These three activities were brought about by the calendar, this title by the title of a wonderful Christmas (?) book by C.S. Lewis. The lion just found itself.
A square aka ‘The Winter Wonderland’
This is a lovely activity that was found online by one of my colleagues, Larisa. The original, created by @kardasti.saz was a lot more intricate and a lot more complex, too complex in fact for my online classes.
The activity starts with a square of regular A4 photocopying paper. It is folded diagonally, to create a triangle, twice and opened. The kids are asked to trace one of the lines, from one corner to the other. We then draw the pictures above the line: the trees, the snowman, the presents and, finally, the snowflakes. It is very important to stage the drawing carefully, element by element, modeling and pausing for the kids to follow. This way, even the younger kids will be able to create such drawings.
We trace the line along the fold, from the centre of the square to the corner, on the bottom part of the square. We cut along this line, until we reach the centre point. We put the glue on the top of one of these newly-created triangles and we put the triangles on top of each other and press.
We have done this activity online so I had to limit the materials to the simplest and basic ones but in the classroom or if the kids have it, there is more potential for the cotton snow or 3-D figures in the little yard.
A circleaka the Rocking Santa
Circle is the best shape ever and this activity has be yet another piece of evidence to prove this. I have found it online, on the Noreva Project channel but, again, because we did it online, the instructions and procedures were simplified – only the regular A4 paper, white, which, in case of the triangle, was simply coloured red in class. The parents helped with preparing the materials (a circle and a triangle) but, again, we did everything ourselves and because we went slowly, step by step and line by line, the students could follow and create their own Santa. All the instructions are in the video.
We combined this craft with the song from Super Simple Songs, Santa, where are you? and we used to practise the prepositions (in, on, under) in a guessing game in which students hide Santa somewhere in the room and we keep guessing where it is (Is it on the table? etc).
Some scotch aka the Coolest Christmas Tree There Is
This piece was a present that my niece, Mishka made for me with her mum @_mad_alen_ and I can’t repeat it enough: it is simply amazing. It would be too much to try to pull off in the online classes but it is perfectly feasible with the offline groups. I have certainly done craft that involved the same level of pre-lesson prep work.
What you need is a piece of cardboard, with the cut out shape, a few strips of scotch taped to the back of it, sticky side up and a selection of things to decorate with: sequins, buttons, pompons. I suppose there is some potential for less professional ingredients (crayons or coloured pencils shavings, sand, scraps of coloured paper) or even food (buckwheat, seeds).
The scotch here makes it a bit more manageable (no glue!) and the card can be displayed in the window to let the sun shine through it. Or simply used to check how different sources of light change the picture. And there is an opportunity (and a need) for a health and safety training on not eating craft materials and handling small objects.
Not to mention that Mishka’s Christmas Tree has been elected the Christmas Tree of the Year.
This post starts with a post that I found to be discussed with my adult B2+ students.
Well, first of all, that very sentence, just as it is. Yes, they exist, these adult students. After ten years I am back in the classroom with a group of adults who are not my trainees.
The other contributing factor is one of the articles that we used as the basis for one of the lessons. My students work in the area of IT and they are top notch experts, great at what they do. It was very interesting to listen to their comments and to compare their attitude to CPD with what we do in our EFL world. This is how this article came together.
All of the ideas presented there have been divided into the usual that are the staple of our EFL lives (at least in my opinion) and the less common but interesting solutions and, later on, I added some of the things that I have tested on myself.
Our bread and butter
The most interesting thing is that, compared with the other professions, teachers do LOADS to develop professionally on daily basis and, regardless of where we are, as regards our professional expertise and the number of years in the classroom, CPD aka continual professional development, is one of the buzz words. Throughout our careers. We talk about it, we think of ways of getting better at what we do, we push ourselves and, sometimes, too, we purposefully neglect it, too. But we are all aware of it. It was somewhat a shock to the system (albeit a mild one!) to find out that not everyone does and that for some professionals the idea of, say, an appraisal meeting with a supervisor, might be of the ‘absolutely out of the question’ kind.
Some of the techniques and recommendations are indeed our typical everyday. Reading, networking and becoming a part of the teaching community, participating in conferences or just having your best teaching friend (hugs, Vita!) and your best teacher training friend (hello, Vika!) is something that we do regularly. Not to mention reflection which is a part of the everyday teaching life, day after day, lesson after lesson. Sometimes it seems that in the classroom I am like this huge searchlight, keeping an eye out for anthything that does not go to plan and that needs to be adapted.
In the same vein, although this might be more typical of the institutional teaching and less of freelancing, goes for feedback and appraisal. Presumably, it is not the easiest thing to do to accept that being an expert and an adult, you are being put in the position of a student or a child, who is being looked at and assessed and, possibly, given a grade. This might not be the easiest and the most light-hearted experience especially that this grade or the feedback might not always be a positive one.
The road less travelled
Journalling. This is a great one. I have been working on those with my students for some time and I have experimented with journaling in teacher training, with my trainees and as a trainer. I have kept journals and self-reflection notebooks for all of my YL groups, too and this, probably, was the most enjoyable and the most rewarding one for me as I could track my students’ progress better from week to week in all the chosen areas. It was a wonderful exercise for my brain as I managed to train it to be better able to focus not only on the lesson itself but also on reflection and on noticing things that I could put in my notes later on.
