#teachertraining

One word of advice: Variety. Planning lessons for young learners

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Stone drawings #4

This is the week of the summer teacher training and may it be the first of many. I love being a trainer for many reasons and one of them is the fact that just as many ideas come are born in the classroom, in the presence of kids, in the same way, many are born in the classroom in the presence of trainees. Being, talking, observing and reflecting and, ta-dam, you find yourself talking and making mental notes for all the posts to add to this blog.

Here is the first post dedicated to my summer trainees from the June 2023 group.

Lesson planning process in three easy steps

  • Check the coursebook content, choose the lesson aims and the main activity
  • Plan the whole lesson (in the way you prefer to do it, with taking notes, without taking notes, with colours like I love to do or just on a set of post-it notes, like my teacher-friend Irina likes to do.
  • Once it is all done and ready, take another look at it and assess it, analysing it from the point of view of variety. If something is missing and/or is in excess, adapt the lesson plan

Here comes the variety…

Settlers and stirrers

This is probably the one that I would recommend starting. First of all, because it is quite straighforward and easy to spot, even for a newly qualified teacher. Young learners accumulate energy fast and they need to be given an opportunity to release it in order to be able to concentrate on those tasks that require focus. If they don’t, they will become distracted and wriggling in their chairs. In such a situation no teaching or learning is taking place.

Second of all, it is a good one to start with because it is just very easy to deal with and to fix, without any major effort. Most of the time, what it takes is to shift stages around the lesson. If a lesson is too active, a stage in which students work on their own on a task can be added. If, on the contrary, the lesson is too calm, too still, too book-bound, all you need is a song or, even better, a few songs, to punctuate the whole lesson and to give it a proper rhythm.

Materials

This one is quite easy to take care of as there will always be the board and the markers, the coursebook and the workbook, all the flashcards and a set of markers or pencils. Throw in a puppet, a soft ball, a few die, perhaps a few storybooks and some magnets and a blob of blutack and your basic set is ready. Then, to make all the dreams come true, I would add a beautiful multifunctional box, some coloured paper, a few pairs of kids scissorss and a few gluesticks, some trinkets to be the checkers, a bag of stickers, painter’s scotch and a homemade magic wand.

The computer and the screen, with the Internet access and the cornucopia of goods available online is already in the classroom.

The only thing is to make combine all the elements in a clever way and make sure that the set changes a bit, from lesson from lesson, and that some occasional pretty pieces such as playdough, watercolours or food.

Learning styles

On the one hand, ‘learning styles’ is one of the terms that features in many (if not all books) on teaching young learners. On the other hand, it is one of the most frequently mocked concepts at many (if not all) conferences, workshops and lectures on teaching English.

But, as I have been telling my trainees over the years, those who say anything about learning styles with the tiniest even traces of derision are, quite likely, the people who have never worked with children. If they had, they would have embraced any movement, action, songs, music, chants, colourful flashcards, realia, blocks and posters, not because they would lend themselves to be neatly labelled as kinesthetic, auditory and visual but because variety of learning channels means less boredom in the YL classroom and, even if only for that one reason, better results.

And it’s not that the song in the classroom is only going to be sung only by those kids who actually like singing. Quite the contrary, the song is there for all of the kids to participate only some will enjoy it more than the others. So will the flashcards, posters and realia or boardgames.

Here you can find a lovely summary of the debate on the learning styles.

Interaction patterns

I got to this paragraph in the post and I smiled. And it’s because, as soon as we get to this point in our coversations with teachers or trainees, there is always somebody who raises up a hand to say that ‘Primary school children don’t know to work in pairs’. I smile.

It is true, that on entering a classroom with a bunch of primary school kids, you cannot just assume that you will be able to go ‘Together, together, together. Work in pairs. Here is the handout’ and it will just happen. It will not but it is not because the kids, developmentally, are unable to work in pairs. It is because it is a new environment, a new teacher, a new group of peers, a new classroom and, in our case, a new language.

Pairwork is possible in primary. Pairwork is absolutely necessary in primary and it can be done. It can be done even with much younger students and here you can read about how to go about it. For that reason, and taking full responsibility for my words, I can say that in a lesson with primary students, as a trainer, an observer, a mentor, an educator and an ados, I would expect to see some whole class work, some indivdual work, some teamwork AND some pairwork.

