Dear Subscribers,
I am replacing this Blog with a Google Site, “Route CPD to ELT“, which is now live. All of the content on this blog has been transferred to the website. In addition, I have added a number of new lesson plans and will continue to add new content when I can. All of the lesson plans now have Google Doc lesson plans and Google Slides presentations.
If you would like to contact me you may do so via my LinkedIn Profile.
Regards,
Jane
As teachers in the Israeli school system we need to assist our students to finish high school with knowledge of approximately 5,200 lexical items in English. According to Professor Batia Laufer, without massive input there will be low word gains. Furthermore, the input needs to be at the right level, and properly spaced.
I created this speaking lesson for my 10th grade ‘Keep Talking’ class, based on Laufer’s assertion that we need to ‘activate’ our students’ passive vocabulary. Firstly, I asked my students to recall the meaning of some lexical items previously taught. I presented the words in English, and asked students to recall and translate the words into L1 (receptive skill), and then use some of the words (productive skill), to complete the given tasks, based on picture prompts.
You can see an example of one pair’s work below, and then listen to an excerpt of their ‘Pair and Share’ activity, in order to see how engaged my students were.
If you get a chance to do this activity with your students, I’d love to hear about it.
This Double lesson plan has been created specifically for the teachers delivering the 10th grade ‘Keep Talking’ programme in Israeli high schools. I suggest using the lesson in one of the first lessons of the year in order to get the students thinking about their oral proficiency, and to make them aware of the different techniques and strategies available for effective learning.
I have included the lesson plan and the PowerPoint for you to use with your classes. The link to the student Self-Assessment Google Form is in Task 3 in the lesson plan itself.
I hope you and your students enjoy the lesson as much as I did.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.
Bullying is brutal. It always has been, and probably always will be an issue that too many children and teenagers have to deal with, both at school and now, due to cyber-bullying, at any time and in any place. I created this lesson after seeing a short JuBafilm – A Piece of Chalk – whilst invigilating a 12th grade Cinema Studies class.
The speaking booklet, that I have been using with my 10th grade ‘Keep Talking’ class, has a whole unit devoted to the topic of bullying, so I simply adapted that unit to incorporate ideas that were raised by the film. This 4 lesson unit plan includes a mix of speaking activities: two oral presentations, and another short film – Listen to Me – which deals with the concepts of stereotypes and bullying. The lesson plans are aimed at students from both intermediate and proficiency levels (CEFR levels B1 – C1). I have provided suggested times, however, the lessons may need more or less time depending on the class.
I have included the lesson plan and the PowerPoint for you to use with your classes.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.
As I continue to work with my 10th grade students in the new ‘Keep Talking’ programme, I have created two lesson plans to supplement the approved speaking booklets. The lessons may be used to supplement the travel units, in each of the books, or as a standalone ‘speaking’ unit. The lesson plans are aimed at students from both intermediate and proficiency levels (CEFR levels A2/B1 – C1). I have provided suggested times, however, the lessons may need more or less time depending on the class. My overarching objective in this course is to get the students speaking in pairs and small groups, and to make sure they both increase their lexis and their confidence, in a fun and engaging learning environment.
I have included the lesson plan and the PowerPoint for you to use with your classes.
I hope you and your students enjoy the lesson as much as I did.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.
A song to get students speaking!
Speaking is the most challenging of the four skills to teach in large heterogeneous classes. As speaking is interactive and demands an almost instant response, the pressure to ‘perform’ is often overwhelming for students.
With this in mind I created a fun lesson plan based on the famous song ‘It’s Friday I’m in Love’ by The Cure. Not one of my 10th grade students knew the song but they all quickly ‘fell in love’ with it.
My aim was to get the students speaking and using the lexical chunks from the song. However, to my amazement they quickly began singing the song, and asked me to play it again and again.
I have included the lesson plan and the PowerPoint for you to use with your classes.
I hope you and your students enjoy the lesson as much as I did.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.
Our students are constantly asking us: “Will it be on the exam?” “Is there a grade for this?” When the answer is no, the next question is often: What’s the point? “So why bother? With this in mind we ran an informal evening event at the ETAI national summer conference in Ashkelon with our panel of experts: Denise Ross Hayne, Penny Ur, Batia Laufer, Amos Paran, Ben Goldstein . Our goal was to pose questions, sourced from the audience via Todaysmeet, for our expert panel, who were asked to give us good reasons for why we should still bother being ‘creative and demanding ELT teachers’ in an age of ‘bottle flipping, finger spinners and Google Translate.’
As the convener of the Q & A session I would like to share with you some of my post-event reflections.
Firstly, there was no need for the panel to prepare anything in advance, which enabled them to communicate directly with the audience, and to answer questions spontaneously, on their area of expertise, without investing further time in preparation in contrast to a Pecha Kucha evening (see Pecha Kucha and the Power of (saying) ‘Yes’).
Secondly, we decided to use Todaysmeet to source questions from the audience, because it is user friendly and has a good visual layout, and meant we did not need a person running around the huge auditorium with a microphone.
Lastly, as the panel members were all experienced conference presenters they understood that the aim of the evening event is to keep things light, fast-paced and informative.
Some tips for those of you who might want to use this format:
Here is a sample of some of the questions sourced from the audience, and answered by the panel.
After seven years in ELT management I decided that I need to live the life that I want to live and not just continue doing what I had been doing for the last seven years, just because of the ‘conditions and status’, or because that is what everybody expected me to do. My resignation from the Open University surprised everybody, but for me it meant going back to teaching, to learning and to working directly with teenagers.
