Anka Zapart

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!

Crumbs #18: Our Solar System. A perfect group project work for early years. Perhaps)

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This started as an activity for the CLIL lesson devoted to space and Yuri Gagarin but after I published it on Instagram, one of my friends suggested that it might be a great idea for the end-of-year revision activity. And it is that, indeed. Thank you, Rory!:-) Hence this post.

Ingredients

  • An A1 piece of paper although, to be perfectly honest with you, it never is that. Every time I have made any murals (and that’s what this activity really is), the preparations started with a pile of A3 sheets of paper, a roll of scotch or a glue stick. It is easier and faster (no shopping trips) and more adaptable (because the teacher is in charge and the poster can be made bigger or smaller, depending on the size of the group or the theme of the project).
  • Creative materials of your choice – pencils, markers, finger paints or watercolours. This time we used markers, in my opinion better suited to the age of the kids and the task.
  • A place where all the students can draw simultaneously. In my classroom, we use the space in which we normally do the movement activities because we have a big carpet there and it is always a lovely variation to our everyday routine, both for the little kids or the teenagers that like visiting another classroom from time to time. A big conference table or a set of desks put together will be a great solution, too.
  • A decision as regards what language, vocabulary and structures, you are going to focus on in the task. In the original task, we created our planets with all our favourite things, our favourite number, colour, food, drink, animal, transport etc.
  • It is necessary to stage the activity carefully. The kids sit down on the floor around the poster, the teacher draws the sun in the centre and counts the kids and then draws one planet for each child around the sun. In the first step, each child chooses a marker and writes their name. Then the teacher ‘dictates’ the first topic and the kids draw it and say what they are drawing. In my classes, we use the song for that ‘What’s your favourite colour?‘ by Super Simple Songs and its variations because it offers the question – answer set (‘What’s your favourite…?’ ‘I like….‘). For some kids it is necessary to sing, some are better prepared to respond to questions without the support of the music. The teacher waits for everyone to finish each stage and the fast finishers can be encouraged to draw more than one item, to look at other students’ drawing, react to them (‘Do you like…?’) etc.
  • Round-up: If there is time, the students stand in a circle around the poster, first at their own planet and then, on ‘1..2..3! Let’s fly!‘, they move one planet to the left. Everyone reacts to what they can see on the new planet, for example ‘I like…‘ This stage can be repeated a few times, depending on the time available. Afterwards, the poster is displayed on the wall. It can also be used as part of the presentation for the parents in the following lesson.

Why we love it

  • First and foremost, it is a great project for the whole group and it really does contribute to building the community and that is because of the fact that we all sit around one big piece of paper and because of the concept of this activity – a solar system of which all the students and the teacher are a part.
  • It might be especially suited as the first project work for a pre-school group as everyone has a chance to contribute to the project but it is automatically clear that no one can take the final product home, as first of all, from the very beginning it is obvious that there is only one copy, that it is too big and that all the planets stay a part of the system and cannot be separated. Frequently, this issue can be the biggest problem with the project work for the youngest of students as they become attached to their creations and the first question they ask is ‘Anka, but can we take it home?’. Not this time.
  • The activity itself in its original version is very flexible as its timing will depend on how long the children are interested. Perhaps only three elements will be included, perhaps ten. The format of the activity also helps with staging as the children do not know what is to come and will not start going ahead of the group.
  • The song format helps to encourage the kids to actually produce the language, especially that in our case we used this question-answer set beforehand so at the time of this particular lesson, the children were already used to it and used to responding to it.
  • It can be used with all age groups and levels as the language content can easily be adapted either to more complex ways of discussing favourite things, drawing their own planets to practise the vocabulary of the natural world (with a more extensive presentation at the end of the project), creating a planet which is a symbolic representation of each student. For the older students, the planets can be filled in with words, rather than with images.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 17: New beginnings. Things to do before the lesson.

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They are growing up. My students are no longer the little babies they were when we said our first ‘Hello!’. Six years is a long time, after all. And because they are changing, the lesson is changing, too. I like to think that, in a way, we are growing together.

An example? For five years and five months my students would wait for me outside of the classroom, in a neat line and we would check the homework and have a little chat, 1-1, with them slowly entering the classroom (more about it here). Well, not anymore. Two months ago we stopped. For good.

Because it turned out that, all of a sudden, the kids like to be in the classroom before the lesson. The choose their seats, take out their books, draw on the board or show each what they do in Maths classes at school. They also like to hide to surprise me (if I happen to leave to get some water or flashcards), walk around to inspect what I prepared for the day or just sit down and read they books.

