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Random teaching idea: Loo roll

Let me start by saying that i  ❤ this title (haha).Vicky, a colleague,  shared this idea and I am going to try it with my learners. Before I try it though, I thought I’d share it with you guys cause maybe you will think of a twist or two, share it in the comments section, and then this idea may turn out to be the teaching idea of the century… and it all starts with loo roll.

Context

Level: elementary and over

Skills: listening and speaking

Individual then group work.

Material needed

Toilet paper

Process

You give the loo roll to your learners and ask them to cut as much as they want. They do. You then tell them that each piece of toilet paper corresponds to X minutes of speaking about Y subject. I for example, am going to say that each piece of toilet paper is 2 minutes of speaking about summer holidays. Once all the students have their pieces of toilet paper, give them time to plan what they will talk about!!

BUT…. (things to consider)

  • What happens if a learner takes too much paper? You should set a limit. Say, ” You can take up to 4 pieces”. Also do a bit of math. Your ‘loo roll’ timing will depend on the number of students you have.
  • What will the other learners be doing while each student is talking about his/her holidays? Good point! Put your students in groups of four after they have taken their pieces of toilet paper. Tell them that they need to take notes of what their classmates did, and then see if,as a group, any members did the same things (something like a mini-survey), then tell each group that they will use this information to give a little presentation to the rest of the class.

Once you have done this with your class, you probably won’t be able to do it again cause your students will know what the loo roll really means!!

Happy teaching!! Oh!! Do share any ideas that may be a bit on the ‘wacky’ side, but have worked 🙂 If you can think of anything else that could be part of the ‘loo roll’ task, let me know in the section below. Feel free to comment in the section below and share if you like this post  🙂

loo roll

Till next time….

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#Augustfavourites 2015

Time for #Augustfavourites, but unfortunately August was sooooooo busy that I didn’t read that many blog posts nor did I have time to write that much. I am going to share with you a few bits and bobs though.

Blog posts

Anthony Teacher.com: Adapting academic reading circles for the listening and speaking classroom.

Hotel 3001: Where to look for inspiration online when trying to find ‘cool’ material to use in class/to get ideas (catchy video of paint drying btw :P).

Freelance Teacher Swelf Development: Ideas on where to look for (academic) articles/resources when not at university.

Website

3 minute thesis: This is great to watch with your EAP students. Students from all over the world present their thesis and they talk for only 3 minutes. Some of your learners might even want to take part in the competition!

TED talks I watched with my learners

During this year’s pre-sessional EAP course I was a listening tutor which meant I did a lot of listening practice that focused on note-taking skills (especially during lectures). I watched 3 TED talks in class. I have put them in order of preference as well (my learners ranked the Cuddy talk as their favourite).

Amy Cuddy TED talk: Your body language shapes who you are (I made a lesson plan and you can find it here).

Jason Fried TED talk : Why work doesn’t happen at work (I made a lesson plan and it can be found here).

I also used this TED talk in class Noreena Hertz: How to use experts — and when not to .

Online Conference

Of course #TOBELTA 2015! This year the TOBELTA conference was about assessment. I gave a presentation as well (toot-toot) and you can watch the recording of my talk here. You can find all the recordings on YouTube.

Best buys eva (teacher goes stationery shopping)

Let me just say ….. I ❤ shopping and according to me friends…. I am good at it :P. Now, the best kind of shopping is of course stationery shopping, and this is what I got from the best book shop eva: Waterstones.

  1. A pencil-case appropriate for all bloggers.

20150909_111728    2. 3D butterfly post-it notes

   3. Labels and stickers for my planner as I enjoy decorative planning (if you are wondering what on earth that is, check out this blog post).

20150909_111636

So, that’s it for the month of August. Short and sweet!! As I probably missed out loads of August stuff, feel free to toot your own horn if you wrote a blog post and wanna share it with me, or share anything you loved in the month of August! The comments section is all yours.