Practical notes

  • I like to colour-code different areas to better see the balance or the lack of it.
  • I sometimes use it as a reflection task before teaching the lesson, sometimes it is a post-teaching entertainment.
  • Most of the time, I use it in my everyday lesson planning, and then I only focus on one or two areas here and that is usually when the lesson plan just ‘doesn’t feel right‘ and I am trying to identify why I am not happy with it.
  • This is also a technique that I have used in teacher training, with evaluating the lesson plans of my trainees, while preparing an observation report and, naturally, also during the lesson planning sessions of all kinds. Because of that, the main objective would be different, either to identify the weaker areas and to create the connection between the lesson planning process and the lesson itself or while lesson planning to problem shoot and to ensure that the lesson is balanced, at least on paper.
  • Here is another post on lesson planning for YL
  • A lesson for YL when you suddenly land on Mars and
  • A new take on the lesson plan
  • And, just in case, the first lesson in primary survival kit
  • Don’t forget to check out the other post related to lesson planning reflection: Potential problems and solutions

Happy teaching!

Why you DON’T want to mix age groups and levels. Adventures of a teacher

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Sigh.

This was my first reaction to the context I had a chance to teach in last week. To be honest, I am still sighing because an experience like that does not wear off too easily. Yes, it was not a positive experience.

Now, even being just dead inside and very very angry (not a contradiction) at the time it was taking place, I was still a devoted teacher and, even more importantly from the point of view of this post, I was a trainer, reflecting and assessing. So here we are. For you, what not to do and why.

What happened

Last week I had a chance to teach an extremely mixed ability group. I am an experienced teacher and an experienced trainer and, over the years, I have had an opportunity to work in a variety of contexts with different students and mixed ability groups in all shapes and forms and types of a mixture. Last Wednesday I reached a new level.

There were nine kids in the classroom. Three of them – real beginners who should be learning colours and their first hellos. Seven of them – pre-literate students who would require an alternative set of materials. Two kids – of a higher than ‘just pre-A1’ who should be in a more advanced group. One child, aged 5 (according to the information from the admin) and aged 4 (according to what he told me) – a pre-schooler who should not be spending in the classroom more than 30 minutes. Three kids, aged 10 – who should be in a completely different group where they are given a task on a higher cognitive level of challenge than just a picture to colour. And yet, there we were, myself and all nine kids (all of them called Sasha, traditionally), in the same classroom, for 4 academic hours of a lesson.

We all survived. Here are some notes from this memorable day.

The youngest Sasha…

  • The youngest Sasha was completely out of place. He did not understand what we were doing and the only reason why he even stayed in the classroom was that his older sister was present and involved. He was trying to join in, though, and the result of it was a little boy babbling in some kind of a newspeak, that was neither pidgin, nor Sasha’s L1 and not any langauge known to mankind. Albeit, to be honest, it to someone who did not know English, it might have sounded like English, from afar. My heart was literally aching at his efforts.
  • The youngest Sasha had no idea of the way you interact in the classroom. On countless of occasions, he would get up, come to the board, pick up markers to draw on the board (since the classroom was not baby-proof, I did not expect a pre-schooler), to try to nick a few post-it notes. He did not understand why he did not get a set of mini-cards (and some kids did, the leaders of all the small teams) and when he got a small heart for the other activity, he did not want to give it back. Because why would he? At one point, I felt like being on the playground and ‘fighting’ over toys.
  • It was beyond the little Sasha’s understanding why we would even dictate the colours for each other to use in a colouring dictation. ‘But I want to colour it blue and green!’, he said, already on the verge of tears and, later on, naturally, he was thoroughly confused that his picture was different from the teacher’s, his sister’s, all the other kids’ and he kept asking if he did a good job and if he completed the task well.

