#eflkids

What an old dog learnt… A YL teacher goes back into the adult classroom

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Me and one of my best friends, Roman B. No old dogs in this photo. Only the amazing ones (The photo: courtesy of Yulia. The doggo: courtesy of Jill)

Back to the future

It just happened: a dedicated YL teacher (and a teacher who spent the last ten years doing her best to stay away from teaching adults (minus the trainees!) all of a sudden found herself in the classroom with some serious corportate clinets and their Business English, General English, English for Finance and Banking, A2 – C1. Full time.

It has to be said out loud: that was not a direction that this teacher dreamed of or the developement that the teacher planned or solicited but, at the same time, there is absolutely no need to wring hands or shed tears over such a giggle of the Fate. After all, the teacher is an experienced one, with an oh-dear number of years in the classroom (and different types of classrooms, everywhere) so the teacher will be just fine. After all, teaching is teachings, the students are great, the fun is being had. All the details are here just to set the context.

The old dog aka the adult classroom through a YL teacher

This particular started with a most random thing. I don’t even remember what we were doing and with whom, but, suddenly, I caught myself thinking ‘Blin, even my kids can do THAT‘. There was no anger in it or desperation, only curiosity and bemusement. I started to analyse the details and bits and pieces of this THAT and the reasons for that. It started with a sigh but it got interesting very quickly.

Here is a new post and an attempt at looking at the adult EFL learners through the eyes spoilt by her young students.

One. Inhibitions

This is something that is almost non-existant in the YL classroom. Minus all these cases in which the kid have had a negative first experience with English, at school, with the tutors or parents or when they are naturally introvert and shy and they simply need more time to settle in the group and to feel comfortable enough to talk. Most commonly, the kids enter the room, eyes wide-open, ready to discover and to enjoy the world of the English language.

Then, there are adults, a completely different picture. Naturally, there are quite a few factors that can contribute such as a lower level, a long break in learning or using the language, some negative previous learning experience or studying in one group with colleagues from the same company or being a low-level speaker of English when you are already a top manager.

The result? Silence in the classroom.

I guess that is the silence that is the time they need to think about their answer, to choose the words, to gather the courage to let them out and, naturally, they get it. They do have the right to the freedom of silence. For me, the teacher, it is also an interesting exercise in patience. I realised that I have been spoilt with hands shooting up into the air and the opinions voiced almost instantly. Here, I am getting used to breathing more and waiting for the students to be ready.

I am beginning to think that building up the students’ confidence suddenly gets the priority among the lesson and the course aims as regards the adult learners of English. Everything else, the vocabulary, the structures and the skills development will follow. Hopefully.

Two. Teacher-oriented communication

On the one hand, the YL classes are definitely more teacher-centred than the adult classes. That is, to some extent, fully justified. Students, especially the younger ones, are in need of the teacher and the adult as the lesson leader. But only to some extent. I strongly believe that this should be one of the main aims of the course to create the conditions in which the students will be learning to interact with the teacher BUT also giving them a chance to learn to interact with each other. After all, whatever happens in the classroom is only a warm-up, only the preparation, only the training before the real life interaction. In which, most likely, the teacher is not going to take part. For that reason, the students should be given the tools and opportunities to talk to each other, to lead the activities, to take part in pair-work. There is no need to wait with it until they turn ten or fifteen. Some elements of that can be introduced even much earlier and pair-work is feasible in pre-school.

Somehow, it is not a given with the older students. Adults, either because they are more inhibited or because they see it as a sign of respect towards the teacher, they hold back, they wait, for the teacher to call their name out or for the teacher to at least signal that it is their turn to speak. I have realised that sometimes I have to specifically highlight that I am stepping out of the conversation, that the students, in pairs or as a whole group, have to take responsiblity for the interaction and that I will not be encouraging, keeping it up and, of course, leading it. We have been studying together for about three months now and I can already see some improvement in that area. Hooray to that!

Three. Communication strategies

Communication strategies is one of my true professional passions and that is why it was chosen for my first research within the MA programme. Inspired by Haenni Hoti, Heinzman and Mueller (2003) (or, rather ‘taken aback by the comments of’) that claimed that young learners use a very limited range of communication strategies, basically limiting those to translation and code-switching (aka using a combination of L1 and L2), based on the gut feeling from the classroom, I decided to check it out. And, to prove them wrong. Hopefully.

Although my research was a very small scale and low-key and by a beginner researcher, I found out enough evidence to get me even more interested in the topic. My little students proved to be already effective communicators who work hard and who have a good range of different techniques to get the message across such as all-purpose words, approximation, direct appeal for help, indirect appeal for help, self-repair, other-repair and mime. The range was much wider. Translation and code-switching were used, too, and they were the most frequent ones, however, they were not the only ones.

Then, there are the adults and guess what, these adults, ‘Come as you are’, before I get to work on them, they know only one communication strategy and that is ‘translation’. falling back into their L1, straightaway, whenever something is unclear, unknown and uncertain. I am not even sure why it is assumed that the learners (let alone the young ones) will use these strategies of their accord. I haven’t researched that properly, yet, but perhaps it has got nothing to do with the age of the student or, rather, not only with the age of the student, and more with the learning experience and the opportunities to be acquainted with and to develop these strategies.

The adult students (my adult students) struggled in that area and if they didn’t know, they would immediately switch to L1 and they would expect an answer. Working around that by delaying the translation, encouraging them to try something else or, also, providing both, the L2 only and the translation was quite a challenge and I know that some of them were surprised that I don’t just provide the required service aka translation, that I am trying something else. They had it written all over the face. I can’t say my job is done here, far from it but we are working on it. And it is a bit better now.

Four. Sharing ideas

Teacher beliefs are a slippery topic and most of the time we don’t even think about them. It was only last year (and somewhere by the end of it) when I realised why I am a teacher and what I want from my lessons.

Everything happened thanks to one Sasha who joined our group and who, despite the eight months spent with the rest of the team, in a very welcoming and friendly environment, despite the fact that she got on with everyone, Sasha still would keep quiet in class unless I asked her a question and unless I called out her name. I had never even thought about it and only then did I understand that I want to create such an atmosphere in the lesson in which my students feel free to talk because they have something to share with the rest of the group, not because they have to, not because the teacher made them, not because the teacher asked the question or because the teacher is testing them. They talk because they have something to say. And I want them to feel that they can. This is something that we have been working on from the very beginning.

It was one more thing that was ‘not so obvious’ for my adult students. They stalled. They do, still, sometimes. Again, it might be due to a whole range of factors, the natural shyness, the lack of confidence, the level of English, the relations in the workplace, if they come from the same company, or even the natural politeness. It is not a given that everyone will be speaking during the lesson time because speaking and developing the communicative skills is the reason why we come to class.

Five. All ideas are good ideas.