Getting a mentor. I have decided to put it here, in the road less travelled section, because, as I have discovered in some of my research, it is not a given that a teacher always has a mentor. Nowadays, so many of us work independently, as freelancers and so many of us work in context where there is no chance of getting a mentor or a mentor that could actually lead us somewhere in our professional field. Personally, for the past few months I have been a homeless (aka independent) teacher but I have reached out to experts to talk about the areas that I would like to venture into. Irina Malinina was helping me with writing for a journal and Sandy Millin with self-publishing. Or Olga Connolly and Heather Belgorodtseva that have been my guardian angels for years.
Doing your job better. Isn’t something that we should all intend to do, almost naturally? Maybe not. I have decided to keep it on the list, regardless, and I would like to treat it as the call for improvement, for continual work on getting better. Even though it is not for an assessed lesson practice or for a course with a trainer watching closely over you. Or a boss reading through your observation reports.
Let your mentees observe you and give you feedback. Way too often the newly qualified teachers or the trainees only pop in and out, without giving the observed teacher any feedback, based probably on the assumption that their comments would not be valuable or welcome due to the fact that they have less classroom experience. However, they are the second pair of eyes and, as such, their feedback is precious. To those who want to listen. In my case, sometimes, it would take a form of a conversation and sometimes I would actually ask them to fill in a form that we use for all the lessons.
Things I have triedrecently
Mentoring someone, No matter how busy you are, there are always people whom you can support on their professional way. It might be formal (if this is the policy of your school) or informal (either through the buddy system or through a community) but it is fun, because you are getting someone else’s perspective and getting involved in helping them out.
Start teaching a new levelor a new area to teach. This is one of the easiest way of broadening your professional horizons. It is also one of the most flexible. It can start with taking on a student or a new group, permanent or temporary and getting involved in everything that can help you become a better teacher i.e. reading, research, getting to know the coursebooks, observing a more experienced colleague, joining a group on the social media etc. It is fascinating to observe and to reflect on how your teaching self uses and adapts the experience gained so far to a brand new context.
Revisit an old area. This is almost as exciting as you get a chance to set into the same river twice and to boost and refresh your skills and to see how you have changed and developed as a teacher.
Write an article – There is one big disclaimer here, of course. You must enjoy writing, first and foremost. If you do, there are lots and lots of opportunities.
Write for a blog – This has been my joy for the past two years. I do not write all the time. I do not have an agenda, although I try to post once a week. There are the lazy weeks, either the holiday weeks or just proper ‘doing nothing’ weeks. But, overall, this blog has been the source of so much fun and entertainemt and it has been truly rewarding.
Share ideas – If you are a member of a community, it will happen regardless. Perhaps you might not feel like your ideas matter (but they do!) or that people will not react (but in my experience there are more readers than actual reactions).
Experimenting with the format, going online, going offline or going hybrid. This switch will create opportunities for you to transfer all your teaching skills into a new framework and to find ways of making the most of what you know already in the new environment and to develop brand new skills making the most of what this new envirnment offers. There is some unpleasantness to deal with which is related to the fact that, quite frequently, such transitions are generated by factors that we have no control of such as the pandemic and they might feel like an imposition. As a result, more time will be necessary for you to see the blessing in disguise and to appreciate and to fully embrace it. If you want to read about my personal adventures while moving from the offline into the online classroom, here you can find a few posts: what I thought after a few months and after two years of that experience and another one based on the feedback from my preschoolers’ parents.
Becoming a freelancer as a way of freeing yourself. Admittedly, it might be too early for me to offer any advice or to even reflect on that since I have been a freelancer for only two months now but it might be a direction worth taking. In my case it was a combination of different factors such as the change of circumstances, the necessity to look for a new job, the expertise and the level of experience and what the potential employers required me to do and what they were able to offer me. That was ‘not much’ and so I became a freelancer. More on that later)
Is there anything else that should be on this list? Anything else, out of the ordinary, perhaps that you have tried and that has been very beneficial for your continual professional development? Please, pretty please, share with the rest of us!
A beautiful train with carriages or a tractor with trailers, with one animal on each trailer.
A set of colourful cards, with a set of riddles following the same framework and the set of structures in each riddle.
Procedures
Students take turns to choose the colour of the card.
Teacher reads the description of the animal. Kids listen and guess the animal. Teacher uncovers the picture to check the answers.
Why we like it
First and foremost, this kind of an activity helps to develop listening skills in very young beginner students and focus as they need the information from all the sentences in order to guess the name of the animal.
At the same time, since all the riddles use the same framwork and the same structures, this game is an opportunity to practise all the key structures. The set of these will depend on what the students are familiar with and can be simplified or extended.
We use this kind of a game to prepare the students to produce the language, too and after playing the game for a few lessons in this very format, with the teacher reading and the kids guessing, we move on to the following stage with the students producing a set of sentences to describe an animal.
Last but not least, with time and with the development of the literacy skills, this kind of an activity can also help develop reading skills.
