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Wednesday 12 December 2018

Motivation in the Classroom

TEN TOP TIPS 

  1. Praise Students in Ways Big and Small
Recognize work in class, display good work in the classroom, organize academic pep rallies to honor the honor roll, and even sponsor a Teacher Shoutout section in the student newspaper to acknowledge student’s hard work.
  1. Expect Excellence
Set high, yet realistic expectations. Make sure to voice those expectations. Set short terms goals and celebrate when they are achieved.
  1. Spread Excitement
Show your enthusiasm in the subject and use appropriate, concrete and understandable examples to help students grasp it. For example, I love alliteration. Before I explain the concept to students, we “improv” subjects they’re interested in. After learning about alliteration, they brainstorm alliterative titles for their chosen subjects.
  1. How to Motivate Students: Mix It Up
It’s a classic concept and the basis for differentiated instruction, but it needs to be said: using a variety of teaching methods caters to all types of learners. By doing this in an orderly way, you can also maintain order in your classroom. In a generic example for daily instruction, journal for 10 minutes to open class; introduce the concept for 15 minutes; discuss/group work for 15 minutes; Q&A or guided work time to finish the class. This way, students know what to expect everyday and have less opportunity to act up.
  1. Assign Classroom Jobs
With students, create a list of jobs for the week. Using the criteria of your choosing, let students earn the opportunity to pick their classroom jobs for the next week. These jobs can cater to their interests and skills.
Classroom Job Examples
  • Post to the Class blog
  • Update Calendar
  • Moderate review games
  • Pick start of class music
  • Watch class pet
  • Public relations officer (address people who visit class)
  • Standard class jobs like Attendance, Cleaning the boards, putting up chairs, etc.
  1. Hand Over Some Control
If students take ownership of what you do in class, then they have less room to complain (though we all know, it’ll never stop completely). Take an audit of your class, asking what they enjoy doing, what helps them learn, what they’re excited about after class. Multiple choice might be the best way to start if you predict a lot of “nothing” or “watch movies” answers.
After reviewing the answers, integrate their ideas into your lessons or guide a brainstorm session on how these ideas could translate into class.
On a systematic level, let students choose from elective classes in a collegiate format. Again, they can tap into their passion and relate to their subject matter if they have a choice.
  1. Open-format Fridays
You can also translate this student empowerment into an incentive program. Students who attended class all week, completed all assignments and obeyed all classroom rules can vote on Friday’s activities (lecture, discussion, watching a video, class jeopardy, acting out a scene from a play or history).
  1. Relating Lessons to Students’ Lives
Whether it is budgeting for family Christmas gifts, choosing short stories about your town, tying in the war of 1812 with Iraq, rapping about ions, or using Pop Culture printables, students will care more if they identify themselves or their everyday lives in what they’re learning.
  1. Track Improvement
In those difficult classes, it can feel like a never-ending uphill battle, so try to remind students that they’ve come a long way Set achievable short-term goals , keep self-evaluation forms to fill out and compare throughout the year, or revisit mastered concepts that they once struggled with to refresh their confidence.
  1. Reward Positive Behavior Outside the Classroom
Tie service opportunities, cultural experiences, extracurricular activities into the curriculum for extra credit or as alternative options on assignments. Have students doing Habitat for Humanity calculate the angle of the freshly cut board, count the nails in each stair and multiply the number of stairs to find the total number of nails; write an essay about their experience volunteering or their how they felt during basketball tryouts; or any other creative option they can come up with.
Motivate students beyond the classroom!!

Wednesday 31 October 2018

Task based approach

In recent years a debate has developed over which approaches to structuring and planning and implementing lessons are more effective Task based learning offers an alternative for language teachers. In a task-based lesson the teacher doesn’t pre-determine what language will be studied, the lesson is based around the completion of a central task and the language studied is determined by what happens as the students complete it. See more about at the following links:

Example 1 Task based speaking 

Example 2 Task based approach

Friday 14 September 2018

Useful tips about Flipped Learning Classrooms

 Flipped Learning is defined as a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter.