Talk soon xxx

 

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Gimme a rock to hide unda

I just read Michael Griffin’s post about ‘scaring’ students on the first day. His post has nothing to do with scenes from horror films, don’t worry. It inspired me and got me thinking about something though. It is something I have been thinking about for a while. Scary teachers, but not the ones who scare students. Nope. The ones who scare off other teachers.

My ‘scary’ teachers

  • Loud/Know-it all Alpha type teachers

These are the ones I am scared of the most. They walk into the staff room and take the floor… with their  voice. Then comes the ‘i’ ‘I’ ‘I’.

‘I am the center of the ELT world, I know everything and you better listen, cause if you don’t, well, you will be deaf!”

Now, from time to time, you may learn something interesting, but most of the time, the constant attention seeking just makes me run away or try to find a rock to try to hide under.

  • The banterers/ The borderline rude/no filter colleagues

Don’t get me wrong. I ❤ banter. I am sarcastic (funny-ish) from time to time, but there are some teachers I have come across that just take banter to a whole new level that makes it rude. And this comes from someone (me) who is quite rude anyway. The ”funny” teachers make ‘fun’ of anything;age/nationality/weight etc. etc. And yes, this happens, and yes, I have witnessed it. This is when I roll my eyes or just give one word answers. The expression on my face of course is… ”don’t mess with me dude”. But, neva,eva confrontational.

  • The super/duper control freak teachers

So, you have ‘planners’ and then you have ‘overplanners’. The ones who know what they will be doing for Christmas 2050, they  just freak me out. They make me feel insecure about what I am doing in class and are counterproductive for me. I just stress out when I am around them, and again, I run away.

Seriously, you must wonder, when am I actually in the office? I am, I promise. I am just scared of the ‘scary’ teachers!

Happy school year to everyone and beware of the scary teachers    🙂

f2f17-pink2bcider

Till next time…..

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A weekend in #Cambridge

#ThegirliesideofELT post 9

For bank holiday weekend Deirdre and I decided to meet up in Cambridge, and we did. We had never been to Cambridge before so we thought it would be a good meeting point, and it was. If you are in the UK and have never been to Cambridge, you really need to visit. It is beautiful, very picturesque and… academic. Yeap, yeap my inner dork felt at home. I loved it there!

20150830_193536

I took the train from Sheffield to Cambridge. It was a three hour journey but, you know me, I made friends on the train and spent half the time marking and the other half chatting  🙂

I met Deirdre at the train station and we got a taxi till the Double tree by Hilton in Cambridge. It is a luxurious hotel. Very nice rooms and the gardens look really pretty. The majority of staff was friendly.We had to leave our stuff at the lobby cause our room wasn’t ready so we decided to walk around Cambridge. Walking down the street with all the colleges is so impressive. I loved it! You gotta be there to get what I mean! We walked a bit an then had lunch at a pub called The Mitre. I had a very filling burger and a jug of Pims. It was the bottomless jug though, the never ending one!!

                                                    cam buildingclock

We walked a bit more and then headed back for a tiny rest at the hotel. We actually ended up having dinner at our hotel and it was yummy (kinda pricey, but then again it’s the Double tree). We also went for a drink at a pub by the river.

The next day we decided to do a bit of shopping, and yes, damage was done! Walked some more, and had a pizza at this Italian chain called Zizi I got a pizza that had goats cheese on it. It was tasty and….skinny. Then back to the hotel, and some cocktails at the bar.

me river

Al in all, I really had a fun, relaxed, girlie weekend. Two hard working teachers having a break 🙂

I will definitely visit Cambridge again! For more #girlie posts press here. Feel free to tell m what you did last weekend in the comments section below.

Talk soon xxx

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Jason Fried TED talk -Lesson Plan

Today I am sharing with you another TED talk I used in my class. I teach the listening skill and my learners are adults who are studying English for academic purposes. The lesson I designed again focuses on note taking. It was very appropriate for them as most of them have work experience and they are also management students. This TED talk is appropriate for B2 upper-intermediate learners. It’s great for EAP and Business English students. Like the Amy Cuddy TED talk lesson plan I shared earlier this month, there is a lot of note taking but this time instead of getting them to write a summary, I asked them to use their notes to answer questions in their groups.