The game is pretty and colourful, made with colourful cards, beautiful visuals from google. The students are usually curious to find out which animals are hidding on the trailers. The format of the presentation can be adapted, too. In the past we played with huge present box (partially inspired by Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo) and with houses in which the animals were hiding and the miraculously appearing thanks to the funcion of ‘bring to the front’ or ‘move to the back’ on Miro or any powerpoint.
It can be used with animals or with any other topic with the appropriate adaptation of the phrases ie toys (It is big. It is red, with the assumption that we refer to the visuals that the students are familiar with) or transport (It is big, it is fast, it is quiet) etc.
If you are interested in riddles, please have a look at this post, too, where I write more about riddles for the older and more advanced students.
Yes, the Halloween was approaching and my English+Art lesson was on the day. Yes, I was just googling random things hoping that if I find something interesting, I will have a Halloween-ish lesson and if I don’t find anything, well, we will go in a different direction. At this point we have done colours, we have done leaves and, ideally, I was hoping to find some cool artist, some pumpkins and some technique that we have not tried before yet. Last year, around that time, we went to Ilya Mashkov as we tried to recreate his still-life with the magnificent cucurbita pepo but it was last year (aka we have done it already) and it was offline (aka it was more manageable)…I needed something different.
Surprisingly, googling ‘pumpkin in art’ can get you when you want to be)
Enter Yayoi Kusama. Until last Monday, I had never heard of her. Since last Monday, I have been a great fan. Her art is exploding with colour and with energy and she makes me feel like being a part of the Wonderland, Alice in the real world, easily available, at hand. And she loves dots and dots are circles aka the best shape ever that can be easily used in class (here is an earlier post about that).
We met Yayoi and found out about her favourite things and we looked at some of her paintings in our gallery as is now our habit. We also talked about the paintings we like and don’t like.
Yayoi Kusama and her favourite things
Our gallery in Miro
The language
In this particular lesson I wanted to focus on practising expressing opinion using ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ and that is exactly what we did. We looked at Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkins and said what we think of them (P.S. We like them!), we looked at a range of creative pumpkin (google) said what we think of them and we enjoyed the variety in which pumpkins can appear (photos, art, real pumpkins (yes, these were present) and, finally, the Surprise Pumpkin that I have brought. See below)
We looked at all the pumpkins, Kusama’s, the realia, the creative pumpkins
I presented the ready made product making sure that the Surprise Pumpkin is a proper surprise (‘Look, this is a pumpkin. But it is also a surprise. Are you ready? 3…2…1….’)
We went over the necessary materials with everyone (‘Have you got the paper? Have you got the pencils/markers/crayons?’)
I was making one more copy together with the kids. I am drawing on the regular paper, holding it in my hands, on a thick pad. Going step by step, slowly, pausing and waiting for the kids to complete every single step. This is absolutely crucial.
We folded the paper, stopping after every stage, showing the page to the camera. There are four essential stages: 1) show the A4 paper 2) fold the paper in half, widthwise 3) press at the crease / fold 4) fold the top flap outwards (show the kids how the edge of the paper touches the crease / fold in the middle 5) press at the crease / fold
Draw the pumpkin on the folded paper, that is at the 1/4 flap folded outwards and the 1/2 half at the bottom simultaneously, draw the stem and the leaf as well as three lines for the ribs. Don’t forget to pause at every stop, wait for the kids to complete every step and show you the result.
Open the paper and place it flat on the table. Draw the edge of the top half (‘Let’s draw a zigzac’)
Draw the edge of the bottom half (‘Let’s draw a zigzac here, too’)
Draw the mouse step by step: the oval for the body, two lines for the nose, the ears, the eyes, the whiskers, the tail and the hands.
Leave the colouring for after the lesson.
Play a bit with the surprise pumpkins that everyone prepared. My students simply recreated the ‘presentation’ that I gave at the beginning of the lesson, of their own accord, just like that.
Some final notes
Most of my students deal very well with the folding bit. Only one of us struggled a little bit and we needed mum’s help at the very beginning. It might be a good idea to let the parents know ahead of time and ask them to be at the ready, just in case.
As regards the materials, absolutely anything goes: coloured pencils are great, crayons are great, markers work, too. I am at my personal happiest drawing with markers and colouring with crayons or with crayons and markers, for the extra shine and glow.
Kids are amazing and they really can recreate the drawings or, rather, they can create their own versions of it. The only thing that is really necessary is the proper staging, going step by step, modelling and pausing, to give everyone time to complete the drawing.
It does not matter how big or how small the mouse is. It will all be hidden in the folds of the paper.
There are many variations of the craft. You can find some of them online. Below you can see what we have created ad hoc, just because we did everything that we needed and I could extend the lesson a bit. The pumpkin with a cat and the apple with a caterpillar were the result. These are only a few of the options!
When I look back at the two and a half years of the MA programme at the University of Leicester, I am thinking of a marathon (a prolonged period of strict routine, extensive emotional and physical expenditure and obligatory one-track-mindedness). Actually, five marathons in a row. But when I look back, it is also the time when one could revel in reading and research, having access to the treasures to the university libraries of the world.