The Sashas in the middle…

  • Generally, these Sashas were under control. After all, they are the kids who have spent the longest period of time in the classroom and they are the kids who have had a chance to experience and to benefit from the routine of the previous two weeks. High five to the teacher who made an effort to build this routine. It was worth it. These are also the children who constitue the biggest group and the activities were generally designed for them and graded to their linguistic, cognitive and social skills. They did participate, they did produce, they did work well in pairs and, unknowingly, they were the kids that the teacher was looking at and sighing with relief. ‘Not all is lost’, thought the teacher. ‘I have not run in vain’, thought the teacher, quoting her favourite quote from the Bible, albeit a very un-religious one.
  • But, still, the atmosphere of the lesson, chaotic and messy, unravelling and tense (my bad, I know that) also took its toll even on them. My amazing twins were on the edge and, at one point, a heated debate broke out because one of them wanted to play a simple gussing game (as intented and as they were instructed to) whereas the other wanted some hints and suggestions (because that is how we played in the previous weeks). ‘Why aren’t you miming? Why aren’t you telling me if it is big or small and if you like it?’, he was asking. They ended up getting upset with each other and breaking up for a minute. The other pair, Sasha girls were sleepy and tired and on the verge of tears and even though they did play, they also spent a moment discussing whether they should just divide the cards into two piles or take them from the same pile and how much time is necessary to make a decision which word you want to use to talk about (Answer: not too much, the sooner, the better).
  • The day is quite long and the kids like to ask how much time is left. We have established a routine that when they want to know, they should ask (‘What time is it?’) and the teacher checks the watch and writes how many minutes are left until the nearest break. I don’t quite like it but they are quite young, they cannot tell the time using the clock and, still, they need something to understand and to manage the lesson time. We have drilled the question, it is always on the board and, although it is slightly annoying to hear the same question over and over again, it gives me an idea of how involved the group are. The more frequent the questions, the more ‘trouble’ we are in. Unsurprisingly, in that particular lesson, this question was popping up again and again and again.

The oldest Sashas…

  • The oldest Sashas finished the task way too quickly for teacher’s liking and we all had to wrap up a bit faster, although, indeed, they got convinced into taking part in some kind of an extension and it did buy the rest of us some time.
  • The oldest Sashas, because there were more than one, spent the lesson being on the brink of getting involved in some alternative, mostly illicit activities. In the end, they did not, with an experienced teacher present, but, oh Lord, there was so much potential for it. If there had been only one older Sasha, they would have been more easily contained. With two or three, at times, they could bounce their exciting ideas off each other, fueling the behaviour that were not quite welcome.
  • It was almost a miracle that the older Sashas enjoy colouring and that they got midly interested in completing the task. They were most engaged than I would have expected from children of their age. I can safely say that, yes, I did get away with it.
  • In an ideal world, these Sashas would be getting a much closer monitoring from the teacher to ensure that they are using the same material but producing a lot more langauge than the average student. Unfortunately, with the kind of mix that I actually had to deal with, it was not possible. Apart from the storybird activity that involved a 1-1 interaction with the teacher, closely supervised. Overall, the teacher was not happy at all.
  • I have also noticed that one of my older Sashas has got a very strong inclination for bullying. Nothing happened but I do not like the vibe and the way he behaves around the younger children (aka all the other children in the group). He is naturally a leader without any skill to be one and he has absolutely no one to look up to and to be inspired by. He would benefit more from being in a group of older children in order to develop his social skills and to learn from the other kids.

If I could think of a metaphor for that day…

A sweater that is fraying uncontrollably, at three different ends.

Washing the windows in a flat ont the top floor, in a blocks of flats. Standing on the chair and reaching out to this little piece in the corner, thinking that this may all end up in a very, very bad place.

A flooded kitchen, with you trying to make decisions quickly and to save something, to wipe the floor and not to let the flood spread to the neighbours below you.

A three-course dinner for ten, prepared by one relatively skilled chef, on one hob, with a pot and a pan.

A herd of cows that your grandma asked you to bring back from the pasture, walking them on the main village road, with all the tractors and all the combine harvester coming back from the fields and using the same road AND all the neighbours and villagers standing by the fences of their houses, watching the god-damn show because a city teenager trying to manage a task she had no preparation or knowledge of. Speaking from experience, in case you are wondering.

Any of the experiences that you spend hating every second of and yet you go on and you survive. Exhausted. And then you just sigh and vent in a post on your blog.

Coda

There is not much to say here apart from this one thing: all these kids should not be learning English together. There are too many factors that come into the picture that make it an almost impossible task for the teacher. It is true that English language groups are rarely homogenous and it is especially true in case of young learners groups and, especially especially, in case of primary school students. Teachers are simply obliged to deal with that issue on daily basis. Managing a group of kids who are on the same level of English but who are of different ages – it is possible. Managing a group of kids who are of the same age but have different levels of English – it is manageable. However, this kind of a mix, different age groups, different levels of English, different levels of literacy skills, cognitive skills and social skills development with such a number of kids is simply not a good idea. If you have a choice, please, DO NOT DO IT.

