My Teaching Reflections - Differentiation

Over the last few months I have been busy teaching online. I have learnt lots of new things about teaching and learning and I have decided to create a new series of blogposts about my teaching reflections in which I will give practical tips and hacks and suggest some reading about the topic I am dealing with each time. I will follow the KISS 💋 rule - I will Keep my posts Short and Simple in order not to get you bored.

👩‍🏫 👨‍🏫Differentiation is not discrimination.

▶️When students are assigned different tasks, they are not concerned about the task itself but the
reason behind that allocation - we, teachers, should communicate to ‘less confident learners that our aim is to find ways to include them in the lesson’.

▶️ Inclusiveness and togetherness play an essential role in classroom dynamics - it is advisable not to use differentiated activities at the beginning/end of the lesson.

▶️ Dominant learners tend to shout 🗣 their answers, talk over one another and interrupt other students. On the other hand, less confident students will assume a passive role. Especially during online lessons they just mute their microphones 🤐. The ‘random tool’ (a feature you can find in https://www.classdojo.com or you can make on your own by simply using lollipop sticks) gives all the students an equal opportunity to answer questions.

The book 📖 I recommend today is:

Mixed-Ability Teaching by Dudley and Osváth.

You can find it here.














That’s all folks!

Bye for now,
Larissa

P.s. If you (student/teacher) want to take up Skype lessons with me, fill out this form!

EFL Talks Italy 29.3.20 - 6 Engaging Instagram Activities for Teens

Some weeks ago we started our lockdown due to COVID-19 in Italy. Teachers had been obliged to move to online teaching; students and teachers alike had to get used to completely new way of teaching/learning. I read several posts on Facebook about how difficult it was so I got in touch with Rob Howard who is the creator of http://www.efltalks.com. (Take a look at this great website).
He came up with the fantastic idea of holding an EFL Talks event all dedicated to Italian English-language teachers.

I presented 6 Instagram activities to engage teenagers. Here you are the slides!

Some of the teachers' caption were:
- Shall I change the 'autocertificazione' again?
- What's happening? What's all this noise?
- Can I go out?
- Who's knocking?

Lost in London - A digital EFL Escape Classroom

Everyone is aware the coronavirus is having a dramatic impact on the world and governments are ordering or contemplating school closures in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. In this worrying scenario we cannot stop teaching our students, though. This is the reason why I created a digital EFL Escape Classroom. I know it is nothing like a real one, but it will take you and your learners on a virtual tour of London.

Lost in London

P.s. If you (student/teacher) want to take up Skype lessons with me, fill out this form!
P.s. 2 If you want me to run a digital EFL Escape Classroom online with your class, use the contact form.

When was the last time you went red-faced? A lesson plan about embarrassing moments

Hi everyone,

I know coronavirus is what you expected I was going to talk about today, but no, I won't. There is a lot of going on already and I'm not a medicine expert.

I'd like to share with you a lesson plan I created some time ago for my DipTesol teaching practice. I used it with B2 adult learners but it can work with teenagers, too.
I was inspired by this article https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200185/Top-50-embarrassing-moments-revealed.html and this viral video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8nFR4sXkFE .

The objective of the lesson was to enable Ls to talk about an embarrassing moment in their/someone’s lives.

Here you will find the lesson stages, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bsPdu1cZT3yFO_okh7IRjiGMhx2vkLEh/view?usp=sharing 
and these are the materials I used
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j2tuX4jr3zeuy4U8IfMIeVTEM0FNPrKS/view?usp=sharing 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1opExPAk55C1YPSl4vL0bnp1mR6BB8U7o/view?usp=sharing .

Let me know if this lesson plan has worked with your students too!

Ps. If you (student/teacher) want to take up Skype lessons with me, fill out this form!

'Station Squabble': a picture-telling activity

Hi folks,

here I am again with a new teaching idea I came up with thanks to a photograph which went viral last week. I'm talking about the shot 'Station Squabble' which has made Sam Rowley win the Wildlife Photographer of the Year LUMIX People's Choice award. Apparently Sam spent late nights at a central London tube stop, down on his belly trying to get the perfect low-angle view. His two subjects had been foraging separately until they chanced across the same morsel of food. For a split second, they argued over who should have it before then going their separate ways.

If you haven't seen the picture yet, I am sure your curiosity has been aroused. I'm not going to show you the photo now, though, I'd like to share my lesson plan first!

Level: A2
Age: Pre-teens/Teens
Target language: Cohesive devices - Substitution/Ellipsis + Sentence stress

Procedure:

1. Warm-up activity - Call My Bluff

Board the phrase 'Station Squabble', most Ls at this level will struggle to understand the meaning of 'squabble' so you can play the game Call My Bluff.