Apart from going through piles of studies and articles to find out data for my assignments and thesis, I also started to make up a list of pieces to share with my teachers and my trainees. Jerome Bruner’s (et al) and the study of the role of tutoring aka scaffolding is already on the blog here and, I am happy to say, for a very long time, it was one of the most popular posts. It still stays somewhere in the top 15…
Today, part 2 of the same series. Enter: professor Marianne Nikolov.
A personal role model
There is something very touching about the career of professor Nikolov (PhD, Professor Emerita at the University of Pécs, Hungary), who after years and years of regular and everyday school teaching started to work as a researcher and, who, eventually, switched into the academia. This very research which is described in the article was her first long-term research, as she says herself, it is in many ways imperfect mainly due to the fact that it was carried out by someone who was, back then, an inexperienced researcher. So much more precious because of that and so much more inspiring for all of us, teachers and trainers, to get our own classroom projects started.
The presentation on the recent research into early years that professor Nikolov gave at the 1st Hellenic Conference on Early Language Learning in Greece, in 2013 is, in my humble opinion, a must for all the VYL teachers, as a crash course into the early years EFL.
‘Why do you learn English?’ ‘Because my teacher is short’
This gem, unique and unforgettable, is the title of the study that I would like to introduce you to and encourage you to read today. And, frankly, could there be a better title to an article devoted to early years and young EFL learners? I seriously doubt it.
It was published in 1999 and it is an account of a long-term study of a group of Hungarian children, aged 6 – 14 and analysing their motivation to learn English at school. Professor Nikolov gave out the questionnaire to her students, which the kids filled in (in their L1) and which was followed by a feedback session with the kids.
Without risking that I would deprive anyone of the pleasures of reading the article, I would like to share here my own main take-outs:
all the reasons to learn English have been divided into four groups: the classroom experience (aka the activities), the teacher (‘my teacher is short’), the external reasons (aka the parents and the grades) and the utilitarian reasons (aka the future) (p. 42)
all these were present in the answers given by different ages but it was possible to distinguish three sub-groups: grades 1 – 2, grades 3 – 5 and grades 6 – 8
the attitude to English (one of everyone’s favourite subjects) was compared with the attitude to the other subjects
a whole range of favourite classroom activities was revealed and a range of nobody’s favourite activities such as tests, acting out and (this one made me laugh) boring stories
in response to the final question (‘If you were a teacher, what would you do differently?), some kids suggested abandoning tests, some felt that the teacher should be stricter while dealing with different classroom management issues but many didn’t want to change anything at all.
the connection between the school grades and the motivation. On the one hand they are the extrinsic motives, on the other hand, as professor Nikolov says, ‘achievements represented by good grades, rewards and language knowledge all serve as motivating forces: children feel successful and this feeling generates the need for further success‘ (p. 46).
A source of inspiration, no metaphors
When I first found the article, I wanted to read it precisely because of the title. It made me smile because this quote is perfect and it reveals a lot of how the kids see the world. Plus it is a fantastic way of drawing the attention of the readers-researchers whose passion are YL. Then, I started to read, curious what I would find them. Finally, it struck me that I did not know what my students would say and that is because I had never asked them.
I was mortified that, in a way, I had taken my kids for granted. Yes, we had been studying together for years, their parents had been bringing them, year after year and there had been no issues, we had fun and we had made progress. But I had never actually asked them.
Naturally, I decided to change it and professor Nikolov’s research was my inspiration and my guidance.
My research took two directions:
a) I prepared a questionnaire for kids and I used exactly the same questions that professor Nikolov used with her students. I wrote them in English and in Russian and the kids were told that they were able to use whichever language they wanted. The funny and the most amazing thing is that some of my A1+ kids tried to express some of their thoughts in the target language.
b) I prepared a questionnaire for the parents, too, partially because some of my students were 4 y.o. and beginners and, partially, because I wanted to find out what kind of an impact the home environment has on the kids’ motivation. The parents were asked to answer the following questions: Do you do anything in English at home? Does anyone else speak English? Before starting to learn English, did you have a conversation with your child about it? What did you talk about? Do you know what your child likes and doesn’t like about our classes and about their English classes at school.
‘How come I never asked before?‘
…is something that I still keep asking myself. Apart from an opportunity to exercise my almost non-existant researcher skills, this questionnaire and this adventure gave me a fascinating opportunity to see the bigger picture and to become more aware of everything that might have an impact on how my students see the language learning process.
Here are are few insights:
most of my educational parents admitted to chatting to their kids about the reason to learn English, although sometimes the kids, due to their age, were not quite interested.
some of the preparation was done in a rather informal way as English as a means of communication entered their lives anyway since they had an opportunity to travel abroad, they were visited by parents’ friends from abroad. They could also see their relatives use English at work or at school.
some of my younger kids already expressed some of the utalitarian reasons (‘he wants to work for Lego or Hot Wheels’), this was a lot more common among the older students
the most interesting fact was that for many of my students English was not only a subject, something that belongs strictly in the school. Rather than that, it was a family thing, something you do with mum or dad or with the siblings, younger or older, although, none of the kids came from bilingual families.
as for the kids, their reasons could be divided into the four groups highlighted by professor Nikolov: the external (‘My mum told me to’), the utilitarian (‘I will travel to different countries and cities’), the teacher (‘Because of Anka’) (insert a million hearts here) and the classroom (‘Because I like it’)
The follow-up?
