Anka Zapart

How to read storybook illustrations? Teaching English through Art #2

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The background

There are eight students in the group with whom I trialled this lesson. They are about 12 – 14 years old and we are now finishing the A2 level. The inspiration for this very lesson (apart from my own personal obsession with storybooks and storybook illustrations) was one of the reading tasks that we did cover, taken from Prepare 3 2nd edition by Cambridge University Press in which we discussed books and everything we read in general. The thing that really inspired me to put together this lesson was one of the follow-up questions asked on page 104 and it went: Do you think that books with illustrations in them are just for the little kids? and, which came as a surprise, this was the question that generated a real discussion.

Almost at the same time, I received a delivery from a bookshop with as many as eight new storybooks and that basically was it. I wanted a new lesson, a different lesson.

If you are interested in storybook illustrations but you are not quite sure where to start, I would like to suggest watching an amazing webinar by Mathew Tobin on ‘Exploring Pictures in Picturebooks‘ as well as having a look at the PEPELT webiste and all the videos they have posted, especially as regards the peri-textual features of picturebooks.

Introduction

The teacher brings up (or brings up again, as in our case) the topic of illustrations and drawings in books in general. Students discuss in pairs or teams.

  1. Are the illustrations and drawings only for the little kids?
  2. Are the photographs only for adults?
  3. What do the teenagers like then?

The teacher regroups the students, to make sure that each student has a new partner. The students, now in new pairs, report what they have discussed. Afterwards, the teacher asks each pair ‘Do you have the same opinion as your partner?’, this way summarising the entire discussion so far.

Where’s my baby? by Julie Ashworth and John Clarke

Setting the context

The teacher shows selected illustrations and the titles of the storybooks to be used in class. I have used the covers but these might not always be appropriate. It might be a better idea to choose one of the illustrations from the story. The students discuss the following questions:

  1. What can you see in the picture (on the cover page)?
  2. What can the story be about?

An open class discussion follows. At this point the teacher does not reveal anything about the plot of any of the stories. The students will be able to figure it out for themselves in one of the later stages of the lesson.

I’ve seen Santa! by David Bedford and Tim Warnes

The storybooks selection

When I taught this lesson for the first time I used the following coursebooks

  • I’ve seen Santa! by David Bedford and Tim Warners from Little Tiger: I have chosen this because they are cosy and warm, something that might be an example of typical, obviously beautiful storybook illustrations which are there only to accompany the text.
  • Where’s my baby? by Julie Ashworth and John Clark from Longman. This book is a good example of a basic framework chosen to tell the story. All the pages are basically the same scene: Mr Monster Officer and Mrs Monster looking at yet another monster baby. The baby is the only element that is changing from page to page, as the officer’s confusion and Mrs Monster’s desperation grow.
  • Mr Noisy and the Giant by Roger Hargreaves from Mr Men and Little Miss Magic. This might be a good example of simple and uncomplicated, illustrations that might have been drawn by little children.
  • Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival from Bloomsbury. This is a gem of a book where the story is told through the words and by the visuals, both of these being separate entities in their own rights, complementing each other.
  • A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston from Walker Books Ltd. This title is unique, like all the books by Oliver Jeffers and here a story of the importance of books is told and illustrated by pictures made of words (which are also the quotes from the classic child literature, all titles acknowledged in the inside covers).
Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival

Vocabulary

We have looked at some of the vocabulary related to storybooks that the students might need in the following stage. In a way, for my students, it was the follow-up on the vocabulary presented in the coursebook, and for that reason I decided to include the following: cover, text, illustrations, writer, illustrator, reader, character, background, details, plot, dark, bright, easy, complex, drawn, printed, painted.

The students were working in pairs, matching the definitions with the terms, follwed by a whole class feedback and an exercise in which we talked together about one of the books, using these words. For this exercise it is best to choose the title that is the biggest in size so that it could be comfortably demonstrated by the teacher and seen by the students. By discussing the storybook together, the teacher can also guide the students and ask some follow-up questions, to model what the students will be requested to do in the following stage. One or two questions from the set below can also be used.

A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston

Discussion

The students work in pairs or groups of three. Each team gets one of the storybooks and a set of questions to discuss, based on what they see in the storybook. The teacher sets the time limit and when the time is up, the students exchange the storybooks and the procedure is repeated until all the teams have had a chance to look at all the books.

We worked in four teams and we used about 5 minutes per book.

The questions the students were asked to answer were as follows:

  1. Please describe the book using the key words.
  2. Look at the illustrations only. What is the story about? Can you ‘read’ the story only by looking at the illustrations? Why? Why not?
  3. Look at the text (some or parts). What is the story about? Do you like it?
  4. Do you like the illustrations? Are they simple or complex? Beautiful or ugly? Dark or bright?
  5. Do the illustrations make you feel happy / sad / angry / bored / ? Why?

After all the students have looked at and discussed all the storybooks, the teacher asks them to answer the following questions

  • Which book has got the best illustrations? Why do you like them?
  • Which book has got the worst illustrations? Why don’t you like them?

The teacher monitors and helps to keep the discussion going. A whole class discussion follows. The teacher may highlight the main points, as outlined above (the storybook selection) but, really, the main aim of this kind of a lesson and this kind of a discussion is the opportunity for the students to look and to draw their own conclusions and formulate their own opinions. There are no correct or incorrect answers and interpretations.

Mr Noisy and the Giant by Roger Hargreaves

Conclusions

This was the first lesson of this kind with this particular group. It was obvious that, at the very beginning, some of the students did not feel very comfortable with expressing their views and even with formulating them. However, even as we went through the task, it all got easier, with the second or third book and they were all involved in the discussion. It was great to see how they ventured out into evaluating the illustrations and uncovering their meaning for themselves.

Their answers in the final survey on the favourite set of illustrations were also unexpected because of them could not really make up their mind and they chose two, very different books: the more conventional ‘I’ve seen Santa!’ and the more unusual ‘Perfectly Norman‘.

All in all, I did decide to give myself a pat of on the shoulder for that lesson and I am already planning the next one. Maybe it will be devoted to storybooks, maybe not.

If you, dear reader, have any storybooks lying around and no idea for a lesson, here is your lesson plan!

Bonus: an easier start

I have written the post and only then did I realise that, perhaps, not all the teachers will feel perfectly comfortable and ready to enter the world of the storybook illustrations at a full throttle, especially if they have not dealt with this approach to language teaching.

Storybook illustrations can be used on their own, as visuals, only slightly different visuals, as an alternative to photographs or YL scene illustrations. In this case, the teacher can choose any storybook illustrations, in no connection to the story itself or the entire book.

The teacher gives them out and uses them as the basis for one of the following exercises

  • YLE Starters, Movers, Flyers speaking such as answering questions about pictures, talking about differences
  • PET speaking picture description
  • FCE or CAE speaking (compare the pictures and answer the questions)
  • some of the ideas I shared in my post on using illustrations to develop speaking skills ‘All you need is…a picture’

This way the students (and the teacher) will get introduced to the storybooks illustrations and using drawings will be a lovely and an interesting alternative to the visuals that we usually encounter in our lessons or coursebooks. I promise that it will make a difference! And, on top of everything else, you will be developing your students’ visual literacy!

Happy teaching!

Mr Milk, the unsung hero

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I have committed a piece about Pasha, the invisible student only to realise that there are more unsung heroes in my classroom. Enter Mr Milk.

The beginnings

Mr Milk has been a frequent guest in my classes for a very long time now and, and unlike in Pasha’s case, I know that for sure because I remember the students (8 and 9-year-olds, A1 level boys plus Nastya) and I do remember the classroom itself: Moscow, Sokolniki, 2008. Since then, it’s been twelve years and a quite a few generations of students.

This time round, I also remember the sources of inspiration. One of them was the game I played with my cousin, Magda. When we were much younger, we used to come up with silly names for characters according to the formula: a very traditional first name and an everyday household object for the family name. Hence Peter Radiator and Archibald Loudspeaker. It must have left a mark because up to this day, I get weirdly excited when I come across such surnames in real life. Tetradkina, Karandashovna, Sobachkina*…Oh, what a dream!

The other sources of inspiration was definitely the amazing videoclip for the Blur’s song Coffee and TV. It’s just the ending of the main character dying and going to heaven has (so far) kept me from using it in class.

Mr Milk arrives when…

  • we start talking about other people, moving away from ‘I am’, ‘I have got’, ‘I can’ and ‘I like’
  • we introduce Present Simple 3rd singular. No day is too weird, too amazing or too everyday for Mr Milk.
  • we introduce Past Simple and start telling stories. Mr Milk is a superhero and literally anything can happen to him.

The best thing about Mr Milk is that he rarely stays on his own and as soon as he feels comfortable, all his pals, relatives and enemies so that we are never short of people to talk about. Mr Cheese, Mr Coffee, Mr Apple, Miss Umbrella, Mr Banana…And once he comes, he never leaves. And, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea why the kids like Mr Milk so much. But they really do.

The next step?

Well, that’s easy. It takes very little for the kids to start coming up with their own characters’ names. This week, for example, we spent a good portion of the lesson talking about the adventures of Mr Bike Strawberry. After they had decided whether ‘Bike’ was better as a name or a surname, that is. Oh, there was a caterpillar, too.

This particular story involved Mr Bike chasing the teacher, an absent teacher, happy students drinking lemonade in class and one sad football (sad because everyone was kicking it).

And, as a result of all that, one real life teacher, very very happy at the amount of the language produced. And eternally grateful to Mr Milk.

Here, in the other post, you can read about using noughts and crosses to tell stories in class.

Happy teaching!

*) Tetradkina from the words тетрадь (notebook), карандаш (pencil) and собачка (a little dog). Although, to be honest, I am not quite sure if all of them are real Russian surnames.

Crumbs # 9: Storytelling noughts and crosses

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Today a post about a post about one of my favourite games ever: noughts and crosses. I have written about it already on this blog because I use with illustrations, to practise vocabulary and with my preschoolers, too, to increase production.

Today it is storytelling noughts and crosses!

Instructions

  • Demonstrate or check that all your students know how to play noughts and crosses, in the traditional, non-EFL way. It can be done with one of the stronger students, on the board.
  • Draw an EFL grid of the game, on the board, filling it up with the words you want the students to use. I normally start to use it to tell stories when we get to the lessons with the Past Simple and normally we play the game just to talk about our ‘yesterday’, our ‘last weekend’ or ‘last summer’, not to put too much pressure on the kids and to get them into the habit of using the language. These are some of the grids that we used with my A1 primary, aged 7 – 9. The symbols at the top mean nothing and they just help us identify different grids.
  • Introduce the characters that the kids are going to talk about. One of the unsung heroes of my lessons has been one Mr Milk who has been with us for a good few years* and who has been kind enough to bring some of his friends along. For that reason, figuring out who can be the character is never a problem. Mr Milk always goes first, the others follow suit.
  • Demonstrate how to play the game on the board. This time we have done it: teacher vs the group, represented by one of the students at the board and the whole class participating, choosing the verbs and telling the story.
  • This version of the game is slightly more challenging because you not only have to use the verb. It is very necessary that you also continue a story. Of course, students are allowed to use more than one sentence (yes, please, do!!!) but the key verb (or the key word) is the one that they have to use. These are some of the grids we used this week. As you can see, they are all very basic but hey, that’s what it is, the real classroom life. Sometimes the handouts are pretty and picture perfect, sometimes they are not. Sorry – not sorry.
  • Students play in pairs and they are told to play until the very end, when all the verbs have been used in the story.
  • The teacher monitors and eavesdrop on some of the precious lines created such as ‘Miss Apple ate an apple (a normal one, not a person!)‘ or ‘Miss Umbrella drank the rain‘.
  • In the end, when everybody has finished, the teacher asks some feedback questions, for example ‘Was it a happy story or a sad story?‘, ‘What happened in the end?‘, ‘What was the best part?’ and all the pairs are invited to share something about their stories.
  • Next step is the scores. I usually prepare a few sets, like this one in the photo. One of the students chooses one of the letters and the teacher draws the grid on the board. Students count their points and we write them on the board.
  • We normally play two or three rounds, depending on the time we have.

