By the way...

...applying a great listening activity with Adele's new hit "Hello" is a great idea! I prepared an activity which students were supposed to listen to the song and circle the words they could hear. After checking if all the answers were correct, we could all enjoy the song! As it's been played all the time on the radio, I'm sure students will remember the class, as well as the sounds they could recognize while studying. Beautiful song for a great listening activity! Have a great day!

Hello, hello!

Hi,colleague! Yes! I'm against phone in the classroom. I confess I do agree with those teachers who think students get distracted by their cell phones and it ends up making it more difficult for them to produce in class. So I was searching the Net about ways to solve this problem: how can I "get rid of" (or at least try to) my students' mobiles. I got surprised by some ideas which were given and among them, I picked mine. I have to say some of the suggestions seemed too radical for me,for example, a teacher who said he would answer the student's phone in front of the class in case it rang...or the one who said he would ask the student to read the content of the message out loud. There was also one who suggested a fine if the phone rang during the lesson. Well, in case you're curious about the one I chose, there you go: A box to collect the phones. Simple as that. Anyway, colleague, something important to keep in mind is that we need to make it clear for them that we do not approve cell phones in class. Let's see how my teens will react to that. Have a nice weekend!

About teens and cell phones in the classroom...

Hi, there!A problem I had last semester and I'll probably have this one is dealing with cell phones in the classroom. My teen students insist on checking messages they receive during class and even though I call their attention, it continuously happens... this is why I'm trying to find ways to avoid the use of cell phones during the lessons (my next post!). So today I started searching on the Net about this matter and I found an interesting article (www.theatlantic.com) which brings the reality in most American High Schools nowadays. By reading it, I could understand the issue is still polemic once some education writers state that cell phones can be useful in class and that it has some benefits, such as giving students a chance to collaborate with each other,serving as a recording device or as notepads. But according to the article, none of these can overcome one very basic disadvantage which is that cell phones distract students from schoolwork and class activities. Besides, still based on the article, Peter Bregmen (Harvard Business Review Blog Network) wrote that multitasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%, increase stress and cause a 10-point fall in IQ. Wow!

" I know what you did last summer!"

Hello! Yesterday I was looking for an activity which I could apply to my students on our first day of classes. I was amazed by how many options and ideas we can find on the Net! Not only regular sites but also interesting videos about it. I thought about an activity that I could use with my teen students and then I kinda mixed two activities I had found on the Net and created a new one: "I know what you did last summer! Everybody remembers this film (not one of my favorites though) but teens usually like horror movies and they'll probably remember it. Well, I told them it was acually a game and they were supposed to write three sentences related to something they did last summer but they shouldn't tell or show anybody. I took part of the game as well and it was pretty funny. The objective of the game is to find out the three activities written by the other student. SO as we were in a trio, I asked one student and he asked the other one and finally this one asked me simple questions like if I had been to the beach, for example. The first one to guess all the activities wins the game! Great way for warming up and talk about what we did last summer. Awesome for practicing Past Tense! Have a great start!

Great purchase!

Hi, there! One thing I really enjoy doing when I travel is trying to find something different to use in my classes, so last month I got this amazing book written by Ligia Lederman and Louise Emma Potter with several activities including card and board games. Great idea to start a new semester full of special surprises for our students! Enjoy!

Missing you all.

After almost four years I'm back again. You might be asking yourself if I'm still teaching, if I still have my mini school...yes, dear colleague! I'm still teaching at my mini school! For no reason, today I entered my old blog and I have to say I got emotional. I read someone's compliment on it which was made two years ago and I felt I should have kept writing,that I shouldn't have stopped posting...I felt like I've missed something, you know. Probably nobody will read this late post, as well as the future ones I intend to write but, anyway, I feel like writing. Simple as that. I hope someone out there hears me. I hope this blog can "come to life" again and we can keep on exchanging ideas and being an inspiration for each other. It's great to be back. Hope to hear from you soon. : )

My motto

My best friends!

They're always there for me! Uol Babylon and Free Online Dictionary are two great tools for finding the meaning of words or expressions we don't know. You can check on the first one for words and on the second one for expressions, as well. GREAT!

Why not?

Showing interest in an activity is especially important to get students attention and motivation about what they're supposed to do. Now, when I assign a project to my students in class, I do mine myself while they're doing theirs! So they don't only see our interest in the activity but they actually feel it by looking at the teacher working on a project just like they are! A simple attitude but a great result! Have a nice weekend, colleague!

Monica's Gang?

Yesterday I had a good surprise when I got at a newstand and found this comic book! Monica in English? Is it possible? Yes! Great for being used in class or even left in the waiting room on a nice table in order to have students curious about this new material in English! ; ) Have a great Sunday, colleague! See you soon!

Teaching Clock Times!

