#eflideas Archives - Funky Socks & Dragons

How to plan for kids without bending your back backwards. A five-step manual

November 4, 2024 by Anka Zapart

This post here is my response to the challenge set by my teacher-friend Michael. Challenge accepted. Let’s go, 5 steps.

Lesson aim

The first-est step. Always.

The session devoted to lesson planning on our YL course is called ‘What do you want teacher?’ and that is for a reason. Making a decision why we enter the room and what we want to achieve by the end of the lesson is key. Is the vocabulary the focus or is it a grammar point? Or any of the skills? What is the context? Do you want to focus on the language or the most important thing on the day is the work we put in developing social skills or building the routine? It might be something suggested by the book or chosen by the school curriculum but not always. And even it is, there is always room for adjustments and adaptation. At the end of the day, there is the teacher and there are the students in the classroom that matters most. The programme and the coursebooks are to be adapted.

After the aim is selected, there are more follow-up decisions to make, namely the selection of the focused task (aka the main productive activity) of the lesson?

That’s it, done. The main thing is done and it probably took about 5 minutes. The next step will be looking for things that will help make it happen.

Books basics

The coursebook and whatever it contains is already partially included in the previous step. Most of the time, this is what we use, for convenience and just because we can. The coursebook is not the enemy of course and there is a lot of useful material. Though, not all of it.

I presume the main activity has already been chosen and the next decision is regarding all the other exercises, activities, audio and visuals that are there (and in the workbook and teacher resource packs) that either match or don’t our aim and our focused task, or, in other words, our A or the lesson and our Z.

The most important thing to remember and the thing that is on constant repeat during our sessions and in my conversations with teachers is: the book is not there for us to follow to the letter and to cover and to include all the exercises.

Things you can repeat

In every lesson for YL there are certain elements that we can and that we should repeat because they help us construct the framework and the routine. They include either the elements of the routine: the hello song, the how do you feel today, the rules revision, the homework check, the goodbye as well the elements that are short-temporarily fixed: the songs we are singing in September, the games we are playing in the unit of toys, the story we are reading in the chapter on the jungle animals. All of these will feature in the lesson over a month. It is good to included them in the plan, keeping them on the side, in order to be able to use them.

The missing bits

Having got that far in the lesson planning, it might be the time to figure out how much time we have already taken out of the lesson time and how much time we already have left. Then, look at all the activities there are in the coursebook, all ready and waiting to be used, and, only if necessary, to replace them with some other activities, from another sources or self-designed.

Most of the time, the coursebook will do the job just fine.

Something for the balance (bits)

What I like to do at the very end, when the lesson is already ready, to have a quick look at everything, to check it for the contents and for the balance and variety

the ratio of interaction patterns
the ratio of different activities: songs, stories, creative and hard work
the ratio of new and familiar
the ratio of settlers and stirrers

And, when something is off, I fix it. Done!

Instead of a coda

Here are a few words of wisdom from a grandma teacher and trainer / mentor / observer:

we want good lessons to be our everyday but that does not mean that every single lesson needs to be an Oscar-worthy (or a Nobel prize-worthy) unit at the cost of the teacher’s sleep, peace of mind, family life or salary. Yes, I sometimes invest a little bit more into my teaching, in terms of planning, resources and time but, after all these years of experience, I also have lessons that are ‘just regular, no fireworks’.
we sometimes plan lessons and as soon as we get to school, out of the blue, we come up with something entirely different and it is the best lesson ever. Yes, that happens, but (here comes a very subjective line), it is the result of all the brainstorming and thinking that has already taken place. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have happened.
designing your own activites does not have to take ages and it does even require a teacher to be super creative. I personally find it much easier to prepare something for my lesson from scratch, rather than spend hours of looking through materials and resources to match the needs of my group and then, on having found it, still waste time on adapting it to what we (my kids, my course and our lesson) really need (here you can find some of the posts on material design).
our coursebooks have a lot of different resources and pictures among them which can be used in a million different ways with very little effort. A picture is an actitivity and you can read about it here, here and here.
in general, being a lazy teacher has a lot of benefits. You can read about it here.
here you can find another post about the everyday lesson planning

Happy teaching!

‘Teacher, did you do your homework?’

October 24, 2024 by Anka Zapart

Surprisingly, that is not as random a question as it might seem. Not only because we talk about the adverbs of frequency and my kids ask how often I do mine. I always say ‘Never’, just to make my kids give out the appalled ‘Oh!’ although, really, every day is a homework day because the lessons don’t plan themselves.

But there is more to that. With my older students, I do my homework regulary, especially when it is writing. My letter / story / essay not only serves as a model for my students but it also motivates them to do their homework. We frequently use my writings to learn how to structure the discourse, how to proofread and how to improve it. There is so much to it that I even ran a workshop with the same title a few years ago and, perhaps, a separate post will come out of it, in the future.

I would also like to highlight that, as a teacher, I am all for homework assignments, even with the very young learners, and I have already written about it here. Naturally, if the preschoolers can do their homework, then everyone else can, too and I have just realised that this deserves a post on homework with older learners (mental note #2).

However, today, I would like to write about something else entirely.

Let me tell you about the context

It’s been over a year since I started to work in a slightly different context, a primary school with a bilingual programme (which you can definitely tell just looking at the content here). Last year, in my year 1 group we used to give the kids the homework, once a week, Maths and phonics and we used to keep a journal with my kids, too. I shared the electronic materials with the parents, in order to enable the children to interact witht the content at home. All types of homework were optional, although, of course, I was checking everything that was handed to me and I kept a homework record, just to be able to analyse the situation and to check if there was any connection between the homework done and the progress made. Here is a spoiler: yes, there was.

This year, we decided to change that and to standardise the procedures across all subjects and both departments (English and L1). This year our final, seventh lesson, is a self-study lesson which we devote to additional work in the areas that need that most. I am not sure how the L1 programme teachers make their decisions but I decided to go for flexibility, sometimes it is English, sometimes it is Maths, depending on the day and how the day goes.

Each day we have about 20 minutes (aka one task), the kids work on their own and they are supervised by my T.A. The children work on their own, the task is a written one (at least at this point) and there is always some flexibility and differentation as, naturally, we have a mixed ability group. The task is always an extension of what we have done in class in the morning.

My T.A. always collects the papers and I check and comment on them and give them back on the following day.

What exactly do we do? (aka Examples)

Task type A: Just One More Exercise Like We Did In Class: This is probably the kind of a task that was initially intended for this kind of a lesson. I remember the debates with phrases like ‘what we don’t finish in class’, ‘what we didn’t have time for’ and ‘just some more practice’. This is absolutely very, very useful for the children (more practice!) and for the teacher (easy to prepare) but, admittedly, not the most exciting task type. As I have found out.