Happy teaching!

Top 10 kids books to have in the classroom

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This is my number 1 storybook illustration ever. Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald

This post came about as a result of conversations with some of my trainees and colleagues, most recently with Vera, and it inspired me to reflect on not necessarily on my favourite storybooks as this list would be much, much longer but on the list that I would start a storybook library from and the titles that I would buy first.

Making this list was not entirely pleasant because as soon as I got to number 10, I started to revise it as I was being flooded by the titles and the characters that also wanted to make it. It is quite likely that this list will be modified in the future.

Here we go then. The Very Personal List Of My Favourite Storybooks To Be Used In the EFL Classroom with some very short rationale and some interesting links.

  • Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle: It is a true classic and it is quite likely that your students, no matter how young, have already read it in their L1. It has a great character that we can relate to (I know I can) and it can be used to teach food, emotions (‘I am hungry’, ‘I am not feeling very well’), the life cycle of butterfly and, potentially, the seasons and weather, too. It can be combined with a treasure hunt in the garden and in the park and with a craft lesson.
  • Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell: This is a storybook that I know it by heart and I did use it in class a few times with only a box and a set of flashcards. It is a great resource to teach and to practise all the animal vocabulary but it is a great starting point to teaching adjectives, too. I used it to introduce the idea of a riddle which we later extended to make our own. It has been
  • Marvin Gets Angry by Joseph Theobald: I have a special place in my heart for Marvin and his antics. This book can help you to teach the basic emotions (happy, sad, agry, tired) and it is great in the first lessons, while establishing class routines and teaching kids how to behave but it also helps to accept that we all get angry sometimes and we need to find ways of dealing with. Other than stamping on the flowers, frightening the hens and biting the cow’s tail. It works for body parts, too.
  • Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carl: It is a wonderful book for the first lessons with year 1 students because it has a repetitive text and it works very well with colours. It can be also used to teach ‘What can you see?’ ‘I can see / I see’ which is a good first functional phrase that will be used throughout the course.
  • Barry And the Scary Hairy Monster by Sue Hendra: It is not the first book of the series, but it is the first one I used and I fell in love with. It has a great plot with a fantastic surprise at the end and I normally use it in the beginning of the year 1 course, to practise emotions, colours and some simple questions such as ‘Where are you?’, ‘Who are you?’. It is great for involving kids through miming and counting. It also normalises the fact that we are all afraid and it helps the kids to deal with the fear.
  • Three Billy Goats Gruff (traditional): This is my favourite traditional story to be used in the EFL classes although the reasons for that are rather random. I started using it with my students only because I found it lying around and came up with ways of dealing with it. We use it to talk about emotions and food because all the goats offer some random food items to the troll trying to bail themselves out. At least they do in my rendition.
  • Where Is My Baby? by Julie Ashworth: Here is another book that I am very attached to emotionally. We have a history, you could say. Naturally, I know this one by heart, too. It has some repetitive language, it can be easily turned into a role-play with the whole class and it is a perfect resource for teaching and practising body parts and adjectives. I love the ending, too because it helps to teach the idea of tolerance. It can be combined with a craft lesson.
  • Zog by Julia Donaldson: I love Zog because it works well in the EFL classroom to teach body parts, health problems (‘What’s the matter?’) and ‘I can’, ‘I can’t’. Apart from that, it also has a great story that includes an underdog hero, a princess that does not care about castles and honours and who wants to do something real and a prince that learns that it is not necessary to fight with dragons, all the great ideas that can help teach kids develop and believe in themselves.
  • Don’t Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward: This books made it to my top ten because it includes aquatic animals and a shark as the main character and a lot of school vocabulary. It has got a funny plot and can be used to teach imperatives and the rules of classroom behaviour. It is one more book that I like to use in the beginning of the year. It can be used in the unit on animals or, specifically, on life aquatic and it can be combined with the Baby Shark song and craft, too.
  • Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes by Anna Kemp: This storybook might be a bit too challening for the youngest of students, in terms of concepts or vocabulary, but it is still an amazing resource. It has some potential to be used in lessons on colours, emotions, house vocabulary, animals, verbs and adjectives. It is a fantastic resource to start a conversation on the power of imagination and the relationship between the kids and the parents. I am also planning it to use it in my Art and English classes. This is also the storybook that I used with all the ages of students: from pre-school to my advanced teachers.

Those that almost made the list: Elmer by David McKee, Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald, Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin, James Dean and Kimberly Dean, Hugless Douglass by David Melling, Dinosaurs in the supermarket by Timothy Knapman and Sarah Warburton, Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival, The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalk and Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and many many more…

Happy teaching!

Some interesting links:

Adults learning from kids. Or how I accidentally formulated my teacher beliefs

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I have already been writing about ‘the shock’ of a teacher of YL going back into the adult EFL classroom in an earlier post ‘What an old dog learnt?‘.

A message to the parents

Two weeks ago, after one of the lessons, I sat down to write to the parents about the homework, the upcoming test and some feedback. It was just a lesson and a busy one because we were doing a lot of preparation for the test. ‘Nothing special’ you might say because we didn’t have any amazing activities, no ‘fireworks’ or ‘surprises’, only a lot of hard work and practice. And yet, somehow, the lesson was just beautiful, so great, in fact, that I decided to write about it to my educational parents, too. I just wanted to tell them that the kids were amazing (they are!) and that we had a speaking activity and it all went very well. ‘You know, I wish I could show our group to some of my adult students to show them what communication might and should look like‘, I typed, and it was only then that I did sigh, in awe at my own wording and the very idea.

Oh, how I wish I could do just that.

What would my adults see…

First of all, they would see children of different ages, aged 10 in this group, but also 3 or 17 in my other groups, kids studying together, in groups or individually. If they came, they would be surprised at the level of English the kids already have at this point. Or, rather, as a proud teacher of my kids, I hope they would be impressed. Just a little bit.

I would also hope that they could notice how comfortable the kids feel in their other language version. It is not an accessory that you carry around in your hand, a tool that you try to use although you are not quite sure how to. Nor is it a costume that you have to put on and become something else, a dragon, a princess, a cat, something that you are not. On the contrary, I would love them to see how, regardless of the age and the level, English can and does feel like the second skin. Something that is just you, the other version of you but also the very self that you are.

I would love my adults to be inspired by the open-mindedness and the general attitude to anything that is new and out of the box, especially the readiness to see, to try, to experiment. That does not mean that everything that I bring into the lesson and everything that I dump at them, grammar, tests, exam preparation, all the games are welcomed with the open arms and everyone, but absolutely every single person jumps at the opportunity of diving in. It is absolutely not the case. My kids are ‘normal’ kids who get tired, who have lots of homework, who sometimes, I bet you, would be doing something else entirely, not the things we are dealing with in the classroom. And, consequently, they are looking for the ways out, for the ways of cutting the corners, for taking a time out. Which, to be honest, is something that I secretly admire them for, although I will never own up to it. But, even so, overall, they are ready for a challenge.

I would love to the adults to notice the egalite as one of our rules and standards that everyone has the right to and that everyone has to learn to accept, because, indeed, sometimes this is something that we have to work on, although for kids the reasons are slightly different. The younger kids are developing their social skills for the first time, as it were. The adults hide either behind their personality or good manners or, perhaps, the corporate culture that might be developing the habits in some relation to the hierarchy in the company. Although here, I don’t know, I am just guessing.

Last but not least, it would be very interesting to have my adult students see that the teacher is not some kind of an air traffic controller, deciding who goes next but more of a head chef, the individual, who, although fully present and involved, is only keeping an eye on the process and making sure that the food is made and served or, in other words, that the aims are met. What is more, and very closely related, is that everyone gets to execute their freedom of speech, or in simple and less grandiose words: that people talk whenever they have something to say, not only because the teacher asks a question and when she does it.

I have no idea why but with every word typed up here, it started to feel more like typing up a teaching manifesto, my own teaching commandments almost. I can promise that I will leave it here as it is and I will get back to it in a few weeks to see if it still feels like that and if I still believe in it.

As a result…

The truth is that I wouldn’t really do it. The kids’ need to stay protected, in the precious coziness of our online classroom and without any ‘invasions’ from strangers. The adults, on the other hand, might not appreciate having their teacher suggest that their new role models in communication are some ten-year-olds. Everyone will stay in their own classroom and I will just continue doing my job and learning from observing and reflecting on two different environments and types of lessons.

And using them as a source of inspiration for new activities, like this new series on the blog Discourse Development. Here’s to hoping that staging, scaffolding and practising will lead to automacy and to the development of new habits and even my adults, all my adults, will be interacting with more freedom and ease.

So far, there have been four but I got a feeling that there will be more coming up

There is definitely more to come!

Happy teaching!

How (not) to train a teacher? A personal story

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Lisboa

Here is a post from an experienced teacher trainer and a recruiter looking back at her own teaching career and the beginnings of it. With a tiny little bit of surprise and a dash of delayed horror because, all these years ago, if I had been the one taking me on the job, I probably wouldn’t have offered myself a position, and certainly not on these conditions. I certainly would have had some serious doubts whether I should consider myself as a candidate.

What I would like to see in a newly qualified teacher of YL?

Generally, the experts Sarah Rich (2017) and Sandie Murão (2015) highlight three areas which should be included in YL teachers’ education:

  • the knowledge of the English language
  • the knowledge of the English language methodology appropriate for children
  • the knowledge of child development

These means some specific documents such as university degrees, language exams and teaching qualifications which will largely depend on the law and the education system in each country. On top of that would come all the personal characteristics that a teacher working with young learners should have such as resourcefulness, creativity and enthusiasm. And a real interest in working with children.

What did candidate Anka Z. have to show on her application for the first teaching job?

In short, not much.

I had graduated from the university with a degree in History, having spent the previous three years in the libraries of Wroclaw, leafing through the newspapers and magazines of the 1950s and, somehow, I had managed to pull off getting a masters in History writing about jazz. Something to be proud of and I was. Even today, when I open my MA thesis, I am happy with it and with the distinction that it earned me, although, obviously, there is no way in which it could have been of any use in the EFL classroom.

One saving grace was the fact that since I always wanted to teach, when it came to choosing specialisation, from the two options of a) an archivist and b) a teacher, I went for the latter and, as a result, I did two years psychology and pedagogy (aka memorising theories to pass the exam) and two months of the pre-service teaching practice. This was something because it gave me a chance of spending two months at two different schools, working with real students and being supervised by real teachers and it gave me a taste of what teaching might be about. The methodology of these two subjects, history and English as a foreign language, could not have been different but at least I had a chance to perform in front of a bunch of kids. Officially, I was a trained teacher. Of history.

It was also a happy coincidence that somewhere in-between the historical research fits, I found time to fall in love in English, Hamlet and that I started to read the English poetry and prose in the original version and, eventually, realised that there is something in the world which brings me more joy and happiness, more than history. For that reason, starting from year 3 of my university studies, I started to spend my student’s grant on the English classes in a private language schools and on exams. And even before I got my MA degree diploma, I was already a happy owner of the CAE Pass (B) certificate.

What could also be added on the assets side of the balance sheet, was definitely the state of the educational system in the country, the legislation, the demand for teachers of foreign languages at the time. They had just changed the curriculum for the primary and the secondary schools, English was introduced as the main foreign language from the age of 7 and there were no teachers. At the time when I was starting, the schools were given a permission to recruit university graduates with the relevant pedagogical training and the relevant subject knowledge, which, at the time, in case of the English language teachers was the level of B2+ aka FCE.

This is how I was hired as a full-time permanent contract teacher with all the benefits and perks.

Was I ready?

No, I was not. I had spent two months preparing lesson plans, delivering lessons, reflecting and working with the feedback I was getting. However, getting ready for discussing the ancient Rome with the primary school children and the WWI with the teenagers has got very little to do with getting your head around preparing for teaching the same kids and adolescents to speak in a foreign language.

There is no doubt that I entered the classrooms in my first week and month of teaching absolutely unprepared, relying mostly on my passion for English and on some naive (but useful) enthusiasm.

A teacher is born and raised

When I was reminiscing of the beginnings of my career, already as an experienced teacher and a trainer, I was somewhat surprised to realise that there was no mentoring programme in place. We had the informal head of the English language department, a lovely teacher Gosia who until this day is my dear friend but her help and support were based on her own personality traits, a kind heart and friendliness, rather than on a formal set of procedures. It took the form of the conversations in the teachers’ room and the joint participation in some of the projects, events and workshops.

It was the school policy for the headmaster to observe the teachers but he himself was not a teacher of languages so, really, he could not offer any real support related to the aspects of teaching English.

I survived the first month, somehow and soon enough, on the 1st of October, I started studies on the part-time BA in the English language and literature.