Since I was asked in the comments section, I think it’s a good idea to mention that these lessons are similar to attending mini lectures. During lectures students are asked to take notes. They then use their notes (detailed) and have little group discussions based on questions. They may even have a seminar discussion. That’s what I tried to practice with this lesson.

Jason Fried talks about distractions at work. He argues that managers and meetings are one of the biggest distractions at work and makes 3 suggestions on how to minimise distractions.

  1. Have a half day silent Thursday during which no one is allowed to talk.
  2. Go from active communication to passive communication such as emailing and I.Ms.
  3. Cancel the next meeting.

My class

My students loved this talk. They giggled quite a bit and the 3 suggestions got them talking. I actually got them to debate. The final task I chose was ”imagine your ideal office/ working environment”. This does not have that much to do with the TED talk, so you can omit it if you like. My students really had fun though, and gave mini pair presentations (which ties into what I am teaching them at this stage of the course). If you want the lesson to end with a blast, keep the ideal office task as well! This lesson took about 80 minutes. I have not included minutes in this lesson plan. The activities were done in groups.

The Video

The Tasks

Before listening

    1 You are going to watch a talk by Jason Fried called,

    ‘’Why work doesn’t happen at work’’.

    What do you think it’s about?

  1. Where do you go when you want to do something important like work or study?
  2. What kind of distractions do people have at work?
  3. If you were the manager of a company, what measures would you take in order to minimise distractions?

Watch the TED talk and take detailed notes. You will need your notes to answer questions later on.

After listening

Answer the following questions

    1. How did people answer Fried’s question about where they go to do something important.

   2. What distractions do employees have at work?

   3. What’s the connection between work and sleep?

   4. What 3 measures does Fried suggest managers take in order to minimise distractions?

Debate about measures: In your groups discuss the effectiveness of the measures. Do you agree with them?

In groups decide on your idea working environment (office). When you have finished, you will present this to the rest of the class.

You can find the TED talk tasks on PDF here Jason Fried TED talk LP

If you try this lesson, let me know how it goes. Feel free to share.

Till next time…….

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#thegirliesideofelt post 8

Fun times: work, shopping, eating and dancing

You know how when you have a great day at work, you wanna tell everyone about it? And then the day at work turns into this great day and everything is just fab? I had one of those days on Friday and then I had a great weekend, so I thought I’d write a little blog post.

Friday- Work….. great

After work… great….

So, I thought I’d share a babble with you and tell you what my day was like. I left my student accommodation at 8:30 (teachers teaching at Sheffield’s pre-sessional EAP course live in this area called Ranmoore Village and it’s where students live during the academic year).

It was a nice kinda sunny day and I decided I wold walk to work. I never really walk to work cause I stress out over being late, but anyway, I thought I’d get out of my comfort zone and walk to work. And I did. I actually arrived a bit earlier so I got a bit of coffee as well.

I was teaching my main tutor group listening. We did a lot of talking before the listening tasks, we watched videos, students did their tasks, everything went smoothly. We then watched a TED talk and did a bit of writing. As there were a few minutes left, I decided to show them some tongue twisters just to get them to read a bit and practice speaking faster. They loved it. The thing about Chinese students is that they really enjoy pronunciation practice. If one student says something incorrectly, they all repeat the correct pronunciation as if they are in a choir. It’s great!

After work we went to this really nice Chinese restaurant and just ate dumpling. I have one word for you. Yummy. After dinner (which means lunch), we went for coffee at Debenhams’s, sat outside and enjoyed the sun. Afterwards, we went to the movies. We watched American Mistress. Nice film about a girl and her half-sister. Best phrase in the movie is when the guy tells the girl (the protagonist who is a writer)  ” I like you, but I wanna love someone I don’t have to always keep up with”. The movie has fast dialogues and is a nice movie to watch. Is it the best movie I have ever watched in my life? Nope. But it’s a good one.