Task type B: Find My Mistakes: That is the type of a task that, unlike the one above, I need to write myself. It involves a task that we did in class but there are some mistakes in it. It can be a Maths task (the type we do with Petya and Alisa, our invisible students) that follows on the specific exercise that we already did together with exactly the same procedures and instructions, already completed but with mistakes. The main objective for children is to become a teacher and to check the tasks for potential mistakes. Sometimes all tasks already have a mistake (the easier option), sometimes some items are correct.

It can be an English task, too and in this case the children look for structural mistakes (punctuation or grammar) or factual mistakes, in case the task is based on a song or a story we have covered.

Task type C: Odd One Out or Add Yours: This task type is usually used for English and we used it a lot with vocabulary. So far it has been really handy with all the vocabulary as it allowed for differentation and open-ended exercises or verb phrases or noun phrases as we could practise simple collocations, for example: What goes with this verb: wash: your hands, your face, a book, your shoes. In this particular case, the kids had to find the odd one and, also, add their own option.

Task type D: Make a Task For Miss Anka: This is also a task that is always based on the type of a task we do in class in the morning but in this case, children have to create their own examples for me. It can be a word search or a snake (see photos), it can be their own mini-story or short sentences in English or their own text tasks or examples, for me to solve or to find mistakes. This has become the Number 1 Beloved Task, for all of us. A hit!

Task type E: Miscellaneous: Guess-Related: This is a mix of all tasks, another one of those that I prepare myself and very personalised. It is usually a task for English although it can be Maths, too. We did one when I wrote random sentences about my students (a set of 7 per child) with the adverbs of frequency (‘Sasha always plays computer games’) and children had to read and correct when necessary or give me points for guessing correctly how often they do things. In the Maths lesson on the Roman numerals, I had a set of numbers ‘about me’ and what they mean and the children had to decipher them and match them i.e. the number of meters I can swim = DC and so on.

Why we all just LOVE it?

First of all, I cannot repeat it enough (and in caps): WE ALL LOVE HOMEWORK. I always have, really, but now I am discovering the new levels and reasons for this love but it is also true that my kids love it, too and, when on an ocassion or two, the homework in English did not happen in lesson 7, my kids were simply disappointed. Not to mention that right now we start the day with ‘Miss Anka, did YOU do the homework?’ (or variations: ‘Miss Anka, did you see the homework?’).

Here are the reasons why I love these homework assignments:

my students have an opportunity to do ‘something more’ in English or in Maths, which is the idea of the homework itself and the most precious benefit.
these tasks were also an opportunity to develop my students’ reading and writing skills and, at this point in the game, these are crucial. We are past the basic phonics stage and the simple sentences stage so whatever they read and write, out of their own accord, is a reason to celebrate.
the kids could work in a more independent format, revising everything that they have learnt in the morning, doing it again, moving it to the ‘freer practice’ level, revisiting the task and, in a way, testing themselves
many of the tasks gave the kids an opportunity to make decisions and even to be creative and, for that reason, I love checking the homework, to see where the course of the day took them. I can tell you, easily, almost every morning, I get a hearty laughter and my comments are some variation of ‘excellent’ and ‘I love it’.
these tasks, by design short, flexible and open-ended, are perfect for mixed-ability groups and very often the students are in charge of how much they choose to do. The instructions include the minimal number of examples or sentences they have to do (adjusted to my ‘weaker’ students) but it is great to see that hardly anyone does just that and many, if not all, complete the entire task prepared. Naturally, ‘every little helps’ and I rejoice every single example completed. This approach, however, takes the pressure off the students and is very motivating in itself.
movitation is a huge factor here, as well, and, I’d risk saying that all of the aspects of the format and the task design contribute to it. Some of the children have to leave early (to attend to whatever errands they need to run) but they take the handouts with them and bring them the following day, although it is not obligatory.
many of the tasks are teacher-friendly. I prepare them daily and it really does not take a lot of time. The task type A requires no preparation, apart from making copies. Task type D is even better because, usually, it requires bringing only a piece of paper for each student. Task type C is also very simple as it can be a copy of the exercise done before, only with wrong answers and that, for a high-level speaker of English and a relatively competent Maths user, also – a piece of cake. The other two, type C and E are, admittedly, a tad bit more involving, especially the highly personalised type E, but, looking back at the results and the outcome, they are just SO worth it!

Instead of the coda

I am aware of the fact that we have some advantages because of the format in which we work at my school but I decided to share these activities and the whole approach because of the benefits it has brought us and because I believe that many of these task types can be adapted to, say, a more traditional EFL classes of a language school. And bring about the same exciting outcomes.

It’s been only two months of this particular experiment so there is definitely more to come!

Here are some tasks we have done already

English: Task type C: odd one out and add yours

Maths: Task type D: created your own task

English: Task type D: write your own (based on the story we did in class)

Math: Task type E: Guess (Roman numerals and the notes my student took of her potential guesses)

Happy teaching!

Step by step! Year 2, one month in.

October 6, 2024October 5, 2024 by Anka Zapart

I decided to contiue with my reflection journal.

One thing is that someone else may find it useful, reading about the adventures of another teacher and realising that even for an experienced one, it is not (always) a bed of roses and that, regardless of the mileage, we work with what (or whom!) we have in the classroom, adapting methods, approaches and always being on the lookout for new solutions.

The other thing, however, is that I find it really (really) useful as a teacher. Even the very fact that I created a new post here and typed in the headings, that alone helped me see this whole month of teaching from a completely different angle. An instand reflection and understanding. It does not mean that I regret doing something or that I would introduce any major changes in the month of September. We did what we had to do but now I understand better why we did it this way.

September, back to school after three long months of no routine and no learning, that had to take its toll! I am beyond happy that my students could enjoy the summer freedom from their duties but it is true that you forget, at least some of the things that you have leant. And, mind you, not so much regarding the actual language or Maths, but, absolutely – definitely – thoroughly, when it comes to habits and routines.

Outcomes? You spent the whole month of September rebuilding it. Step by step.

Starting the lesson

As regards this stage of the lesson, we went for the principle of ‘something old, something new’. We start with our traditional ‘5..4…3…2…1…Hello everyone’ and talking about how we are plus talking about the weekend on Monday but now this part is now led by our ‘Hello Master‘. One of the students is chosen to perform this task in the beginning of the task. They sit on the chair in front of the class and ask the question ‘How do you feel today?’, not forgetting to follow up with ‘Because?’. Because? Because We Want More Language Production!

At this point, we are not using our handmade flashcards with feelings. Instead, I prepared the real ones, printed and laminated and they are displayed on the walls of the classroom. I did notice that some students look around to find something to really express how they feel. Thanks to that one of my students stopped answering ‘I don’t know’ (an answer which I used to accept, it is, after all, a valid way to feel for a human). Now he looks around and finds something to say. Usually, a few things, actually, which I am not surprised with as he is the one that seems to be able to feel a whole multitude of feelings per second. At least now, he can talk about it!

We have two other students chosen in every lesson, two Helpers, who hand out pencils, books, handouts and who help with cleaning up. Kids love helping and they treat it as a privilege. Naturally, I have to keep track of the names and roles, or else, I am in trouble.

Afterwards, we sing our Month Song, I start and then, whoever has an idea, they sing, too. I love this part of the lesson and I see that they really use it to express how they feel on the day or to joke about me or themselves. And it is all improvised!

Rules and classroom language

Aside from the feelings, we are now in our own classroom and we can display whatever we want on the walls, just the way I like it! So, aside from the days of the week, the months, the sight words and the feelings cards, I also added all the rules, so that we always have them in front of our eyes.

One of the Helpers always reads them in the beginning of the day and we refer to them during the lesson. The next step will be adding the real classroom language, all the verbs and phrases we need during the lesson. After all, we still have some room on the walls and they pay attention to what’s there!

Rewards chart

A rewards chart has become an important part of our lessons in September, as a visualisation of what they do AND as an instant reflection faciliation tool.

I did experiment with it a little bit, over the month of September, using what I have learnt so far (a post is here) and, let me put it like that, because of my students, I managed to learn even more about the effective use of a rewards chart.

In the end, after experimenting and finding quite a few things that don’t work with my current audience, I decided to keep it simple. We have a list of names, all of them with attendance (either a plus or a little comment ‘Where is Sasha?’ or ‘Sasha is ill’), some of them with the badges (Helper or Hello Master) and, as we go along through the lesson, I add stars for the completion of the tasks and, sometimes, special stars for some additional achievements, for the extra work that is optional. This week I also started to add some verbs that describe the kids behaviour, the unwanted behaviour. It is not a minus or a sad face, it is just a neutral description i.e. talks or disturbs a friend etc, and, of course, they are there only to signal that there is something that they should not be doing and, naturally, if they cease, I erase. It has worked so far and the language is as neutral and bland as possible. ‘Only facts’.

Last week I also used it in the end of the lesson, to thank those few of my students who were great players during our competitive game. However, for that, I used a different symbol, a big smiley. More of that a bit later.

We also keep a lesson plan, or actually 2. I have my own, on the board at the back and I write a short, funny version of it on the main board, for the students. We keep erasing bits of it as we go through the lesson. I normally wrote it as bullet points and changed it only this week, to a snake (a theme of the day) but one of my kids asked to go back to the bullet points list as it is, apparently, easier to read. OK, point taken, thank you.

Since we are still getting used to the life in the classroom, I had to go back to another item: ‘time left’ on the board as it really helps my students manage their attention and focus during the lesson. As I have written before, it is also an interesting resource of feedback for me, because, naturally, they ask more in some lessons and less in the others so, this is one more signal of how we are going on.

Songs and story

I decided to put these two categories together because this month, to some extent, we have abandoned songs and stories. Not fully, oh no, these are the two things that I love doing in the classroom and I would never give up on them. But the month of September saw fewere of them, in comparison of what we did last year.

We do have our Month Improvisation Song in the beginning of the lesson and the other song, taken from Superminds 3, ‘School is cool’ which we love, we love to change (‘School is not cool’) and which helped us practise school subjects. We also did listen to some of our favourites from last year but, overall, there were fewer songs.

The same applies to stories. We did Dr Seuss, ‘I’ll teach my dog 100 words’, to revise and to practise verbs and one long story, ‘Johnny’s Story’ from Superminds 3 which we read, listen to, talked about and created our own versions, too. I really wanted to use this one because it is quite long and I have a few Johnnys in my groups. We definitely can relate! But, again, only two stories in four or five weeks.

I have my reasons! Hear me out! It seems that, subconsciously, I wanted to cut down on the number of stimuli and new things in the lesson, based on how much we struggled with remaining seated. Literally. It helped a bit and we will definitely add more stories and songs in October!

Socialising

This was one aspect of our classroom life that we had to work a lot on. What the kids forgot, apart from the routine and rules, were the social norms and the bond and friendships, or, in some cases, the kind tolerance we had developed towards each other in year 1. Sigh.

As a result, we had to work on that A LOT in September and this is how we did it:

I experimented a lot with different seating arrangements. Throughout September, kids would sit with different partners every day. I wanted to experiment in order to find out the best and the worst combinations. In the beginning, we used the September words and it was random but after two weeks I started to assign seats (using the chalk marker) to write the names on the tables for everyone and reflecting after the lesson. At this point, after a month, we are pretty much aware of what works best and, aside from little changes, everyone has their own seat. Some kids sit in a trio, some in pairs, some in a pair but with tables apart and I have some outsiders who sit at the front but at their own separate island. That said, we also regroup, too, for some of the activities.
We have done a crazy amount of pairwork. Only last week, over three lessons, we did comparing pictures (Flyers), playing a dice game, playing a guessing game, comparing how often we do things based on our notes, played a team game various times, with different teams. They did well!
We did lots of competitive games because NOW WE CAN! I am so proud of my students that another article will have to come out of it! Because of all the work we did last year, over the summer with some kids and over those four weeks of September, the kids are now simply amazing at managing their emotions and taking the defeat without tears. It was not easy, not at all, but we made it. I am just so proud! We now have a habit of getting together in a team, thinking of a name and negotiating a lot while in-game, in order to achieve the best results. In that sense, that is also a thing that works towards being a part of a group.
I believe that also all the other things that we do, as one big group, that also helps to remind us that we are a team: our rules, our classroom, our cards, names, all of the rituals and traditions, our notebooks and books.

Creativity

We didn’t do any real projects apart from the first one, on day 1, but we were very creative in September. Starting this year, my school introduced a new lesson, the homework time, that is obligatory for everyone and serves as an opportunity to catch up on things that haven’t been finished during the regular lessons or completing some additional tasks. And, so far, that has been so much fun!

First of all, these are the tasks that my kids do with our T.A., so there is a different vibe to them. Sometimes, we do English and on some days Maths, depending on the day. Sometimes these are just ‘some more exercises’, the repetition and revision of what we did in class and how we did things in class but, often, these tasks are more creative, for example creating stories, sentences and Maths tasks for me. I am able to check them only the following day but when I do, I usually laugh a lot because my students are having fun, with Maths and with the language.

Having said that, the time for a real project is coming up!

Teacher

Over these few weeks of September, I have generally calmed down and got my feet back on the ground because we have been more under control of everything taking place. There are still a few issues to resolve but we are getting there, step by step.

I am really happy because I can see, on daily basis, how much progress my students have made. They are so much better at reading and they do remember quite a lot from Maths, too. Hooray to that! And onto the next one!

Happy teaching!

‘It’s tricky! It’s tricky!’ Back to school classroom management

September 7, 2024 by Anka Zapart

About some ridiculous expectations

Well, it is not my first rodeo and, actually, it might be actually a good point in life to count properly how many rodeos aka Septembers there have been so far (I really don’t know) but, it turned out that I had been a bit naive about what to expect in the classroom on the 3rd of September. Or, in other words, my students managed to suprise me once more! Hooray to that. I suppose)

I knew that my students would come back having forgotten a lot and that we would not be able to pick it up where we left off, not after three months of no-school life. However, naively, I was hoping that they will remember something and that our September life will not involve starting off a brand new blank page. I was wrong!

The funny thing about it is that a few minutes into a lesson that was not necessarily bad but also not my dream come true, I kind of split my attention. There was a part of my brain that was solely responsible for the lesson taking place and the other one stepped back and started to look at the events the way a trainer would, connecting the dots and making mental notes about ‘the things to improve’. That was an interesting experience, I have to say.

This post today will have a format different to every other post in this series. I will try to analyse the things that did not go to plan and the solutions I already decided to put in place.

Things that I liked on the first real day

We talked about the things we did on holiday and it was great
We kept our Months Improvisation Song and now we are singing about ‘September’, I did my verse and the kids did theirs.
We did an introductory reading task and I was really happy with how it went. The kids really wanted to read (already a reason to celebrate) and to find the mistakes in the song.
We played our numbers spinner Maths game (‘I want…’) and it was very productive.
We made a mural about our favourite things that we will put up on the wall, Our Solar System. We sat together on the floor around a sheet of paper and we went on creating.
Even in the first lesson we had a good variety of interaction patterns: whole class, individual work, activities led by kids, collaboration on the project.
We have a special board where we keep the plan for the lesson.

Things that I didn’t like on the first real day

In one line, the kids were over-stimulated and out of control.
It was the first lesson in our new classroom, out of the previous set-up, associated with good habits and routines and there were too many new elements.
I allowed the kids to sit the way they wanted, with the friends they wanted to be around.
I decided to include the rules revision during the second lesson (for a reason) but I had to pay for that
I decided to include one of our favourite Maths games, to balance ‘the new’ with ‘the familiar’ but, I have to admit, there were better solutions, something else than a game would work better.
We used some of the favourite songs but I also included a new song, ‘Back to school’ but, in hindsight, I think it was not really necessary. It could have been left for a bit later.

What has changed since the first day aka Solutions

Nobody is sitting where they want anymore. This was my plan and I announced it in the first lesson that during the month of September we are going to have a different seating arrangement every single day. I prepared some September vocabulary cards and glued them onto the desks and a set of cards with the same words. Everyone coming into the room picks up one card and then looks for their place to sit. I want to experiment with different seating arrangements (especially that I am still working on the arrangements of the desks, too) and I want to check which combination works the best. There are some dangers involved, some tricky combinations to be avoided at all cost, but I am willing to take that risk, in order to learn. It was only yesterday that I saw a meme or a video on the social media in which teachers were saying that they let everyone to sit the way they want on day 1 specifically in order to find out who shouldn’t sit with whom. Plus we are also going to learn some cool September words)
Our rules have not been printed, laminated and displayed on the wall above the board. We have been reading and revising them at the start of every lesson. There are only few, my basic set: I sit nicely, I listen to the teacher, I speak quietly, I raise my friend, we are friends and Russian is beautiful but I speak English here. If we need, we will add to the list.
I have also decided to add another poster ‘How are we working today?‘ to help kids understand the different interaction patterns and modes of work. You can see all of them in the poster underneath and these are the terms that I am using to describe what the lesson is going to be about. They also help a lot with giving instructions to particular tasks. The most important differentiation at the moment is the one between ‘follow the teacher step by step’ and ‘you can make your own decisions’.
I reinstated the tool that we already abandoned, namely, the final stage of the lesson with the official announcements of the grades for the lesson, for work and for behaviour. We did not quite abandon them because I still needed my notes to add comments to the electronic journal for all my students but making formal announcements of praise and of not-so-good feedback was not necessary at the end of the previous academic year. This is back and it helps to summarise the lesson, to highlight once more the superstar behaviour and to explain why some grades are not very good.
We have a new call – response and last we used ;Autum leaves’ (teacher) – ‘falling down’ (students). They have already customised it and some of them respond ‘falling up’, just because it is funny. I need one more of those.
We sang a lot of our favourite songs during the other two days and I am planning to keep that trend for another week, without repeating, until we go through everything in our Songbook.
With one of my groups, I have put the games on hold for now, we are not ready yet. With the other one, the games are at the end of the lesson plan, in the ‘if time’ section. We need to get back into the school mode, back into the focus, before we start doing something more entertaining.

What’s next?

Not much, just the everyday and helping my adorable monster get back to the proper working mode. We will sing our songs, we will definitely do a story next week. We are still working without our books, rationing resources. We already have the beautiful notebooks, though, so there is a place to keep all the notes. Step by step!

Happy teaching!

We don’t need no…enthusiastic teachers. The dangers of enthusiasm

August 17, 2024August 11, 2024 by Anka Zapart

Do I hear gasps of horror in the audience? Good. That is how I reacted when I said these words out loud, in a conversation with a teacher friend, retelling her some of the ‘recent events’…

Bear with me, dear reader and let’s see if you still gasp at the end of this post. Or maybe I will get you to at least look at the world through my eyes and give me a tiny little nod of agreement…

The ideal teacher?

‘Enthusiastic‘ is this one term that frequently appears on the list of words to describe an ideal teacher. Qin Zhang goes as far as saying that it is ‘generally recognised as one of the most essential and desirable qualities and characteristics of effective teachers‘ as one almost synonymous with energy or passion. What’s more, it is often presented as key to students’ motivation and engagement and, if you look long enough, you can even find advice how to be enthusiastic about what you teach (and in case you need it – use your voice and gestures, never admit that you don’t like your subject or topic or that it is not important). Enthusiasm then – a key factor in teaching.

Or is it?

Reading all these articles made me want to jump up and shout ‘Objection, Your Honour!’

My definition of a teacher, and especially a YL teacher, is slightly different and, surprise surprise, enthusiasm does not feature there as one of the necessary qualities. I put this list together based on years of mentoring and training of teachers who were either novices in general or novice teachers in the early years ESL/ EFL world. I based it on my own experience, the things that worked and the things that didn’t. I read about it, too, of course.

On my list, I have resilience and stamina and a variety of skills, I have resourcefulness and patience, I have creativity, energy and calmness and all three elements mentioned by my gurus such as Sandie Mourao (2018): the level of language, the knowledge of child development and of the appropriate methodology. A YL teacher is also someone who can teacher up or teacher down. But ‘enthusiastic’, well, somehow I didn’t think of including it. Truth be told, only recently did I begin to understand why.

Case studies

To illustrate that, I will use three case studies, from my professional life as a teacher, a trainer, an educational manager in all the contexts, countries and schools where I have worked and, at the same time, in none of them. The stories may have happened but in the way you think, not in the place you can guess and not with the people you know. No identification with actual persons or places is intended or should be inferred.