And because over those six years we have managed to establish what’s OK and what’s not OK in terms of behaviour and because they have grown up and become more mature, I just let them do it and take over the classroom during the break. Plus, let’s be honest, they seem to be enjoying it a lot and I just don’t have the heart to forbid them and to continue to impose lining up.

Instead, I had an idea: how about a before-the-lesson activity for the early comers? It turned to be a very good idea indeed!

Ingredients

  • A whiteboard and a set of markers.
  • An activity that can be prepared on the board before the lesson for the students to work on potentially unsupervised (although in real life it differs, depending on whether I can be in the classroom during the break or not)
  • A set of easy instructions written on the board and an example
  • A longer break before the lesson – not obligatory but highly recommended
  • It might be necessary for the teacher to hint that there is something on the board that needs dealing with, at least when this part of the routine is introduced. It is quite likely that the kids would just not approach the board if there are any notes on it.
  • Ghost letters, focus: pronunciation. Students underline the silent letters in the words written on the board
  • Letter snake, focus: reading / writing. Students divide the chain (or a snake of letters) into words. Each snake can be made as challenging as necessary ie only the words themselves, the words with letters-distractors, the words in a sentence.
  • Letter stories, focus: reading/ writing. Students divide the very long chain (or a snake of letters) into words and sentences. I used a different colour for each line of the story and neat breaks between the lines, too, not to overwhelm the kids. Forgot to take a photo:-(
  • To rhyme or not to rhyme, focus: phonemic awareness. Students put the rhyming words into pairs. Again, colour-coding is supposed to be make is a bit more achievable and visually appealing.
  • Messed-up, focus: vocabulary revision. Students put the halves of words together.
  • Angrams (and Secret Messages): These are just silly anagrams which are a nice task, more necessary for the Starters students but fun for everyone. It can be a set of random words, connected by the topic (or not) or sentences, especially if there is an especially important message that the teacher needs to pass on to the students. The message below appeared on the board before the second lesson with the mock Movers test, in an attempt to praise the kids and to motivate them. It worked!

Why we like it

  • Those who come early can wait for the lesson doing something in English.
  • They provide additional practice and revision in different areas and skills: reading, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation
  • Different kids come early on different days so they get to work in different pairs and teams which seems to strengthen the sense of community in the group
  • It seems to have become ‘fashionable’ to arrive early for class (not that it has even been a problem) but it is obvious that they have already developed the habit of walking in and checking what’s on the board
  • The teacher is applying all her creative powers to come up with more and more pre-lesson activities

Happy teaching!

Children as symbols users and the EFL world.

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‘Symbolic representation – making something stand for something else’*

Symbolic representation, its importance and development in children are a truly fascinating topic and one of the crucial ones to anyone who works with the little children.

Tina Bruce’s definition of symbolic representation has become the title for this paragraph and that means that absolutely anything can become a symbol of something else and being able to read these symbols is an important step in child development.

Symbols are everyone around us. Some of them are universally recognised such as mathematical symbols, musical notation or the letters of the alphabet, some are personal. While growing up, children are learning to differentiate between the symbol and the real object, they learn to recognise, learn and, eventually, to create symbols.

Examples? Imagine a cat, a black beautiful and soft murmuring creature. Now, imagine a flashcard of a cat. Obviously, as adults we have no problems differentiating between these two and understanding that the flashcard, no matter how realistic, is not a cat and that it only represents it. We can even take one step further and look at ‘CAT’ written on the board also understand that it is not the cat itself, only its symbol. Or that when we move one of our hands in the air (with the fingers spread apart and crooked a bit), while saying ‘meow’, we also want it to represent a cat. Although we are not the cat ourselves. One more step would be going in the direction of what the cat or the black cat itself might represent…

It is basically the development of abstract thinking. Why does it matter to us, the teachers of English? Well, there are a few reasons and a few immediate uses in the classroom.

Flashcards…

This is probably the easiest to highlight and, at the same time, the most obvious way in which the symbolic representation and its development influences our daily life in the classroom.

Flashcards are the staple resource of a VYL and YL teacher. We can bring toys into the classroom or plastic fruit to introduce and practice vocabulary with them but it is not possible with all the topics. Sadly, we can never have a real elephant or a real princess in the classroom, sadly, and for that reason we have flashcards. They help us work with the language as they are not only easy (or relatively easy) to obtain but they also help use the language and the variety of channels: visual (as they are colourful and pretty), kinesthetic (because we can manipulate them) and auditory (with the language produced by the teacher and the students).