Shef center

Sheffield City Center

My weekend was full of nice lunches (if you are in Sheffield you may want to check out the Thyne), a bit of shopping (makeup, bits and bobs-Dorothy Perkins has some nice stuff on sale) and my ,oh my, a lot of dancing (some cheesy music as well). You know the expression ”dance till you drop”? I danced and then the next day I was extremely tired (too old for an all nighter!).

Thyne

Thyne restaurant, Sheffield

So, yeah. Life is good in the UK. I am enjoying it.

Disclaimer: I don’t really know where to put these little babbles and I have decided to put them under the girlie posts. I am actually thinking of just having a second blog where I write any silly thing that pops into my mind. Dunno yet. Any suggestions?

Talk soon

xx

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A fish, a thesis and ibid: Teaching (academic) writing through drawings

Drawing in the EFL class is something many teachers do in order to explain something like a grammar point or to have some fun like getting your learners to make a picture composition. I usually draw when I am teaching young learners, and I also draw when I want to show my emotions. For example, I will draw a smiley face after the Homework tasks have been written on the board to show my students that I will be happy when they do all their work.

But what about English for academic purposes? Do you draw in your EAP classes? I do, especially when I am teaching writing. I thought I’d share two of my favourite EAP pics which are on the wall somewhere in almost all my EAP classes. Keep in mind that these drawings can be used in any context where thesis statements and sources are part of a writing class, so these drawings can go beyond the EAP classroom.

The fish, the thesis and the arguments

It is quite hard for international students who are learning EAP for the first time to understand what a thesis statement is. They come from different educational backgrounds and they are trying to do a post-graduate degree in an English-speaking (that’s my teaching contexts) country. They probably have never heard or written a thesis statement before. Add the term argumentative essay, and things become even more complicated. This applies to any student who is first introduced to terms thesis and argumentative essay. That’s when  the Picasso in me takes action. I draw a fish.

The fish

Why a fish? Well, it gives a good representation of the connection between the thesis and the arguments. The back bone of the fish is the thesis statement, and the arguments are the fish’s bones, all the bones are connected connected to the backbone. I often tell my learners that if a bone breaks, then the fish is in trouble, Just like their essays. I say, ”Your arguments need to be linked to your thesis statement and what you are trying to prove”.

Fish

Follow up task: When I am teaching writing and students have written a thesis statement and have a draft of the main body of the  essay, I ask them to go over the main body and write down the arguments (main ideas). I then tell them to look at their thesis and see if there is a connection and what that connection is. They can even draw their own fish if they want to!

The ‘referenced’ drawing

In-text citations are also quite hard for students. I find that my students get overwhelmed by the hard vocabulary in paraphrased sources or quotes (especially in academic texts) that they lose sight of the mechanics of referencing. Very often I show them how to do in-text citations by drawing. Below you can see two examples. One shows how I explain citing a secondary source and the other shows them what ibid means. So, after going through all the websites that are dedicated to referencing, I turn these concepts into visuals.

                      IBIDblack and Jackson

These pictures are all on my wall and help me explain in a very simple way some really hard things!

What do you use drawing for? Feel free to leave a comment below and share this post if you like it! Thanks for reading    🙂

Till next time…..

 

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Amy Cuddy TED talk: Lesson Plan

Today I am sharing with you a lesson I did with my EAP students. This lesson is appropriate for adults and mature students. The language level is better for students who are  B2 (upper-intermediate) and above. The pace of the talk is quite fast but because Cuddy gives lots of examples and the topic is interesting, students did not really mind. There are subtitles you can add if you think this is necessary (YouTube).

Skills:

Listening and note taking

Speaking (expressing opinion)

Writing (summarising)

Tasks

Amy Cuddy TED talk

Your body language shapes who you are

Before listening

  1. You are going to watch a TED talk about body language (nonverbal communication). Why is body language important? Discuss in groups.(6-8 mins)
  2. Can you think of common gestures and types of nonverbal communication that are common all around the world? What do they mean? The V symbol we do with our hand, for example, means victory. Discuss in your groups (5 mins)
  3. What’s an Alpha type personality? Write down the characteristics of an Alpha type personality(5 mins)
Definition
Characteristics
  1. Look up the terms testosterone and cortisol. They are hormones. What do they affect? (6 mins)

You are now going to watch Amy Cuddy’s TED talk. Take linear notes because you will need them later on (22 mins).