HOW TO TEACH AND USE FLIPped LEARNING CLASSROOMS?.

Here are some tips and useful links:
  1. Flexible Environment
    Educators create flexible spaces where students choose when and where they learn. Additionally, educators who flip their classes are flexible in their expectations of student timelines for learning and in their assessments of student learning.
  2. Learning Culture
    In a Flipped Learning model, in-class time is dedicated to exploring topics in greater depth and creating rich learning opportunities. As a result, students are actively involved in knowledge construction as they participate in and evaluate their learning in a manner that is personally meaningful.
  3. Intentional Content
    Flipped Learning Educators determine what they need to teach and what materials students should handle on their own. Educators use Intentional Content to maximize classroom time in order to adopt methods of student-centered, active learning strategies, depending on grade level and subject matter.
  4. Professional Educator
    The role of a Professional Educator is even more important, and often more demanding, in a Flipped Classroom than in a traditional one. During class time, they need to observe students, providing them with instant feedback and an assessment their work. While Professional Educators take on less visibly prominent roles in a flipped classroom, they remain the essential part that enables Flipped Learning to occur successfully.
While the Flipped Learning model may not work for every class, the model represents an innovative approach to teaching with the potential to create active, engaged and learning-centered classrooms. FLN’s four suggested pillars serve as ways to help educators successfully implement a Flipped Learning model. 

USEFUL LINKS





Sunday 19 August 2018

Giving Feedback in ELT

The term feedback can apply to a number of classroom situations and procedures, but here it refers to a range of techniques employed by the teacher to facilitate responses from the students to an exercise or task. Click on here to find out more...

Friday 6 July 2018

Using Rubrics in Evaluation

Rubrics can help teachers teach as well as evaluate student work. Further, creating rubrics with your students can be a powerful tool to promote thinking and learning.Find out more ...



Friday 15 June 2018

Best 50 Top English Language Blogs

Learn English Online from Top 50 English Language Blogs.The Best English Language blogs from thousands of top English Language blogs . See more at Feedspot.com

Feedspot.com

Latest ELT Academic news


ELT Journal is a quarterly publication for all those involved in English Language Teaching (ELT), whether as a second, additional, or foreign language, or as an international Lingua Franca. The Journal links the everyday concerns of practitioners with insights gained from relevant academic disciplines such as applied linguistics, education, psychology, and sociology. ELT Journal aims to provide a medium for informed discussion of the principles and practice which determine the ways in which English is taught and learnt around the world. It also provides a forum for the exchange of information and ideas among members of the profession worldwide.See more at Oxford Academic Journal

Friday 4 May 2018

Simple Ways to Integrate Social-Emotional Learning in Class

 Emotional Intelligence: Why it matters and how to teach it

Teaching young people skills such as active listening, self-awareness and empathy can equip them to succeed both academically and socially…


  1.  Start the day with a check-in.
  2. Use story time for teachable moments.
  3. Work in Partnership
  4. Teach them how to work in group
  5. Nurture a culture of kidness
  6. Give them new words to say
  7. Set up a Peace Place
  8. Teach your students how to manage conflict with peer mediation. 
  9. Use anchor charts to teach social-emotional skills.
  10. Practice lots of role-play.
  11. Allow for talk time.
  12. Play games to build community.
  13. Build community with teams.
  14. Teach them to monitor their own progress.
  15. Hold class meetings.
  16. Make space for reflective writing.
  17. Encourage expression through art.
  18. Assign interview projects.
  19. Put them to work.
  20. End each day with a checkout