However, there is the question of what exactly we want from the flashcards. They should be colourful and durable and visually appealing but they should also clearly convey the concept, not to confuse the children. The situation is much better nowadays, the materials that we work with are of a much better quality but you can still find a few ‘gems’ that should have never seen the daylight. I am collecting those and perhaps I am going to share with you my most precious finds (or rather ‘finds’).

It is a fascinating thing to be producing the flashcards to represent a less obvious concepts for example adjectives.

These first two are very straightforward, a frown is easily associated with ‘I’m sad’ or ‘sad’ and thinking of food with ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘hungry’.

The other two were a bit more challenging but I did assume that an owl is considered to be a very wise animal and it is often used in such a way. That is why we have also adopted it in our class. The other was even more challenging but I assumed that kids (or not only kids) often cover their eyes when they are scared and don’t want to look at what frightens them (although they sometimes peek through the fingers nonetheless:-). This is how we have ended up with these two symbols for ‘I’m clever’ and ‘I’m scared’ (or ‘clever’ and ‘scared’).

But things got really interesting and challenging recently. I needed a flashcard for ‘It’s scary’ (or ‘scary’) because we are in the unit of pets and animals and we learn to describe them, including what they like to eat, what they can do and what we think of them.

I already had a flashcards for ‘I’m scared’. For a moment I was considering using an image of a monster but those nice ones were sweet and funny and those that were really scary and illustrating the concept well, they were just too scary, even for me. In the end, I decided to go for a spider (as most kids don’t like them and I hate them so my reaction to them is always very real) but I covered it with a flap. My reasoning was that if something is scary, we don’t really want to look at it. So far it works well. And my kids love to pull off the flap while telling me that it is NOT scary.

Gestures

The gesture is king! By adding gestures while teaching kids vocabulary or structures, we multiply the number of channels through which the kids are operating (visual – with flashcards, auditory – the words spoken and kinesthetic – through gestures) and we help them remember and recall the language with more ease.

It does not really matter if we use gestures (or symbols) that are universally recognised. It is an advantage if we can, of course, but I doubt that any culture has a gesture ready for the vocabulary that you are studying at the moment, for example ‘It is snowing’, ‘it is windy’ or ‘a clown’, ‘a doctor’, ‘a princess’. It does not really matter, though. The English classroom is a sort of a bubble, a mini-universe where its own rules apply. It is almost natural that this world will have its own set of symbols or gestures.

I have already committed a separate post on different ways of using it with preschoolers learning English as a foreign language. You can find it here.

Vocabulary and structure or How to teach grammar to preschoolers

Symbols and their application can be especially useful while teaching grammar to preschoolers. First of all, taking the students out of the one word production world and into the phrase- and the sentence- or perhaps even the discourse-level is a challenge all by itself. Our EFL students have a limited class time (unlike the bilingual or the ESL children) and a limited exposure outside of the classroom. Second of all, pre-schoolers are indeed very young and their cognitive skills and the ability to deal with abstract concepts (such as grammar) are limited. Last but definitely not least, they are pre-literate in English and the structure cannot be just presented to them using the written word. Primary children, who learn grammar but depend heavily on the context (which is an advantage and a source of support), still receive the basic form of the target langauge on the board or in the coursebook for example ‘I like…’ which helps them remember the key structure and which supports production.

For that reason some other solutions have to be found and, at least, for me and my students relying on symbolic representation has been a life saver.

It started with a heart, you could say. I needed a symbol to stand for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ and at first I went for something resembling a face of a child that might be saying ‘Yummy’ but when I brought them to school, my students looked and said ‘happy’. Not good at all. The distance between the symbol and the real thing was too long and our new symbol resembled another symbol too closely. This is how we ended up with a heart – a coloured-in heart and a crossed heart to stand for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ respectively.

We use them together with the food, pets or colours flashcards and they simply work wonders. Both main components of the sentence are represented here visually, it is easier to remember them, to produce and reproduce them and they can be manipulated physically, too, as each of the students can have their own heart, double-sided. The heart can be put on the flashcard face up or face down depending on how the kids feel about it. It can be also held up, show the other students ‘the right side’.

It is amazing to see how quickly students accept this particular symbol and how effectively they use it. It is even more amazing to witness how they try to adapt it to the situation to make sure that they express their opinion and that this opinion is also reflected in how the symbol is used. In one of my groups we were using it with more complex food items and one of students said that she didn’t know whether she liked steak or not because shed had never tried. After a brief moment of hesitation, she decided to hold the little cardboard heart side-ways (or edge-ways) so that it expresses neither ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’.