That is a sad fact: adulthood and reality kills creativity and imagination. Long gone are the days of fairy tales and fantasy travels with Frodo or magical battles with Harry. Well, in most cases. For that reason, if the question is about playing football and the student does not play football, the rest, dramatically, is silence…With kids silence never ever happens, and that is especially amazing, because, more often than not, we do things that have nothing or very little to do with the real life. All these menus for the monster cafe, all these school trips around the world, or to the moon or, our life as pirates…Silence is a rare event. Thank heavens.

This post is not to be read as a huge, one thousand word, complaint about my adult students. It is certainly not. I am doing a good job, I like them and we are making progress. I am just positively amazed that with my young learners, we have done SO MUCH (and to be honest, so much we have done by accident, unwillingly, joyfully, just for laughs) to enable the kids and to ensure that they are effective communicators.

I would like to think that my kids are not in danger of being scared to scared, inhibited, with a strong affective factor. This ship has sailed.

This line, so frequently used in my kids classes, started to appear in my adult classes.

See this is basically what happens when you send a YL teacher into the adult classroom. There is a lot of dedication, professionalism and lots of good lessons are happening. But the teacher has a one track mind and everything is somehow YL-related:-)

Bibliography

A. Haenni Hoti, S. Heinzmann and S. Mueller (2003), I can help you? Assessing speaking skills and interaction strategies of young learners, In: M. Nikolov (ed), The Age Factor and and Early Language Learning, De Grutyer.

Happy teaching!

What do the teachers want from their primary coursebooks?

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Dedicated to my teachers and the publishers)

The list below is the result of brainstorming I decided to include in the session devoted to working with coursebooks, as part of the Teaching YL Course I ran recently. We were trying hard to stay away from the word ‘realistic’. The whole activity was more like writing a letter to Santa and asking for a unicorn, knowing that, most likely, it is not going to happen, but…

A perfect coursebook for primary school children learning English includes (in an alphabetical order):

  • a set of simple boardgames that could be used with a variety of activities
  • cartoons series, to support the early literacy development
  • characters: a combination of real children communicating and fantasy heroes
  • Content and Language Integrated Learning activities
  • flashcards
  • games ideas and suggestions
  • a grammar book to support grammar practise
  • a presentation kit for teachers
  • an appropriate level of challenge throughout the each unit, each level and the entire course and ideas how to manipulate it for the more or less talented children
  • a literacy skills development curriculum, thorough and detailed
  • mini-flashcards, photocopiable
  • mixed ability groups ideas and suggestions
  • an online component
  • activities that help to set up pair-work
  • posters
  • preparation for Cambridge YLE
  • project ideas and suggestions
  • songs
  • stickers activities
  • stories
  • a student book
  • a teacher’s book
  • a variety of visuals: photographs, drawings, paintings
  • a video course for teachers
  • a workbook

It struck me that nobody mentioned testing or assessment. Either we don’t see it as a part of the coursebook and one of the course components or, perhaps, we just don’t care that much about testing

Then, of course, I went online, to have a look at what the major publishers have on offer and I found some nice surprises such as lots of time and effort invested in creating the online components but also some more traditional ones such as posters or home booklets (kind of graded, coursebook-related magazines for kids), wordcards or professional development programme, to name just a few.

I will take it as a good sign. Here is to even better coursebooks and to publishers listening to teacher.

Happy teaching!

P.S. Anything else to add to the list? What do you think?

Crumbs #34 The Weird Echo game

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A beautiful bird from the folk embroidery patterns, traditional in the area of Kashuby (the north of Poland)

Ingredients

  • A grammar structure, for us it was the Present Perfect sentences with yet and answers with already and yet. If you are interested in the lessons that it was used, you can find out more here. I will present it based on this particular structure, but, naturally, the game can be used with a variety of structures, too.
  • A group of kids
  • The whiteboard where to present the pattern and the options, the online whiteboard or just a slide in your presentation.

Procedure

  • Introduce the structure in anyway you find appropriate. This time I actually used the coursebook materials (Superminds 5, CUP, Puchta and Gerngross) and the idea of the uncle sailor who has visited some countries and who has not visited some other ones, not yet anyway. And it must have been this activity that inspired me to come up with the game)
  • There is a set of pictures of all the flags in the coursebook and we used these flags in a simple controlled, drill-like activity: the teacher calls out the name of one of the countries, the kids (and the teacher) react by producing true sentences about themselves, based on whether they have visited these countries or not yet. The slide for this activity looked more or less like that:
  • After a few rounds, the kids take over and call out the countries from the list. After a few more rounds, they are allowed to call out the countries not included in the coursebook as well as any other places, countries, cities and famous places ie Germany, Dubai, Saint Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery etc.
  • In the following lesson, we went one step further. And then more. After we checked the homework, I showed another slide, with four variations of things we have already eated, drunk, seen and the places we have been to that day. The slide looked more or less like that:
  • First, the teacher models the activity, with each of the versions, for example a banana, coffee, the bathroom, my friend and the students react, producing the relevant sentences. After that, the students take over and lead the activity.
  • All the other versions which may appear ie written a test are allowed.

Why we like it

  • The game is an opportunity to practise the target langauge in a controlled way with some (albeit not a lot) freer practice and some personalisation.
  • It is also an opportunity to drill the structure, to perfect the intonation and the sentence stress. It can be done chorally (the kids produce all the sentences together which is less risky and much safer, especially for the shy students) or taking turns. In real life, the activity was a mixture of both and I simply let it be, although, of course, the teacher can insist on either choral or individual production.
  • Very little preparation, if any. In the first part of the task, we were able to use the coursebook materials, the visuals (the flags) and the model sentences which were already on the page. The second part required the model sentences on display, at least in the beginning. This was the first time we played this game. I suppose these will be less necessary in the future.
  • There is a lot of potential for students’ involvement: first of all, they are personalising, sharing some details from their life. But of course, there is more to that – the students are also invited to lead the game and to suggest topics, places, food, things they are interested in. This also helps to make the activity memorable.
  • We did it as a whole class but it can be done in small groups or teams, too.
  • I created it for the lesson on the Present Perfect but I believe that it can be used with the other structures, with slight adaptations ie the Present Simple and the adverbs of frequency (T: watch the news, SS: I never watch the news, I always watch the news), the Past Simple structures (T: go to school, SS: I went to school, I didn’t go to school), or the adjectives to express opinions (T: Maths, SS: Maths is easy, Maths is difficult) etc.
  • My students are kids but I can see a lot of potential for this game with my adult beginners group, too.
  • The name! Of course I like it because I came up with it but I think it does reflect the principles of the game and it is its brief description: you echo but you adapt, too)

Happy teaching!

My adorable monsters. About the long-term work with a group

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This post, like many others, starts in the classroom…

The thought falls on my head out of nowhere.