I've just found two great ways of practicing "Clock Times" with my students. If you have to teach this subject don't forget to take a look at http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/. I've just printed two of their activities: a simple board game (we all know students simply love them!), and also a very interesting activity called "My TV Guide", in which students are supposed to draw the start and finish times of their favorite programs including the day of the week those are shown on TV! Great!

A giant "board" game!

Playing a "board" game on the floor is fun! We can practice the subject of the lesson and give students another chance to play in class! Teacher just needs to prepare in advance some questions, for example, and place them as a way which students are supposed to follow. Use a dice and play it just as a board game you play on a table!

Blink!!

Wonderful game to play in class!!! This is a really fast card game and it's pretty easy, as well. Two players compete by simply trying to math their cards according to their shape, number or color. The one who loses has to answer a question! Great way of checking your students' comprehension of the lesson you've taught! Have lots of fun, colleague!

My dream vacation!

Last week my teen students were back to their classes and I didn't know which activity I should use with them to start. We usually begin a new semester asking them how their vacations were, what they did or the places they went to, but I wanted to do something a little different! And then I thought: "Why not asking them to prepare a project on that? The topic should be "My dream vacation", so that they could think about what they would really love doing during that time, decorate their work with pictures from old magazines and add sentences to it, such as "My dream vacation would be fishing with my friends...", or "I dream about being in a very nice resort in...", depending on the English level of the students. Wish you a great semester, colleague!

Ask me questions!

One thing I've been noticing in my classes is that most students have difficulties in making questions, I mean, more than answering them. They usually find it difficult to organize the structure of those questions, either by forgetting to use the auxiliary verb, or placing it in the wrong place in the sentence. I always try to emphasize questions in my lessons because we often ask students to "answer" and not to "ask". Yesterday I used one my magazines (Speak Up) in order to practice the structure of questions in different verb tenses. So right before class, I picked an interesting article from it, played the CD (yes, we can use Speak Up CDs in class!) and then it was the time for my student to look at the article and prepare five simple questions about it to ask me, and I would do the same. This way, not only we can check on their understanding but also the students themselves are able to see clearly whether they still have doubts on asking questions in English. Next time you teach consider letting your student(s) asking you questions, not only answering them. I wish you a wonderful weekend, colleague!

They're looking at...

I was teaching "Present Continuos" to one of my students yesterday, and at the end of our class I thought about using this picture I got from an old magazine some time ago. Actually I didn't use it before because I realized it's impossible to see what the couple in the picture is looking at. And this is why that picture was always left aside...but in the last minutes of my lesson I decided to place it on the desk and I asked my student what that girl and that boy in the picture were doing. He told me they were looking at...something. Then I started asking him some further questions and this time he was supposed to use his imagination in order to make predictions and try to guess what they were looking at. Really funny predictions came out! Great exercise!

A really special homework!

I know this word "homework" can sound kinda "boring" for most of our students but there are many ways of making it lighter for them to have something to do at home. Today I thought about one of Adele's song which is being played a lot on the radio and is the new hit of one of our soap operas. The song is "Someone like you" and I'm pretty sure you know it. Most of our students, too and I think they would be really happy to know what that song is about. As one of my adult students is already back to classes I thought about giving him this homework: we're going to listen to the mentioned song and then I'm going to ask him some questions about it (the topic of the song, the feelings of the woman, etc). As homework, he'll have to write in a form of a composition and end for that sad story and bring it to me the following class. Nice way of assigning a homework and getting a smile back. See you soon, colleague!

Topics, topics, topics!

An easy and nice way of getting your students speaking again after this long summer vacation is simply choosing some different topics before class, such as: money, music, family, jobs, etc. Before re-starting your lessons just say one of the topics and get your student(s) talking about it for some time. Great as a warm up!

January, February, ..., April, May...

A good activity to use with your students when teaching "months" is the following: Write down all the months in slips of paper and ask students to, individually or in small groups, put them in order on the wall or on the door. Set a time limit so that it can become a great competition! After that ask students to leave the room for a minute and say that one of the months is going to "disappear" and their goal is to find out which one "has gone". Take one of the months out and call students back to the room. The winner is the first student/group that finds out which month is missing! Wish you a great Sunday, colleague!

Are you hungry?

This activity couldn't be any easier and it's great if you have to teach your students feelings such as hungry, thirsty, sad, angry, etc. All you need is a pen and paper. Write on stripes of paper what you need your students to learn and then ask them to choose one of those stripes of paper without looking at them. The other student(s) should choose another one in the same way. So your student(s) have to guess what the other one(s) is(are) "feeling" by simply asking questions, such as: "Are you sad?", or "Are you thirsty?" until they guess what is written. Notice that the structure of short answers is also practiced here with the students answering "Yes,I am" or "No, I'm not". The student who guesses with the fewer number of questions wins the game! So easy! Simply great!