Back To School
Back To School
Back To School
As a follow-up, students can pick out useful structures from their teacher’s model
letter and use them to write their own letters which they then read in groups and make
guesses about each other’s lies. These can be written under the letter by classmates and
then handed in to the teacher – this way we can learn something about our students
and get an idea of their level of written English.
For five more variations on the ‘Guess the lie’ theme, click here
Here’s my example:
One option for the teacher is to reveal the answer to each of these with pictures (mine
are at the bottom of the blog post). An advantage here is that these pictures will
probably prompt more questions on the part of the students.
Then, of course, students can repeat this exercise in pairs. Bringing in pictures
involves a bit of extra prep, but I wouldn’t rule it out: these pictures can be used for
other things.
Bear in mind you might have all sentences following a particular grammar structure,
or each sentence following a different grammar structure. Or grammar might not be
your focus.
Once again, you might build in the rule that students can ask a question (or two) about
each statement before deciding which one is a lie.
Split the class into two teams. Each student writes a couple of true sentences about
themselves and a couple of lies too (more for the game to last longer). The teams line
up facing one another. Each student from team A reads out a true sentence, except
one student who reads out a lie (assigned by the teacher or decided in the group
(without the other group seeing!) ). The other group guesses which one was lying, and if
they guess right, they get a point. Then swap teams. [credit – Alyssa Alexander]
Get students into groups of three. Give them a question to take turns to answer (give
them a couple of minutes to prepare) like ‘What did you do last summer?’ or ‘Tell us
about a time something embarrassing happened to you’ or similar. They then decide on
the story they like best and the two students who the story doesn’t belong to learn it.
All three students tell the story to the class. The other students guess who the story
really belongs to and can ask questions to help them work it out.
‘Back to back’ is a classic video activity, whereby one student watches a video clip and
narrates the action to a student who can’t see the screen. But maybe this needs
something more. Let’s add the condition that the student narrating must tell a lie, then
the student listening watches the clip and tries to spot it. Then they swap.
Some considerations:
*Students need to know how long they are going to narrate for to be sure they fit the
lie in (30 seconds works well, but this depends on student level / the video).
*Narrating in real time is hard! To make the task more accessible for learners, try:
Choose a video where the action changes slowly, or slow the video down.
Allow learners to see the clip before having to narrate it.
Rather than narrating, learners say three things about the video after they’ve
watched it: one is true.
Here’s one of mine from the summer. What could you ask?
Ideas: Where is the beach? What are you looking at? Why are you alone? Are you sad
or angry? Are you meditating? Where did you buy your hat? Did you get wet? Do you
enjoy building sandcastles? How hot was it? Etc.
Students can do the same by showing a photo on their phones if they are allowed to,
or uploading a photo to a shared space (drive, padlet) with the teacher either
projecting them on the board or printing them out. We can also display the photos
round the room with students moving around and writing questions under them.
Students then get their photos back and read out their answers. (If it’s a big class, we
can do this in groups).
3. Speed dating
Students sit in two (socially distanced) lines facing each other, speak to their partner for
(eg.) two minutes and then one one row of students stands up and moves one space
along for a new partner. What do they talk about? You can prescribe questions of the
‘Getting to know you’ / ‘Tell me about summer’ kind, or you can spend a few minutes
brainstorming questions with the students beforehand: with ownership comes
motivation. Students can feed back afterwards what they learned about their peers or
even do a piece of writing which can include graphs.
Students like to know where they stand and appreciate teachers who are consistent.
To that end, outlining your expectations at the start of the year makes sense. ‘The
why’ is important with students, so it makes sense to give a compelling reason for any
rule in place. As we outlined above, giving students ownership can be beneficial,
though guidance is required on our part when it comes to student-created rules. Let’s
look at a couple of different ways of involving our students in the process of drawing up
and explaining rules.
1.Provide the rules and have the students suggest why they’re necessary
Eg. Rule – Don’t interrupt the teacher or a fellow student when they’re explaining
something
Possible reasons – If someone else is talking, people can’t hear what’s being said and
won’t understand or know what to do. We want other people to listen to us, so we do
the same.
2. Give students a list of ‘Class outcomes’ – some positive, some negative. With the
students we categorise them giving reasons and then add to them. Then we draw
up rules to ensure we meet the desired outcomes and avoid the negative ones.
Example outcomes
1. Talk to your classmates as you’d like them to talk to you: help each other with
mistakes as they are part of learning.
2. Don’t interrupt each other and ask others what they think
3. Be on time and have your material out and be ready to go in 30 seconds! Change
tasks quickly to avoid wasting time
4. Tell someone if you’ve got a problem. If you see someone excluded, include
them.