After listening

5. Fill in the gaps based on your notes (3 mins)

Fake it…………………………….

Fake it ………………………….

What do these phrases mean. Discuss in pairs (4 mins)?

6. What do we learn about Amy Cuddy’s life? Talk about this with the person next to you (5 mins)

Now, summarise the talk in pairs (150 words).

You can find the task sheet with the exercises for the Amy Cuddy TED talk here

My learners really enjoyed this session. They found it very interesting. My lesson lasted for 90 minutes. They spent a lot of time summarising. If your classes are sixty minutes long, you can set the summary as a task for homework. I have not included minutes on the task sheet. Also, if you have extra time, you can talk about the different types of body language shown in class, what Amy Cuddy said regarding gambling and hormones and so on.

I hope you liked this lesson plan. Feel free to share and let me know how it went if you use it.

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Off to Leeds

Sunday the 9th of August my friend Kasia and I decided it was time to go to Leeds which is about 45 minutes by train from Sheffield (that’s where I am at the mo). The plan was to leave at around 11. But, typical Joanna (that’s me), I was a bit late and by the time I put on my face (a.k.a makeup) it was 11:30.. To cut a long intro short, our train left Sheffield at around 12:15 and we arrived in Leeds one-ish.

Sheffield train station

Sheffield train station

We had made no plans, we were gonna go with the flow. Maybe hit some shops, have some food, and probably go to a gallery. Once we arrived in Leeds we needed fuel… coffee, so we went into this nice pub and had some coffee. Interestingly enough, coffee in this pub cost more than beer!

Coffee time

Coffee time

After the coffee, we started walking around and instantly I felt like I was in heaven, my city center paradise. You see, I don’t do nature. I like to stroll in nice centers that have flowers, and coffee shops and a nice vibe. I am a city girl. Leeds was exactly that! All the shops are in one area, little streets have restaurants or more stores. People walk around, there are people busking. I loved it. We didn’t do much shopping, just a few bits an bobs. We  ❤ TK Maxx.

Leeds

Leeds

We went to the Byron for a nice burger. It claims it serves proper burgers, and it does. We had a yummy meal and….check out the pic below, I asked for a burger that was well done, and I got one  🙂 . We also had a bit of good live music in the background.

well done

I then posted  a question on Facebook and asked for suggestions on where to go in Leeds. People suggested visiting the Corn exchange and Victoria’s quarter. Both are shopping areas (you guys…., you know me so well :p). The architecture in these particular spots is so unique (check out the pics). The Corn exchange used to be a place where grain inspections were held. Now it is a different kind of shopping place. So lovely.

Corn exchange

Corn exchange

After that we walked a bit more and found the canal. The weather was great (even though my pictures do not do it justice). We walked by the river bank and crossed this really nice bridge to have some more fuel… em… coffee.

The canal

The canal

Time flew by and we had to head home, but all in all, Leeds is a great place to go and chill. You can walk around, have a nice meal and just suck in the city’s atmosphere. Nice day with great company.

piece of art

Talk soon xx

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See you at #TOBELTA

Hi everyone!

Just a quick blog post today!

Tomorrow the #TOBELTA online conference starts (8-9/8). There is a great line up of presenters. it’s free and it’s also online which means you can be in your pyjamas and develop professionally. So it’s win-win! Press here for the programme.

  tobelta_web_conference_programme_2015

Guess who else is talking? Me. I am actually preparing my PPT as we speak ( or write?).

I will talk about peer and self-assessment in different contexts and my focus will be on the writing skill. I will start off with some background info. The benefits and some drawbacks of both types of assessment and then I will talk to you about different types of activities that can be used in class to promote peer and self-assessment.

My talk is on Saturday the 8th at 17:30 CET (4:30 in the UK/6:30 in Greece).ec063-10561814_10152679793187425_481449428002127213_n

and this is the link to enter the room is: http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads

Hope I get to see ya!!

Joanna