Provide Ls with three/four definitions of the word squabble, but only one of them must be correct ('an argument over something that is not important' - www.dictionary.cambridge.com).

Ls in pairs/small groups guess which the correct definition is through a poll activity. (If you're a tech-savvy teacher, you might use this website.)

2. Self-assessment

Without telling Ls which definition is the correct one, ask them to read a short dialogue which is an example of a 'squabble' that really happened between two friends. This task will get Ls to understand whether their answers were right or wrong and avoid direct teacher's corrective feedback.

3. Working on the text

Ask Ls to work in pairs.

a. Ls decide which word is missing in the first line. 

b. Ls describe the two characters (whose name is the same).

4.a Focus on TL

Ask Ls work in small groups.

a. Ls try to explain the difference between 'my' and 'mine'.

b. Ls say which word 'did' replaces.

Substitution involves some linguistic item substituting for another item occurring in the prior linguistic context.

Ellipsis is like Substitution except that it involves deleting information recoverable from some prior context rather than replacing the information with a word like do or so. (Meyer, 2002)

4.b Focus on Phonology - Sentence stress

We know that grammar words are usually unstressed. However, in this short dialogue they are. Drill the sentences focusing on the stress by using bullets on the words which are 'strong'. 

5. Showing the photograph

It's time to show the photograph! 

Tell Ls you have a picture of the squabble you've been talking about. Show it to your students and they check out their predictions.

Sam Rowley/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The word missing is 'food'; the phrase 'food morsel' is correct, too. 

Valentine's Day - 'Print Your Guy'

Yes, I know I'm a soppy romantic young lady, but I couldn't help sharing with you this video you can use in class over this week or even better on Valentine's Day. My students really enjoyed watching this short film and found it much easier to learn and memorise the target language I had decided to introduce with it.

Video : Print your guy

Level: B1-upwards 

Age: Teens/Adults

Target language: Adjectives to describe personality + character

Procedure:

1. Warm-up: Vision off 

I told my students I was going to play a short film but they couldn't watch it. They had to listen and guess what was happening. 

Typical answers were: Someone is watching TV. It's a TV advert. It's about love. Etc.

Another option would be starting off with telling students the beginning of the story.

Pamela lives on her own in an apartment in Paris. One evening while watching a movie she sees a commercial for a company who claim they can print her perfect guy, by logging on at printyourguy.com. Very excited, she runs to her computer to order one, but when it arrives, she realizes that the product wasn't exactly what she was expecting! 

Ask students, 'Why didn't the product live up to her expectations?' (You might need to elicit the meaning of 'live up to')

After getting some feedback from the students I showed them these screenshots.

Screenshot from 'Print your guy'

Screenshot from 'Print your guy'

2. Target language: Adjectives to describe personality

Starting from the principle we never know how much our learners know, I asked all the class to tell me what their perfect guy/girl would be like by only using three words.

Of course, just a few people were confident enough to answer, (but I had already expected that).

I boarded the adjectives that came up, I elicited their meanings and drilled their pronunciation. 

Then I gave each group a set of adjectives and they had to find their definitions on the post-it notes I had stuck on the walls before the lesson started.

Some adjectives and their definitions

3. Speaking activity:

3.a  Predictive task

Back to the short film! I asked my students to look at the picture of Pamela (the main character of the video) and predict which type of guy she was looking for. In pairs learners used the TL learnt and then shared their ideas with the other students. I showed them the short film till 02:16, then we had some whole-class feedback. 

3.b Drawing dictation

The second 'perfect guy' is the manly type. Students worked in pairs, one could watch the video (till 03:28) while the other one had to draw what their partner was dictating them. We had some feedback and voted for the best drawing, too.

3.c Free conversation

Students felt that the third attempt was the right one and instinctively expressed their opinions about who the perfect guy could be. I was really glad that they were autonomous and for a few minutes I let them speak without interrupting them. However, as a teacher, I need to take into account time management, so I asked them to watch the short film till 04:25.

4. Writing activity: Review

After four attempts Pamela has not found her 'perfect guy' yet. I asked students to put themselves in Pamela's shoes and write a short review about the website and its products.

5. Cooling-down activity: Reflection

I let students watch the short movie till the end and I asked them about the meaning of 'perfect match'. I was really satisfied with the fact that students felt so comfortable that they spoke about their private lives and relationships.  

I hope you will spend a great Valentine's Day with your students and loved ones!

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Creativity in the EFL classroom: a task-based activity

Hi everyone!

Another week has just gone by and here I am again to share a teaching activity I carried out with a group of my students with you.

