited version, is a tool that has to be paid for. I would not recommend purchasing the subscription only for the purpose of the graduation party but the website periodically offers a free trial so the end of the year might be a perfect opportunity to have a look and see how it works and then, perhaps fall in love with it and decide to use it more extensively in your lesson just like I did last year.

Storybird is a website where aspiring illustrators’ works can be assembled in a book, the text added and the whole thing can be downloaded and printed or accessed in the pdf version. The stories can be published on the website or kept in a private library. Naturally, as the user, you also get access to everything that has been published and these stories can be used in class.

We have written a few stories with my primary groups already. Usually it means that before the lesson I prepare the illustrations by choosing the artist and selecting the images that might be appealing to my students (plus a few extra so that everyone has a chance to pick something they like). In class, we look at all of these and I ask the students to choose one image for themselves. Later on, the class is divided into two, the group works on a task in the book or the exercise book and students take turns to dictate what they want to say. I type up.

The end-of-the year contributions might include the following:

  • What are you going to do in the summer?
  • About you
  • Tell me about this picture

When everyone has finished, we delete the unnecessary pages, we save the story and read it together, with each child presenting their page. After the lesson I proofread it, save it and pdf it to send it to all the parents. They can print it or just keep it in the electronic from.

Anyway, it is a great souvenir and there is a chance that kids will read the whole book and a few times, too.

The Oscars or The Best Toilet Paper Dress Designer

This is the activity that we prepared first with my friend Stephanie at the end of the summer camp in the UK. We had an amazing group of teens that we used to teach in a team and we wanted some great ceremony at the end of the session. This is how we came up with the Oscars. It takes some work but it is definitely worth it. I used it with some of my teens’ groups later on as well as with my trainees on the IH CYLT course.

The idea was inspired by the Oscars ceremony and all the different categories in which the winners are announced, the Oscar figures (papers ones) and diplomas are awarded and a round of applause is given. There is also an option of including a thank you speech, you know the drill.

The only difference is that in the group absolutely every student (or trainee) has to end up with an award and so the teacher (or the trainer) makes up new (and amazing) categories to highlight everyone’s achievements and contributions throughout the year (or the course). They can include some real achievements like the best test results, the funniest story, the most creative role-play or the most interesting project but they can also draw on the students’ personalities and their roles in the group.

During the final lesson can announce the category and have the group guess the potential winner before they are officially announced. When we organised the ceremony the first time, at the camp, all these years ago, we also included a bag with trinkets – a set of most random items that we gave out as awards such as a pencil, a rubber, a plastic glove, etc. The kids would accept the award and then fish out their ‘amazing’ prize. It was a lot of fun.

Self-evaluation

I found the idea for this activity in Carol Read and her ‘500 Activities…‘ and, so far, I have only used it only once with my teenagers. Only once it this was a great lesson and I will definitely will be going back to it this year.

The idea is that the feedback and the evaluation of progress is put in the hands of the students, the teacher is only the faciliator here.

The end-of-course self-evaluation could be staged in the following way

  • speaking: discussion in groups or pairs, monitored by the teachers, the students are encouraged to talk about their favourite and least favourite lessons during the year, favourite and least favourite activities, most difficult and easiest topics and tasks.
  • writing A: students are given the report form to fill in for themselves, writing about their achievements and potential areas to improve
  • writing B: the teacher adds his/her comments to the report, when applicable.

All these should be done in the last-but-one lesson so that the reports are ready to be handed out in the final lesson of the course.

When I did it with my teens a while ago, I was a little bit apprehensive, not quite sure how my students will take the task but, as it turned out, they were heart-breakingly honest and serious about it and I really did not need to add anything to their self-evaluation. It was all to the point, very much I would have wanted to write myself. But before we started, they did ask ‘Are the parents going to see it?’ so perhaps this is an issue that should be taken into consideration and, perhaps, the end-of-year evaluation should be done two-ways, the internal students’ self-evaluation and the official report for the parents and carers. A question without the answer yet.

Medals

Medals are an obvious symbol that even the youngest students understand.

The teacher can purchase chocolate medals (like the one in the photograph which my educational parents bought for the end-of-year celebrations) which will be exciting, for sure, but feeding kids chocolate is not absolutely necessary. Handmade paper medals work equally well. They can be made by the teacher and given out at the end of the final lesson but it is even better if the students are involved in creating them.

Here you can find some of the websites with the ideas and templates from notimeforflashcards.com, artfulparent.com, redtedart.com. You can also get inpired by the one I put together while experimenting with the format for this year’s end-of-course with my youngest group.

Our Solar System 7

This is an activity that, initially, came to be as a part of our pre-primary space and Yuri Gagarin-themed lessons but there is a lot more potential here. Thanks, Rory, for pointing it out! Here you can find the post on how to do it.

A tea-party

Well, there is never any tea, the name comes from one of my students чайпите which translates as ‘tea-drinking’ and which, in real life, involves having a cup of tea and eating something with it, sweet or savoury. In our classroom life, it is the term for when we sit down and eat together, essentially.

The first question to always ask is to find out what the parents think about it and to present what food items you have in mind. In the last few years, even pre-pandemic, I have limited the food to separately packed juice, biscuits, mandarins and the occasional child-friendly chocolates. It is not about the exquisite food or drink but an opportunity to share food together.

The parents can be asked to buy the food and split the costs or it can be funded by the school.

Such a lesson is a wonderful opportunity to build a community and to practise the language that we do not normally have a chance to use related to lining up, going to the bathroom to wash hands, sitting down, serving food, asking for food, etc. After we have eaten, there can be a small dancing party, with a song or two and dancing. With my older students, juniors and teens, we always have a pizza in the last class. Now, it is almost a tradition.

Now, there are a few disclaimers and points on the obligatory check-list. First of all, the full list of items that will be served has to be run by and agreed with the parents. The children might be suffering from allergies, the parents might have the food items that are a no-go in their families and, in the times of covid or in any other year, some parents might not be happy with ‘strangers’ feeding their children anything. This has to be respected.

Open lessons for parents

This is something that I have been doing with my younger students since I started to work at BKC IH Moscow because this is the tradition of the school.

It is something that can be quite stressful for the teacher (yes, even for an experienced teacher who has well-behaved groups) but the benefits definitely outweigh the challenges and the potential difficulties. The parents have a chance to see the kids in action, in their ‘natural English environment’, with the teacher and, at the end of the year, they can see how much the kids have learnt and how they interact in a foreign language.

There are different approaches to organising open lesson but I have to admit that, personally, I am not a fan of any kind of performances. One reason for that is definitely the fact that, as a child, I was forced to sing, dance and recite at school and I hated it, from the bottom of my heart. The other reason, the more important one, though, is that I believe that an opportunity to participate and to observe a typical lesson, ‘just a lesson’, as some might say, is a lot more beneficial and representative of what we do, how we play, how we interact. Not to mention that this is the routine that the children are most familiar with.

Before the lesson, we prepare the invitation for the parents which can be themed according to the final units of the coursebook, for example jungle animals in Playway 1, holidays in Superminds 1 and 2. This way the craft activity can be also a revision lesson.

In real life…

…we never just do one of these things and in case of my classes, we mix and match, depending on the day, on the group and on the mood on the day.

Happy teaching!