Raising the awareness and finding out is only the first step and it highlights the importance of a few processes. Naturally, the teacher has no influence on the background of the students or on the family social status and their ability to travel abroad for example. However, the teacher can make sure that the parents are involved in the classroom activities and classroom life, to the extent in which it is possible and, at least, those parents that wish to be involved. This can be done through helping to take English out of the classroom and extending the exposure by sharing songs, games, activities and keeping the parents informed.
There are also some opportunities to bring the world into the classroom, especially nowadays, in the post-covid, zoom world by using the real life materials, traditional stories, guests, virtual guests, pen pals etc. This way, even without travelling, kids will see the connection between the coursebooks on their desks and the world out there.
There is a lot that the teacher can do as regards including the age-appropriate activities, finding out what the favourite activities are and working on building the community even if only by learning the kids’ names, celebrating birthdays and creating the new, group-specific traditions and ‘traditions’.
The first step can be reading about professor Nikolov’s study and running your own research and finding out why your students like to learn English…
Happy teaching!
P.S.
Fun fact? This blog was created as my reward for completing the MA programme. I submitted the final version of my dissertation around midnight on the night of the 1st and 2nd of March 2020 and, on the 2nd of March, during the day, when I did catch my breath a bit, I got my funky socks and my dragons in line…
Bibliography
Marianne Nikolov, ‘Why do you learn English?’ ‘Because my teacher is short’. A study of Hungarian children’s foreign language learning motivation. Language Teaching Research, 1999:3:33, p. 33 – 56
One of my favourite EFL quotes is what Katherine Bilsborough started her presentation at TESOL Greece in 2019 that we, the teachers, we are all material writers. Because we simply are, all of us. Even if we don’t ever produce a coursebook, even if we don’t ever get to share ideas on our Instagram or in our blogs. Even if we never get to be famous and renowned, we produce materials for our students, day in day out.
If you want to read more about creating materials, don’t forget to check Katherine’s blog on material writing here and her interview with some great advice here.
In this post here, I would like to share some ideas from a low-key but an advanced material writer, hoping that my everyday material creation, design and adaptation might help some of my fellow material writers, those with less experience.
Why do teachers adapt, supplement and design?
Methodology aside, the very subjective and personal answer to this question is very easy: the students are boread, the teacher has noticed that something does not go as well as planned, the teacher has found something that they really want to use, the teacher does not like whatever is in the coursebook, the teacher is bored…
The three concepts to take into consideration: the material, the activity, the aim
The material aka the physical resource that we have at hand, the photograph, the drawing, the poster, the puppet, the flashcards, realia, the song.
The activity aka the game, the reading task, the matching activity, the odd one out, in other words – a set of instructions of how to do something.
The aim aka why we bother and what exactly we want to achieve.
The understanding what these three are (and what they are not) is the absolute first step in starting your own blazing career in material design because at the stage of creation these three can be the source of inspiration and, at the later stage of reflection and readjustment, one or two of these three will be the elements that can be tweaked and manipulated in order to perfect the initial desing.
This is why, in this particular post, I am going to share ideas that had their starting point in the material, the activity and the aim.
Example #1: the coursbook
Using the sample of the unit 1 from Superminds 5 published by Cambridge University Press here, page 1 (which is page 10 of the students’ book).
The material here is an illustration, a scene from the Pompeii and three characters from the book, Patrick, Phoebe and Alex, a set of numbers and a set of words as well as the audio track which here is the list of words.
The activity is to listen and to repeat the words and to check with the partner.
The aim is for the students to become familiar with the key vocabulary in the unit and to be able to practise them before they move on to the following exercise which introduces the kids’ first adventure as time travellers.
When we started to use it in class, I kept all of the coursebook material but I decided to adapt and to extend the original activity for my students (A2 level, aged 7-8-9 years old) seemed to be ready for a more challenging task that would involve more communication and language production. One of our favourite activities here is to play riddles in which the kids work in pairs and describe one of the items in the picture either by giving their definition (It is big, it is made of, it is used for) or by providing their location in the picture (It is behind Patrick).
This way the material and the aim stay the same and only the activity is slightly adapted.
Example #2: Own materials on Miro
This is a task that I designed for my 1-1 online student, aged 6 y.o. who cannot read yet.
The material here, created using Miro Board, is a picture of a tractor, a set of photos of animals, and a set of colourful cards with simple descriptions of animals.
The activity is a riddles game in which the teacher reads out the definitions of the animals in the order chosen by the student. The student listens and guesses the animals which is later revealed by the teacher.
The aim is to practise listening skills, to develop the ability to focus and to practise the names of animals. In the long run, this activity is used also to prepare the student to start producing similar riddles about a chosen animal.
Now, the next step will be the three follow-up posts devoted to resources whose existance started from finding a new material, coming up with a new game or with a very specific aim for the lesson. Don’t forget to check them out!
Happy teaching!
*) This is one amazing slogan that belongs to Sainsbury’s, the chain of supermarkets in the UK.
**) The material presented here was first a webinar given for teachers from all around the globe, organised by BKC Moscow in September 2022
All the pairs. Somehow the penguin, the gorilla and the mouse got left out.