We are playing the game with the first conditional. There are only four of them, on the day, in-between the holidays, so we don’t even bother to go into the breakout rooms, we are playing together. It is not even a real game, either. Someone starts a sentence, someone else, called out, thinks of an ending, action – reaction, a situation – consequences. And they are just producing. Coming up with great ideas, some of the sentences just down to earth and realistic, some of them, as we call them, ‘creative’, just for laughs. And so we laugh out loud. A trainer in me suddenly realises that the lesson plan (if there had been a formal lesson plan) should include not only the traditional elements, like the staging and ‘the teacher will’ and ‘the students will’. The trainer in me realised that it might be worth considering to include a laughing fit and the necessary calming down part in the timing, in the assumptions and the potential problems and solutions…We laugh a lot with my kids.

Unavoidably, I realise, I get those constant flashbacks, those mini-trips into the past and I am looking at my students, today already 10 and 9 (or 8 and 7, still, some of them) and I remember how we walked into the classroom together, for the first time, me on my toes, all eyes, all ears, and them cautiously taking every step and every action. I do remember how we learned to say ‘Hello’ for the first time with some of them and how we first said that we don’t like broccoli ice-cream (except for Nadia, my little rebel). How I used to need lots of miming and scaffolding and modelling, with every single activity and how they’d start with single words, then move to phrases and to sentences.

And I, who was present, 99% of the time, over those seven years, I cannot believe my own eyes and my own ears now, how they throw the language at me, storytelling, or using the Present Perfect in free speech. Or the first conditional.

What does it mean for a teacher to continue for an extended period of time? What does it mean for the business? How does the methodology change? Does it change at all? What do the parents think? And, last but not least, perhaps it would be better to change the teacher once in a while?

This post will be very personal. This post will be very emotional. But I would like to look at it from the other points of view, too, thinking like a trainer, thinking like a methodology expert and, also, inevitably, thinking like a teacher and like a human, too.

In order to make it a bit more objective and more like a research, I asked my teacher friends for help. This post was written with the help, support and contributions from my amazing colleagues: Ekaterina Balaganskaya, Nadezhda Bukina, Marina Borisova and Tatiana Kistanova. Thank you!!!

Are you still up for such an adventure? Follow me.

Over to…a teacher trainer

  • You know your students very well, in every aspect, including the interests, their motivation, the family situation, the strengths, the areas that need improvement, the interaction patterns that they favour, their best friends in and outside of the group, their favourite activities and games, their role in the group. This helps a lot with lesson planning, shaping up and choosing the activities and, later on, in class, with managing the activities, the lesson time and the interaction patterns.
  • Giving instructions is much easier, after a while. The students know you very well, too, that they are almost able to read your mind and to react to any, even those less formal hints and clues. Quite likely before you give them.
  • You need to be creative because after a while, your students might get bored with the activities you usually use. This might not sound like something positive because it means that you are at risk of running out of anything that you normally keep up your sleeve in terms of games, classroom management techniques or ways of checking homework, for example, but I would like to see it a more positive light. Working with a long-term group can be a wonderful catalyst for your creativity and, as a result, there are more new games, classroom management techniques and ways of checking homework!!!
  • It is perfectly natural that with any new group, a teacher strives to build up the comfort zone in order to ensure the conditions for the effective teaching and learning. However, once that comfort zone is created (and after a few years with a group it is likely to be a very stable comfort zone, a very cozy and safe ZPD, hello Leo Vygotsky), the teacher can start dreaming of venturing out and trying out new things on a much more advanced level. Not only a new game to practise vocabulary but a new approach that you may have heard about such as introducing a new approach to storytelling after you have found out about PEPELT, setting up journals with your students, just because you read that one research article or just taking your lifelong passion for teaching English through another level. Or, actually, you might even want to start a blog at one point. An experimenter is, I believe, one of the most important teacher roles!
  • Teaching long-term, you are moving on, together with your students and that means changing and adapting the approaches and techqniues to match them to needs of the kids who are growing up. With time, kids are becoming more mature and more capable of producing the language and dealing with more and more complex tasks. They say that a rolling stone gathers no moss and the same can be said about teachers who are growing and developing with their students. Sure, some of that can be achieved within one year, but there is definitely a lot more potential for the changes and the evolutions if the learning process takes a bit longer than just one season.
  • My colleagues also mentioned the impact on the learning process and the very shaping of the curriculum as it was adapted to the particular needs of the students. Instead of just following the book (or the curriculum whichever form it came in), as might be the case with a less involved teacher (although, of course, I am not implying that working with a group for a season only equals lower quality service), with a longer term group a teacher is able to introduce a circular / spiral curriculum, introduced to the world by Bruner and to me be Ekaterina, with the teacher returning and revising the crucial elements of the language, regardless of what the coursebook or the pacing schedule says. For example, working on the past simple (served in manageable chunks) from the beginning of the year instead of waiting until April when that topic appears in the book. This was Ekaterina’s example and I realised that we have been doing the same with my kids, simply because I wanted us to have the language (or some bites of it) for us to be able to talk about the weekend and the holidays and the day at school. Tatiana also mentioned it as one of the key benefits as knowing the group helps the teacher set the pace that will be most appropriate for this particular bunch of children.
  • Over to… a manager
  • Students staying for a few years are basically your returning customers, your loyal customers and your dream come true. As they would be in any other area. They come back, month after month and year after year and they make the world go round, basically.
  • What’s more, these students are also likely to bring in other students, their friends, brothers, sisters, cousins or even parents, to join your groups or the other groups at the school. Since there has been a positive experience in the family, so to speak, these are also likely to stay.
  • The fact that you have worked out the patterns and the procedures of managing the finances, the group, the assessment or the festivities, will mean that these will be easier to implement.
  • This will be a huge advantage, should there be any changes to adapt to, even those unexpected and unplanned, as in case of the pandemic. Perhaps that was not the case in all the countries and with all the groups and students but, in my experience, many of those that went online, smoothly, were the long-term students and groups and they basically trusted their teacher to transfer online or, later on, to study in the hybrid classroom.
  • That also means that a strong bond and trust will be built and the parents will be more likely to accept any changes or even any complications such as the need to move online, the need to change the timetable, the need to make up for the class or to run the lesson online, or even, to have a cover class.
  • Staying with ‘the old’ teacher might also be easier for the parents which was a very important point made by Ekaterina. Parents are busy, they might not be able to devote a huge amount of time to looking for a new teacher, a new school or a new group and they might also worry that their child would not fit in the new set-up. Some parents fear that due to the previous negative experience, either with the school, the group or even the teacher’s professional competence. Staying is easier.

Over to… a teacher

  • The first one to mention here will be the enormous sense of achievement that a teacher can get from working with a group for an extended period of time and the opportunity to observe and to assess the same students, not only from September to May, from the beginning to the end of the level but over the years, from pre-A to A2 or even further.
  • Teaching a group over any longer period of time provides the teacher with plenty of opporunities and a lot of data for formative assessment, as pointed out by Ekaterina. It will apply to all the language skills as well as vocabulary and grammar, accuracy and fluency. Let’s take the past simple as an example. There will be the series of lessons devoted to the topic, a series of lessons per level or coursebook even, and the students might do well in these lessons. However, it will be up to the teacher to track whether and how accurately the students use it to describe the past events in free speech, recalling the events of the day at school or retelling a story. The aims of these two activities are not the freer grammar practice per se but, for example, settling in and checking understanding after a reading skills development stage. It might (and it will!) take a considerable period of time for the students to finally assimilate the structure and to start using it freely and correctly. I have also noticed in my teaching that with time I tend to prioritise formative assessment over summative assessment but this is a new discovery and I need some time to think about it before I write about. A new post? Who knows)
  • Creating a positive atmosphe in the classroom, creating the environment that will be beneficial for learning, learning about your students and their needs is something that we, as teachers, do regardless, but there is something special in the connection that you build with a group over the years. You accompany them in their lives outside of the classroom, all the good marks and bad marks, all the competitions, holidays and birthdays. You get to meet their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and all the pets. You take part in the important family events, such as the births of baby brothers and sisters or even those more traumatic events like an illness or a death of a family member and, whether you want it or not, you bond. To an outsider it might sound strange but there must be a reason why so many teachers refer to their students as ‘my children‘ or, sometimes, when in a non-teaching environment, ‘my educational children’.
  • Then, there is the pride in all their achievements and progress that they are making. Going back and reminiscing about all the milestones, all the firsts is a truly wonderful journey for a teacher to take: the first lesson ever, the first time we made full sentences, the first time we started to create in English, the first letters scribbled, the first story we did and the first time they asked to be allowed to take over the story reading, the first test, the first real grammar lesson, the first ‘OMG, I cannot stop them from chattering away‘ day or every time they took an exam, Starters, Movers, Flyers, KET, PET, FCE or, finally, also, CAE.

Over to…a human

‘If you meet with the same people twice a week for 8 – 10 years, you can’t help loving them‘ (Marina)

‘It’s a joy to see them grow, to see the progress and the results. Develop relationships and see them enter a new age group‘ (Nadezhda)

‘The best thing about it was that I knew them and they knew me, the rapport was strong‘ (Tatiana)

‘When I was moving a country, they were devastated. Luckily, we could continue our lessons online‘ (Ekaterina)

  • The group is a community. Ekaterina mentioned that the kids in the group she has been teaching for seven years became friends outside the group and that they all meet offline when that is possible, even go out for pizza or to a museum. Even when those outside events are not possible, the group can celebrate together either because they get a Christmas-themed lesson or because they all bring snack and have a little party at the end of the lesson. Even if it is an online lesson.
  • It is interesting that the personal preferences work both ways and that the resistance to change the teacher might come from the students, too, as you will see in the stories for teachers that I share in the paragraph below and that, as Marina highlighted, the fact that some students stay with you (and, of course, not all of them will) is based also on their personal preferences and attachement to the teacher. Staying for longer may be seen as a result not some intertia, the inability or laziness to find a new teacher, but, simply, a conscious decision on the part of the parents and the students.
  • Or on the part of the teacher, too. As pointed out by Tatiana, it might be related to the teacher’s own personality, if the long-term connections are important for them, as humans. Or, it might be the impact of the context in which they are working as the changes, imposed or not, are more likely to take place in different educational institutions whereas the teachers who work freelance would probably be in favour of keeping the students, unless, of course, it is impossible due to any external circumstances.
  • As for me, personally, well, I love what I do. Yes, there are sometimes duties, tasks or even groups that I am not entirely wildly excited about but, overall, I enter the classroom, online or offline, with joy and looking forward to the lesson. And one of the reasons for that are my students and, especially, my educational children aka my adorable monsters. It is thanks to them that I have blossomed as a creator, as a teacher and as a trainer. It is thanks to them that I was able to cope with the strains of the lockdown and it is thanks to them that ‘I am still standing‘, as Elton John might put it, when the world is what it is right now.
  • At the beginning of the pandemic, when we were about to transition online and change our EFL lives forever, I remember how I felt about the big unknown and how, pretty quickly, it became apparent, that no matter what (really, no matter what) we are what we are, a small (and a bit loud) community and that we had had enough experience of each other worked out and accumulated and that we can take it elsewhere. I remember one morning, just before the lessons were about to start (the first real lesson, not the free online trial and getting to know each other with zoom) how I felt the panic creep over. But I also remember the thought: ‘Hold on, they are my kids. That’s is. We will just do it, under slightly different circumstances‘. And, guess what? We did.

A change would do you good? The other side of the coin

Because, of course, there is one! Changing the teacher might be beneficial! On the one hand, as Nadezhda mentioned, the teachers themselves might feel the impact of the long-term interaction, some form of material fatigue, and in such a case a change is more than welcome. In such cases a change of a teacher might be the solution. A new teacher means new methods, new approaches, a different sense of humour…

Sometimes this ‘tiredness’ and the call for a change may come from the fact that students are growing and transitioning into another age group and the students might welcome a more official confirmation or recognition of that process. Perhaps, the change of a teacher might do the job here. If, for example, it is Mr Alexander is the teenage groups’ teacher then him taking over the group from taught so far by Miss Carolina is going to be some form of a rite of passage.

However, it needs to be mentioned, it is not as straightforward as it might seem. First and foremost, the students may not want to change the teacher at all and, in such cases, it is enough to tweak the format or the routine a bit. Then it might be that the outside circumstances change and they sort the problem out. Ekaterina shared her story of one of her groups with whom she started to consider the possible change of a teacher as the kids’ growing up and changing into teenagers resulted in some discipline issues and, as a result, the lessons not being as effective as they previously had been. However, here, the problem sorted itself out – due to the pandemic the class was transferred online and it turned out that the physical separatation (or the space and the own territory that the students gained) was the only thing that the group needed. They still continue with Ekaterina as their teacher.

This brought my own group to mind. The kids were still in pre-school, year 3, when we were asked to give our cosy kiddies classroom to a younger group. We moved and the most surprising thing was that it turned out to be an important stepping stone for the students. ‘We are real students now!’, they kept repeating and back then I was just listening to them and giggling inside that the big desks and big chairs can make anyone so excited. Today, when I look back at it, it seems to be this perfect moment in the life of a group when a change was needed. And it did take place, although, yes, without changing the teacher.

The most important thing to consider here is how the students can benefit from the new circumstances. Marina brought it up, too and, Ekaterina gave a perfect example from the British schools. In the schools her children attend, there is an obligatory change of a teacher every year, with Miss Elena only teaching the 4th-grades, Mr Peter only working with the 6th graders and so on. The system was introduced in the school to ensure fairness. This way, all the children get a change to work with all the teachers throughout their school life and the is no chance that, due to some ‘preferences’, class 4A only gets ‘the best teachers’. Not to mention that this must contribute a lot to bonding and building of the community as little Pasha will know all the teachers personally and all the teachers, after a while, will have had Pasha in their classrooms.