Why we love it

  • We love Mr Milk and all his friends.
  • We love stories.
  • It takes a few minutes to prepare (High five to all the lazy teachers!)
  • It generates lots and lots of language (High five to production greedy teachers!)
  • It is motivating because of the scoring system but it is not very competitive since we use the most random points sets and you never know what you might get, 1 point or 1 000 000 points.
  • It helps to develp creativity and imagination.
  • It has a lot more potential for developing listening skills (if only one round is played and the kids have to retell the story to the rest of the group) or reading and writing skills, too (if the sets are given for homework and the students are asked to write a short story using the same nine verbs that they have used in class. During the following lessons, the kids can exchange and read their stories, too).

Happy teaching!

*) I have just realised that Mr Milk has been accompanying my teaching life for about twelve years now… And that he might actually deserve his own post. Just a second, please!

The invisible student and why you might want to have one:-)

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Yes, you did read the title right. The invisible students are among us. I myself have had one for about eight years now. And yes, it has always been Pasha. Almost always, with the exception of one year…

How did it all start?

Well, I have no idea. Hard as it is to imagine now, there was definitely ‘the time before Pasha’ and then, all of a sudden, he became a part of the everyday.

I guess, perhaps, it was one of those days when the kids did something silly, I came in and asked ‘Who did it?’ and no one wanted to own up. I found the answer myself. ‘Ah, I see. It was Pasha, wasn’t it?’ and they just went with it.

That looks plausible but to be honest, I am not quite sure. I don’t remember. But Pasha stayed with us and today I would like to tell you what is great about that.

Why does everyone need a Pasha?

Pasha is extremely helpful when it comes to eliciting new language and providing language models. Every single time you need a semi-personalised sentence, a situation relevant to the students’ lives without, however, involving one of the real people present in the room (as they might be shy, not feeling very comfortable with having their name and person brought up while discussing some of the vocabulary and some of the situations), Pasha is at your service. He is more than happy to help.

Pasha does not mind when you say ‘Pasha failed an exam‘ or ‘If Pasha brings a bad mark, his mum will be angry’ or ‘Pasha got embarrassed because the teacher showed everyone his poem‘…Pasha is the epitome of cool when you discuss his love life, his problems with teachers and his fights with his brother.

Pasha never fights or frowns against any of the partners that you him to work with. Pasha is ok when you pair him up with Alex The Procrastinator. Alex working with Pasha will really have to make an effort and do something, instead of lazying about and pushing the task onto the more laborious student in the pair. You can say, for example, ‘Alex, today you are working with Pasha‘. Pasha will not mind. Funnily enough, Alex will not mind either. What’s more, Pasha is more than ecstatic when one Sasha The Introvert sometimes asks quietly ‘Can I work with Pasha today?‘. And yes, of course she can. This way she will be more motivated to work with the other (real-er) students on the other days.

Pasha is the best thing since the sliced bread on all of those occasions when you really need to be the disciplinarian and you have to make a point and get the message across, again, without referring to any of the students in particular, without pointing fingers and yet, highlighting the main points effectively. Maybe it is because you have forgotten the homework again. Maybe it is because they are cheating in test. Maybe they call each other names, come late or attempt a joke and fail and end up offending someone or almost destroy something…

In which case, you can make a speech like this one: ‘You can tell Pasha that this remote is quite expensive so if he throws it out again and it gets lost or broken, I will be getting in touch with his parents and they will have to pay for that. When you see Pasha, make sure he gets the message, alright?‘ Works wonders:-)

Last but not least, your class is a community, with its unique rules, traditions, habits and silly jokes and Pasha becomes a part of it, too. It is something that we share, something that is our thing.

Naturally, there are also things that Pasha is not and these include the following:

  • the only classroom management resource at the teacher’s disposal
  • the classroom management tool that will help sort out all the problems
  • the trick that will work with all the teachers, age groups and levels

My favourite Pasha moments

Well, there have been many, but here are the three gems.

One. Teens, pre-FCE, I cannot remember the topic but it might have been Past Continues as this always encourages the coursebook authors to write about disasters, accidents, explosions and other dramatic events. I cannot recall what we were doing and why Pasha’s life was in danger but at one point, someone asked ‘What about Pasha?‘ and one of my girls said, ‘He’s lying on the floor, there!‘ pointing at something with her chin. I remember that we burst into laughter but I also remember that at the same time, I took a step back and half of my students instinctively pulled their feet away and hid them under the chairs, as far as possible from the centre of the room where Pasha ‘was‘.