Case study 1: A senior teacher is asked to prepare a programme for the summer camp session. This senior teacher does not really have a lot of experience in the area and with this age group and, somehow, they do not bother to ask for advice, recommendations or support from more experienced colleagues. They just put it together, as best as they can because they really, really want to and they believe that something’s gotta give.

The programme has more holes than a slab of some Swiss cheese. There are no real ideas, no lesson plans, no support for the teacher or any attention or knowledge of any methodological principles. The only thing that there is – the enthusiasm and the Wow Factor . The camp lags from one day to the other, the teachers are confused and lost and just doing their best. But, because they are dedicated and passionate, they pull it through.

Execution mode: atrocious and unecessarily exhausting.

Aims: met as in: the world did not fall apart.

Case study 2: A teacher orgnises an excursion for her students, to the cafe, to celebrate. It is not a big group of students, there are four adults accompanying the kids, the paperwork is ready. However, the teacher doe not bother to check and to plan the route, there and back, because they are in the city city, not far from the school and the place is reacheable on foot. On the way there and on the way back, the group wanders around, they have to stop a few time to check the google maps, everything takes forever and on the way back, they take yet another shortcut and, to add insult to injury, they are caught in a blizzard.

Execution mode: messy and unnecessarily exhausting.

Aims: met (meaning: the world did not fall apart and there were a lot of lovely photographs)

Case study 3: An adult student stays after a lesson to talk about a relative who would like to work as a teacher. The contacts are exchanged and the potential applicant is advised to get in touch with the recruitment department of the school. She does and only later doe it become obvious that the enthusiastic would-be teacher has not graduated from the university yet, her studies are not even remotely related to education, she has never every taught in any capacity and does not even have any official confirmation of her language level. For all these reasons, naturally, the school does not hire her. However, she is advised to take a language test and consider starting the basic teaching qualification course. The potential applicant does not reply to these in any way and, her relative, the adult student who comes to the following lesson iss obviously disappointed and she tries to plead, with her teacher. ‘But she is so eager to start teaching. She really, really wants to be a teacher of English. It would be a dream come true...’

Execution mode: a great range of mixed feelings.

Aims: not met. I hope this person found her path.

Put the enthusiasm on the back burner!

It is easy to image that all of the directors, all of the managers, all of the parents and all of the trainers would love to see their teachers full of energy, stars in their eyes, joy in their gait, impatient to start doing their favourite thing, teaching! To impart knowledge, to help the kids learn, to help their students grow! That’s absolutely important and I hope that all my teachers, readers, colleagues have a chance to experience it on daily basis, this passion for what you do. I, personally, cannot imagine a life in which you to work without a tiny spark of happiness, just to do something in exchange for the salary. There are lots and lots of things that I do, solely out of pure enthusiasm and there are lots and lots of things that my colleagues and teacher friends do, on daily basis, that are not reimbursed financially.

But.

Enthusiasm cannot be the only resource available to a teacher. If it is and if it is there to cover up and to make up for all the other adjectives (such as organised, supportive, qualified, skilled, realistic, methodologically sane, planned, reasonable and professional), then I would like to make an objection and a strong one, too!

If we were talking about a different profession, nobody would even consider hiring a person to do the job of a doctor, a driver or a hair-dresser if the only thing they had to show for themselves was their enthusiasm or serving a disgusting cake on a pretty plate and claiming a Michelin star or two. It would not be a good idea to organise a festival without checking all of the bits, pieces and options and going for it just because we really, really want to have it.

No because it does not work like that in other areas and we should not have to deal with that in teaching, either.

Personally, I find it very, very tiring, as a teacher, as a trainer and as an educational manager. Mostly, because, in most cases, it translates into mess, confusion, teaching and learning below standard and last minute preparations and fixing problems as we (happily) go along. Perhaps, on my part, it is some kind of professional OCD but I like things to be in order.

This is not a post against enthusiasm and pession. Let’s not take it off the list, let’s just put it on the back burner, please.

Happy teaching!

References

Instructor’s Corner #3: Teaching with Enthusiasm: Engaging Students, Sparking Curiosity, and Jumpstarting Motivation | National Communication Association (natcom.org)

An enthusiastic teacher of English – How I see it now (wordpress.com)

Being an Enthusiastic Teacher – Swansea Academy of Learning and Teaching

What makes teachers enthusiastic: The interplay of positive affect, self-efficacy and job satisfaction – ScienceDirect

Sandie Mourao (2018), Research into the teaching of English as a foreign language in early childhood education and care, In: S.Garton, F.Copeland, The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners, Routledge, p. 429.

Crumbs #81 Making sandwiches aka a different type of Food Art

August 11, 2024 by Anka Zapart

Ingredients

anything that you want to use to make sandwiches, we used: toast bread, blueberries, cucumbers, carrots, cherry tomatoes, cheese slices
a few pictures to get the inspiration from, for yourself and for your students. There are lots of websites with creative sandwiches for kids but I wanted something simple that we could all make and that is why I just looked for illustrations on google. If you are looking for something more intricate, you can have a look here and here.
two plates for each child and a small plastic knife
we made the sandwiches in our lunch room

Procedures

We started with the picture that I created during our previous lesson, my own vegetable print and I asked the kids to guess which vegetables I used in another lesson on the same day (here) and we connected them to the flashcards of vegetables we had on the board. Before the lesson I also put up more flashcards, of all the other items to be used in our sandwiches, and we spend some time working on those, drilling and playing a game.
Important: before the lesson, I sent the list of ingredients to my administrators to ask them to buy everything we needed and to inquire with the parents if everything was ok and to check against the allergies that our students might have.
I told the kids that we would be making sandwiches and I showed them a few different patterns but I also stressed that everyone would be making their own monsters.
We relocated to the lunchroom, washed hands and sat down. The vegetables had already been washed and cut up: cucumbers into julienne and slices, carrots into julienne and slices, cheese into slices. Cherry tomatoes and berries were only washed and dried.
I was making my own sandwich, modelling what can be done and my T.A. was bringing plates with more and more veggies. I did my best to encourage the kids to ask for certain vegetables and we did it))
At the end, we went through all of the veggies to check that everyone used everything. (“Have you got any carrots?’)
Then, we went on to eat!

Why we like it

It was the most ideal follow-up of our lesson 1 (vocabulary) and lesson 2 (making print art with vegetables) and, finally, we could eat in class.
It was a great way of practising our target vocabulary, practical, hands-on, productive because we really, really used the language.
Apart from what I planned for this lesson, namely using the functional language in the context (‘Bread, please’), we also started to sing a new version of the Broccoli Ice-cream, using the combination of the things on the table and then tasting to check what we really think. And, guess what, it turns out that carrot cheese, blueberries cheese and blueberry carrot are all yummy!
The kids worked very well together, they reacted well to changing the set-up and the type of an activity. Nobody got overwhelmed or overexcited, they were patient and waited for their turn and they used the langauge. I was really proud of them.
Last but not least, we made sandwiches (some kids more than 1) and we ate A LOT of vegetables. I was worried for a while that dry bread might not be the most popular item but I did not want to include any spreads of any kind and it turned out not to be necessary. Actually, during the previous stages of the lesson, I asked whether the kids liked all of the items we had ready and I was lucky – everyone liked everything! But, even if not, they were not required to use or to eat all of the ingredients.
As for the creative element, I was laughing a lot during this lesson because my students and their monsters were just amazing and very creative. I showed just a model but I didn’t want them to follow directly in my footsteps. We all looked at our plates and everyone, clearly, had their own idea of what the monster should look like.

Happy teaching!

Hokusai, waves and watercolours!

July 21, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The language

This particular lesson was a part of our summer camp programme devoted to colours and that day was dedicated to ‘blue’ and all the blue associations, namely the sky, the water and the peace. For that reason, the language of the lesson was dictated and aligned with everything that we do in the other days of the session: talking about the things that are blue, miming and guessing, writing a poem about the colour blue and singing songs of which my favourite one is this one here, from Kiboomers, with a catchy tune and the repetition.

The artist

That particular lesson had a whole party of artists as I wanted the children to see a few different ways of depicting water in Art, with Turner, Hockney, Monet, Levitan and, of course, Hokusai. I live by the river and I have piles of photographs of the water and, as a joke, I decided to include one of my own photographs in the presentation. We looked through all of those, depicting a wild sea, a swimming pool, a pond with lillies, a wave and a river. Very briefly, we talked about the water being either calm or in movement and the children noticed themselves that there were no people in the paintings.

The art

For the creative part of our lesson, I chose Hokusai. He has been on my mind for a while, just waiting for the most opportune moment and this moment came. I also wanted something that my mixed age group would be able to handle and recreate. Calling Hokusai ‘simple’ would be offensive but it is a print, with lots of intricate elements but the power of the water can is really shown by the line and that is something that even the little kids can relate to and to act upon. And they did!

The other thing that I wanted to do in this lesson is the use of a variety of watercolour techniques. It was very tempting to go overboard and experiment on a large scale, using everything we worked with before (a post here), but my students are the moment are still beginners in Art and very young, so I decided to be a clever teacher and I chose only three: crayons and watercolours, salty water and what we called ‘a broken brush’.

Before the lesson, I cut up the paper and all the students got three pieces of paper (A5) which I attached to the tables with the paints scotch. This really helped to set up the activity as it was clear, from the very beginning that we are going to paint three pieces. The size of the paper made it possible as they easily fit on the small table and it was perfect as it would not require too much colouring and painting. Three were a feasible number in one 45-min lesson. We reinforeced that by counting the pieces of paper and matching them to ‘technique 1’, ‘technique 2’ and ‘technique 3’ which I wrote on the board.

At the same time, the most important piece of instruction for this lesson was ‘step by step’ that I kept repeating throughout the lesson. I wanted to make sure that no one will draw on all three pieces at the same time or just destroy the paper. Or anything else that a creative pre-schooler can come up with.

I demonstrated each technique for the kids, step by step and we went on to create. I left the salty water for the very end.

There are the techniques that we use:

crayons and watercolours: give out crayons, one per child, a crayon of any colour as it really does not matter and any colour will look good and then colour the picture with watercolours which will not affect the drawing.
the broken brush: give out crayons, one per child, draw the wave, proceed with colouring the picture but instead of smooth strokes use the broken paintbrush: pick some paint and make small stamps with the paintbrush, mistreating it and leaving prints similar what a duck would leave. When there are many of them, the wave get a wonderful texture, especially when different colours and shades are used. Even if the prints are done inexpertly, the wave is covered in blotches of colour and it looks lovely, too!
salty water: I walked around the room, adding water to the pots that all the kids had (in some cases we had to pour some fresh water as it was very dirty) and I asked them to stir it properly and then we used the water to dampen the paper as it is a wet-on-wet technique and then drawing waves and applying little drops of colour and watching how it spreads beautifully. Here, the crayon can be used, too, to sketch the wave but last week we decided not to.

It was a great lesson and I am very happy with the outcomes. The task was easy enough even for the youngest kids, especially that they had three chances and even if some of them did not feel very confident at the first step and the first wave, they all got a chance to do it again and it was visible how their confidence grew. Technically, it was not complicated so the kids could focus on the creativity and on enjoying the process. Which they really did, both my youngest ones and my oldest ones (that’s 5 and 8 y.o.).

We got a set of amazing pictures for all of them. It was interesting to leave the pictures for the lunchbreak to dry and to come back later to check, together, what changed and what they looked like in the end.

It is the camp so, of course, we had some new children joining the group and it turned out that this kind of a task had a lot of potential for the mixed ability groups, who had done nothing of the kind before and the combination of three techniques helps to build the routine even within one lesson. What’s more, this type of a task works very well for staging and getting the kids to listen, simply because we go ‘step by step’ and doing that is the crucial part of the process. It is good to have this kind of an activity at hand.

Sitting here, thinking that Hokusai was a great choice, for the kids and for the teacher, too! Now, I can dreaming of making a real Hokusai-inspired print. And of writing a few more posts that he accidentally inspired.

Welcome to our gallery!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #80 A clever drawing dictation

July 12, 2024 by Anka Zapart

‘Students draw…’ is one of the YL-related lines that is my personal pet peeve…You can see it in coursebooks, teachers’ books, in lesson plans and on the social media. The idea is that a bunch of seven-year-olds (or younger) will have their teacher give out the pencils and they will hear their teacher say ‘draw (insert your word)’ and they will just sit down, get an idea and complete the job in five minutes without any issues and (AND) afterwards they will be ready to talk about their pictures, to present their work or do whatever goes under the productive part of the project.

What a joke! It looks good on paper and in theory and in a real classroom it is going to translate into a neverending, unproductive, very often full of blood, sweat and tears task because the little people simply do not have the drawing skills, the time management, the imagination and the self-control necessary to complete the task that the adults imagine them to do and, more often than not, they will really want to do it well because they care, they love a project and they love drawing and those zoo animals, monsters and princesses that they were told to create. Or, quite possibly, they don’t like drawing, they are into other creative areas and they will devote precisely a total of sixty seconds to that task having then announced ‘I have finished’ and already on the lookout for other things to do. While their more involved peers are still busy and far from finishing, leaving the teacher with a room full of self-induced mixed ability group.

Is there a solution to that? Yes, there is. There must be. This ‘students draw’ has been on my mind for a very long time and there are some ways of handling it, the first of them – taking the coursebook and the ideas with a pinch of salt. Or two. The second of them, working on the staging and the clever way of keeping the activity in shape and everyone on the ball.

This is one of my solutions. It has worked very well with both groups and I am already thinking how to adapt it to other topics. As soon as I do come up with something and as soon as I trial and test, I will be adding to this post. For now, only one topic: the dinosaur.

