One of the most useful CPD sessions I ever attended was a really fun book making technique that Charlotte Haenlein taught at the 2009 NATECLA conference. Book making is a great lesson in its own right and it also happens to meet a piece of portfolio criteria, following instructions, which is always a bonus ;-p
So as a follow up to Rima's Day we created our own books using images from the SQA's "Daily Life" pack. The book making itself is fun... all you need is a few different sets of coloured paper and the instructions.
They get all sorts of integrated skills work as they:
put the books together
write their sentences
talk about their daily routine
listen to others
match the appropriate words to the picture
read their own books to themselves, eachother and their children.
I've also used the books to make picture dictionaries and alphabet books. Lots of fun for all so a big thanks to Charlotte for her wonderful arts and crafts session! :-)
Often tickets are used for very practical activities in classrooms like role-plays etc… which is great. However, after seeing a ticket on Sandy Millin’s wonderful infinite ideas website a few creative ideas were sparked in my head. I’ve posted there as well but really like the Teaching Unplugged framework. After reading Mike’s excellent post, where he also used that framework very effectively, I felt inspired to have a go. Do check out both blogs and obviously the book. I've already used Mike's travel recommendations lesson with great success :-)
Anyway, here's my lesson. Not sure if it fully qualifies as unplugged but it's certainly materials light and myself and several colleagues have had really fun lessons with it.
Think about it
Tickets open doors. Think back over your life experiences. A magical afternoon at the zoo, the concert of a lifetime, a trip through snowy and unfamiliar landscapes on the way to your first job in a foreign land. These are just a few examples of experiences made possible by a ticket. If you’re doing a topic like transport, journeys or events why not take a bit of time to find out what your learners’ experiences have been. Do they have any stories to tell? Or can they imagine some?
Get it ready
Bring in a bus ticket, football match ticket, plane ticket etc… Also different shapes and sizes of coloured paper cut into the shapes of various kinds of tickets.
Set it up
Pass your chosen ticket round the class. Ask learners to imagine what the story of that ticket might be. What happened to the person who bought it, what did they experience whilst they were using it? Allow time for discussion. Ask the learners if they have ever had an interesting experience whilst using a ticket? What kind of ticket was it? Discuss the different purposes of tickets.
Let it run
Pass out the slips of paper. In pairs or small groups, ask the learners to create their own ticket. It can be any kind of ticket.
Ask everyone in the class to exchange their tickets with the group sitting next to them.
With their new ticket the groups decide on the story of that ticket and write a short narrative.
Round it off
Each group shows the class their ticket, reads out the story and answers any questions. Tutor feeds back on emergent language as appropriate.
Follow up
Learners discuss where they would go/what they would do if they had a magic ticket to anywhere. Possibly creating a WEG style table .
The idea of un)-plug-(un lessons is one that has been hovering in my subconscious ever since I read it on Jason Renshaw's site. There's something about the idea that seems to maximise creativity and uses all a teacher's skills. You have to manage an emergent moment, guide it into something on the spot and then on reflection create a piece of material that captures the heart of that moment.
However, unlike the horrendous art of butterfly pinning, after capturing the moment, you take it into class and let it take flight again in anyway it likes. There are many ways of doing this (and I would like to learn some more!) but the one I'm enjoying at the moment is Live Reading. So when my barely literate and barely speaking Early Entry Burmese came into my class last week desperate to tell me all about their trip to the caves in Clapham, I couldn't carry on with my planned 'directions' session!
It took awhile for me to even figure out what they'd done but their excitement was infectious so together we found the words to express their experiences, first as a discussion, and then on the board. In hindsight there was too much language for their level but it was all stuff they wanted to say and I'll learn to be more concise next time!
Then, while they practiced reading it, I nipped next door and put it on card so they could order it in groups. It was easy to differentiate as I just cut it into more pieces for more able learners.
Next, a bit of pronuncation and word practice and using their magnetic letters they practiced spelling some of the key vocab.
The following class I had a go at inputting the text into a template by Jason with a few simple word level practice activities and ended up with this.
There was definitely too much text, even though I edited it down, but the reaction was postive. My learners respond well to professional looking resources, especially when those materials contain their work!
We played around with the text again, the learners took it in turns to read the sentences, and despite the text being way above their skill level, they made another really good stab at reading and understanding. When it came to matching the pictures, the task was challenging but possible, and lent itself to differentiation, as the faster learners completed harder anagrams on the board.