I'd like to start this post with a quote by one of my favourite writers. 

www.google.com 

Creativity is one of the four 21st skills (along with critical thinking, collaboration, and communication) that students need to have in order to succeed. Moreover, according to Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Development creativity is considered one of the higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). In particular it is defined as the ability to put parts together to create something new and unique by giving major emphasis on the formulation of new patterns or structures. (If you'd like to read more about Bloom's Taxonomy, I suggest that you visit this webpage).

Some time ago I read Creativity in the English language classroom edited by Alan Maley and Nik Peachey from the British Council series. You can find fantastic ideas here to use in your classrooms.

What I decided to do was to collect some of the definitions of 'creativity' which are true for me. I printed out a poster and put it on the wall of the room where I usually plan my lessons. I came up with the idea I'm sharing with you in the paragraph below while I was staring at it one day when my mind had gone blank. 

CREATIVE CAFES
Level: B1 - upwards
Time: 2 hours
Linguistic Skills: Speaking, Listening, Writing
Soft Skills: Creative thinking, Problem Solving


Warm-up activity
I showed my Ls this picture, I told them it was the sign of a shop and they brainstormed ideas about which type of business it could be and then I asked them, 'What is special about this cafe?'

www.google.com

In order to check their answers, Ls watched this video up to 00:35. Some of my Ls were really surprised about this business model and one of them even said that it was not worth it since anyone can eat everything up.

Listening activity - Running 'question' dictation
In order to improve my Ls' listening skills without making some of them stressed about it I decided to carry out a peer-learning activity. Instead of giving them the comprehension questions I wrote them on post-it notes and put them on the classroom walls. Ls were divided in groups of four, but only one member could stand up and read the questions on the walls (of course everyone had a go) and then report them to the other members of their groups.
Ls watched the video till the end twice and then answered the questions.

These are the questions they had to answer.

1) What's the English word for Ziferblat?
2) Is the owner disappointed about people eating a lot?
3) Why do customers enjoy going to this cafe?
4) What's the shortest time someone spent at Ziferblat?
5) What's the longest time someone spent at Ziferblat?
6) What's the feedback the owner gives about his own experience?

Creative activity
Ls had to create their own business idea about a special cafe.
What's the name of the place?
What's special about it?
What are special features about its interior design?
What's its sign like?

By working in groups, I had the opportunity to monitor them better. Lots of new language came up and everyone was engaged in the task.
Plus, what I loved about the classroom setting was that I could challenge them with possible problems they could have in their businesses and ask them to think about how they might solve them.
For example, one of the cafes, 'The Dice Cafe' gave the chance to their customers to pay half price for their coffees if they rolled a dice and got 6. I asked them, 'What if the customer were a gambler, s/he wanted to roll the dice again and an argument arouse?' They discussed about it and then decided to hire a bouncer.
Also, two groups chose the same name, 'Once upon a cafe', for their businesses. I asked them to explained their cafes to the other groups who had to decide which group was going to keep the name.

Here you are some creative cafes my Ls were working on.

When they finished, they presented their ideas to the class.

Through a blinding voting operation :), they decided which idea we were going to upload in a crowdfunding website such as https://www.indiegogo.com.

That's all for now, folks!

What if you spent a night at ‘Hotel California’? A ‘song-telling’ activity for advanced learners

We are all more than aware that music is a great tool in the classroom. In particular, Murphy (1992), who analysed the discourse of pop songs, stressed their effectiveness in the foreign language classroom for their highly affective and dialogic features. He also added that pop songs present vague references (he also referred to them as ghost discourse) which allow listeners to use them in personally associative ways. Ding dong. Yes, it does ring a bell to you too, right? These are some of the reasons why we love using songs in class.  

Starting from the ideas above I decided to create a lesson plan based on the song ‘Hotel California’. (Yes, I went back to the Seventies). It was pretty successful because my learners had had bad experiences (well, not as bad as in the song, of course) at hotels during their holidays. 

Happy to share some of my ideas with you!

WARM-UP ACTIVITY

(In order to engage Ls).

Show Ls this text and these two pictures and ask them to match the text with the picture they think it is describing. (Remember to ask, 'Why?')

*The word 'colitas' might put you in trouble, sorry!

https://www.flickr.com

www.flickr.com 

SONG TELLING ACTIVITY

1) Ask Ls to answer the following questions in pairs.

1. Who do you think the person speaking is?

2. Where is s/he?

3. What is s/he been doing? Why?

4. What do you think s/he going to do? What would you personally do? 

2) Now you can tell Ls that our ‘friend’ is actually going to stop over at a hotel. 