The end is the beginning is the end…

The most interesting thing is that, from among the teachers who waved back at me and wanted to chat about the long-term teaching of a group, there was nobody who would be a strong proponent of the Change the Teacher Every Year approach. Can it be considered a sign? I have no idea but, if, by any chance, there is anyone among my readers who has had an experience with it, please, pretty please, get in touch, I would love to talk to you!

Happy teaching!

All’s well that ends well. Activities to finish the lesson with*

by
No, not the ice-cream)

A lesson is like…

There is nothing like a good metaphor and I use it a lot in the classroom, to give feedback to my students (‘Your essay is a bit like a skeleton, all the good bones but no muscles at all’), to explain grammar (‘Reported speech is basically telling stories’) or to manage the behaviour of my younger students (‘This desk, Sasha, is like your island and these other desks are other island. We don’t travel there. Never ever ever!’).

I also started to use metaphors in teacher training and, of course, you can read about it here and here and this is how this post started, too.

I asked my trainees ones how they would describe a lesson in terms of a metaphor and I found out that a lesson is a lot like: playing football, playing a game of snakes and ladders, a journey, a frame…I am getting goosebumps now because I know that there WILL BE a separate post about that, soon.

A lesson is like a story

Oh yes, it is! In a good story you absolutely need a good opening line (this is how I choose my books, yes. Because if the author did not bother to make an effort to say hello properly, why would we even be talking, eh?), a set of interesting characters, some adventures, some challenges and achievements, a climax and the ending.

In terms of a lesson, these would stand for a warmer activity (a good opening line), the community of the teacher and the students (yes, we are the characters), some engaging activities (our adventures), some new things, some learning and development (or the challenges and the achievements), one amazing focused task because all the roads lead to Rome (and this is our methodological climax) and….a good cool-down activity aka the ending.

We absolutely need the ending!

First and foremost, a lesson needs an official round-up, the final touch, the coda, the summary of everything that has happened during the lesson. Since one does not walk into the classroom and start the lesson without saying ‘Hello’, nor does one leave without saying ‘Goodbye’, there should be the first real activity of the lesson and the last real activity, too.

What’s more, a good ending of a lesson is also an introduction to the following one. If the lesson finishes on a high note, the students will leave the room looking forward to coming back next time.

Move! By Super Simple Songs! If you haven’t used it before, find it asap!

# 1 Finishing with a song

An easy and no-prep resource, especially with the younger students. A song is a signal for the students that we are finishing but it can be also a signal for the parents waiting in the hallway. It can be the same good-bye song in every lesson but it can be a song that the students choose to finish the lesson with. This is an especially useful trick with the older and more advanced children, who might eventually get bored with the same song. With one of my online students we had a tradition of choosing one of her favourite songs, in Russian, to listen to and to dance, after the offcial lesson time, just as this thing that we did together (and I had a longer break in-between classes and I could spare a few minutes). One of my trainees, Nathalie (lots of virtual hugs here), also built in a dance into her class routine. At the end of the lesson, the kids would choose one of the Super Simple Songs, for example, get up, find a place in the middle of the classroom and just dance and sing, together with the teacher and then go home.

I have yet to start experimenting with songs with my older students.

# 2 Finishing with a story

Admittedly, that is a part of the routine that is something of a staple food in my pre-school and primary school EFL lessons. Stories, both storybooks or videos, can be used either to revise the key language or to introduce and practise the new language, not quite related to the topic of the lesson. From the point of the view of the lesson, the story is a part of the ritual and something that helps to build the class community.

In the classroom, we clean up after the focused task, set homework and go back to the carpet (preschoolers) or to our hello circle (primary), we choose a story and read or watch it and talk about it. Then, the only thing left is the goodbye-song. And stickers).

This is, probably, one of my favourite ways of finishing a lesson, because we get a chance to settle, to bond, to practise the language and to express opinion, all in one. I am wondering whether and how my older students could benefit from these, too. Something to experiment with in the next academic year, perhaps?

This is the feedback the kids left after the first week of the summer camp activities

# 3 Finishing with a feedback session

There are many ways of organising a feedback session after the lesson, depending on the aim of the feedback session.

  • Self-reflection when the teacher is simply irrelevant (in a way). The main aim is to give the students an opportunity to look back at the lesson and to consider the learning process. In this case, the students work in pairs or small groups and share their views, answering a set of questions, such as: What did you like? What was the most difficult / interesting / boring / the easiest part of the lesson?
  • Feedback for the teacher: students can leave their comments on the board or on the wall (or the door!) if the feedback is to be anonymous or they take part in a discussion in small groups or as a whole class.

It is up to the teacher to decide how frequently any kind of feedback can be carried out: once a week, once a month, after each test or after any lesson with a new element in it such as a new activity or a new game.

This is our feedback after one of the tests

# 4 Finishing with a self-reflection task

This activity is an extension of the previous point but it focuses more specifically on the content and, even more specifically, on the vocabulary. My students (primary and teens) had their notebooks which we used for taking notes and for the self-reflection tasks, too.

At the end of the vocabulary lesson, the kids take their notebooks and look back at the lesson and categorise the words according to a number of the following categories: the difficult words, the easy words, the useful words, the words that look strange, the words that sound strange, the words that may not be very useful…

They can either create their own lists by copying the items from the board or the coursebook and by categorising or colour-coding them. A short speaking activity would follow in which the students explain their choices to their partners in pairs or small teams.

# 5 A revision task

That is another set of tasks that we sometimes use also based on the key vocabulary in each particular lesson and it has got a lot to do with everything that is written on the board already such as the new language or the emergent langauge. The main aim here is to give the students one more opportunity to use the target language. Since these games have no definite ending, their length can be adapted to the amount time left in the lesson.

The students work in pairs and can play one of the following games:

  • Definitions: student A calls out the word / phrase, student B: provides a definition and an example, then they change, the teacher helps out only when necessary (aka the word has already been forgotten)
  • Synonyms and antonyms: student A calls out the word / phrase, student B: provides a synonym or an antonym
  • Questions: student A chooses a word / a phrase and asks student B a question that includes that word / phrase. Then they swap roles.
  • A story: students work in pairs, they take turns and tell a story, using different words / phrases from the board
  • Pairs: students take turns and they try to find connections between different items on the board, based on meaning, pronunciation, grammatical category or associations

Sometimes we also play the memory game with the whole class: the students take turns to close their eyes, the teacher erases one or two items, the students open their eyes and try to recall the words that have disappeared as well as all the other words and phrases from the previous rounds. The class listen and help out with definitions and associations. The bonus? The board gets cleaned))

# 6 Finishing with an introduction to the following lesson

This approach to the finishing the lesson was the result of the reality of the teaching life. No matter how well you plan your lessons and how many optional activities you have up your sleeve, it might still happen that everything has been done and there is still some time left but not enough time for the teacher to properly spread the wings, be it in a game or in any other fully-fledged task.