Perhaps it was justified, to some extent, because, when I was starting I had already enrolled on the one of the subjects that we were offered was the EFL methodology. The progress was taking place and, at the same time, my university mentor never had a chance to see me in the classroom, with my students, in action and, although, I did benefit from that, as a trainer, I cannot say that it made a real difference to my teaching. Interacting with my peers and sharing ideas was definitely more beneficial and now, thanks to the university, I had not only the two colleagues at my school but about 40 other teachers from the whole region.

Today, it feels like the teacher was simply expected to manage and to get on with the job.

Where the real learning and development happened…

…was in the classroom, of course. It was by a sheer coincidence that in my first year of teaching I was given 5 classes of year 1 of the middle school (another coincidence with the changes in the structure of the Polish school system), 3 of them divided into two groups. All of these students were of the same level and all of them were using the same coursebook, Open Doors 1, from OUP. That meant that every lesson that I had to prepare I had to teach eight times. It worked amazing well on a few levels.

First of all, this has seriously reduced the preparation time which, for a newly qualified teacher, in the first year of a full-time work, with about 30 academic hours of teaching a week, was god-sent. I could devote time to lesson preparation knowing that I was investing in 8 lessons, not in one and it was definitely much more manageable than planning 30 different lessons.

Even more importantly, that also meant that I had a chance to each the same lesson eight times in a row. Even if I hadn’t wanted, I would have been forced to reflect on how the same set of activities worked with different groups, some of which were bigger, some of which were smaller, some of which were more dilligent, some of which were less motivated, all of which were mixed ability groups, with a different ratio of weaker and stronger students.

Naturally, the lesson plan and the activities were changing and were being adapted as I went from lesson 1 to lesson 8 of the round and it was getting better. It is quite likely that by the time I got to teach it for the eighth time, it was a DELTA-worthy lesson. And even if it wasn’t, it was a much better lesson plan and I was a better, more experienced teacher.

And they lived happily ever after…

Well, I suppose they did. I got my BA in English and I stayed in a state school for five years. Then I left the country and finally got to do my CELTA course in London and then I left to travel and teach here and there and everywhere and to become an ADOS, a trainer, a blogger and all the other things that I am today.

This journey also makes me think of all the happy coincidences on the way and all the things that contributed to my becoming a teacher and staying in the profession. Inevitably, what follows are all the alternative scenarios that could have but did not happen. What if I had got different classes and what if I had to teach 30 completely different lessons every week? What if Gosia had not been there but some other not so pleasant and not so kind colleague? What if I hadn’t started my second degree straight away? What if I had had some horrible students in my first groups? Where would I be today? Just curious)

Happy teaching!

References

Sarah Rich (2018), Early language learning teacher education, in: S. Garton and F. Copeland (eds), The Routledge Handbook Of Teaching English To Young Learners.

Sandie Murão (2015), Play and Language Learning, IATEFL YLTSiG.

I am a lazy teacher and why you should be, too!

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Two weeks ago I was invited to present at the monthly meeting of the Teacher – Mentor Learning Community which was founded by Anna Kashcheeva who, over the years, has been my fellow teacher, ADOS, trainer, my trainee and my trainer and supervisor. Oh, what a lovely list))

I prepared a session on laziness, one of my professional passions. The session went well, the audience were amazing and I got a lot of positive feedback. We were not recording but the presentation was followed up by a post on the community’s blog and you can find it here. Once you get there, don’t forget to have a look at all the other posts and materials.

Happy teaching!

DIY peer observations aka Where to find videos to observe YL teachers in action

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This is part II of the series, devoted to lessons with Young Learners aka Kids aka younger primary classes aka children aged 7 – 9 years old.

First part of the series, DIY observations with pre-schoolers, can be found here.