The materials led easily into a discussion about class trips in general. We chatted about when and where we were going for our class trip :-)
Since that class, the learners have taken the reading home with them, practiced it, written it out for themselves and tried the tasks alone, without me asking them too. I think they thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of the session, subsequent material and discussion despite the difficulty level!
I really believe there's a lot of mileage in this approach for learners and it creates a high level of job satisfaction for me so thanks as usual to Jason Renshaw :-)
Any tips or ideas for how to improve this lesson or how to handle a similar situation differently would be very welcome! :-D
So... lots to reflect on after today - some real highs and some areas to work on!
Highs!
The moment when a Polish, male learner could not stop laughing. I have no idea what set him off but it looked like he was laughing at his Asian, female partner whilst she was speaking. I'm sure he wasn't! But dynamics in a class of boisterous, flirtatious Polish guys with strict Muslim ladies isn't always the easiest and it could have gone oh so wrong! But we were using what came up in the classroom so I taught them got the giggles. Up it went on the board. We chatted about what to say in similar situations to avoid offense e.g. "so sorry I've got the giggles". By the end my Asian ladies were laughing and thanking him for teaching them new language :-)Later one of the ladies also got the giggles, which everyone loved pointing out.
The creativity and variety of stories that came out of the reverse reading on Saira's Day ... from Valentine's Day surprises and a house decorated in celebration of a birthday to a special trip to the seaside and the return of a long-lost sister.
The noticing that went on when I let them be the teachers whilst they were correcting eachother's texts. For example, "Anna they've spelt morning wrong haven't they?" "No, no that's right." "Ohhh ... I've spelt mornign wrong haven't I?" "Yep... but it's great that you noticed!!"
The level of engagement and activity as they started their own coursebooks in their notebooks, used texts they were genuinely interested in, checked new vocab with me and eachother, wrote their own questions and had a laugh correcting their partner's mistakes and successes.
Areas to work on!
Language feedback! I love the principles and ideals behind Teaching Unplugged and the many many ideas contained within. Including the one I tried today. I can 'set it up'... I can 'let it run'.... but I need to get so much better at 'rounding it off'. Orally taking in what they are saying, how they are saying it and how I can move it forward is a real area of development for me. I can focus on content, I can focus on form and I can focus on ways to improve but not all at the same time. Not yet anyway. So in the first class... we just did content feedback. In the next class I did write up some good examples of language I'd noticed and then we fedback onto the board some more ways you could keep a conversation going e.g. follow up questions, appropriate contributions, discourse markers etc... But I have a long way to go in terms of developing that vital teaching skill!
Making time for vocab! Recycling vocab is so important and I don't give enough time for it... and again we ran out of time before I could try out Cecilia's great ideas! So first thing next week... ;-p
Overall impressions of the day...good... the learners were engaged and enjoying the activities and once again... I was left wishing we had more time. Instead of scrambling to fill the time with anything and everything, letting the break drag on a little too long etc... we were really using the time and there's always so much more that could be done. With the notebooks as coursebooks session they only got as far as answering eachother's questions in the books. The listenings, the dictogloss, the projects... haven't even got there yet.
There's a lot to learn and I'm a long way from where I want to be but there were more than enough moments to feather my magpie's nest with today. So thanks again ELT bloggers you're transforming my teaching world :-)
So today the one photocopier / printer in the college stopped working ... again! Why we can't have a backup printer is a question that has been asked many times with an answer yet to be forthcoming!
Everyone panicked... calls were made etc... I started to march over to management to voice my protests when I stopped. I thought about the classes I'd planned for tomorrow ... and had an amazing realisation ... both my sessions were completely material free.
It was a total accident but I felt great. Plus I was then able to share round some ideas... to a certain level of scepticism... combined with growing interest :-) It was the Mike Harrison idea that brought one of my friends round :-D
So if anyone's interested... my plan for tomorrow's E1 class is to start with "Something we did" p36 of Teaching Unplugged and see where it goes. If you haven't got a copy I'd highly recommend it. Followed by a slightly adapted version of Mike Harrison's excellent lesson on reverse reading.
With my E3s... I'm planning to go out and buy some A4 notebooks tonight. Then we can start using notebooks as coursebooks as per another amazing lesson shared by Jason Renshaw . I actually found that post through Chris Miner's new blog where he describes a great session. The learners are already primed to bring in their own texts so we'll see how it goes. Plus if there's time I'd like to do a bit of vocab revision using this fun, interactive idea from Cecilia Lemos.