In such a case, it might be a good idea to introduce the topic of the following lesson, without properly setting the context (no, time, remember?) for example by:

  • introducing the title of the reading, the topic, for example through a game of hangman and a discussion about the students’ expectations and prediction
  • talking about the visuals that accompany the following topic, without going into any details
  • three questions to help the students relate to the following topic for example: What do you think about…? Have you ever…? Do young people in your country often…?

This will create a link between the lessons and it can be further extended by a homework along the lines of: ‘Find out more about…’. All of these can be easily adapted to almost any topic.

# 7 Finishing with a game

The games chosen to finish the lesson with should be fun (the students are already tired and less able to focus), fast (if there is a lot of time left, perhaps it should be devoted to something else) and offering some flexibility to the teacher (aka games with no definite end or result that can be stopped or paused at any given point).

We like to play:

  • Categories aka STOP: students work in pairs or small teams, they write one word in each category beginning with a specific letter, afterwards the teacher awards the points.
  • The Game of 5: each team or pair prepares a list of 5 in their category (a separate and unique one) such as 5 irregular verbs, 5 cities in Europe, 5 farm animals etc. Afterwards, the teams have a minute to guess all the words their partners have come up with. They can get 50 points in each round, 10 points for every word they manage to guess with the team setting the task getting 10 points for every word their partners did not manage to guess.
  • One-Minute Game: this a game that requires a set of flashcards (very easy to prepare) or a set of word cards (prepared by the teacher throughout the year, can be easily recycled). Students work in small teams as they take turns to explain as many words out of the set (definitions, associations or miming) to their team within one minute. I am pretty sure that this was loosely based on some kind of a game show but I have no idea which one. Oups.

In order to better manage the game and time in class, we started to play these with the same teams over a series of lessons, pausing when it is time to go home and recommencing in the following lesson.

The stained glass project: in the making

Bonus: An Art Project

‘Anka, what’s this?’ the kids asked when entering the classroom and noticing a few boxes of the stainglass paints.

‘These are special paints. We used them to make these special pictures with the little kids.’

‘Anka!’ they said, in that very special tone of voice that my kids have mastered, the voice reserved for these particular occasions, to compain, to chide and to express disappointment. ‘The little kids? And what about us?’

So I had to think of a way of including this particular project in our classes. Making stained glass pictures is one of the coolest activities ever but it takes time as the various layers need to get dry before you apply the following ones and there is virtually no chance of completing a task in one lesson. Not to mention that it is a perfect decorative kind of a craft and trying to adapt it in order to maximise production would be simply counterproductive.

Instead, I wrote to the parents and I explained that, instead of a game, at the end of the lesson, for the next few lessons, we would be preparing our own stained glass pictures. The kids chose a template or designed their own pictures, they drew the outlines, they coloured them in and, as soon as they were ready, they took them home to cut out and to display them. All in all, it took about 5 minutes over a series of four lessons.

The Chameleon Day!

Bonus: The Chameleon Day aka Google Search

Choosing virtual stickers is not a new idea and thanks to Miro we have lots and lots of fun and we can keep track of all of our stickers throughout the entire year, if necessary. Here you can read how we deal with that with my primary students.

Further reading

The 9 Best Ways to Finish EFL Lessons from the ELT Guide

End of Lesson Activities for ESL Classes from English Teaching 101

7 Best Ways to End a Lesson from Busy Teacher

How to Finish Your Lesson Effectively from The TEFL Academy

15 Awesome Wrap-up Activities For Students from Class Craft

Happy teaching!

*) This material was collected and put together for the online training session organised by National Geographic Learning for Russia in October 2021 where I had the privilege of sharing the zoom stage with Dr Joan Kang Sheen and Tatiana Fenstein.

Crumbs #31: Circle IS the best shape aka Frogs Etc

by
@ Magdalena

Ingredients

  • Two circles cut out of cardboard (regular photocopying paper is too thin and flimsy), with the two holes for fingers also cut out before the lesson.
  • Glue to glue these together
  • Crayons, pencils or markers to draw the appropriate body parts

Procedures

  • Show the kids the finished product, introduce the frog, chat with the kids
  • Show the kids the smaller circle, show how you decorated it.
  • Give out the pencils / markers.
  • Give out the small circles, decorate it with the kids.
  • Give out the bigger circle, decorate it, if appropriate.
  • Collect the pencils.
  • Show the kids how to glue one on top of the other. For the younger kids, it might be a good idea to draw a small cross on the top of the bigger circle, to signal where the kids should put the glue.
  • Give out the glue sticks. Kids glue their circles together.
  • Glue the additional body parts, when appropriate.
  • Collect the glue sticks.
  • Play
@ Magdalena

Why we like it

  • It is super easy! These frogs here, in the picture, were produced for a child (a huge Frog Fan), rather than with a child, and that is why I went a bit crazy with the eyes but there are the simpler versions of it)
  • These two circles can become many many things: a frog, a bear, a cat, a dog, a monkey, a rabbit or a snowman, with little adaptations.
  • The task does involve a lot of pre-cutting but the rest can be done by the kids during the lesson.
  • Once the toys are ready, they can be used to play, as any other puppets with all the structures that the kids are familiar with and with those that match the topic of the lesson, at the very least, ‘Hello’, ‘My name is’, ‘I like…and you?’ and it is always great when you can maximise production.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 30: Circle IS the best shape in the world aka About chicks

by
@ Magdalena

It was a typical day in the life of a small scale Mary Poppins. I set out for a shift at the volunteering centre and, as an experienced one, I could not imagine to go unprepared, even if minimally. I thought that, at the very least, we can do some circle magic. I could not take everything but I had a big pocket and so it got filled in with three glue sticks, an envelope full of circles, a small packet of colourful feathers (that was a nice coincidence that I had it). A4 paper and a box of markers did not fit in one hoodie pocket.

When I arrived and started the shift, it became obvious very very quickly that the place is not ready for any craft activities because, apart from one small table and a few little stools and a box of coloured pencils, there was nothing. Or, rather, there was only me and my pocket.

There is some beauty in that, really, when you get to see how your brain starts to get involved in order to think of a solution. Sure, THAT was not about sending a man to the moon or putting together a new recipe, but, still. I was building a grid for our version of hop-scotch and sorting out toys, and the brain was trying to imagine what I can make out of the contents of my pocket. A little chick, that’s what.