Show Ls the following picture and ask them to brainstorm ideas about what can possibly go wrong there. (E.g. no hot water, too much noise, etc.)

picture taken from www.google.com 

3) Ls listen to the song 'Hotel California' and check whether the problems they brainstormed are the same or different the singer experiences. 

4) Ls listen to the song again, this time with the support of the lyrics.

Elicit or explain new vocabulary.

5) Tell them that the singer was not happy with the hotel services. Thus, he decided to write a complaint letter.

I found useful phrases for writing a  (Cambridge CAE exam) complaint letter in this website. Hand out the worksheet you can download from the page. Ls go through the expressions in small groups. Provide them with translation if necessary.

6) Ls complete this text with phrases from the handout. 

FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY

What will the manager of the Hotel California do when he gets the singer's complaint letter? This type of task will let Ls be autonomous and go for either a writing or a speaking activity.

My students really enjoyed this lesson and I hope so do yours. If you use these activities or change them a bit, please let me know!

Bye for now ;)

GenZ and viral papal slap: teaching ideas

It’s been ages since last time I blogged. One of my new year’s resolutions is to be more ‘social’ and share my teaching ideas, so here I am! Back to tell you about my class experiences. 

At the moment I’m working with teenagers (mainly) at ‘Liceo’ in South Italy and I find it really interesting and exciting teaching Generation Z. If you are wondering about who Generation Z members are like, well, let me give you a quick description about two of their main features. 

GenZ - Open-minded people with a witty sense of humour

According to Seemiller & Grace (2019) more than 70% of today’s teenagers have described themselves ‘as loyal, thoughtful, determined, compassionate, open-minded and responsible’. The word that most caught my attention was open-minded and Seemiller & Grace go on saying that ‘their open-mindedness may help them look at situations and issues from multiple perspectives and in unconventional ways’.  Moreover, ‘growing up alongside YouTube, the hub of entertaining videos, it makes sense that those in Generation Z would seek out and use humour as a way to balance the more serious concerns they have in life’. The other day I was able to confirm all the above-mentioned characteristics through a lesson about an incident that happened on New Year’s Eve and whose video went viral. 

What I planned, what actually… happened in class…

https://www.neatoshop.com/product/pope-slap 

My lesson plan was all about the Pope and what happened with the pilgrim who grabbed his arm in St Peter's Square on New Year's Eve. I wanted the learners to watch this video and then do a series of activities (I am going to share with you). However, when I arrived in class I realised that Internet was not working. ‘No panic’, I said to myself, ’Let’s show off my entertaining storytelling abilities’. I started by saying that I was going to tell them the story of a famous man and an unknown woman. Then I asked them who they thought the man was and they yelled, ‘Trump’. (See? They are into the news). But I said no and I added that he was neither British or Northern American. Here we go, a storm of nationalities came up. (Really good exercise to revise pronunciation of countries and nationalities). When they realised he was from Argentina, one of the boys immediately said, ‘Messi’. Once again I put on my ‘sorry face’ and I said they had to try again. That was when they asked for more hints. So, I added he often wears white and they exclaimed, ‘Oh, yes! It’s Pope Francis’ and they bursted into laughter. They went on telling the story themselves and asked for some new vocabulary such as ‘grab’, ‘pull’, ‘slap’ and ‘yank’. I felt so proud of them!

Ideas to take away and use in your classrooms!

1. WARM-UP ACTIVITY 

2. What did the pilgrim tell the Pope? What did he reply? In pairs, Ls act out a dialogue between the two characters. (Remember to give Ls preparation time and ask them to vote the best performance according some criteria, e.g. the funniest dialogue, the most grammatically correct dialogue, etc.)

Make it different - Get Ls to create comic strips. You can use the picture below. (If you use a WhatsApp group with your class, they can use their smartphones to carry out the task.)

2. FOCUS ON LANGUAGE: Functional language - How to apologise

Elicit the meaning of apologising (e.g. If I say, ‘I am sorry’, I am apologising).

Elicit forms from Ls and board them. Take a look at this webpage for more ideas. Suggest also forms to respond to apologies (visit this page).

In pairs Ls act out a dialogue in which the Pope apologises and the pilgrim accepts (or maybe not) his apology. 

Here you are one of the performances. (Spoiler alert: the learners in this video felt embarrassed.)

3. FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY

There is an eyewitness of the incident, who is he? The bodyguard! 

In pairs, once again, one student is a journalist and the other one is the bodyguard. The journalist interviews the bodyguard about what happened. I asked Ls to write and act out a five-question interview. 

Make it different - What would the bodyguard tweet? Use this fake tweet generator to make your Ls carry out the task.

‘That’s all folks’ from me for now.

Have a great teaching year!