Psychos and Sherlock!

 

This week I'm looking at video projects in the classroom. My Sec-Pre-Int class decided to do 2 mini films on the subject of crime as this has been our topic in April. One class produced a murder mystery drama and the other a fantastic episode of BBC's Sherlock.

As well as having lots of fun preparing scripts and acting them out, they practised crime vocab lots of different grammar structures which really helped them to practise intonation! 

Well done guys!

Lights, Grammar, Action! Ideas for Video projects

Hi guys as promised here are some project ideas that involve video.Most students now have smart phones with video devices and the technology to edit and make good videos. 

My top 5

• TV NEWS REPORT -  whole class

            
Choose one or two anchors, and divide the rest of the class into groups of 2 or 3. Each group will create a news story (one sport.one weather etc) and then film them and put them all together! his is great to practice present perfect and past simple, and alot of fun!

• TV ADVERTISEMENT - small groups

Students choose or design a product and then create a 1 minute advertisement to promote it. These can be funny and are a great way to practise modals verbs!

• MUSIC VIDEO - small groups

Students choose a song and then create a music video to go with it, including acting at the start and at the end.

• MINI FILM - small groups

Students create a dialougue of a short story and act it out to create a mini film. This can be great for further work including story boards. Great for students studying for exams which involve telling stories.

• VIRAL VIDEOS

Great for teenagers! The students in small groups have to create a video using English in some way. They then have to try and make it go viral on youtube or social media. the team with the most hits gets a prize!

They are my top 5 video based projects.

Happy teaching!

I changed the font to black this time as people said the blue was difficult to read

How to set up a class project

I love class projects.

Projects are a way of giving students the chance to put all the language they have learnt together and to express themselves.They allow students to gain a sense of satisfaction after having produced something they are proud of. Projects also provide a welcome break from potential classroom monotony and are great fun to do!

Classroom projects can be broken into two basic types:

Paper-based projects
Video-based projects

This week is project week at the London School of English and so l'll be posting ideas for both paper and video based projects that you can try in your classes, as well as some examples from my students' own work.

First some advice on setting up a project.

The worst thing you can do to set up a project is give the students too much choice. If the students are given too much scope about what to do, they might struggle to form ideas or their ideas might lack structure.

A good idea is to give the students a choice of two or three good ideas that you provide and they have a vote on. This way the students get to feel that the project is their own, while at the same time working within the parameters that you have set for them.

The planning stage

Don't just give the students a free rein when planning as this could lead to a lack of productivity. Instead you can follow these steps to help them plan:

1. Give each group 3-5 minutes to brainstorm ideas
2. Tell the students to eliminate all the ideas except two
3. Tell them to discuss the pros and cons of each choice
4. They now have two minutes to make the final choice.
5. Tell the students to plan what they will need and which order they will produce it
6.  The students then assign roles to each person in the group

There you go, the students have now chosen a project which is their own idea (increasing engagement) and they should now be motivated and ready to make some fantastic projects!

Variety is the spice of lessons

A simple way to stop students getting bored?

Vary the interaction patterns!

There are 5 main types of interaction in a lesson:

• teacher to the whole class
• students mingling around the room
• small groups
• pair work
• individual

Doing any one of these for too long will lead to students feeling bored. So vary it!

Most speaking activities can be done in mingles or 'speed dating' type activities. When I do an activity I always think 'Can this activity be done standing up?'

Changing the interaction pattern during a lesson will stop any feeling of monotony and lead to much more motivated students.

Happy teaching!

Tea and titles in Belgerod

Belgerod is a very welcoming place and I was happy to give a seminar on our three titles 'Focus',  'Wider World' and 'Islands'. The teachers were great and we had a very interesting chat and some tea afterwards. In the seminar we spoke about:

• Engaging teenagers
• vocabulary for upper secondary
• the importance of repetition
• teaching children to read

We also learnt some Welsh!  For any information on the above topics, please leave a comment.

Thanks for the hospitality guys!

ENGLISH ONLY TIME!

English only time is a great way to ensure that students are speaking English and using the target language. The idea is based on the principle that if we try and get 15 teenagers not to use their own language for a full lesson, we will fail. This target is generally unrealistic.