Ingredients
A set of pictures of animals, flashcards or on Miro. That’s it.
Procedures
Revise the vocabulary and ensure that all the cards are displayed at the same time for the kids to be aware of all the options
Model by choosing a pair of animals and putting these cards aside and justifying your choice. With my pre-primary kids, I like to use the first person statements (I’ve got 4 legs etc) as this is what we do with the younger kids (to enable the kids to talk about themselves and the animals without having to introduce the additional structures and to keep it coherent with the songs that we use ie Little bird or As quiet as a mouse). I also tend to vocalise the language ie I’ve got 4 legs (for the cat), I’ve got 4 legs (for the elephant).
Invite the kids to take turns to make their own pairs and to describe the rationale behind it.
This is what our Miro board looked like before we started
Why we like it
An opportunity for the kids to use and to develop the higher order thinking skills in the EFL context
The students are in charge of what they want to talk about and what they can talk about. It is appropriate for mixed-ability groups.
Little or no preparation as the flashcards are already there, the physical cards in the offline classroom or the set of pictures on Miro which, once prepared, can be doubled easily and used only for that activity.
A great variety of structures that can be revised and some opportunity to learn the new ones as the kids might have the ideas that they cannot express in English yet and this game can be the springboard which will help to introduce these. If the teacher speaks the kids’ L1.
Lots of opportunities for adaptation and using them with different sets of words such as toys, fruit, food, transport and, naturally, the relevant structures. I like to start this game with animals because of the range of easy structures that even the very young beginner students can use in order to complete task and because of the variety of topics that can be included (the colours, the number of legs, what animals can do, what they eat, where they live etc)
The level of challege can also be easily adapted, for example, the set of cards can include only 8 items or the teacher can focus on putting the animals into pairs basen only on the colours or the size which are probably the two most achievable categories, both cognitively and linguistically.
This is a neverending activity because the cards and the animals can be grouped and re-grouped over and over again to let the students create new and less obvious links between the items. Conversly, it can be shortend as needs be.
As regards the interaction patterns, this activity can be used with groups, with kids working together, at least in the beginning, or in pairs if we have the appropriate number of sets of cards as well as with 1-1 students, both online and offline.
There is also some potential for adaptation in the area of materials. The most obvious choice are the flashcards, the mini-flashcards or the Miro board. The teacher can also create a handout with the animals pictures and/or names which the students can colour-code as they are putting them in pairs. This might be a good solution for the kids to work in pairs in the offline classroom.
Last but not least, this activity is an opportunity for the kids to develop the listening skills (as they want to find out the justification for their peers’ choices) and the speaking skills (as they want to present their own reasoning, too). I simply love to observe how my students start with the simplest and most obvious connections and how they venture out into more and more creative ones.
Any role-play or a dialogue i.e. a transcript of any listening task which is a dialogue (i.e. Movers listening part 2, part 3), any written dialogue (i.e. Movers reading and writing part 3), any functional langauge introduced in a dialogue or a role-play
A pencil or a highlighter for each child
Procedures
Start with the main aim of the task is, ie listening in case of task 3 of Movers or reading in case of Movers, introduction of the functional language, etc. Go through all of the stages outlined in the teacher’s book or whichever ones you see fit in your teaching context.
Give out highlighters or pencils, ask the kids to open the books and look at the text again.
Introduce the concept of a banana (or whichever random word you want to use). Explain (and demonstrate!!!) that you will read the text slowly with some bananas in it and that if the students hear the word ‘banana’ they have to highlight or underline one word that comes immediately afterwards. Model with a few words.
Read the text with the bananas as the kids listen, follow and underline or highlight. The words chosen to be highlighted are the key words for each specific dialogue and their number depends on the dialogue and on the age and level of the students. With the older students and the more complex texts and language, the students can highlight two or more words that constitute a phrase or a collocation. This can be signalled with a repeated number of bananas ie banana banana for a two-piece phrase or banana banana banana for a three-piece phrase.
Ask the students to work in pairs and read the dialogue again and to use their own words and phrases instead of every banana.
Afterwards the kids can change roles and read it again or change the partners.
If the kids are ready, in the final (and optional) stage of the activity, they can close the book and role play and recreate the dialogue and the converation based on what they remember.
Why we like it
It requires no preparation, unless by preparation you mean opening the coursebook and finding the role-play or finding the teacher’s book and making copies of the transcript of any listening activity
It offers a great opportunity for the students to practise their speaking skills in an activity that is both controlled (as we have a framework) and free (as there are quite a few options to choose from)
It also offers a chance to work on the grammar accuracy and the transformation skills
It can be done online or offline
It can be done with a variety of levels. The highest level I have used it with was B1 (teens), the lowest level, so far, was A2 (primary).
So far, I have only tried it with dialogues but now, writing that post, I started to wonder about the potential of that activity for discourse building and creation. The original text could serve as a potential framework and support for the students to use. I am yet to experiment with that option.
All the letters of the alphabet written in one or two columns, with some space to write, next to each letter
Procedures
The teacher divides the students into pairs or teams and gives out the paper with the letters of the alphabet or asks the kids to write these down.