Another way of applying symbolic representation are the mini-emotion flashcards which we use to describe the feelings of others. These are quite small, small enough to fit on the character or family flashcards and to make it for almost ‘real’ experience when ‘mum’ looks really happy or sleepy or hungry.

These mini-cards can be used in phrases ‘a happy princess’ or in sentences ‘The princess is happy’ and the position of the card will reflect the change in the phrase ie if the card is on the left of the flashcards it reflects the position of both words in the phrase in which the adjective comes first. If the mini-card is on the flashcard (for the purpose of realism and fun) or on the right we produce a full sentence in which the noun comes first, followed by the verb ‘is’ (the only part that needs to be remembered and which can be represented by a gesture) and by the emotion.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to find a suitable visual symbol for each structure we teach but it does not necessarily have to be a picture, gestures will work equally well. For example for ‘I’m wearing’ I motion my hand from my neck down to point at the clothes and for ‘I can see’ I tap my finger twice on my chest (for ‘I’ and ‘can’) and then point at my eyes ‘(‘see’).

I think it can be safely said that I am (slowly?) adding symbols to my collection. Plus, it is fun to make the ghost scared, for once and this lesson always puts me in a better mood.

And then there are letters, too!

Letters and alphabets or any writing systems are a fascinating set of symbols and, eventually, children get to know them, in their L1 and in English, too. When they are ready. This is an adventure that deserves its own post (or, indeed, a series of posts), soon, especially that when we take the first steps in the world of the written word, it is with a background in another alphabet and another set of symbols, some of which are the same, some of which are different and some of which are false friends because they look the same but they represent different sounds.

Developing literacy skills is as much a challenge as it is fun. Especially that children as young as four and five comment on the fact the English ‘Pp’ looks exactly like the Russian ‘Rr’ and that ‘Ww’ turned upside down turns into ‘Mm’ (well, at least the capital one). Or that ‘Xx’ is a Russian ‘Hh’ or ‘A cross, Anka! It looks like a cross!‘

More on that later.

Kids grow up…

Of course the use of the symbol in the EFL classroom is not limited to pre-school, only later on the symbol is not an essential component (at least in my head) but a pleasant supplement that makes things fun, colourful and a bit easier. Examples? The ghost in the cover photo which we use with my primary kids to stand for the silent letters that started to appear everywhere in our A1 materials or the gestures that we used while learning and practising some basic adverbs of frequence: always (5 fingers – 5 days a week), usually, sometimes and never.

Happy teaching!

*****

If you are interested, make sure you have a look at these:

Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children, a lecture by Dr Judy DeLoache (2013)

Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children, a lecture by Dr Stephanie Carlson (2013)

Tina Bruce (2005) Early Childhood Education, pp 105 – 125

The stages of symbolic development, in a nutshell.

Those who inspire OR How did you become the teacher you are? (part 1)

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I have no idea how I found myself in that mode, a bit like Alice who fell into the rabbit’s hole and kept falling. And reflecting. That’s me now.

Maybe because we are making a full circle in the online-covid-offline-rapid changes-uncertainty-new reality? Maybe because I started to run again and when you run, your brain wanders and comes back with ideas? Or maybe I took part in Anita Modestova’s series of interviews EFL Around the World and was invited to reminisce and to reflect? Maybe all three. Maybe none of them.

Teachers and foreign languages

…and among them my first foreign language teacher who was not even a teacher of English. My first foreign language was Russian. From the first ‘здраствуйте’ (zdrastvuyte), it was like this new world, that you could enter through some, until then unknown words and a completely new set of letters. I don’t remember much about the lessons, I could not comment on the methodology and activities or even the coursebook. But I do remember my teacher, miss Janina, who was the first language magician and it was thanks to her that I did fall in love with Russian. Love at first sight.

Among them is also my first English teacher, miss Ewa who put together a most random group of kids of all ages, when the lessons of English were still a rarity and a luxury. There were no coursebooks for children so we used what our teacher could find and share.

Such as? Such as a magazine for kids, Mishka, made in the U.S.S.R, teaching the kids around the globe about Snegurochka, Baba Yaga, A.S. Pushkin, Red Square and what not, which was published also in English. Today, it makes my head spin, but back then, as a beginner, I was ploughing through and the unabridged text would not stop me because I was in love with the language. Again. We set me off and then we met again in the final year of my high school, to prepare for our A-levels and to help me get to B2+ level.