Ingredients

Paper and pencils or markers for the children
A set of cards that help to shape up the drawing process, like the one that I used in a lesson in which we created our dinosaurs.

Procedures

It is noteworthy that the lesson in which we actually draw the dinosaur was only one of the series of lessons taught over a period of three weeks and was proceeded by a few lessons in which we introduced and practised new vocabulary, did a mini-research and described the appearance of different dinosaurs. After our dinosaurs were ready, we added a fact file, did lots of quizes on dinosaurs and, eventually, had a role-play aka an interview about a dinosaur. The drawing lesson was just a part of a long chain of activities.
The teacher asks the kids to open their notebooks and get the markers or pencils ready or give out the paper for the drawing, depending on the set-up in your context.
The teacher tells the students that they are going to create a dinosaur, their own dinosaur and that they will listen to the teacher and make decisions. It might be a good idea to show the children the cut-up cards and to tell them that each card is a decision about a dinosaur.
The teacher is supposed to draw their own dinsoaur, either on a piece of paper or on the board.
The activity starts with everyone drawing a circle or an oval for the dinosaur’s body in the middle of the page.
The teacher picks up the first card (i.e. ‘draw a long neck’ OR ‘draw a short neck’), the teacher reads it out loud and makes their own decision, announces it out loud and draws the neck for the dinosaur. The teacher then checks with all the students, in turns, what choice they have made, making sure they say out loud what they have decided to do. The kids draw, the teacher monitors.
The activity goes on, with the teacher doing one more round and then the students taking over and reading and dictating for the class and the teacher.
In the end, the student come up with the name for their dinosaur with the suffix -saurus (although it is, of course, not the only suffix used to created dinosaurs names).
The lesson finishes with all the students introducing their dinosaurs briefly and only in the following lessons do the students proceed with working on their dinosaurs (facts, role-playes etc).

Why we like it?

I loved how this format worked in the classroom. It was well staged and it helped me manage the children and their creativity, without losing control and without anybody finishing ahead of time or going on for too long. It was also a perfect combination of teacher-centred and of individual creative choices for every student.
I had quite a few cards to use but I was prepared to use all or not all of them, depending on how focused or interested my students would have been. In the two lessons / groups I did it with, we managed to go through all the cards (aka decisions).
The kids were prepared for the task, vocabulary-wise and we also could use it to practise it further, through reading, confirming, checking etc. The words were out there, in the air, throughout the entire lesson.
The kids absolutely loved their dinosaurs. Some of them even managed to finish their first dinoasaur, and draw another one.
It worked very well also as the preparation for the more productive part of the project, our interviews – role-plays in the following lessons.
Kids also enjoyed the fact of being responsible for making the decisions, step by step, while creating their dinosaurs.
I will definitely be applying this particular approach to our projects in the future.

Happy teaching!

Erik Bulatov. A word that is also a picture

June 29, 2024 by Anka Zapart

Even today, after a few days have passed since the day of the lesson, and with other lessons that have happened in-between, I am still simply, well, euphoric, about the lesson I taught and about the art we created. Cloud number 9.

I saw Bulatov in an exhibition more than ten years ago and, my oh my, what an inspiration he was. Really, I cannot think of anyone who had an impact comparable to him. And he stayed with me. For days on end did I draw letters and tried to make them work together. I even turned one of the pictures into a pillow case, in black and white.

A few weeks ago, I got to see his exhibition again and, once more, it was a blast, in every possible way and, naturally, I made an instant decision that we would do it in class, sooner or later.

The artist and the concept

It was with a real pleasure that I got to tell my students that our Artist of the Day is a contemporary artist who is almost 91 years old and who still lives in our city. They got really excited about it.

However, before we looked at Bulatov’s works, I wanted a proper lead-in. It seemed crucial to me that my students start to use the words as images, to have them look beyond the letters and to see the bigger picture. In order to do that I decided to use two tools or two tricks and I am so happy that what I came up with worked wonders.

The first, really easy exercise was to look at the colour words and to read them as words and as colours. There are plenty of resources that talk about the Stroop effect and pleny of resources to use: the online game, the article, the quiz video. I used a super simple visual, like this one here. The kids loved the challenge and I was having fun with them, quietly celebrating the fact that reading (all of a sudden) is an easy-peasy task for my almost-year-2 students.

For the following stage, I used my own illustrations of some of the Portuguese words which you can see the photographs. My students don’t speak Portuguese and I wanted to have them try to guess what they might mean just looking at the visuals. And they did so well here! Preparing those visuals took some time but I loved this kind of a homework and it made for a lovely evening for me. I chose ‘o sapo’, ‘a casa’, ‘o amor’ and ‘os olhos’ (without articles) simply because I had an idea for the illustration and I knew that my students will know these words in English. Obviously, any other words can be used and any other language that is appropriate in the context. I have already decided that when I teach this lesson again, I will use a wider range of words and a wider range of langauges.

At this point it was already obvious for the kids that words are more than ‘just words’ and we were ready to look at what Erik Bulatov created. I chose only five of the paintings. We looked at them and we briefly analysed why these particular words were presented in such a way. The main idea for this lesson was the sentence that I repeated a few times during the lesson and the one that is also the topic of that post: a word is also a picture.

The language

The language input was minimal in this lesson as we only talked about the different words that the kids could use. As an example, I suggested using their names, animals, food, emotions and professions (the theme of our summer camp). The kids had time to think about it (as we were getting ready for the creative part, bringing water, getting on the aprons, giving out paints and brushes) and when they were ready, I wrote all the words they suggested on the board.

I was considering showing them a few examples of the English words that were also turned into images such as a few variations of ‘love’, ‘a cat’ and ‘a dog’ but I decided not to put them up, just to see what the students can come up themselves.

It is worth mentioning, however, that, depending the language input can be extended and there is a lot of potential for combining this lesson with a lesson on animals, colours, seasons or fruit and vegetables. I will definitely be going back to it and I am already excited about it. I want to be perfectly honest here, though. I focused on the artistic part because we are at the summer camp at the moment and there are separate English and Art lessons and, hooray, we have more time for English and for Art. Our Art lesson, however, was done entirely in English.

The art

We used very basic materials: pencils and watercolours. We didn’t even have any real watercolour paper, because we ran out and we had to use the regular photocopying sheets. Not the best choice, but it didn’t stop us from creating.

I gave out the paper and pencils and we started to design our words. It is a good idea to keep a few spare pages of scrap paper for the kids to practice because it might be a bit complicated to get to the ‘acceptable’ level of quality of the letters or the picture, even with a good general idea, this does not happen naturally. I experienced that myself with my ‘casa’ picture and I was just so happy that I kept the drafts because I could show the kids that only practice makes perfect. Next time we are going to create Bulatov, I am also going to include different versions of his paintings that I saw at the exhibitions, either sketches (if they are at all available) or the same painting with various approches to the composition, size of letters or colours that I know exist. They will be a wonderful lesson into the creative process. Actually, here is another great idea for a lesson for me and for us, from the sketch to the masterpiece…Soon, I promise, soon!