Two. Same group of teens and the invisible student who had been a part for about two years already and the admin bringing in a new student, a boy. When he walked in and introduced himself as ‘Pasha’, we all froze, in ten different ways as we were all digesting the same thought, until, finally, someone just said it out loud: ‘But what about Pasha, then?‘ It took some explaining (poor real Pasha) and our invisible boy got renamed, and he became ‘Styopa’, for a season.

Three. Teachers’ room and a conversation with my colleagues, someone casually bringing up the topic of the invisible students only to find out that Pasha is not the only one out there! Yay!

And I am here, writing this post because…

…this week, in the middle of the lesson, totally unexpectedly, Pasha reappeared and started to cheekily doodle on my zoom screen and my powerpoint. Of course, it was none of my amazing and well-behaved primary superstars. ‘I see. It must Pasha, the invisible student‘, I said and then, after a moment, I added ‘Pasha, can you stop, please?‘

Do you think the kids objected, doubted his presence or asked any questions? No, none of these, nothing at all. Pasha is back.

The hodgepodge – Our favourite vocabulary activities.

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Are you looking for more (and new?) ideas for practising vocabulary with juniors and teens (or adults)? Well, here are some of my favourite ones. Some of them I have come up with myself, some of them I have found in places. If I remember where, I will reference them.

The main idea is that we have a set of vocabulary, words, phrases etc, not necessarily connected by the topic, a situation that is quite common with higher levels when we just go beyond learning about clothes, food, money and sport or for the vocabulary that we work on in relation to the text we are reading or listening to. In Russian, we say сборная солянка or a hodgepodge, of sorts, that is difficult to come up with a context and a meaningful activity. And that is precisely why these activities here were created or adapted to the needs of the EFL classroom.

All ideas are mine but you will see that the inspiration came from a variety of sources. All of them have been tried and tested with my students, although, to be honest, writing about them has led to even more ideas for adaptation and use. Yay to that.

They all start in the same place: on the board, with a list of words. Sometimes we also use the same list on the A4 paper or on separate cards. Sometimes, some additional scrap paper is necessary, too.

Whenever we try a new game, we play with the whole group, for everyone to learn the rules and to feel comfortable. Only later (perhaps only in the following lesson or the next time we play the game) do we move onto the pair work, just to get the students used to the format of the game and the way of thinking of the words and what we can do with them.

You can download them here! And after you have used them, please come back and let me know how it all went.

Happy teaching!

Epic fail! or We make mistakes to learn #4

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The hammer

This was my first year in teaching and my first year in teaching in a state school. As it happened, I was assigned all the year 1 of middle school classes. That was and would be entertaining enough, even with the most amazing students (which most of them were, anyway).

One of them was class D, an unfortunate by-product of the educational reform in the country. Unlike all the other classes at school, it was made up of children coming from the villages surrounding my town (so that they could all go home together on the school bus) with a few students that were repeating the year. A rather unfortunate combination because it not only labelled them as the weak class academically (yes, at the time at least, the students coming from the regional schools did not achieve as good results as the city students) but it also set them apart as the ‘village class’ with all the preconceptions and biases. When it comes to English, they were the only class that was not given the privilege of mini-classes for the purpose of the English lessons (just because their total number did not go over 24).

I did try and I did have some superstars in this class, too, clever and dedicated students, but, overall, I also had quite a few weaker, not very motivated students, too, and a few really difficult cases. One of them was Sasha. She used to be a bright student in primary, with great results but then, due to the neglect in the family that the system could not really handle very well, she just resigned herself to being ‘a weak student’ and ‘a troublemaker’. They are there, in every class, and you just learn to manage them and I was doing ok, for the first-year teacher.

A morning from hell

Now, that particular day was different. Some handymen were in the classroom, during the break or before the lessons and they were fixing something there. They must have been in a hurry because they had left a hammer behind. When we entered, together, because the students were not allowed to be in the classroom without a teacher, it was just lying there, on one of the cupboards.

We got in and everyone got down to their regular start-of-the-lesson routine – sitting down, taking out coursebooks and pencil cases. Sasha, however, my dear student, Sasha, saw the hammer and the opportunity to create mayhem.

Before I had a chance to react by hiding it, she dropped her bag at her desk, ran back to the cupboard and grabbed the hammer. I did ask her a few times to put it down, but, of course, she did not pick it up just to put it down just because I was asking her to. At that point I knew I had lost, the class they I had lost and Sasha knew I had lost.

After a minute of this theatre, she just laughed in my face, opened the door and ran out into the hallway. And was running up and down, laughing. An empty hallway, at the time, but with a row of huge windows, potted plants, framed diplomas, cups awards glass cupboard and, potentially, a few late-comers wandering in the hallway. Not to mention the harm that she could have potentially inflicted on herself. Joy!

The dilemma

There are two ground rules that they teach you pretty quickly. One is that you should never leave the students on their own in the classroom because they are you are responsible for them with your life, pretty much. The same applies to any student that, officially, should be in class at the time of the lesson. You are responsible for them, too.

The other rule is that once you are in the classroom, the kids are your responsibility and if you need help you should ask for it in such a way that does not show your weakness. No matter who is going to come to the rescue, parents, mentor or headmaster, the lesson time is your kingdom and you should rule it. No one will do it for you. By asking for help too openly or by referring to the outsiders you are digging your own grave because it will become clear, pretty quickly, that you are not capable of handling it all by yourself.

So here was my dilemma that I had about a second to think about: I cannot leave the room because I cannot leave the kids all by themselves, I cannot let Sasha just ran in the hallway and I cannot really call anyone for help, really. Or that, rather, I should not.

Obviously, I wouldn’t have had any of those dilemmas to deal with if I had managed to remove the hammer in time but, in my defense, this is definitely something that I could not imagine being in the classroom and so there was no way that I could have prepared for that.

The last act

So I did what had to be done. I told the kids to stay in their seats, no matter what and I left the room but I kept the door open, to signal to anyone else, passing by that we are dealing with some kind of an emergency. And, walking past Sasha, still running and shouting in the hallway, I did go directly to the headmaster’s office. I needed help and I had to get it. I entered the office and I think I said three words: Mr Headmaster, Sir. Sasha found a hammer in the classroom and is running in the hallway. Please, help.

He did. I left him to deal with Sasha and I went back to my classroom. I was out for three minutes. Nothing happened. They sorted it out, talked to her, she came back to the classroom about 20 minutes into the lesson. We went on.

I am not sure what other choices I had at the time. To send one of my more reasonable students to inform the headmaster? Maybe. To inspect the entire classroom before we all get in? Possibly. To raise hell afterwards in order to find out why the hammer got forgotten in the classroom? Probably.

I am not sure whether what I did was the best way out. I am glad that the school where I work now is small enough and I only need to open the door and call out for help, in case of an emergency without having to leave the kids on their own. I am also curious whether the state schools, with many more students, in large buildings, have any system of early warning in place. In case of a hammer, a nosebleed, a loss of consciousness and what not…

What would you do, dear readers?

P.S. Don’t forget to check all the other epic fail stories: classroom management, rewards’ chart and craft.

Epic fail! or We make mistakes to learn #3

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The rebellion at the age of 7

There were twelve of them, year one. I would come to their school, to teach them for 30 minutes, four times a week, during their siesta break, after they had had their lunch at the school canteen and while their friends and peers were running wild during the remaining part of the break.

Probably, the problems were partly rooted in that very set-up because sometimes the kids were waiting for me in the classroom but sometimes, I had to take them off the playground, interrupting the game and replacing their doing nothing time with yet another lesson, no matter how good, already in a difficult position. This, of course, was something that I had no impact on and could do nothing about it. That was the set-up and that’s what I did deal with.

And overall, very successfully. I loved working with these kids. We did build the routine, they were responsive and, with time, I did learn how to manage their energy and to make the lessons effective. They were the perfectest kids in the world. All went well. Too well.

The Easter Break disaster

Somehow, when we got back in April, after only a week away, everything changed. Until this day I have no idea what actually did happen and I am none the wiser despite the fact that I spent hours discussing the group with my mentor and trainer on the IH CYLT course, the YL advisor and colleagues. It was, literally, as if someone had snatched my lovely students and replaced them with a bunch of wild, rebellious kids that behaved as if the previous seven months had not happened. They just snapped. It was or it felt like a proper rebellion. Imagine a pirate ship, in the middle of the ocean, with the whole crew pretending they had never heard about you being their captain.

I mean, it does happen, especially with the younger kids and especially after a longer break. They do forget the language and the routine and you have to invest a little bit more time in re-establishing yourself in the class. Whatever did happen that year, was a complete disaster, a capital D: D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.

The recovery

The first lesson, well, it almost did not happen, not according to the definitions of ‘a lesson’ in my dictionary. I focused on surviving. The number of students involved? Two (2): most of the time and zero (0): at times.

Getting ready for the second lesson was like preparing for a battle. I prepared a super cool craft activity, a monkey that could move legs and arms and that we would use to learn and to practice I can with different verbs. The monkey was my ferret. It got some of the kids’ attention and at that point, half of them participated and we had a better (but far from good) lesson.

Over the next few lessons, I had to bend over backwards to come up with more and more supercool-OMG-I-got-to-have-it activities and slowly, over the next two weeks, I got all the kids on board. Back on board. And we did plough through and I was lucky as there were only a few weeks left until the end of the year. Survivable. But we never got back to the state of bliss we had achieved before Easter.

As I have said already, I did discuss this case with many people and no one could offer any solutions and ideas why it would have even taken place. I still do not understand what I had done wrong and really cannot see what I could or would have done differently in the classroom in order to make it better.

But there were things that I could have done outside of the classroom. It was years ago so I am going to presume that this is why I did not think of that back then. I was at the state school, my group was in fact only a half of a class that had studied together, a class that had their own parents and a class that had their own form tutor. Today, I would have asked to talk to their class teacher to find out if there was anything at all that did happen at school but outside of the English hours that could have affected the atmosphere and the behaviour in my classes. Or, I would have asked for her or for the parents’ help to help me resolve that problem.

Lessons to take out of this nightmare?

  • You are not alone. Talk to your boss, mentor, supervisor and collagues. The kids may have other teachers, too and it is a good idea to talk to them. The kids do have parents or carers, too! You are not alone.
  • Don’t give up! It is always easier to start off the right foot than to reintroduce the law and order.

Happy teaching!

And don’t forget to read about the other epic fail stories, for example this one, here.

Epic Fail! or We make mistakes to learn #2

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Two: The rewards chart (sigh)

Once upon a time, there was a young ADOS that was supposed to be observed for the very first time formally by a senior teacher trainer. It was supposed to be an observation with a group of year 1 of primary or, in other words, something that the said ADOS was supposed to be very good at as she had just been appointed to do. It was a small group, four boys that she had been working with for two months. The observation was arranged, the lesson plan was prepared, all good. Only not quite.

Kids during an observed lesson

This is now a hobby of mine, observing how the students behave and react whenever there is an alien element in the classroom. It can be a fellow teacher that has popped in to do some peer observation, or the parents during the open lesson or, of course, an observer during a formal observation. Why? Because anything can happen.