Mis Ewa was a strict teacher but a fair and inspiring teacher. In her lessons, every single minute had its own purpose and it was used effectively. Once you experience that, there is no going back.

History?

It is actually a beautiful coincidence that almost all my school History lessons, from the middle and high school, seven out of nine years, took place in this very same school and in this very same classroom. With me sitting on the very same chair. Probably.

It was in this classroom that our teacher, professor Janusz Merchut, a real maestro, taught us about the past. His were not lessons, but a performance and I still remember how quiet the whole class were, how focused. We did not listen, we lived it. Maybe it was when I got spoiled and started dreaming of lessons with a few grains of magic, lessons that are not a lecture but an experience.

In the same classroom, a few years later, I met professor Krystyna Kradyna and a new adventure began. Naturally, we did have coursebooks and the curriculum objectives to meet but these were just an idea. It was the time of change and transformation and there were many, many things that were yet to make it to the coursebooks. She introduced them and she did let us think and talk about them.

Enter Hieronymous Bosch

There were two other people that I do think about when we talk about ‘My teachers’, both of them my university professors. University of Wroclaw in Poland was my first Alma Mater during the very special five years of my MA in History programme, a long time ago, in the pre-EFL life.

Dr Piotr Oszczanowski appeared in our lives for two terms because, apart from all the obligatory subjects, we were eventually given a chance to choose a few optional modules and one of them was the History of Art. Initially, there was a lot of ‘whatever, let’s take this one’ rather than an informed decision but the best thing since the sliced bread.

Today I would say that dr Oszczanowski knew his subject and had an amazing teaching personality and classroom presence. That he engaged his students very effectively throughout the entire lesson and the entire course. But this is me, a teacher trainer at work, today. Back then, I just loved being in his class and so did the rest of the group.

He taught us how to look at art and how to read it. And it was not the case of getting the one correct answer, and memorising facts. There were different interpretations and ways of approaching the topic. Our second term was devoted to the history of art of Silesia and we spent our class time out and about in the city, looking the past in the face. Plus, we were allowed to choose what we wanted to be assessed on. For me it was Hieronymous Bosch.

‘Miss Zapart, I have no idea about jazz but this is a good topic. Go.’

….is what my tutor, professor Stanislaw Ciesielski said during the first class in our 4th year when we met to discuss our MA dissertations in modern History.

Professor Ciesielski probably sighed when he found out that he would be taking care of us since we were an inheritance from another teacher who had left.

We, on our part, we did panic because people had been saying things and it was not panic the type of a storm in a teacup, it was panic the size of a proper hurricane. Professor was said to be very strict, very accurate, very serious, a great scholar and a great brain and, in general, a force to be recognised. With time, we learnt that all of it was true but these were exactly the things made us respect him for and, really, feel extremely lucky that we were thus ‘inherited’.

I mean, it was not a bed of roses. Professor was tough and there was absolutely no way of cutting any, even the tiniest, corners throughout those two years of my research and dissertation. The job had to be done. Not getting things done was not an option. The very thought of not getting things done was not an option. It’s not that he would shout or get angry, he was the calmest person ever. You just did not want to disappoint him.

We were made to work hard but Professor was with us every step of the way, supporting and guiding and no wonder that we got great results. I also personally got spoilt for years to come as regards the role model for mentor and supervisor, strict but fair and supportive every step of the way. No idea if professor Ciesielski read about Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development but he rocked it.

Coda

Today, I only wish, I could travel (or travel back in time) and return to all these classrooms to say ‘thank you’ and to tell my teachers that they did an excellent job and that they did inspire.

Does it mean that I was the one happy child in the entire universe who was taught by the amazing teachers only? Ha! Of course not. There were teachers who made me cry, who humiliated me, who shouted at me, those who made me scared or very angry. Teachers who hated their job, those who were unfair and those who simply wasted my time. In some cases I knew it back then, in a few other cases, I realised it only when I became a teacher myself.

Alas, all these will remain anonymous, although, I guess, I should be grateful, I had a chance to learn ‘What not to do’ and this counts as ‘experience’, too.

To be continued…

Those who inspire OR How did you become the teacher you are? (part 2)

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My Mmy

This is the second part of the post. The first episode can be found here.

A huge part of the everyday inspiration are …

…my students. There is reading, there is research, there is the continual professional development, webinars and conferences presentations and the conversations in the teacher’s room, all of it very useful. The real source of power and of inspiration is the classroom and the kids in it.