On 30 August I rolled up to the pre-teaching in-service day at my new school feeling both excited and nervous. Those feelings were personified two days later when I stood at the door of my first class, waiting for the students to stand. How would they perceive me? Would they behave? Would they understand me? Would they participate in the speaking tasks? How was I going to remember all of their names? I was full of doubts, but as soon as I stepped into the room, greeted the class and started off with a ‘Getting to know you’ icebreaker, those initial doubts evaporated. I left the room feeling energized and excited to be back in my own classroom, after a seven year gap.
Since then I have had a few great lessons, many ordinary lessons and some less than good lessons. Following each lesson I reflect on what went well, what could I have done differently, and did I actually meet the learning aims that I had set? I often think to myself, if I were observing this class I might have asked the teacher why she corrected that particular mistake and interrupted the student’s fluency, or, why didn’t she scaffold the task better, or had she noticed that boy in the back row, who was on his phone under the desk, during most of the speaking task.
I used to think…. But now I think…
I used to think that if I am the best teacher I can be and plan my lessons really well, the students will respond accordingly. But I now think that this isn’t always enough.
I used to think that if I integrate technology effectively to enhance the learning outcomes, the students will be motivated and engaged. But I now think, that sometimes this is true, but quite often, it is not.
I used to think that through my teacher training I could have an impact on so many more students than I could in the classroom myself. But I now think that there is nothing more satisfying than engaging with the students themselves, in a large classroom, with all its challenges, and seeing everybody engaged and on task.
It is good to be back.
Hosting the Pecha Kucha evening at the 7th International ETAI conference, 4-6 July 2016, provided me with the opportunity to source the international and local presenters, send them guidelines with a delivery deadline, and then review their presentations, to check they had met the criteria and had the automatic timings set correctly. The presenters in order of their presentations were:
When initially approached, some of the presenters immediately gave me an affirmative answer, “Yes, sure” or “Ok”, whilst others were more hesitant. One presenter wrote to me saying, “If truth be told, I’d forgotten that I’d allowed myself to be talked into doing a Pecha Kucha!!! I’d been thinking about chickening out, but …. hey why not! Another presenter stated, “At first I groaned – And then I thought about what I could do …. So, end of moan. I am happy to do something. Am I mad? Yes, I am.” The latter responses were similar to my own when Leo Selivan (Leoxicon) asked me to host the event. “I don’t think I can. I work full time. I’m studying etc.” I responded and then I stopped myself and thought – If Leo is asking me then he must believe I can do it, and in the words of Richard Branson, “If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you are not sure you can do it, say yes. Then learn how to do it later.” This year’s team of courageous ELT presenters demonstrated that they also subscribe to the Branson philosophy, and as a result each of the presenters put themselves out there, and we, the audience, benefited from their experience and humour, and had a great time.
Giving a Pecha Kucha is different from being a plenary or keynote speaker, it seems to fall much more into the ‘edutainment’spere, and the pressure on the presenter to ‘perform’ is not insignificant. For the host, though, once the presenters have agreed to present and their presentations have been received and checked, all that is left to do is to choose the order of the presentations, upload them onto the computer in the auditorium, check the timings, and write some introductory notes about each speaker. There shouldn’t be any surprises.
However, on Tuesday 5 July, a few hours before the Pecha Kucha evening was due to start, I bumped into Mel Rosenberg and Andy Curtis, who told me that they had had an idea that they wanted to run by me. “Andy is going to do my Pecha Kucha, sight unseen. What do you think?” I looked at Andy and asked him, “Do you know what Mel’s Pecha Kucha is about?” “No, not a clue.” Andy responded. “Though it would be a great example of creativity, if I presented it without seeing it, don’t you think? Do we have your permission to do this crazy thing?” I thought to myself, Mel’s presentation is not clear to me, and I’ve seen the slides, so how is Andy going to present it? But then I thought, this could be an opportunity to do something different from the ‘traditional’ Pecha Kucha format. So I said, “Yes. I like the idea.” Andy looked a little surprised, as he hadn’t expected me to agree quite so quickly. And thus the first Pecha Kucha ‘Unseen Hack’ was born.
Video courtesy of @MelRosenberg
As teachers we are always putting our students on the spot in front of their peers, asking them questions, getting them to do presentations, prepare speeches and debates and complete numerous other language tasks, that many of them don’t feel comfortable doing. Our students usually have no choice but to say ‘yes’, as the task often forms part of their summative assessment. As teachers/ELT professionals we must be role models for our students, and also be willing to put ourselves ‘out there’ in front of our peers, even when we may feel uncomfortable about the request, because saying ‘yes’, can be both challenging and rewarding. In fact, Emily Liscom (Education to the Core) would go even further, and say that by using the word ‘Yes’, to our students more than the word ‘No’, we might be surprised to experience improved classroom management and teaching strategies.
Thank you to each of the six/seven presenters for saying ‘yes’, when I approached you – each of you were courageous and inspirational, and are great role models to other ELT professionals and students across the globe.
The end of the school year is Coming Soon, so here is a lesson for you to try with your students. As in previous years (2015 –The Happy Lesson, 2014 – The Way Back Home) I went into my son’s English class and gave a lesson. This year I chose to use the Kung Fu Panda 3 movie trailer, to provide the students with an engaging and fun lesson which would both be accessible for all learners, and challenging for the more advanced students, whilst encouraging students to work in groups.
My son’s class were very excited about the lesson, they particularly enjoyed the Quizlet vocabulary set that I had prepared, and within the limited time created some cute Compare and Contrast Panda posters.
I have included the lesson plan and the PowerPoint for you to use with your classes.
I hope you and your students enjoy the lesson as much as I did.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.