A better idea is to introduce 'English only time'. 

English only time involves creating specific time periods within the lesson where the students know that only English is allowed. By giving them more freedom in other parts of the lesson you are letting the students know exactly when they have to focus on using English.

It doesnt really matter if the students use a bit of L1 while doing exercises in the book, but when the free speaking practice begins.. so does English only time!

Try it!

Focus on vocabulary at Gymnasium #8

I was lucky enough to visit Gymnasium #8 and teach a class some new vocabulary from Focus 3. The students were really motivated and I shared some new ideas with the teachers such as 'English only time'. Thanks to Anna Baranovskaya, who was presented with a month's free study at The  London School of English.

Visit to Pershotravnevyi School

It might be very hard to spell but the students at Pershotravnevyi were a pleasure to teach. It was really great to see such enthusiasm for learning English? We did a lesson with our new title 'Next Move' which the students really liked. Thanks to Alesya for the  wonderful organisation and the coffee afterwards too!

Visit to specialised School #40

I had a wonderful visit to School #40 to give a demonstration lesson on 'New Challenges' Thank you to Irina and all the students for their wonderful participation. A lovely school with very motivated students.  Best of luck with your future studies!

Quick and easy vocab games

After discussing the importance of recycling vocabulary to avoid students getting stuck on the B1 Plateau. Here are some quick and easy vocab games to play with your class.


BINGO
The teacher writes a set of 15 words on the board and the students choose 6 and write them down. The teacher then chooses a word and defines it. If the students have that word, they cross it out. The first student to cross out all of their words shouts BINGO!

Scrabble
Each team get a word written across the middle of the page or the whiteboard. The teams must write words connected to that word using at least one letter from the orginal word. Creating a kind of Scrabble game. The team that manages to get the most words, wins!

These words aren't connected but you get the idea.

Catagories

Put the students in pairs and make them create a table with two columns. The teacher then reads out words and the students have to decide which column the words fits into.

The secret here is to make fun columns. Things like 'edible and non-edible'  'good and evil'

Students can then have fun discussing which column to put things into.

Running Crocodiles

Put the students in teams of 4 or more and get them to make a list or the topic vocabluary. Things like jobs or clothes or even verbs will work really well.

Stick these lists on the opposite side of the room. When you shout 'GO!' the first student runs over to the list, chooses a word and acts it out. The other members of their team who are waiting at the other end of the classroom have to shout the correct answer. When they do, the student crosses that off the list and comes back and the next student goes. he first team to finish all their words is the winner.

Hope you enjoy these games guys. Thanks to Vaughan Jones for some of the ideas. The last one is my own and is quite chaotic but great fun!

Happy teaching!

The B1 plateau

During Pearson's 20 years in Ukraine celebration, Vaughan Jones, author of the best selling, award-nominated book FOCUS, gave a fantastic presentation about the importance of vocabulary in English teaching. Vaughan spoke about how students often show steady improvement through the early levels of A1-B1, but then seem to reach a plateau. Getting stuck at B1 level is a common trait among learners and Vaughan explained why.

One key reason why students get stuck on the B1 plateau is because to reach B1 the students need about 2000 words. These 2000 words are the most common words, which they come across in every text they read, every conversation they have. The extra 5000 words needed to reach B2 and C1 consist of words that have a much lower frequency. 

They learn them   --- They don't see them again ---  They forget them ---  They stay B1

Good coursebooks and teachers must find ways to constantly recycle new vocabulary so as to help students retain it. As well as making sure students are exposed to new vocabulary in his book FOCUS, Vaughan provided some useful vocabulary games which we can use in class to do this.

Check the blog this week for details on the activities and more!

20 YEARS OF PEARSON IN UKRAINE

 Today Pearson celebrated 20 years of working in Ukraine. 

We were very privileged to have Vaughan Jones. author of our best selling title FOCUS, come and give a fantastic presentation on modern teaching trends.

Vaughan and Ania spoke about the importance of vocabulary and using multimedia in the classroom.

More photos and information to follow.