A few tips from the trainer

  • Choose the focus for the observation: classroom management, behaviour, staging, storytellings, songs, chants, literacy, working with big groups, students’ production, spontaneous production, interaction patterns, routine, variety, gestures, classroom management, timing and many many more.
  • Think of yourself as an observer, look for the strong points and the areas to improve. There is always something!
  • Be a kind observer! Remember that no matter what you are watching, the teacher WAS on tenterhooks because the lesson was filmed and that the whole filming adventure might have affected the teacher’s and the kids’ behaviour.
  • But don’t forget about your standards. I would not want to imply that all of these are great lessons that would get Above Standard if the lesson was assessed. They are not. In some cases, I have highlighted some of the strong points that got me especially interested. Everything else is up to you.
  • More than anything else, please remember that whatever was filmed, it is only a part of a lesson and we have no chance of finding out what happened before and after.
  • Think about your particular context (your institution, your group, your classroom, your country and your culture), would this activity and this approach work? Why? Why not? Can it be adapted?
  • If possible, watch the video again, after some time has passed or after you have had a chance to use some of the activities or approaches in practice. Are your impressions the same?
  • If possible, watch it with some other teachers, too! It is fun to find out what others think about it and sometimes we learn more from people that we disagree with!
  • I have tried to include a variety of contexts and countries of origin and I am hoping to be adding to this list when I find some more videos.

The videos

  1. A lesson from a Polish primary school in Gosciejow, year I, 24 minutes, about 20 kids. It looks like a typical lesson for year 1 beginners. It includes hello, revision, some movement, new vocabulary presentation and practice, and a focused task. The teacher provided a lot of exposure and controlled practice of the target language in this lesson.
  2. A lesson from a Polish school in Dabrowka, year II (recorded in September at the start of the academic year), 34 minutes. It looks like a typical lesson with that group, with their own routine. About 20 kids. It seems to be an open lesson, there are some parents in the classroom. There is some evidence of the class routine (hello, table time, movement, storytelling).
  3. A lesson from a Polish school in Tarnowo, year III (presumably), 34 minutes, about 20 kids. It is a revision lesson, with some favourite activities that the kids are already familiar with which can be used with different sets of vocabulary.
  4. A year 1 lesson from Almaty, Kazakhstan, 15 kids, 27 minutes. The lesson includes the following stages: Hello song, new vocabulary introduction and practice, reading and writing, , a video story, coursebook work, evaluation, feedback and the theatre based on the story, the final song. The video finishes with the commentary from the teacher, very interesting but in Russian only. According to the teacher, the main aim was to reinforce the new vocabulary, skills development and teaching values (work and play).
  5. A year 1 lesson from Nanjing, China, 36 minutes, over 20 kids. It is great to see how the teacher is using the gestures to praise, to instruct, to model, to teach vocabulary and grammar. He is also trying to introduce the vocabulary and immediately do something with it, although I am not quite sure if it is the kids’ very first lesson. The teacher is using some Chinese, alongside gestures and the presentation to clarify the concepts and ideas and the class rules. The lesson includes the following stages: hello, rules, warm up, alphabet, song, new vocabulary and structure, practice, goodbye. The video includes some subtitles to help clarify what is going on in class.
  6. A year 1 lesson from Kaluga, Russia, 38 minutes, about 10 students. The stages of the lesson: hello, introducing the lesson topic, pronunciation practice, hello role play (pairwork!),r revision, song, new vocabulary presentation and practice (vocabulary and vocabulary used with structures), a video, practice, song, literacy, literacy craft, writing, stickers and goodbye. It is great to see that the teacher always prepares the kids for the activity (ie the kids revise and drill the numbers before the song). I also found it interesting to see how much L1 is used by the teacher and what the purpose of it is, for example a short poem / riddle to help the kids remember the words in English. The teacher also explained a lot in Russian, presumably to help the kids feel more comfortable with the activities ie the pronunciation practice.
  7. A year 2 from Moscow, Russia, 41 minutes, 5 students. It is some kind of an open lesson. The stages of the lesson in the video: the lesson plan, tongue twisters, reading (cartoon), vocabulary revision, movement, literacy, riddles, homework. It is good to see that the teacher encourages using the vocabulary and structures and that they try different interaction patterns (whole class, individual, whole class vs one student).
  8. A year 1 lesson from Vietnam, only 20 minutes, about 20 kids in the room. It is a shortened version of the lesson (colour and fruit), but we can still observe the main stages: hello, hello song, new vocabulary introduction, practice and literacy, song, new vocabulary part 2, practice games, song. The group is quite big but the kids are using boards + chalk and they put up for the teacher to see their answers. It is also good to see that the teacher is using the new words individually and in sentences and that the abstract topic such as colours has been combined with something more real as fruit.

Happy teaching!

An experienced teacher, bored. A professional gloom manual

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The background

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 tried recently

  • 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 level or 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!

Happy teaching! Happy developing!

Try something new today!* Material design for beginners**

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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

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?