Once again many thanks to bloggers all over the world for sharing their inspiring teaching moments online and particularly the ones above who have helped me plan my first unplugged day! I am feeling quite chuffed... I'm a long way off being fully unplugged but tomorrow is looking pretty good and perfect timing as well ;-p
Alongside ESOL, I also teach a couple of Literacy classes (just below GCSE level and a mix of ESOL and native speakers). Their main goal is to pass their exam as quickly as possible. They usually end up in the class because they're doing some kind of vocational qualification like an NVQ in childcare and they've been told they must improve their English to stay on the course.
This obviously isn't the best motivator so it can sometimes be more challenging. It becomes more acute at this stage in the year when a lot of the class has passed. Anway, this group need reading skills so I was in the midst of planning a reading session adapting a lot of the materials I used for the Arab Protest lesson described here.
Then I suddenly had a brainwave. What if instead of doing another practice exam they wrote their own? I know this idea has been around for a while but I just suddenly realised I could do it with them.
Full of renewed excitement I had a go at adapting another one of the English Raven's wonderful templates found here and ended up with this.
The question tips are based on the exam they have to do. (A tick box exercise)
I'm sure someone could do a much better job of it than this. The space to write questions is too small. However, my limited design skills aside, I was pretty pleased with it. I know technically I don't need to give them anything at all but they do need some paper to write on and I like that paper to look good or as good as I can make it!
And.... it was a very successful session. They enjoyed it and were really involved in the exam writing stage. Plus they were really thinking about the questions, getting inside them and behind them. For example they always struggle with purpose of text but that night they were writing great questions like "What is the purpose of this text? ... to inform, entertain or persuade."
They were also much more involved when it came time to answer eachother's questions. They were laughing and joking about it being too easy or too hard and were clearly very motivated because it was essentially their work! Not just another practice exam.
It's got me thinking about how else I could unplug my literacy classes!
Edit: Thanks again to Jason who suggested I adapt this template instead, producing this
The thing that I'm finding hardest about trying out some of these new teaching approaches is giving more detailed language feedback. So I am so grateful for the template that Jason Renshaw made available here.
It's funny I was thinking about this yesterday. Whilst this resource is great for learners in its own right in many ways the resources and templates Jason's making available are kind of like scaffolding for teachers. In the same way that I make worksheets simpler or create boxes and grids to encourage my learners to try new things... these templates do the same for me!
So whilst the learners were on their break, (following the adjectives session I described here) I rushed to the staff room, typed their errors into the template and printed it.
They then corrected all their spellings as a group without too much trouble (we've done this before) and we went on to the sentence errors.
However, they found the sentence errors much harder to correct. As did I! I was desperately trying to think of how to explain some of the rules off the cuff while they tried to figure out what the mistake actually were. I must admit I didn't do all of them. Below you can see my attempts at some. I actually tried to convince them to delay the rule and pattern section till next class to give me time to prepare but they really wanted to do it there and then. Which in itself is encouraging! What was also encouraging was that for the first error they just could not see the missing article but after we'd gone over the rules/patterns they immediately spotted a missing article in the third sentence.
Well by the end of this whole session I was exhausted... but... it made me realise how much I do actually know and how useful that is for the students especially when delivered in such a focused way to meet their individual needs.
My plan is now to brush up on my grammar knowledge using this great book by Scott Thornbury! ;-p
Unfortunately, I don't have accesss to the internet in class and I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate a more unplugged approach.
This conincided with Jason Renshaw uploading a whole load of really interesting unplugged Scene It! lessons complete with great teaching ideas.
Then some friends and I were talking about the protests and the amazing non violent approaches many of the protesters are taking. It's really quite beautiful. They told me about girls giving flowers to soldiers in Bahrain which led me this image here.
So there's a little insight into how my brain works! Anyway it has all culminated in an adaptation of the Scene It! resource which Jason very kindly made available in word format here. Unfortunately, it is not all unplugged there is a plugged section included because I really wanted to add some information into the mix as well as working with their current knowledge. Rightly or wrongly I'm not fully prepared to leave the Matrix just yet!