If they are not an easy group, that makes you start planning with a sigh and enter the lesson with taking a deep breath (or a prayer), you will be looking for solutions for your problem and sometimes you will end up successfully reinventing the wheel and taking the game to the next level. They might also be a teacher’s dream and, because of that, you really want to go ‘bigger, better, faster, more!‘ and you create, re-create, experiment and, again, become some EFL Gagarin.

I don’t remember the names of all the kids (and all the adults) that I have thought over the years but the thought that there have been at least two thousand of them in Poland, Italy, Spain, the UK, Brasil and Russia does put a big smile on my face. I would like to think that all of them did learn something with me but I know that I have learnt a lot with them and because of them. My state school kids, my summer schools students, my IELTS students and my Business English engineers, all of my pre-schoolers and all of my teachers in training.

Why? Because sometimes, when I ask for feedback and I ask ‘Did you like the lesson? Why?’, I get back real treasures, such as ‘Yes, because I am not scared anymore’ from one of my teens (there must be a post on that story) or ‘Yes, потому что тут Анка’ from my primary. (Yes, because of Anka).

That is more than enough to motivate me to make an effort next time but I usually say is ‘Great students make great teachers’. I really do believe it.

The everyday support aka ‘On the wall in the office’

It might make me look like my teenage version of me, with a bedroom wall all covered in posters. Thankfully, the pop music posters (Europe and Limalh, my dear Lord) gave way to Hieronymus Bosch, the photos of Land’s End and the map of the UK. The huge Trainspotting poster was added a bit later. The thing is, I do like to have something to look at, ‘My favourite things’, in one interpretation or the other. This is how these five end up on the way, all my private superheroes, the source of inspiration.

Batman, the only real superhero here. He is my favourite one because he is ‘only’ a human, without any accidents and mutations, he saves the world only because he’s got access to lots of resources. I mean, he is ridiculously rich but still – a human with appropriate tools. A role model number 1.

General Kutuzov, a field marshal of the Russian Empire and the hero of the Battle of Borodino. During all the teacher training courses and projects that require lots of multi-tasking (which I hate to bits), I do find myself staring at the picture of Mikhail Illiaryonovich, thinking of the troops management, provisions management, morale management and whatever else general was obliged to take care of. Simultaneously.

Leo Semyonovich Vygostky or, simply, Leo. I cannot think of any one that had a bigger impact on what I think about teaching and education. The more I read about him, starting from comments and references in other sources, to articles by Vygotsky scholars and followers, and to Leo’s own papers which I am still going through, the more I agree. Reading and repeating ‘Yes, absolutely!’ or ‘I could not agree more!’. Literally. Because of the conviction that every can, with appropriate support, because of the role of the teacher who is only supposed to be the lighthouse, not the leader, because of the attitude to the level of challenge. I am in love. Plus, we are almost birthday twins with Leo. Which is random but kinda cool.

There is Yuri Gagarin, too, of course. If you ask me, ideally, there would be Yuri on every wall in every classroom. He is on mine, too. And there is Zima Blue, the creator. If you are not familiar, look up Alastair Reynolds or Life, Death and Robots.

The other side of the coin

The superheros have been on the wall for a few years now. When I first took a photo and showed my friend, she said ‘There are only guys, here. Where are the women?’

At first, I just shrugged it off. I didn’t know why. But the question stayed with me and it was bothering me for days on end. Until I finally figured it out and sighed with relief. The answer is actually quite simple, ridiculously simple. As simple as it is beautiful.

I don’t have any photographs of inspiring women on the wall above my desk because they are all real women that I have a pleasure to know and to have in my life. All the photos are in albums or in folders on the computer. And when I need inspiration, I just talk to them. That’s how blessed I am.

There are a few great mums here, some stars who make the world a better place by helping people, a few teachers, a few translators, a few chefs, a few Leos, a photographer, a biker, and a creator.. All of them are strong, intelligent, funny, beautiful, creative, or, in just one word: amazing.

Also, represented here by some random trinkets. Some of them, at least.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being in my life.

P.S. It was easy to write these post and it took a lot longer than I had planned. As soon as I finished, I started to be bombarded with thoughts of my teacher trainers, supervisors, colleagues, family members, writers…In one word, enough material for two more posts. I think it is better to post what I have ready now or else this post will never really happen. But, as Terminator used to say: ‘I will be back!’ And on that note…

Happy teaching!