Especially important information for my 8th grade class.
Pull up your pants guys
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Christopher Columbus SOLE adventure….with Lorraine
After recently learning how to produce forms in google ‘s drive option, and hearing a TED talk from Sugata Mitra who created SOLE, I got inspired by both to produce this lesson lasting about 45 minutes, but really a longer time is required to involve the presentations of the groups EFL medium level 10-11 year olds. You need 1 computer between 4 kids maximum and some large posters and markers so they can write down their ideas. The kids divide themselves into groups and the only rule is that the teacher is not allowed to help. Lets see what happens tomorrow. I really wanna know!
When you create a Google form, after each team or individual submits an answer a spread sheet is created which allows me to see what is produced in a very organized way. I can see and learn more about who the students are, and so can they. In order to create a document like this for you class just go to “drive” in your g-mail, then create and choose “form”
Check out the results from the four groups here. When I got the results I was so excited because I realized we were just at the start of many adventures. I asked the children if they liked the lesson and they told me emphatically “yes”. “Why”? I asked them, and they all told me ” because we could do whatever we wanted”. From my point of view it was a good idea to combine art by making posters which I saw engaged more children than if there had been just the laptops. Watch highlights from the lesson. With open eyes I see, with open ears I hear.
Let’s change everything
“Proud” of London
What have you done today to make you feel proud? Well I went swimming actually. Sport is important, not just to our physical well being but also to our mental state, and I just love to swim to get all that Ka ka! (not in the English language) out of the brain and get ready to focus on another weeks giving…well that’s what teaching is right? Its important to look after our physical well being and encourage our students to do the same. Change! Yeah we need a change, yeah !, so do it today! Teach London and the Olympics. So here’s where I get really nice and give you some free stuff to go with the lesson….check this out Olympic word cards. I made a magnet fishing game from them and then the students had to fish the words out of a pool made from a piece of cheap cloth. Attach paper clips to the laminated flashcards for the magnet to pick up. Create a worksheet to go with the activity for writing practice. Here is a pic of my activity with a different theme but never the less you can see how I do it.
Past present and future by Jean Sebastian Monzani
So after I saw the beautiful video of the secret I followed the link on you tube to the creators site and I found this equally stunning video which focuses on only three words in the most magical way. I cant wait to use these videos in class. That;s what really inspires me to be a teacher today in, that we have such amazing resources on hand for every lesson we teach.
The Secret
Well EFL classroom is no secret but it is a site that has many to unlock. Here is another truly fabulous video for you to play in class by Jean Sebastian Monzani. I really think this is a gorgeous EFL learning tool and it is great that the music is so calm and neutral allowing the students to focus on the reading without the music taking them away in another direction. I never saw such creative and at the same time simple idea to convey a message and grab the attention of the reader. It turns hard work into a real joy.
Pink Panther verbs and video
Hey! I just got a mail from EFL classroom and it had a link to a video that caught my eye. So I went there and found this great video with a whole range of verbs and subtitles and of course famous pink panther action. I though of an interesting way I could present it to the class in that I really want them to learn these verbs from memory and use them, so I decided to create a pink panther competition and the winner is of course the one who remembers the most verbs. Isn’t the internet just the most fabulous infinite source of teaching materials? You could take this exercise further and ask the students to create their own story using some or all of these verbs and see what can of imagination they have, or why not try and do it your self if you are a teacher and provide an example of what you are looking for and model the exercise. EFL Classroom is well worth getting involved with because it draws attention and make use of those videos we are all looking for to enhance our teaching and classroom experience and can save you hours over and over again.
Digital business cards/ business websites for teachers
Free from WIX……..great for teachers
Making a promo site for your self as a teacher or private tutor doesn’t have to be a drag or even cost you money. I made this site for my private lessons.
http://lorraineefl.wix.com/privatelessons
I never meant it really as a means of meeting new students and parents but rather that I can send the link almost like a business card. Wix is really user friendly, believe me and their images and clipart art features are fab to decorate yourself on line.
Coming soon on EFL-Lorraine.com, a members area, where you can learn step by step the process of how to make these cute sites, and not only this, once you know the process you can create stunning websites very easily for your class for computer activities, homework, or class projects, photos and videos. Wix is so creative and colorful you can do anything with it, but I found a way to use it in the classroom and I’m going to show you how………..stay tuned for updates.
What’s the time please? What’s the food O’clock?
FOOD CLOCK
Carrying on from my earlier post on food, also in the food category on the right side bar, this glorious food clock can make a very interesting lesson to combine teaching food and the time. What can you see? Tomatoes and garlic at 12 O’Clock, tea and buiscuits 4 and 5 O clock. A great idea is to simply make your own food or items clock with whatever is is you want your class to learn or revise. I’ll bet the class learns 11 O’clock real quick…hmmm!
Summer Activities
Here is a video collection of images taken at the center where I worked this summer 2012 when I taught and produced an EFL English summer school.. The kids had a great time in English with all the different kinds of media such as drama, arts, music, games, computers. It was a real treat and I hope we’re gonna do it again next summer. Do you like the big clouds at the end with letters on them? I thought that was really fun. Special thanks to Boaz at YRF for putting this video together.
Amazing food
I love to use pictures to prompt dialogue and its a way of letting all the class comment at their level. I collected a selection of amazing food images from Facebook posts and here they are for you to enjoy and use. Copy and paste them into a power point for a writing exercise. Put them on your classroom projector if you have one. Use them in a private tutorial setting…..by the way EFL-Lorraine has a Facebook page too so like it if you want more updates and ideas that are not always posted here on the blog https://www.facebook.com/EFL.Lorraine?ref=hl
