It can be very difficult to get and keep the attention of very young learners. I was once teaching a class about toys when a boat sailed past the classroom window. How can you compete with that?! Whatever you do to get the attention of your very young learners it has to be more interesting and fun than just shouting “sit down” or “look at me”. Below are my four favorite refocusing strategies. Each of these packages “sit down and look at me” in something more fun than whatever is distracting your class. Start whenever you feel your students’ attention is beginning to wander. Everyone will join when they see the fun.
The concept of teaching English in English is so common, we rarely stop to think about how unconventional and challenging it is. No other subject is taught so immersivity. Can you imagine receiving instruction on interpretive dancing through an interpretive dance? Or getting taught to code by reading java? Probably not.
Teaching English in English would be impossible without one key skill - grading language. Here are 5 strategies to help you help your students understand. And to help you remember them, they spell G-R-A-D-E.
Cognitive biases screw up everyone’s thinking. They make us more afraid of flying than driving. They stop the U.S. enacting universal health care. And they convinced Tony Blair and George W. Bush that the Iraq War was a great idea, even when we knew it wasn’t. In short, cognitive biases make us less logical, less rational and less efficient decision makers. All of this applies to teachers too. Here are five cognitive biases that screw up your thinking in the classroom and why they stop you from being a better teacher.
“Please email us your training."
"What do you mean? How can I email you interactions, epiphanies, questions, reactions, reflections and learning?”
"Just send your PowerPoint deck".
When did people start to think that “PowerPoint” is a synonym for “training”? Do they think the “T” in “PPT” stands for “training”? Training is so much more than a series of slides, handouts and bullet points. If your new year’s resolutions included cutting down on fats, sugars or caffeine, here are five reasons to add PowerPoint to your list of things to avoid in the new year.
Maybe you hate your school. Maybe you’re working undercover for a competitor. Maybe this is your next gig after hacking the American election. Whatever the reason, you’re in good company; there are a lot of people dedicated to destroying teacher development. Little has been written about the field of destroying teacher development (or “DTD” for short), so to make your work easier, I have compiled this list of the highly effective DTD techniques. Go forth and destroy!
When I was a first-year teacher, my lesson plans looked like this.
"Warmer (game)
Grammar
Game
Book p14-15
Game
Review"
Games were great at entertaining my classes. Much later I realized that some games were also great for learning English. The challenge was figuring out which games.
If you want your games to be more than a break between grammar drills and book work, check your games against “GAMES” (Group, Appropriate, Motivating, English, Skills).
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln (via Penny Ur),
You can teach some of the students all of the time, or all of the students some of the time. But you can’t teach all of the students all of the time.
Why not? Because most classes are mixed level. Some students learn faster than others, some write better than others, some are quieter than others. So the question we need to ask ourselves is…
How can we teach more of our students more of the time?
We can teach more of our students more of the time by making our mixed level classes “MIXED” (by using Materials, Instructions, eXpectations, Evaluation, Discipline).
Hold it! Step away from the photocopier. Do you really need those extra materials for your next class? Are those handouts going to help your students learn or just clear a couple of inches of Brazilian rain forest? Before printing anything more, check your materials (or ‘mateRRRRials’) against the four ‘R’s (real life, relevance, reaction and recyclability) and make sure you and your students get the most out of them.
Yesterday, I was Cc’d in an email. My coworker, Annie, (who handles all the online payments in our department) emailed our mutual boss, Gary. The email read,
“Hi Gary, Ross is asking me to pay the website fee for 149.95USD, but the bank is asking for a verification code to complete the payment. What should I do? Thanks, Annie”
I read this and thought, ‘what a bitch....
How many of us start lessons by asking students to put their mobile phones away? Probably too many. The vast majority of our students come to class with a computer more powerful than all of NASA had in 1969. NASA used their technology to put men on the moon with a rocket. Our students use their technology to fight zombies with plants. Doesn’t that sound like a waste?