When the group is ‘under control‘, usually nothing happens, the kids treat the additional human as a piece of furniture, almost, they don’t pay attention at all. It must be that the routine is already so strong and the balance so ideal that it cannot be tilted by another human visiting. When these humans are parents, emotions do take over and it can go in many different ways. Either the kids are too excited and want to show off in front of the parents and behave themselves or they do not behave themselves or they are shy and are not there, almost.

There is one more option, too. On the day when the teacher trainer came to observe, my boys decided to put on a show. They were so dedicated to that noble task that I actually did manage to catch them repeatedly glance at the observer, then at me, do something that we would not really want to have and then look again at the observer and at me. I was being played. That was not fun, of course, but I did manage to stay still and more or less in control…apart from the rewards chart thing.

Enter rewards chart.

One of my students, let’s say Sasha, was really not in the mood for anything resembling good behaviour. I did have a rewards chart on the board and I would award smiley faces after each stage of the lesson. All the other students got a smiley face and Sasha got a sad face. Then, the next stage of the lesson took place and the situation repeated itself, a smiley face for everyone and a sad face for Sasha. Then, one more stage and again, all the other students were working, Sasha was not so I had to be consistent (yes) and so everyone got their smiley face and Sasha’s got his third sad face. And that was the end of the game for me. And for Sasha.

At this point, having those three sad faces right next to his name, on the board, for everyone to see was too much for him to handle. I completely lost him. He was not interested in anything at that point (luckily we were close to the end of the lesson) and I just let him be there. Really.

Thank Heavens, we were a few minutes away from the end of the lesson. I was, indeed, saved by the bell.

I did not fail the observation, not formally at least but it still keeps coming back to me, all the little details of it. They come to haunt me, almost like the Ghost in ‘Hamlet’…

The lessons that I have learnt

  • We need a rewards chart (although there are also teachers who oppose to them) but then need to be used not only consistently but also in a clever way
  • It is better to withhold a reward (a smiley face) rather than award a fine / a punishment (a sad face), nobody wants to see their name on display close to sad faces which are also accumulating
  • There must be chance for the student to make up and to catch up with the rest of the group. Here the teacher is in charge so another smiley face can be awarded to everyone when Sasha displays some attempt at working hard. His efforts should be acknowledged (Catch them being good) or else it is going nowhere and there is nothing that can be done to get the student back.

Happy teaching!

Have you read about a rebellion in a primary EFL class yet? You can find it here.

Epic Fail! or We make mistakes to learn #1

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Welcome to the new series on the blog.

It started with something Michael said. He is a fellow teacher and he was telling me a story of how Teacher X went to peer observe an experienced colleague, Teacher Z and how the lesson was, well, not very good, bad, horrible, ‘a disaster’…It was not a very pleasant experience for Teacher Z, of course, but a learning opportunity for Teacher X, nonetheless (and for Teacher Z, too, actually). ‘This is what I want to hear, that even with the best intentions, it can all go ‘tits up’ but nobody is prepared to say it‘.

I got inspired. I am ready to share. I don’t mind. We repeat that to our students, constantly, that mistakes are noble and that we can learn from them. If our students can, so can we, the teachers. The same principles apply.

By the way, the Epic Fail Award is actually a real concept. It is a real award given out to employees at Hill Holliday agency, since, as Robert F. Kennedy once said ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly’ (apparently, have a look at the whole article here)

With that in mine off we go, to the first of my personal disasters or ‘When things did not go to plan‘.

One: The (stupid) Christmas tree craft

Here it is, look!

Did you go ‘Awn’? I bet you did. I did when I saw it and so did my kids when I showed it to them, during the pre-Xmas lesson. It did take place three years ago, I think and back then I was already an experienced teacher etc.

I did a great job, preparing for the task. I did prepare all the materials; I did make the tree at home. I did think of the staging. I did plan to teach the kids the verbs we needed to make it (fold, press, pause). I did think of how old they were and I knew them, they had been my students for over two years at the time so I could imagine what they were or were not able to do. We had done plenty of craft activities, we had worked with the pipe cleaners in a few different arrangements. I did pre-cut the triangles and tied pipe cleaners (three of them joined would be necessary to cover one tree). I punched the holes at the top of each tree. I wrote the main steps.

You would have thought the conditions were perfect. Yes, yes, they were. And yet it was the biggest craft disaster known to mankind. In my kingdom.

It turned out that even with all of these preparations and the previous experience and knowledge, the task turned out to be too tricky for my students. They were involved, yes, they loved the idea but we soon discovered that if you do not press the pipe cleaner real hard, applying all the strength (that the 5 y.o. did not quite have), it starts sliding, coming off and not looking at all as this ‘Awn’ model that I had already shown and that everyone had already managed to fall in love with and to start dreaming about of taking home.

The point of no return, in other words. Stopping, pausing or aborting the task was completely out of the question at that point. We went on, with me helping to complete eight Christmas trees simultaneously, perhaps singing the song to keep everyone occupied (though, really, I cannot be sure) with me hating absolutely every second of it and swearing that this very craft will never be seen again in any of my lessons. This or any craft, actually.

Everyone survived. Apart from all the leftover trees. I binned them all. With a lot of vidictive satisfaction. The one you can see in the photograph was recreated for teacher training purposes.

Today, I think that the craft is actually child-friendly, provided that you don’t go too minimalistic and that you keep the real Christmas tree-shape. Or that you at least cut the edges of the simple triangle in a few places, on both sides, to ensure that the pipe cleaner has somewhere to get attached and to stay in one place and still look ‘Awn’.

But it is also true that with this particular craft, I did allow myself to fall far the ‘awn’ effect and its strictly decorative value. Linguistically, there would be very little for us to do with it, apart from a few verbs and a few functional language phrases that we use and practise with any craft activity. Maybe, just maybe, I should not have fallen for it and, as a language teacher, first and foremost, I should have prioritised the linguistic aim.

Well, lesson learnt, that’s for sure!

P.S. It was unpleasant but I have not given up on craft! Experiments will sometimes lead to great achievements and sometimes to disasters but the best thing is – we learn, one way or another!

P.S.S. There is more to come in this chapter! I will see you soon with more epic fails stories. If you have some that you would like to share, please, do in the comments below!

Happy teaching!

A to Z of homework for Very Young Learners***

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What a wonderful book this is, The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter. In a way, it has inspired this post here, on all things related to homework for pre-primary EFL students.

Mine is a very messy alphabet, with some letters in, some letters missing, all of them in a very un-alphabetical order…

The Worst Alphabet Book Ever

S is for ‘Should we even think of setting homework for preschoolers?’

Some of the arguments against:

  • Kids are too young
  • It is too much pressure, too early. They will grow up, start school and then they will have to really learn what it means to be a student.
  • Kids forget to do the homework.
  • Parents forget to do the homework.
  • Parents may not speak English well enough to help with the homework task.
  • Parents work and are essentially too busy to deal with the homework tasks.

Some of the arguments for:

  • We are teaching the kids English but we are also teaching them how to be a student. Doing the homework and taking responsibility is a part of that process.
  • It has to be the homework task that is appropriate for the students’ age (2 – 6 years old) and level of English (pre-A1) so also something that non-English speaking parents will be able to do and something that will not take a lot of time
  • Certain procedures for setting the homework and checking the homework should apply to ensure that the tasks are not a hassle for the parents or the children
  • Homework is a wonderful way of creating a link between different lessons

So the short answer to the question in the heading would be ‘Yes, we definitely should’.

The Worst Alphabet Book Ever

E is for the extended exposure and R is for results

This is one more argument in favour of the VYL homework, so important in fact that it is going to have its own paragraph here.

Usually, pre-primary students who learn English as a foreign language have a very limited exposure to the language as they come to class twice a week for 45 minutes or, in some cases, for only 45 minutes once a week. That is not a lot but it is enough to get good results if the time in class is spent well. Or, if there is an opportunity to extend this English exposure time by homework tasks.

In practice, in might mean only the additional five or ten minutes or fifteen minutes per week but it will be the important link that will provide some additional practice between the lessons, which will be very beneficial for the children and it will help to recycle and keep up the language from Tuesday to Thursday and, even more importantly, from Thursday to Tuesday.

As it happens, a few years ago, me and my colleague-teacher, Anya (hello Anya!), we had a chance to be a part of a very informal and very small scale classroom research or an accidental experiment. We both worked with the same levels onsite (at one of our IH schools in Moscow) and, at the same time, offsite (at one of the kindergartens). All the kids were amazing, very bright and a pleasure to teach. They had the same teachers and they were following the same programme and yet, we realised that the onsite students were making more progress. We tried to analyse the situation and the only difference between the groups that we could put a finger on was the fact that our offsite groups were not getting any homework, according to the arrangements with the client.

Then, there were my other groups, a few years ago, that all of a sudden started to make lots of progress and, surprisingly enough, we did not have to devote so much time to drilling and practising the new vocabulary, right after it was introduced.

Normally, the first two lessons with the new material were filled with a lot basic games whose aim was to provide the exposure and the controlled practice before we would move onto more complex vocabulary games and introducing structures. Until, that is, I noticed that all this drilling was not necessary and, in most cases, already in the second lesson the children were using the new vocabulary with a lot of confidence. What it did look like in class, of course, were my students’ faces quickly losing interest in ‘just’ repeating the words with voices and emotions and, even, random comments (or, shall we say, feedback) muttered, here and there, ‘Да, мы уже все это знаем...’ (‘We already know all that...’)

I would never complain about that, we could move on and do the more interesting and challenging things but it took me a while that it was connected to the additional practice opportunities that the parents were providing at home. Just because they wanted to.

The Worst Alphabet Book Ever

P is for the parents

It is not a secret that in case of all the young learners or non-adult groups, the parents are the third party involved in the process and, one way or another, they will have to be included because, really, they are our clients, not the students themsevels. This is particularly true in case of the pre-school groups, mainly because children are very young and if we want to make the learning process effective, with homework or without it, we will be dealing with parents, too. Even more so, we need parents to make it all work.

Parents always want the best for their children but many of them are also taking their first steps in the EFL world, this time through their children. They might have had different previous learning experience (their own or of their kids’), they might have different expectations and aims that might not always coincide with ours, with our previous teaching experience or with our school’s policy. That means that we cannot take things for granted and that we should always talk to the parents, to explain what we do and why we do it. That applies to the homework tasks, too.

Some parents might really not be able to spend time with their children, some might choose to spend the time they have in other ways, not working on the English homework and we should accept and respect that. However, there are also parents for whom the English homework will not be so much of a burden but rather an opportunity to do something together in English. We can help them by showing them what can be done at home and the actual homework task is the first step here.

The Worst Alphabet Book Ever

N is for nuts and bolts

Here are some things to take into consideration

  • The homework should be short. Our students are still two or three or five and will not be able to remain seated for a long period of time, in class or at home.
  • It should be easy to complete, too. The students are still two or three or five and tasks that are very complex cognitively will not be appropriate for them.
  • However, the fact that the task looks like a simple colouring page (see below) does not mean that it is just colouring because the actual physical task will be connected with the language produced that is presented and practised in class with the teacher, practised at home with the parents and then practised again, with the teacher, during the homework check in the following lesson.
  • Ideally, the homework task should be consistent, in form and in content, with the focused task completed in class. This way, we do not only provide additional practice of the vocabulary and structures that we currently work on but we also ensure that the students will know how to complete the task because the instructions are the same, for the focused task and for the homework task. Of course, that is not always possible but it is a good aim to set for yourself while lesson planning.
  • For that reason, the longer I work, the more convinced I become that in an ideal set-up, I would rather work with a coursebook only, without any activity book whatsoever, in order to give myself the flexibility to match and to better combine the programme, the focused task and the homework task. This is, of course, only my very subjective view and I am aware of the fact that it would not be everyone’s choice.
  • The task should be set in class, with the students. After all, these are the ones who are learning to be responsible for the task. For the teacher and the students this is, yet another opportunity for practice. The teacher can bring another copy of the handout or the book and do the task together with the students.
  • The homework task should be explained to the parents, too, because, they will have to remember to take the task out and to complete it before the following lesson. There are different ways of doing it. The teacher can explain the task after the lesson, alone or with the help of the students, the administration of the school can be asked for help, too. Some teachers like to leave the notes about the homework on the door of the classroom and, nowadays, we all have the whatsapp groups which we can use to communicate with the parents, too.
  • The homework checking is a part of the routine and another opportunity to practise the language and to talk to students, one on one, as they walk into the classroom (more about the line-up routines here). In the past, I used to reward my students with stickers for the homework but I stopped doing that when I realised that not everyone does or brings their homework and that is precisely because mum or dad or granny forgot…Now, I only acknowledge the hard work with smileys, suns, flowers, ‘Fantastic!’ and ‘Excellent’ and I keep a spare handout, my homework or any visual in order to be able to have a little chat also with those students who are without a homework task on the day.
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever

B is for the basic homework tasks

Here are some of the staple food tasks that work well as homework tasks. All of these were created using the miro board. These are not actual handouts but only sample tasks in each type.

a) colouring: task: students colour the objects and produce simple sentences ie ‘The apple is green’ or ‘It’s a green apple). This kind of a task is especially appropriate after the new vocabulary has been introduced and colours can and should be revised throughout the course.

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b) drill: task: students look at the the sequence of words, name them, using a single word or a sentence and make a decision what should be the final word. This is also a task appropriate in the beginning of the unit. Here, some students might choose to colour the picture but that is not obligatory.

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c) odd one out: task: students name all the objects in the sequence and decide which one does not match the others. We usually use very simple langauge here for example: Goodbye, cat.

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d) matching: task: students look for the same objects in both columns and connect them with a line. This is also a task more appropriate for the beginning of the unit and for younger students, too. The older students can complete it, too, but in their case it would be a good idea to encourage the kids to produce a full sentence.

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e) finish the sentece: task: students try to build simple sentences by naming the elements of it represented by visuals or symbols and by choosing one of the elements.

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f) categorise: task: depending on the language, students can categorise the objects into those that they like or don’t like, big or small, animals that can fly or swim or even words beginning with the same sound if you have started working on developing literacy skills. They can either colour or circle different categories with different colours, at the same time producing the target language.

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g) count: task: students look at the picture and count all the apples, bananas, kiwis and nuts, they write the number.

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h) maze: task: students trace different lines in order to produce the required sentence, for example ‘I’ve got a doll’ and similar. Again, thanks to the fact that all elements of the sentence are represented visually, an activity like that is going to support maximising production, here full sentences.

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i) collage: task: in class, students make sentences about mum, dad, grandma (my mummy likes apples) glueing simple pictures in the appropriate part of the handout. All the leftover pictures are given out as homework. Students glue them onto the handout and produce similar sentences but now about brother / sister, grandpa or friends.

A is for the alternatives

Normally, the homework task is set as a handout (or in the activity book) but the pandemic and the lockdown of 2020 has changed everyone’s way of looking at homework and, fortunately or unfortunately, it has closed some doors but it has opened some others. During the lockdown, not all the studnets had access to a printer so sending out homework for the parents to print and complete was not always possible. What is more, not all the students even had coursebooks and so these could not always be used as the basis for homework tasks.

W is for Wordwall

This website has been a real revelation and a milestone in tasks for age groups of students but especially for my pre-primary studnets. Wordwall is available for everyone and free in its basic version. Anyone can register and gain access to all the tasks and games that have been created by the community and made public. These games can be used in class and shared with the parents to play on any device available at home. Another advantage is that each of the tasks or games is available in a few different formats (or ‘templates) which means that the parents (or the teachers) can still practise the same set of vocabulary or structures but in a slightly different game.

If you are willing to invest a small sum of money, you can choose your own plan and start creating your own activities to match the programme or the curriculum of your group or school, too.

Here are some examples of the games that I have created for my pre-primary students

a) Let’s count, created for the students who were in the beginning of level 1

b) Categorising, created for level 2 students (farm animals which can fly, swim, run, jump)

c) Tell me about this picture, created for my level 3 students to practise opposite adjectives.

All of these we played in class, first and then the same or a similar task was shared with the parents.

L is for homemade listening tasks

These are lightly more complex but a real lockdown revelation for my primary and pre-primary classes. You can read more about them here.

Happy teaching!

P.S. All the samples of activities were created using the images on Miro and all the in-text photos come from the same wonderful book, P is for Pterodactyl, The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter and illustrations by Maria Tina Beddia from Sourcebook Jabberwocky, which by the way can be (and will be) used with my teens. More on that later:-)

*** This post was based on the talk I gave at the 2020 IH YL Conference.

P.S. A request!

It is very simple.

I would like to know a tiny little bit more about my readers. There are so many of you, popping in here, again and again, and the numbers of visitors and visits are going up and make my heart sweel with joy. But I realised I don’t know anything about my readers and I would love to know, a tiny little bit more.

Hence the survey.