Classroom management

….you do group work but the moment when you are not around any of the groups they switch back to their mother tongue?

I would give them a task to work on silently and then present it, one group at a time. The others listen and take notes, ask questions and evaluate the groups.

For example, dialogues on being worried about a lost wallet. (situation/ place/ characters involved)

 

Intercultural education

Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are German, the mechanics are

French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.

These jokes are fun to be taught as a warm up, in order to identify positive – negative aspects of different nationalities/people.

British cooking is renown not to be quite tasty. German mechanics are the best at designing cars. Italians are best at being affectionate and good at wooing girls but worse at organizing events – they are Latin… What does this mean? Nations are defined by things that they are best at and also by things that they are worst at.    

 

Intercultural education

 I would use the joke link to teach relationships in different countries and how to choose a partner – from which country… Advanced level, because it should address older students, if the joke is about relationships, physical and emotional.  But I m not sure if it s a good idea.

 

 

Classroom management

www.selfdirectedlearning.com/,

I chose this link, because I have tried such an activity and that is I gave Ss a topic to teach in class – 11^th graders. They could use hand outs of their own, power-point, pictures or whatever they wanted to make their teaching interesting and easy to understand. It was fun, because one of the students *reenacted* my gestures and words and the way I teach in general – you always have to have the date, title, and lesson structure on the blackboard! They enjoyed it, had fun with it and created all their worksheets on their own…some with mistakes, some needing more explanations, but all in all it gave them confidence. I will go through the link and see what else I can find.

Teacher’s role in the classroom

•         Controller:  teacher controls the activities done in the class and delivers all the information   

•         Assessor: teacher assesses Ss skills – listening, speaking, writing, reading through tests/portfolios/feedback.

•         Organizer: teacher organizes activities in the classroom – pair group work, teams, individual work

•         Prompter: teacher sits back and lets Ss develop a given task – speaking through acting/beginner/a walk in the park (1.salute people you like or prefer, 2.pay them compliments and 3.use body language) Teacher gives prompts when changing stages.

•         Participant: teacher participates at Ss activities. For example, in the above mentioned activity the teacher can act as a participant.

•         Resource: teacher gives Ss links or books to use or brings material support in class.

Classroom management: They tend to get quite fussy when doing speaking activities. I would like to know what to do to make them aware of the fact that speaking is just not fun or laughter.

 

https://www.remind101.com/learn_more

I would definitely use remind 101 to inform Ss about coming up tests or home works or just to answer their difficulties in solving the homework or certain projects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExkMeQfuLGc&feature=related

It sounds really interesting. This is beneficial for writing, because it is more formal – they have to write their lines first. A podcast of a class or school would help them focus on the language and how to produce it, and it would be fun/motivating as well.

Podcasting

 A podcast can be taught, for example, to an intermediate-advanced level group.

You can teach them weather forecast: pre teach them vocabulary about weather and forecasting, talk about where you can hear a forecast, give Ss a listening task – while listening, take notes and solve a fill in or multiple choice exercise. Post-listening or follow up: let them create a forecast of their own (pair work) or a news report (so there can be more in a group), film it at home and create a podcast with it, after you*ve gone through the stages of making a podcast.

 The advantages are: more interactive and motivating for SS/ encourages learner autonomy/ another approach to listening/ develop speaking skills through acting.

 

 Project notebook – advantages:

 Because it is more informal, it allows Ss to freely write reflective notes about their learning process and progress. They can keep articles or any form of functional writing they*ve learned and practiced throughout a semester or a year. Theses writings may enclose notes written by the teacher, giving them feedback on their work. It is a good way of understanding mistakes and learning how not to them. Because it”s informal, Ss will feel more at ease writing as they can, accomplishing a writing task, thus the teacher knows exactly what has to be improved.

                                         -         disadvantages:

       It doesn*t focus on formal language, which is needed when learning formal letters, for instance. Students tend not to lose their work, during a semester or a year or don*t feel motivated enough to look through it, and check their writing-skills progress.

 

A response paper is a heartfelt letter to the author, a conversation, a dialogue with the work, a great idea, the man, the woman behind the artifact. It is a personal statement of one's epistemology, even of one's own spiritual experience. It is relaxed, clear, uncensored.

 It s an example of informal writing. It helps the Ss get in touch with their creative/imaginative side. Encourages creative writing and literary thinking.

 

http://www.begintoread.com/articles/reading-with-activities.html

The activities I found, are quite interesting and interactive. They can be applied to 1^st graders as well, using magnets and have them repeat the letters after you. Afterwards the teacher can spell one letter at a time, as the pupils go to the whiteboard to circle it.

Reading comprehension exercises

Many educators in the United States believe that students need to learn to analyze text (comprehend it) even before they can read it on their own. The reason why reading comprehension is such an effective learning tool is that, like art, it teaches students to manipulate particulars in attempt to represent the universal. When a student reads a text, he or she is forced to absorb a great deal of particular facts concerning an infinitude of seemingly random subjects (volcanoes, molecules, skateboarding, etc.) and assimilate them into the bigger picture, establishing just how they fit in, or relate, to the broader world.

I enjoyed this statement and agreed with it, because besides learning to read, it is important to learn how to read – so that the student can understand the reading text, its purpose]message.

For, instance, I gave my pupils a homework: read a text on optimism, don t answer any question but try to remember what was the text about, so that next class I can ask you general questions about it. Of course I also gave them a grammar exercise – pre taught – but it didn t work. Only few of them solved the G exercise and when checking it, I understood that they firstly needed a reading comprehension exercise – in writing – followed by a grammar exercise. They have to grasp the message of the text and afterwards the tense. I guess, when you listen to or read smth in a foreign language, you hear the words, their meaning and try to make out the message. The homework was part of a feedback they needed to improve their understanding of tenses – when does the action happen, what type of action +past, present or a mix of the two.

Scenario of activities

I intend to use one of the reading comprehension exercises to help them better understand texts and use them as models for their writings of – opinion paragraphs *intermediate level*14year olds.

1^st activity: Teacher reads the text aloud, stopping now and then to ask short comprehension questions

2^nd activity: Ss are given a reading comprehension exercise. Pair work.

3^rd activity: Ss correct each other. Teacher steps in when necessary

4^th activity: Ss choose from a list the most appropriate message of the text .

5^th activity: Ss identify the plan of the text – introduction content conclusion, the type of text *opinion narrative descriptive, and check their answers on an answer-key hand-out.

Teaching listening

Depending on each student’s level, the most difficult part for them is to understand the pronunciation, the topic or they may find certain types of listening, boring. I tried to create listening activities around video clips, like: Beyonce – If I were a boy or Brandy – another day in paradise. Activities: Discussion on relationships or poor-rich people, followed by a short presentation of the video clip – they might have already listened to these video clips.

The difficult ones are the exam – listening activities. As I said, they seem too formal although the topics-themes are the same [relationships, rich-poor]

Reading is a silent activity.Reading aloud does not help understanding.

I don t entirely agree with the idea. I thought of one activity that might be helpful with reading aloud exercises, one of which I applied to intermediate - advanced pupils. For example, a student can read aloud a text while the others read silently, moving their fingers on the given text in accordance with the *reader. It s a kind of listening-reading all together. But in order for it to function, the student has to have a very good comand of the language, good intonation and fluency. The way you read a text, intonation - when you pause, stop etc., I think helps you - the student better understand the text, the meaning of phrases, the message. It s like reading a dialogue by getting into the characters”skin as well. This is a while-reading activity. 
 Pre reading the text silently, can help, so that he/she grasps the message/gist of the text. A cultural background can be emphasised, especially  when reading literary texts or those about British American etc culture.

It is helpful to use a dictionary to find the meaning of all new words

It is helpful, comfortable I would add. Depends on the aim of the lesson.
New words would be most interesting to teach through such activities as - bring real clothing to class, if the text is about what to wear in different seasons (begginers), or bring a skelleton to class if the text is about organs and terminal diseases..(advanced), a cause-effect-solution debate may follow.

Scenario of activities.

soft (voice) - louder (voice) 1st activity/ 1st graders/ Teacher engages pupils in a series of actions based on repetition and miming, dance/jump/sing/scream - soft/loud.
milk - coffee 2nd activity/ 4th graders/ Teacher brings some small glasses of drinks, presents them by describing color, taste and place where you can serve them (write words on blb). Some Ss are blindfolded and have to taste the drinks, say what they are and pick the word on a piece of paper.
sunrise-dawn 3rd activity/8th graders/ Ss match picture to word and choose the antonyms from a list. Ss match word to definition. Ss describe the pictures by using their own words.

Reading has only one purpose, i.e. to get information

 well, this is not actually true, is it? besides getting information pupils are interested in the feelings they get when reading a text or a story. In order to get them interested and focused, a warm up activity based on guessing the theme of the story, the main events in it, would be useful to express points of view, feelings they have when seeing a picture, relating it to the text. For example, a picture of a disabled man earning his living by painting with his feet, can trigger feelings of optimism and endeavor. A text based on people who are optimists or pessimists can further engage pupils in finding their view on life - optimistic or pessimistic. The activity involves all levels of study.