I've adapted the learning network session where each group answers a different set of questions then feeds back jigsaw style. However, I'm planning to print the questions out on coloured card and the readings on different coloured paper which in my head makes it a little better for some reason ;-p
Anyway all the resources are below if anyone wants to take a look :-) and now I really really really must do some marking!!
Ok so for anyone who is interested this is the lesson I'm going to try out next week. Please see previous post for details of how I was inspired by various pages on the English Raven's blog as many of the teaching ideas below are his.
Image – Show learners image of rose and ask them for words that come to their head. Brainstorm onto the board.
Follow up conversation: When I see a rose I think of…. etc…See where the discussion goes…
Depending on how the discussion goes etc.. other things might happen but then I am going to tell them that the image made me think of a song by The Safires called Sweet Rose.
Wordle – guess as a class about the song based on the vocabulary (and vocabulary size/frequency)
Listen to the song…. Discuss any meaning issues… do songs need to make sense? etc…
Sight and sound – divide the class into two halves, listen again with one group listening to the words, the other half concentrating on the music. Each group should write down adjectives to describe what they hear (feelings, mood, etc.) and then share as a class, making lists for poet and music on the whiteboard. How does it make them feel? Do any lines jump out that they liked particularly? Why?
Gap fill Ask learners to listen again and fill in the gaps (I’ve removed all the verbs)
Language focus: Once they’ve got the completed lyrics in front of them I’ll ask them to identify what the main tense is (present simple). Then think about why. (It’s trying to convey a sense of now, how she currently feels, describing a moment, wanting it to feel immediate etc..) Look again at the verbs are they positive or negative? Why?
Language focus 2: Ask them to try to locate which places the singer goes to? E.g. within your eyes, through shards of light, within your sighs, to this earth, in the secret of your smile, in the sand, the palm of your hand, the ocean so blue below etc… See if they notice the prepositions of place and discuss this.
Depending on time maybe …
DictoglossPlace the students in teams and play the performance up to trace, (with the teams writing down what they hear/remember during the interludes between each stanza), with students pooling and discussing their notes (without referring to the original) and then attempting to reconstruct the song as accurately as possible. Have them refer to the original version of the song to self-correct their answers (as notes alongside their reconstructions).
Then…
Speaking follow up 1: Which place would you go to if you could? Why?
Speaking follow up 2: It’s time to tell one of your stories – where do you like to go to when you can? Use your imagination. Tell your partner and listen to their story. Tell the group.
Writing follow up: Individually or in pairs write a true or fictional story about a place they go to or would like to go to and why it’s special.
There are many other things I could do I'm sure but that's what I'm going to try out! I'm looking forward to it!
If anyone happens to want to try this as well here are the teaching notes in downloadable format:
Really interested in this offering from JR last week so had a go this week with my E1s. Their writing skills are generally quite a way behind their speaking and the first unit seemed ideal for their level so I got them to do the initial piece of writing and then inputted it into the template very generously shared by Jason.
So how did it go? Well it's certainly given me a lot of food for thought and again brought home to me just how complacent and frankly lazy I've been over the last few years especially with error correction. Also, the intrinsic difficulties of teaching classes of learners some of whom have study skills whilst others don't.
This class is made up of mostly Asian learners and also some Polish learners. Interestingly the Polish learners immediately noticed the difference between the passages and very easily corrected not only their own punctuation but also their grammar using the model to help them. (I didn't ask them to do that) However, the Pakistani learners found the incorrect passage easier to read despite the errors mainly because it was about a more familiar person. They didn't really notice the errors!!
However, after some more explicit explanation they did begin to get the hang of it and what was really encouraging was some of them began to notice that they were using capital letters throughout their work for words like Live, Favourite, Mother etc... and were self correcting.
The part that made me hang my head in shame was just how easy and natural it was for me to simply tell them their errors. Especially at the end, after the follow up writing and dictation, as I was running out of time. So, despite having just witnessed some 'aha' moments for some of them when they were self correcting, I just pointed out their fresh mistakes and wrapped up the lesson.
However, if they really can begin to self correct and notice their own mistakes that's a priceless study skill that would have been really worth teaching them. And bythey I actually mean if I can persevere with this whole noticing approach rather than falling back on old habits. Since it was clear from this class that they definitely can self correct it just takes more initial effort from me!
I will definitely try the second unit after the half term holiday although I might not do it all in one chunk as I did today as it's quite intensive. However, definitely well worth it both for them and me :-)
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