Friday 20 April 2018

TEACH WITH FILMS

The use of technology, now  available in the classroom, using visuals, specifically films, seems like an effective  teaching tool. For example,many of the basic elements of literature can be illustrated using films. Short film clips are readily available now, making it possible to use various clips to help explain concepts like point of view, symbolism, and tone. Another benefit of using film is that it provides a source of authentic and varied language. Film provides students with examples of English used in ‘real’ situations outside the classroom, particularly interactive language – the language of real-life conversation. Film exposes students to natural expressions and the natural flow of speech. If they are not living in an English-speaking environment, perhaps only film and television can provide learners with this real-life language input. Films also can bring variety and flexibility to the language classroom by extending the range of teaching techniques and resources, helping students to develop all four communicative skills. For example, a whole film or sequence can be used to practise listening and reading, and as a model for speaking and writing. What is more,films can  act as a springboard for follow-up tasks such as discussions, debates on social issues, role plays, reconstructing a dialogue or summarising. It is also possible to bring further variety to the language learning classroom by screening different types of film: feature-length films, short sequences of films, short films, and adverts.  Websites and blogs help to provide detailed and well-structured lesson plans based on film and television clips, short films and viral videos, which save the busy teacher a lot of time. Here are some to follow:

Monday 16 April 2018

The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners

TESOL International Association has defined a core set of principles for the exemplary teaching of English learners. The 6 Principles are universal guidelines drawn from decades of research in language pedagogy and language acquisition theory. They are targets for teaching excellence and should undergird any program of English language instruction.


  1. Know Your Learners
  2. Create Conditions for Language Learning
  3. Design High -Quality Lessons for Language Development
  4. Adapt Delivery as Needed
  5. Monitor and Assess Student Language Development
  6. Engage and Collaborate within Community of Practice
TESOL


Sunday 4 March 2018

Great Websites for Practising English

Online websites are a wonderful resource for learning and practising English at homeSome with a focus on listening, some on vocabulary, others on grammar, and some with a range of activities. The websites listed below all have material that can teach you English and help you learn English speaking online and more…

Free image on Unsplash

Wednesday 28 February 2018

Teaching Sustainable Development Goals

On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by UN world leaders were adopted in an international effort to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Teachers around the world try to bring the SDGs to  classroom. Find more at the world largest lesson…
Go to http://www.teachsdgs.org/ 

Saturday 3 February 2018

Developing Authentic Teaching Materials

5 Top Tips

Teaching materials is a generic term used to describe the resources teachers use to deliver instruction. Teaching materials can support student learning and increase student success. Ideally, the teaching materials will be tailored to the content in which they’re being used, etc. In general, teachers can develop their own materials for  learners to achieve the objectives or to fulfil the learner’s need. In doing this, materials should be adapted to different learners in different settings following some  principles.
Here are 5 top tips you can follow to actively engage your students and help them feel personally connected to their learning:
  • Connect what you are teaching to real life: An easy way to help students feel personally connected to what they’re being taught is to talk about how they can apply the material in real life. Choose culturally relevant material connected to their own cultures in texts  to help your students see the connections between what they’re learning inside and outside the classroom.
  • Use student´s interests :Find  creative ways to adapt standards-based content to the fun things your students are excited about.Example: let them to integrate their personal hobbies , reading, media,sports,etc.
  • Present material in different formats: Every student in your classroom learns differently. So it’s important to recognize that differentiated instruction isn’t just for helping students with special needs—it’s the best way to engage all learners, try to incorporate different activities for multiple intelligencies classes.
  • Teach students self-assessment skills: Let students log on a rubric, chart or graph whether they’ve been able to complete a pre-defined problem or task. Viewing an explicit graphical representation of their performance can have a highly motivating effect on students.
  • Emphasize the importance of emotion in learning.Focus on creating a positive and stimulating learning environment for students to enhance their learning.
Photo by Jens Kreuter on Unsplash

Thursday 1 February 2018

Authentic Learning through Authentic Content

Teaching close reading  and compelling writing with newspaper columns

A weekly column in  NYT Magazine, offers brief commentary on one line from a book, song, television show and more. The writers who choose and explore the sentences each week show how to identify, analyze and critique compelling writing by making personal connections to a text, luxuriating in the perfection of a word, or dissecting literary devices.In this lesson,there are four ways to use the column to close reading and thoughtful writing across subject areas.Browse below to find more...


A sample lesson from the NYT magazine..



Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

Wednesday 31 January 2018

Revitalising your ELT classes through authentic contents and materials

These contents and materials help teachers and educators integrate new practices and learning in their classrooms through authentic contents and materials. Browse below to find lessons plans and more...



Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash