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?

#100happylearningenglishdays - a challenge to improve English through social media

If you like me teach adults you are certainly used to hearing something like, "I need to learn English, but I don't have enough time".

A few days ago I ran into this website http://100happydays.com whose slogan is 

and I immediately thought about my adult students who are always in a hurry when it comes to learning English. Why not challenge them to learn English for 100 days in a row? 

In order to take part to the #100happydays challenge people must take pictures of what makes them happy day by day and share it via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

As far as learning English is concerned there might be several types of challenges according to the level and the needs of the students.

I came up with the following ideas.

#1 Vocabulary - Students can take pictures of daily life items in order to learn their names.

CHAIR

#2 Grammar - Students can write the paradigms of irregular verbs. (E.g. TAKE-TOOK-TAKEN)

#3 Phrasal verbs - Students can write a new phrasal verb together with its meaning and an example. (They might add a picture if they want to.)

#4Idioms - Students can write a new idiom together with its meaning and an example. (They might add a funny picture.)

http://kaplaninternational.com/blog/english-idioms-time/

#5 Functional language - Students can write a question or a sentence that is useful for their communication with other people such as inviting someone to do something, suggesting something, apologising, etc. E.g. DO YOU FANCY GOING TO THE CINEMA TONIGHT? (Maybe someone will reply and you will spend a great night out :) )

Why do I think it can work with a huge number of students?

People aged between 18 and 44 use social media more and more. They love to catch up with family and friends, share their experiences and feelings. In this way, learning English can be something that will make them feel cool.

What are the drawbacks of this challenge?

In my opinion students might be fed up with it after a week. Also the 100happydays website states that 71% of people failed to complete the challenge.

I hope my students and your students will love this challenge and will be able to win it!
Prize them with this certificate! 

If you can think of any other ideas for this challenge, please share it with me!

P.S. Always remember to use #100happyenglishlearningdays

P.S.2 I have used this challenged with teenagers, too. It was super! :)