After the sketches were ready and the kids were happy with them, we started to paint. That’s it. The only thing to follow will be only my admiration, love, excitement, awe and multiple rounds of applause and high-fives. My kids did great.

Here is what went well / very well / amazingly well:

We went smoothly from the main idea, to Bulatov’s paintings and to our own creations
The kids did great, many of them knew straight away what idea they want to depict and they just went for it. They worked very well, they were focused and motivated. Many finished their first original idea and went on creating.
Designing the ideal visual was not easy for all the kids and not all of them got there from the first time. Keeping the additional sheets of paper was a good idea, showing my failed attempts was a good idea, too, and it did help some of the kids. I was really proud of those who got upset at the begininng but decided to go on and created real masterpieces.
It was interesting to work with this particular group of kids because they were a new bunch, a mix of my students and some new children who joined us only for those two weeks. All of them, however, apart from one, were new to the artistic activity, unlike everyone who took part in our regular Art Explorers activities that I normally write about here. And it was such a joy to teach them and to take them into the world of creativity.
We used the simplest resources, the pencil and the watercolours, but I have already started to wonder what else we could use. Perhaps gouache, perhaps acrylic paints or maybe a mix of techniques, paints and a collage, with the newspaper cut-outs…So many things to think about!

The only thing left now is to invite you to admire what my amazing artists have created!

Happy teaching!

The unsung heroes of the YL/ VYL classroom. Volume 2

June 22, 2024 by Anka Zapart

This is the second post in the series and the link between them is the painter’s scotch that already futured in the first post but that is still one of my top 5 things in my bag. And here are some more…

The alphabet

We started the academic year with ‘Aa is for apple’ in our handwriting booklets and we spent the first three months on meticulous handwriting exercises. When we got to Zz and we were more or less familiar with the whole set of letters, I would write all of them on the top of the board for the kids to copy. I know that there are a lot of posters available on the market (and my school prints their own, too), but I just didn’t like them as they did not match my set of requirements: big letters, handwriting, font matching what we have been using and some visual representation, too, to help make them a little bit less abstract. With the visuals that we already know instead of some randomness such as ‘N – nest’, ‘Q – quilt’, ‘S – sparrow’, ‘Y – yak’ or even ‘X – xylopohone’ that are either very rare, well beyond the A1 level, not child-friendly or just vile (yes, I am talking about the xylophone that has the randomest pronunciaction of ‘x’ ever).

I made my own. I made two, one for 1A and one for 1B. The only thing necessary was an A1 piece of cardboard, a marker and a set of stickers.

It has spent the second half of the year on the walls of our classrooms and we used it as a reference point in all our writing exercises. The kids used it on their own and I used it, too, to direct them towards the correct letter. ‘Dd is for dog! Look!’. All in all, it helped us made huge progress with our literacy skills. No more than that but so much!

The chalk markers

When I found the Treasure of the Year, I was looking for something else entirely. I was getting ready for the Art classes, White on Black, googling for black drawing paper and white pencils. I found them and the lesson was great (you can read about it here) but what I also found the Solution of the Year and the Teacher’s Love of the Year: the chalk markers.

The thing is for the previous six months I had been forced to use the traditional blackboard and the traditional chalk and I hated every single moment of it, after all my educational like in the Polish state schools, fourteens years as a student and five as a teacher; hatred from the very bottom of my heart, because of the dry hands, because of the chalk dust on your clothes and because of the cloth. And then I found the chalk markers that I had not even known existed!

They are beyond amazing. They last a few weeks, they are just markers and they are quite thin so it is a dream to be writing with them and you can be very accurate and produce intricate letters and drawings. And they erase easily!

The trolley

I spent about three weeks of the academic year being miserable. I had two groups and two classrooms and the whole day was about moving from one to the other, together with everything that I needed in my teaching life: markers, toys, flashcards, cards, stamps, schoolbag, thermos, notebook, my magic wand, glue, craft paper, pencils…Most of the time wasting on it the entire length of the break. Every single time, every single day. The classrooms are door to door but, still, it meant making a few rounds, a few times a day. It’s not that I did not have a place to keep my things in either of these classrooms, I did, but it was still impossible to have two separate sets of cards, two separate sets of puppets, two separate sets of markers for the whole class.

The misery lasted almost a month until I had enough and I looked for solutions. I used to use boxes and baskets in the past, with my preschoolers but these would not work in these new circumstances. This is how I got my trolley, four metal shelves of happiness on wheels. Each shelf has its own theme and I keep there, going from the top: markers, flashcards and storybooks and puppets, cards, packets small scrap paper cards and handmade cards.

It is super easy to move from one classroom to the other or to roll it around the classroom while handing out boxes with markers. It is light so my students can help with it and they love doing it. They actually love to pretend play being flight attendants and giving out things. It made my life much easier.

One more thing! That trolley is getting me one step closer to becoming a Real Babushka!

The cupboards

One thing that I definitely had a chance to find out about myself is that I am thoroughly obsessed with order. It might have something to do with some form of OCD because mess and disorder makes me very unhappy. In the past, I must have lived in some kind of an ignorance but that’s because I was not obliged to share the classroom with another teacher on permanent basis. Until September 2023.

This was when I realised that I am deeply unhappy with the disorder on the table, on the cupbards, on the window sills and on the shelves. This was when I understood that I like my classroom near to empty, without all of these toys, games, books and (omg) candy that children have a full and unrestricted access to, which, of course, has a detrimental impact on the general classroom management. Alas, when you have to share, you just share and try to live to tell the story.

The cupboards made it possible and because there are two that I have got, I can be easy-going with how I organise the shelves and what I put things. In one word, I have room for everything. One full cupboard is filled with books, workbooks and notebooks and the other is my beloved Art cupboard, with all my resources, treasures, aprons and jars. They are all located at the back of the classroom and sometimes, when I teach, I like to glance at one or the other and smile. Peace and quiet, law and order in my resources.

The markers

There are many stationary items in the primary classroom, pencils, pens, crayons, coloured pencils but ‘Nothing compares to you’ is what I would sing to my boxes of markers. I think, perhaps, it might be because of the hours spent in the young learners’ and very young learners’ classroom or, in other words, because of the hours spent with people who are learning to hold a writing tool and people who are learning to use it to write their first words.

On behalf of my students, I prefer them to everything else, because, first of all, they are much easier to handle for an inexperienced hand, much easier to hold, requiring less muscle power to hold and to produce a line, very often much thicker and much lighter than anything else. Not to mention that because of the colours and the excitement of using them, they make the difficult and tiresome task of writing a tiny little bit more appealing and motivating.

We use them throughout the year to colour and, also, in the beginning of the year to write. I cannot really say exactly when we stop and switch to pencils and pens as it varies, from year to year but that is our general procedure.

Happy teaching!