Ingredients

  • lots of circles, cut out before the lesson out of colour paper, regular type, cardboard might be too thick. As for the size, this time it is officially: the Size of the Bottom of a Mug, colourful, for the kids to choose from, two pieces per child
  • glue
  • something to draw (markers, pencils, crayons)
  • colourful feathers (I got them in the stationery section of a regular supermarket, you can buy them in any craft activities), but they can be replaced by strips of colorful tissue paper (also those unevenly torn), three per child, if you use the feathers or as many as you want, if you use the strips of the tissue paper

Procedure

  • ideally, for the smaller children especially, it would be a good idea to put a cross on one side of each circle, so that it is absolutely clear on which side children should put the glue
  • each child chooses two circles
  • choose the circle that will be your front, draw the eyes (two small circles in the most basic version), and a beak (a small triangle)
  • take the other circle, cover the cross side with the glue
  • place one of the feathers on the top, for the little ‘fringe’, on top of the glue, so that a part of it is on the cirlce and a part of it stands out of it
  • repeat the same with the other feathers, by putting each of them on two sides, for the wings
  • take the front circle, put it face down, cover the cross side with a lot of glue
  • place it (more or less carefully), on the top of the back circle and the feathers, press
  • use the birdies to play, the kids can use them as puppets, say hello, introduce themselves, ask how they are, and use any other structures that they already know

Why we like it

  • is very, very easy, I have done it with two-year-olds (with a tiny bit of help) and with eight-year-olds
  • there is more potential for decoration (a more complex bird’s face, legs, tail etc)
  • the main focus of this lesson (or activity) can be playing with the chicks as making them will take only a few minutes
  • despite being very easy to produce, this craft has a lovely ‘wow’ moment and it lies in the fact that such simple elements put together can gives a lovely little bird.
  • below, you can also see the ‘proper Easter, made with mum and aunt’ version, with professional wings, made of felt. They look pretty and we made them only because I found this set in a shop. Here, it might be a good idea to let the chicks spend the night in the middle of the book, to make sure that they stick properly (felt is a bit thicker and it will need more encouragement, especially if you are using just the regular glue)

Here are some other circle-based craft ideas

Here are my own Frogs Etc, my snowman, and all the circle ideas.

Here is a lovely bear craft, here a ladybird craft, and here a caterpillar, too and here, a bunch of other activities, probably too complex for the EFL classroom but definitely worth looking at.

Crumbs #29 How do you feel today? The alternatives

by
From the series: The Beautiful Life

Ingredients

  • None, almost. In some cases, it might be necessary to write some of the ideas on the board, to serve as an inspiration. See procedures

Procedures

  • Students work in pairs. They share their ideas. If there is time, the students can change partners and repeat the activity. To round up, students share some of the information they have found out about.
  • This stage is always present, in each lesson, and it takes about 10 minutes. We keep the same variant for about a month and then we choose a new one.

All the variants (so far)

  • Verbs: the teacher writes on the board all the basic verbs in the past tense: I went to, I saw, I ate, I drank, I talked to…about…, I watched, I played, I bought, I wrote, I didn’t…The kids choose 5 and they build simple sentences about their day, week or weekend. I like to start it with my students even before we officially cover the Past Tense (as soon as they are ready to differentiate between the present / the past form of the verbs) and it really does help the kids to practise and to remember the verb forms.
  • Did you go…: a variation of the activity described above. The teacher puts the question form and the short answers on the board. The kids work in pairs and ask each other questions. The student who provides answers uses ‘I did’ and ‘I didn’t’ but they are also requested to give a brief explanation (because…)
  • Tell me about your day: the teacher writes the name of the activity and a list of topics which can be also elicited from the students. The regular set might include: the weather, the school, the teachers, my best friend, lunch, getting around, marks, tests, pets, brothers and sisters, homework etc. The students work in pairs and they have to choose three topics to talk about. They take turns to share stories about their day and they follow-up each story with a question.
  • The B-words: this one is a slight variation of the above, only here the teacher writes a selection of words starting with a certain letter as the list for the students to choose from and to be inspired by. Some of the words might be completely random but they also encourage the kids to produce the language. Later on, the students can choose the letter of the day and then can also help make the list of the words, too.
  • This is how I felt today: in this variation the teacher puts up the words to describe emotions and feelings. The list can be a simple one (happy, sad, angry, sleepy, hungry, tired, bored) and then it can be extended to include more interesting ones, too (confused, excited, chatty, exhausted). Again, the students choose 3 or 5 of them to describe their day.
  • Superheroes: this time the list on the board is made of names of superheroes, famous people as well as characters from books and films, for example Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, Chebourashka, Winnie-the-Pooh, Santa etc. The students are supposed to think of their day from the point of view of these characters and describe it talking about how they felt. ‘I felt like Superman because I got three good marks today’*)
  • The superlatives: the teacher writes on the board a list of superlatives (the best, the worst, the funniest, the tasties, the most difficult, the easiest). The students choose 3 or 5 of them and use them to describe their day, for example: The best thing was that I had only three lessons etc.

Why we like it

  • A stage of that kind is absolutely necessary as the time for the students to settle in
  • This is also when they learn how to communicate without any preparation and outside of any set-up frameworks since each day might be different and each day may involve a different set of verbs and nouns
  • At the same time, it is an opportunity to practice the past tenses or the perfect tenses as for many of the students, many events repeat themselves (going to school, writing tests, having a good day or a bad day etc)
  • It is a fantasic opportunity for the group to bond, to share the great things that happened during the day or to vent about all the disasters that they had to deal with, the tests, the teachers, the piles of homework

To be continued. Soon. We are quite likely to get very bored with what we are doing at the moment…

Happy teaching!

*) My favourite so far! It is amazing how my students come up with their own metaphors and associations, both the teenage group and the kids. Here are a few quotes: ‘I felt like Chebourashka because I was a bit confused’, ‘I feel like Robinson Cruzoe because I am locked up at home now’, ‘I feel like Masha from Masha and Medved because I am a bit crazy today’, ‘I felt like Santa because it was my friend’s birthday and I had a present for him’, ‘I feel like Superman because I did all my homework really fast’…

Teaching English through Art: a palette of ideas for pre-school

by
Hopper

The aim of this post is the following: by the end of the post, the readers will be more familiar with the concept of connecting the EFL with the elements of Art Exploration and the appropriate craft activities.

As a source of potential inspiration for anyone who might want to try it.

The group

The kids for whom this course has been designed were a group of preschoolers, aged 4 – 6, who are and were part of a greater project at MAMM with Fun Art Kids and I was responsible for the English language slot. I taught them from October 2021 until February 2022 and we had lots of creative fun in English. I used to joke that these classes were the reason for me to wake up on Tuesdays.

My students were beginners and for many of them, if not for all, those sixty minutes of English were the only real exposure and the only real lesson and, despite the fact that it is not a lot of time (at all) we made progress that I was really happy with.

The format

The whole idea behind the Kids in the Avangard programme was that children should be given an opportunity to experience art and all the many ways of creative communication, through music, through dance and movement, through theatre, through visual arts and through English. The programme was run in module, each with their own theme (colour, shape, line etc) and within those modules the kids would participate in lessons that were separate entities devoted to an artist, an artistic movement etc. At the same time, kids work on a performance which takes place at the end of the ‘term’.

It was not easy to nest the English classes in that format but it was not possible. The main idea is that the English classes in which we deal with the beginner students (or a mixed ability group), it was impossible to aim for a very content-rich input and some adaptations had to be made for that. What I decided to do is to focus on giving the kids a good basis of English, including the vocabulary and structure from the pre-A level (although not necessarily not synonymous with and not in the order of the ‘typical pre-school curriculum’) and to combine it with the introduction to the world of the world Art and related craft activities. Just like in the case of all the other classes of the programme, our lessons were connected but each of them was a separate module, too.

The format of the lessons followed a typical EFL pre-school lesson with the hello circle, revision, new material introduction, movement and table time and it was supplemented with and built on songs and stories, too.

The palette of ideas

In the chart below you can see the content and the ideas for some of the lessons I ran as part of the course. In many ways it was an experiment, this whole course and, overall, it was a very successful experiment, the kind that makes you shout out ‘I want more of that!”. However, it was an experiement and, naturally, some lessons were more effective than others, and some ideas better than others.

In the chart below, I have decided to include those that I have tried and tested and loved, as those that I can strongly recommend, ready to use almost. All the misshaped ones will be worked on and developed and presented at a later date, when I have improved them a tiny little bit at least. But, in order to be honest and to share the experience as it was, I have also decided to include some of the things I have learnt by making the mistakes I did make. All of those you will find in the final section of this post aka What not to do.

The gallery

Klee
Goncharova

Kandinsky, Malevich, El Lissitzky
van Gogh
Warhol

De Coster
Mashkov
Monet

The not-so-successful side of the experiment

  • The time allowances: either because it is a brand new thing for the kids (aka the entire course) or because it is a new element to the everyday class routine, the students need time to figure things out, to learn how to navigate around it and to make it familiar. Once they do, the whole programme will be a lot more effective and enjoyable. Don’t be upset if it is not an instant success.
  • The high expectations regarding the content and the input: the main aim of this programme is not to provide the kids with any substantial input on the artist’s life and career. Instead, they are supposed to be given an opportunity to be exposed to the world art and to interact with it.
  • Kids will produce the language, however, it is most likely to happen during the English language part of the lesson (introduction of the new vocabulary, practice, language games)
  • Each lesson has three separate objectives (language, Art and craft) and it is perfectly natural that only one of them will be given priority in a lesson and that English and the language production will not always be the main focus. If these classes are taught as a part of the general English course, then it is assumed that they will be balanced with the regular, more productive English lessons. In case of a separate course, this aspect (and potential parents’ expectations) are even easier to manage by outlining the course objectives beforehand.
  • Many craft activities look good on paper but they might not be easy to implement and to manage in a group of pre-schoolers. Trying, trialling and testing (aka making it first at home, before the lesson) is the best way to avoid and to get ready for at least some of the potential problems.
  • Time is on your side. Fnding a strong link between the three elements and preparing a coherent lesson gets easier with time. And more and more enjoyable.
  • There are plenty of things that can be done just with the simple resources such as markers, crayons or watercolours and paper but don’t forget that there is a lot more that can be done! Experimenting is fun!

Why?

If you are still wondering whether to start including art in your EFL lessons, please have a look at this earlier post and here you can find a great website with lots and lots ideas for art activities.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #27: A project I can be proud of

by

Ingredients

  • A3 paper
  • a yellow square aka the city centre for each pair
  • pencils, rulers, crayons, markers
  • a very detailed plan and careful staging (see below)
  • post-it notes (two different colours)
  • the materials to set the context based on the material from Superminds 5 by Herbert Puchta and Gunter Gerngross from CUP

Procedures

  • The introduction to the project was based on the material in the coursebook.
  • Afterwards we made a list of places in the city (I was taking notes on the board). Then, the kids were chatting in pairs, creating questions for each other: Which one is more important in a city, X or Y? Why? This was a fun activity, the kids were coming up with sometimes impossible pairs and providing justification for their choices.
  • I divided the kids into pairs and explained that we were going to design a good city. Each pair got a set of questions about their city and they were to discuss these with their partner. The handout was cut up into three pieces and they were given out, bit by bit (or rather, that was the plan. In the end, I only gave out the first part, the other phrases and questions were simply written on the board for everyone to see). I was only monitoring and asking follow-up questions. We did not have a whole class feedback.
  • I gave out the A3 sheets and the yellow square. I explained that it is the city centre and I asked the students to decide where it is in their town and to glue it on. I did it on my model. I drew the map legend box and I drew two items on my plan. Afterwards, I gave out materials and the students started to work.
  • The negotiation language and the steps (stage 2 of the handout) was displayed on the board. I planned it differently but, in the end, I decided not to give this part of the handout out. There was no room for it on the tables anyway.
  • The kids were working on the project for about 10 – 15 minutes, until the end of the lesson.
  • At the beginning of the following lesson, the kids sat down with the same partner and each pair got a set of post-it notes, pink to write what they like about the city and green to write about the things that the city should have. We circulated the projects, kids worked in pairs, looked at the plans, talked and made their notes on the post-it notes, discussed what they liked about each city. They also made suggestions and all their ideas were written down on the post-it notes which they attached to the plans. Each pair had a chance to talk about all of the other posters.
  • In the end, the posters returned to their owners and the designers had a few minutes to look through the comments.
  • In the very last stage, each pair of designers was asked to provide feedback on the feedback they received. They did that by answering the following questions: Which are the favourite places in your city? What should your city have? Do you agree? Why? This was the only part of the project that was done in front of the whole group.
  • In the end, the posters were displayed on the walls.

Why we like it

  • I personally really liked this project because it was a diversion from a traditional approach to a project in which the students work in pairs or teams to produce something and then present it to the rest of the class and in which a creative stage is followed by a productive stage. I have decided to give up on this format almost entirely and, instead, to minimise the creative stage and to maximise the production without limiting it to the post-project phase.
  • Throughout the entire project, the kids produced lots and lots of language, they were making suggestions, expressing views and commenting on the other students’ suggestions. There were at least three layers of material created by the students, in one format or another.
  • In hindsight, I do believe that there were even more opportunities for the further extension of the project by comparing the real cities the kids know and whether they would be a good place to live, by making suggestions how the city they live in can be made better or by ‘visiting’ one of the other cities and writing letters or postcards from their visit…
  • I was glad that I decided to keep the creative part of the project, even if in a limited format. They students really did enjoy designing their cities, drawing and colouring, even though in my eyes (a boring teacher here) they should be the first to go as not very generative.
  • It looks like my kids also enjoyed the project. They were asking after the lesson whether I would put the posters up (I did!) and, a few days later, whether we are going to have any more project lessons (we will!)

Happy teaching!