Step 1: The teacher announces the topic i.e. Clothes and asks the kids write one word (or phrase) for each letter of the alphabet or, more realistically, for as many letters as they can. The teacher gives an example. Ideally, the teacher creates her/his own list in order to have a set of words to model the other stages of the activity.
The teacher sets the time limit (i.e. 5 minutes for the younger kids and 3 minutes for the older kids). It might be a good idea to use a song instead and after the song finishes, the activity does, too.
The kids work in teams and make a list of the words within the vocabulary set. After the time is up, the teacher stops the game.
Step 2: The kids exchange the lists and count the words or phrases which their friends have managed to write within the set time limit. The teacher writes the results for each team on the board.
Step 3: The teams read the words on the lists and choose: the most interesting word, the most unusual word, the funniest word, three words you also have, three words you don’t have, any word you don’t understand or remember etc. The teams work in pairs and find out why their partners put these words on the list. If possible, the kids exchange the lists with another team and repeat the procedure once or twice.
Why we like it
For the students it is a great opportunity to revise and recycle vocabulary. All the beginner levels aside, even when the main lesson aim is to introduce and to practise new vocabulary, chances are the kids have already learnt, heard, used or seen some of the words. After all, the vocabulary sets are repeated and extended from level to level, not to mention that most kids have more than one source of English in their lives: the state school, the language school, a private teacher, brothers, sisters, parents, videos on youtube, cartoons, stories, computer games online…This game is one of the easy ways of revising all this vocabulary to prepare for ‘something new’
For all the reasons mentioned above, it is an absolute necessity for the teacher to find out how much the kids already know as regards a certain area in order to do a very focused (if a very contained) needs’ analysis and to adjust the volume, the level and the intensity of the new material presentation later in the lesson
It is very easy and requires no preparation whatsoever.
It helps to improve the students’ self-confidence because it gives them an opportunity to see how much they know already.
It can be used with any set of vocabulary, either thematic (i.e. clothes, food, animals) or content-related (i.e. the words necessary to describe a picture, the words used in a certain text or a listening task, a video)
The final task can be easily adapted i.e. choose 5 words to describe yourself, choose 5 words to use in a story or in a dialogue, choose 5 and describe them for your partners to guess, use a dictionary to find the words or structures for the missing letters, compare the lists with your friends to find the words or the structures for the missing letters, use the words to describe a photograph, use the words to talk about your day today etc.
Let me tell you first what this post is NOT about:
It is not a post about any specific activity, resource or solution for the classroom.
It is not a report of a classroom research task or an experiment.
It is not a compendium of useful links. Or stories from a trainer’s life.
Not today. Today I want to write about the classroom magic and, in all honesty, I doubt anyone can find it of any use. Really. This is solely for my writer’s and teacher’s well-being.
The magic of Lousiana
When the magic happens OR When kids become communicators in L2
Maximising production is definitely a professional obsession.
Although a) it is probably better to call it ‘my professional interest’ and b) you have probably noticed, if you have been reading my posts (It not, you can find the chapter here). This is what I have on my mind while planning my lessons. This is what I think about while looking at the coursebooks, illustrations, stories and games. ‘How do I get my kids to speak?’
The magic of Louisiana
If you are a teacher of young children, you are a bit like a gardener.
There is a lot of digging, a lot of watering, some weeding, and, above all, lots and lots (and lots) of waiting before you get a chance to even hope about any real fruit or flowers. Or any real communication, in our case. Which does not mean that it is boring or uneventful! Quite the contrary!
It is a wonderful journey, filled with treasured moments, from the very first steps into the classroom and any signals that we have exchanged ideas and understood each other. Cautiously walking in, on day 1, a bit uncertain but also very curious what this new auntie (that’s what I have been referred to, in Russian, in Spanish and in Portugues) has to offer. Pointing at the right flashcards, nodding in lieu of a yes, lining up because the teacher asked for it, picking out for the red crayon in a colouring dication or replying ‘Hello’ to your ‘Hello’ Drilling and reciting all the colours and so is confidently shouting out ‘Cat!’ to correct the teacher when she shows you a picture of a cat but, somehow, she says ‘It’s a dog!’ (though with this special elfin smile and a spark in her eye)… All of this is priceless, amazing, magical. And necessary.
The magic of Louisiana
Then comes the plateu.
Yes, a language learning plateu. In case of the primary or the pre-primary language learners it has got nothing to do with reaching the intermediate level (quite often the level associated with the concept of plateau), quite the contrary, but, it does happen with the little kids, too (and yes, this is just the idea that I got right now and decided to use it in this post).
So, taking the level aside, what do I (very subjectively) see as the language learning plateu in early L2 learning?
kids feel confident in the classroom, with its routines and traditions, the teacher, the coursebook, the lesson and the course framework
kids feel comfortable with their peers and the bunch of kids starts resembling a group and a team
kids are curious and easily learn new words (aka single words) and they can reproduce them on teacher’s request, the action – reaction, teacher – student or teacher – students goes very smoothly
kids produce some simple sentences, depending on the curriculum and the programme
kids know and produce some phrases related to the repeated activities during the lesson
The first two points here are not directly related to the actual language production but due to the age of children, they are of the utmost importance and for that reason they have found their place here. This is the point in the course when the age-related characteristics stop being an issue and teacher and children can focus more on the language learning itself.
