Creative Teacherette

Dear all,  I just wanted to say thank you for reading my blog this year. It has been a pleasure to write for you. I hope we'll see each other next year as well and I wish you all the best. Sincerely, Eva :)

One of my favorite things at school during Christmas time was listening to Christmas songs, filling out the blanks on the paper and singing the songs afterwards. So, in the memory of that, here are two versions of a well-known Christmas carol " The Twelve Days of Christmas " and worksheets with lyrics for you to use while doing Christmas listening activities. This is the original version of the carol. You can download the lyrics from here . This is the parody of the original carol and you can either use it together with the original, or on its own, but with the reference to the original one. I find this one hilarious and I would use it with advanced learners.  Click here to download the lyrics. What are some of your favorite Christmas songs/carols? :)

A few weeks ago, some of my colleagues at the university had a presentation about learning difficulties , whi ch was really useful and informative. That is the reason I decided to write a post about the two most common learning difficulties - dyslexia and dysgraphia . There are a lot of great resources where you can read about these conditions, so I'll just give you some guidelines which will hopefully help you recognize these difficulties if a student of yours has them.  This is what a simple text looks like to a person who has dyslexia.   Dyslexia is is a reading disability that occurs when the brain does not properly recognize and process certain symbols. Some of the symptoms (according to Dyslexia.com ) are: Appears bright, highly intelligent, and articulate but unable to read, write, or spell at grade level. Labelled lazy, dumb, careless, immature, "not trying hard enough," or "behavior problem." Isn't "behind enough" or "...

Videos can be a great tool for practicing pronunciation and delivering a speech about a certain topic. How? Easy. All you have to do is let a video play, but mute. Your students can then pretend to be TV presenters, or guides or characters in the video and deliver what the characters are saying. Best videos for this are commercials and news or scoops about certain sightseeing attractions and similar.  Firstly, of course, let them see the video (with or without tune) to make them familiar with the topic. If they hear what the person in the video is saying, they can try to catch as much as possible and then reproduce it in their own way. If not, they get to be more creative. Either way, l et them take notes and then give them some time to think of the most appropriate way of presenting what they have written. They shouldn't read from their notes, but maybe just refer to them when necessary. A t the end of the activity, let them see the complete video to see if they were c los...

Remember the post about running dictation ? Well this time, you are going to read something about drawing dictation. This type of dictation is fairly simple and especially appropriate for young learners. The deal is that your students don't have to write down everything you say, but instead they have to draw it. I'm sure you can see all the advantages of this kind of dictation for young learners - first one being the fact that they might not be able to write just yet, so this way you can check their understanding of some words or simple sentences.  For older and more advanced students, you can describe, let's say, a room and they can draw it - extremely useful for prepositions . Have you ever done this kind of dictation? Was it more successful with younger or older learners?

Simulations and role-plays are very useful for speaking activities, where the emphasis is on fluency and not so much on accuracy. They can be fun and your students could really grow to like them if you adapt them to their age and level of knowledge. Firstly, let's refresh our knowledge of the difference between simulations and role-plays. When it comes to simulation students speak and react as themselves, but the group role, situation and task is imaginary. In role-plays, on the other hand, students are given a situation plus problem or task, but they are also allotted individual roles, so they are not acting as themselves, but as though they are someone else. The most important thing for both is that students imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom and use language appropriate to this new context. You can give your students a variety of roles (profession, status, personality, attitude, mood), variety of physical settings, variety of communicative functi...

A b io-poem is a poem that describes a person in 11 lines. It is also a great method for inspiring your students to write poems or anything actually. This is what a bio-poem should look like: (First name)- (Four adjectives that describe the person) Son or Daughter of (your parents names) Lover of (three different things that the person loves) Who feels (three different feelings and when or where they are felt) Who gives (three different things the person gives) Who fears (three different fears the person has) Who would like to see (three different things the person would like to see) Who lives (a brief description of where the person lives) -(last name)      Another example can be found here .   How do you inspire your students to write? Have you ever used a bio-poem? ...

Dear all, thank you once again so much for reading my blog and a special thanks to those who entered the giveaway. So here are the winners: GRAND PRIZE  SnippettingOne'sWayThroughTheCraft  1st ISSUE OF VIEW MAGAZINE  StoryTeller Martina Valenčak Bryce Maximus Stana Pavić Congratulations to all ! I would like you to send your addresses to my e-mail so that we can ship the prizes.  I apologize for not being very active this past few weeks, I had some things to take care of, but I'll be back full time from my following post on.

Dear all,  In order to say thank you for visiting my blog, I decided to do my first giveaway. I’m really grateful for each and every one of you from all over the world, and I hope that this blog does help you and give you at least a bit of inspiration to be the most creative teachers you can be. The first part of the grand prize for this giveaway is a GRADED READERS book. For those of you who are new to this you can get more information about what graded readers are here . These are great for your classes because you can use them as obligatory readings, do different projects with them, use just parts of them in your classes or just make your students aware of the fact that there are many books they can read in English, even if they have just started learning it.  There are many different publishers of graded readers, but the one I’m giving to you this time is from Oxford Bookworms Club – Silver Edition (Stages 2 and 3)    It includes the ...