5. Try your hardest at all times, look for ways to improve, learn from your
mistakes
A note on the expectations: refer back to them regularly, with praising students who
follow them just as important as pulling up students who don’t.
Having a destination and a plan to get there is a big part of learning. Telling students
some of the things they’ll be able to do at the end of the year or a certificate they can
gain at the end of the year (and why it’s useful) can be a big source of motivation.
Students are also interested in how they are going to be assessed, how their grades are
going to be broken down. Components and weightings can vary widely depending on
your context, but most of the ongoing evaluation in the schools I have worked in largely
teaching teens has centred around areas such as:
Later on of course each component part (eg, ‘Writing assignments’ or ‘Effort and
participation’) will need success criteria outlined so students know what they’re
aiming for, so that grades are transparent and, of course, so they know how to
improve.
What about goals? We can set goals for the year and lesson objectives, but do the
students have any learning goals they’d like to set? These could be an area of English
they want to feel more confident in, a qualification they want to gain or perhaps
something that went poorly last year they want to improve. The best goals are SMART
– specific, measurable, relevant and time-based. And of course, if we provide
opportunities to ‘check in’ with students on goals, they’re more likely to be taken
seriously.
raquel_teaching.ideas
Además, hay que dejar muy claro desde el principio cuáles son las rutinas y
procedimientos que seguiremos: qué hacemos al entrar en clase, cómo hacemos la fila,
cómo trabajamos en grupo, cuándo podemos ir al baño, dónde guardamos el material,
quiénes son los encargados, qué hago cuando termino mi tarea, etc. Seating, group
work, arrival, dismissal, finishing work early…
Hoy os traigo la segunda parte del #backtoschool. Esta vez trata sobre la gestión de
aula, la cual considero muy importante especialmente estos primeros días de clase.
Para ello he hecho esta pequeña lista con las cosas que más útiles me están resultando
por ahora.
✅ CLASS RULES (Whole Brain Teaching): son solo 5 reglas pero es muy importante
cumplirlas. Utilizo los carteles de Iris @classclassyesyes , aunque también me he
descargado unos muy guays de @teachercrina con la temática de superhéroes.
✅ COVID RULES: ver post de mis pósters con las normas especiales para este curso.
✅ CALL AND RESPONSE: este curso voy a utilizar el de "Class Class! Yes yes!" además
de los específicos del COVID que nos enseñó Sara @fun.teach .
✅ CLASSROOM SCREEN: es una web que no necesita registro y es muy útil para la
gestión de aula. Hice un post sobre ello hace un año.
✅ CLASS DOJO: supongo que a estas alturas todos conocéis Class Dojo. Yo siempre
establezco los puntos con los alumnos y después les enseño un póster con las
recompensas (tenéis este póster gratuito en mi Gumroad y TPT. Link en mi perfil).
Después del #backtoschoolactivities y #classroommanagement vengo con algunas
apps y webs que me resultan muy útiles en el día a día y que pienso usar este curso
entre muchas otras.
🔸️REMIND: app que usan en mi cole para comunicarse con las familias. Lo llaman "el
Whats App de padres". A ver qué tal funciona.
🔸️GOOGLE CLASSROOM: puede venirnos muy bien este año para la entrega de tareas
(ya que en mi cole al menos serán siempre online) y en caso de confinamiento. 😨
🔸️GENIALLY: para hacer presentaciones, juegos e imágenes interactivas que son una
pasada.
🔸️CANVA: para crear materiales. Si es posible, pondré en práctica con mis alumnos
algunas de las ideas que publiqué en otro post ("Ideas para usar Canva en clase").
alohomora_project
SNOWBALL FIGHT: Entrega un post-it o trozo de papel a cada alumno y pídeles que
escriban en él 5 datos curiosos sobre ellos (cumpleaños, deporte favorito, comida
favorita, estilo de música, aficiones, número de hermanos). Después lo arrugan y lo
tiran en cualquier dirección. A continuación, cada uno recoge un papel del suelo y lo
lee. El objetivo será adivinar a quién corresponde cada papel según los datos escritos
en él.
ACROSTIC GAME: Los alumnos escriben su nombre en vertical junto con un adjetivo o
nombre que empiece por esa letra y que les defina o esté relacionada con él. Primero
lo hago conmigo misma. Los alumnos explican por qué han elegido esas palabras.
2 TRUTHS AND A LIE: Escribo 3 frases en la pizarra, 2 verdaderas y 1 falsa. Dejo que los
SS me pregunten y justifico la razón por la que creen que son verdaderas o falsas. A
continuación, será su turno: escribirán las frases y entre todos adivinarán la falsa.
e.g. I’ve worked as an English teacher since 2018.
I studied in the University of Hull.