Finally, the learning happens, we move from unit to unit to unit. We go from unit 1 (colours), to unit 2 (school), to unit 3 (fruit), from level 1 to level 2, the kids are growing, the kids know more, they are under control. The kids are happy and the teacher is happy. The only thing missing is ‘They lived happily ever after’…
Don’t get me wrong. I am not UN-happy with the classes going beautifully well. I am not picking at the seams here. This is the state that we, as teachers, dream about. However, this is also the dangrous plateau because we may want to stay there forever. And we should not. Not moving forward equals staying in the same place equals regression. Things going well is a signal that the time has come to do something new, look for new challenges or think of ways of extending the Zone of Proximal Development.
In the very specific context of maximising language production in the VYL world it might mean helping the kids move from ‘the action – reaction’, ‘teacher – student’ and ‘teacher – students’, one word or one sentence production to the next level: a discourse (or a mini-discourse), student – student, student – teacher and spontaneous production aka I say things when I have things to say (and ‘Not because my teacher, the adult asked me’).
The magic of Louisiana
The most beautiful day is when the magic happens
There is no way of getting ready for this day, marking it in your calendar and making it your aim. It is when, all of a sudden, it happens – kids say things outside of the framework that you have prepared for the day, outside of the pattern they ‘should‘ be using according to the book. Or when they try to say things that are, clearly, out of their range (yet) but which they need to say. Sometimes it is fully expressed in L1, sometimes partially.
Examples? Yes, sure! Let’s go.
Case study #1
One of my 6 y.o. students, still in pre-school, about to go to school in a few week but have have been using the primary level books since January. She has always been a very active child and an eager students but recently, over the past few weeks, she has just skyrocketed. The magic happened!
We are studying online, she is in her natural habitat, at home where she communicates in Russian. However, during the lesson time, she started to use more English while talking to her brothers. Sometimes, it is fully in English, for example calling him from another room, to join us in a game (‘We are playing! Come!’), sometimes it is a mix of Russian and English (‘Sasha, go, do your thing!’). Sometimes, the baby brother wanders in, during our lesson and he also gets his portion of English, because I welcome him in English and his sisters babbles to him in English, too. Sometimes. We are in our little English bubble while in class and she is really making an effort to communicate in the target language then. Although, not only then, actually! I know it from her mum, that she sometimes plays with her teddies and that some English happens, then, too! Some of them must be English-speaking teddies.
I also noticed that when we play together with the older brother, she really listens to what he is saying and she picks out the useful words and then tries to use them, like, in the same lessons the phrase ‘everyday’ or ‘every day’ and, almost immediately, enjoying the variations such as ‘every minute’ and ‘every second’…
This ‘magic’ goes beyond the immersion in the context and the language creativity and experimentation. My student also started to attempt to maximise the amount of language produced.
Last week we started to practice Present Simple (Do you go swimming?) as a follow-up on the simple ‘Do you like?’ which we have known for quite some time and we were interviewing each other, not as ourselves but as the chosen characters. The main aim was to practise ‘Do you do something?’ and I did not even plan to insist on using ‘at the weekend’ or any other day of the week, leaving it for later. However, in class, my student just started to speak and it was a wonderful experience for me to see how far she would go. First, she’d say ‘do you’, then pause, choose the verb, pause again, choose the object, pause again, choose the preposition of place, pause again and, finally, add the day of the week…
Do you draw on your homework every day? Do you dance in your classes on Fridays? Do you sleep in the school?
I could not keep up with her in my note-taking, because there was so much language and, yes, because I was laughing out loud. Not only because her sentences were great but also because I realised that, this time round, I managed to notice, to seize the moment, in a way.
The magic of Louisiana
How to make sure that the magic does happen?
Let the kids lead the activities (‘Who’s the teacher?’)
Start introducing pair-work as soon as the kids might be ready
If possible, include free play slot in your lessons
Show curiosity, ask questions, even if they seem to be above the kids’ current langauge level
Model
Work with the emergent vocabulary but for that it is necessary to be able to speak or at least to understand the kids’ L1 and to provide the word they want to use, even though it is not a part of the wordlist for the level and to keep bringing it back
Be clever and welcoming when it comes to kids’ way of using L1 in class. Apart from the teacher showing respect for it (please, please, please avoid saying ‘DON’T speak L1’ or ‘NO L1’), there is a way of working it. Not all L1 appears because kids don’t want to speak English. Using L1 is one of the communication strategies and it can be a signal for the teacher as to what the kids want to talk about and what they need the vocabulary and structures for.
Be clever and welcoming when it comes to kids’ way of dealing with code-switching (aka ‘mixing’ L1 and L2). This is one of the communication strategies and it is the a step towards and an attempt at L2-only communication
Create the English language environment and provide the exposure with songs, books, games and stories.
Think of extending this exposure and taking English out of the classroom (aka get the parents, the grandparents, sisters and brothers on board!)
Continue reading this blog for more ideas:)
And wait. Stretch out and wait. Like in a song by The Smiths…The magic is bound to happen, eventually.
