Sunday 29 September 2013

Cooking English Tea Recipes

 A fun way to teach children about nutrition is to give them recipes and let them cook in the kitchen.
Teach all about cooking verbs, utensils, food items,countable and uncountable nouns, imperative while having a whale of time.Create  magical memories involving all the senses, logic & imagination.
We made cuccumber boats, muffins, pancakes, mini pizzas, tortilla wraps and fruit tarts.
The children worked in groups (3-5) and I only had a couple of minutes to take pictures before they gobbled everything up!
The next day I gave them a worksheet with mixed up ingredients and instructions so we had more consolidation as the tried to figure out the correct ingredients and instructions for each recipe.
The only drawback was that I used too many recipes! Next time I will only make four...
 .

Using Lapbooks to promote Foreign Language Learning

Using Lapbooks to Promote Foreign Language Learning

A zoo diorama project

All children are interested in animals so this project was a HUGE success.
The children created zoo cages dioramas in shoeboxes.Each child painted and decorated the inside of a box using natural materials (pebbles, sticks, sand, leaves etc.) and placed a plastic toy animal in the box
They wrote cards including information about their animal.
They created mini booklet guides for the zoo visitors and learned about animal habitats and animal facts (these included names, characteristics, colours, sizes, food, abilities and possible dangers animals face)
They used special animal profile cards which they glued on the shoeboxes.
In the end they presented their project orally.
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Saturday 28 September 2013

Teaching Thematic Units

After 20 years of teaching I think that the most convenient way to organise your materials, resources, books, worksheets and anything else you can use in teaching is by themes.

Using Thematic Unit Activities With Young Learners 16-2-13 Lastppt by Despinalina

Friday 27 September 2013

My Poster for the PEAP conference (14-16 june 2013)

 For the past two years, I was fortunate enough to work with younger learners,
 my great source of inspiration. We had so much fun in the classroom and ...
outside creating magical memories in our learning journey, because,
make no mistake, I did learn so much from them, too.
I was determined to display their hard work, not only to their parents, but  to the whole world.
So, I worked extra hard in designing the poster and presenting it at the conference.
I am so glad it made such an impression and I hope lots of other teachers will use the ideas in class.

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Lapbooks & Dioramas won not only the 1st prize but the hearts of my colleagues and pupils

Teaching, a textual intervention poem



     A few weeks ago, as I was decluttering my desk, I found a worksheet with poems by the greek poet Kavafis. Most of you may have read "ITHACA" as it has been translated into English.
I decided to play with words and intervene on the text, keeping the same syntax. (I have to admit that the original idea was Luke's Prodromou)
Teaching is always on my mind so...

Teaching


As you set out for Teaching
hope your journey  is a long one,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Difficult students and know-alls
angry learners—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Difficult students and know-alls
wild learners—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your journey is a long one.
May there be many a winter morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into classrooms seen for the first time;
may you stop at students’ desks
to check fine homework,
reading and writing, listening and speaking,
creative ideas of every kind—
May you distribute many worksheets  
produce videos and plays
Write newsletters and create posters
as many imaginative projects as you can;
and may you visit many foreign countries
to gather cultural knowledge from their inhabitants.
Keep  Teaching always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you gain lots of experience and memories
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Teaching to make you rich.
Teaching gave you the marvelous journey.
Without it you would not have set out.
It has nothing left to give you now. 
And if you find it poor, Teaching won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then 

what educational matters mean.
 

Ice-breaker with a Twist

Every September I usually get a temporary post at a school for a few weeks and have to work with mixed ability classes and with learners of different ages. So I came up with a roleplaying and writing activity to revise vocabulary, trying to involve everyone.
I ask students  to write character profile cards (sort of ID cards).
They have about 10 minutes to provide as much information as they can.
Advanced students fill in all the information required.
Intermediate students fill in less information.
Beginners fill in even less.
I collect the cards and make a mark "B" on one of them (B stands for burglar)
I explain to the students that there has been a burglary in the Castle of Schooledge (our classroom that is)
and that a valuable painting has been taken. As I randomly redistribute the cards one of the students gets the
marked one, so that person knows he or she is the burglar the rest of the students will be looking for.
I give out three to five clues (ex, nationality, hair colour, vehicle, special feature, shoe size). Before the lesson starts if it is possible I also have some forensic evidence planted ex. a piece of gum, a note, a scarf, an airplane ticket, a key or a lock of hair etc...)
Then the students are allowed to get up and interrogate one another until someone finds the culprit.
As you can imagine time flies while lots of vocabulary revision is taking place through speaking and writing.
As an alternative, students can fill in imaginary information or describe favourite cartoon characters.





Name
Age
Height
Build
Nationality
Address
Country
Hair colour
Eyes colour
Shoe size
Special features
Zodiac signs
Occupation
Hobby
Vehicle
Dangerous object
Clothes
 Pet
Favourite food
Favourite drink
Motive
Alibi                                                                                                                            
           

My Teaching Philosophy

   This is an educational blog that aims to offer practical, innovative and creative teaching ideas to foreign language teachers who are willing to integrate the Arts into their Language Teaching.
    I have always tried to Teach English Through Art ( I call this my "TETA" approach) and had awesome outcomes. All learners (including reluctant, hyperactive or ADD children) were magically transformed whenever I used the Magic Wand of the Arts and were highly motivated and positively involved in the lessons. The flow of ideas was never ending, the enthousiasm was ever growing, the sastisfaction was immense. Learning English became their favourite subject. Through the TETA approach they had the opportunity to acquire knowledge about interesting topics and obtain valuable life skills.
For more information about arts integration you can visit: http://artsintegration.com
   I hope you will find the integration of  arts into your teaching as rewarding as I have.

Welcome to my EFL teaching blog

Follow my footsteps in finding inspiring and creative activities for teaching English.