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.