Creative Teacherette

Not so long ago, I had some problems with studying because I couldn't concentrate and my motivation was nonexistent, so I tried to find something that would help me. And I was really lucky. I found a channel on YouTube called Study Music Project , which contains some instrumental music that is supposed to help you while studying. Numerous comments underneath the videos say that it really works, so I decided to give it a try. And I have to say that I liked it a lot. I just let the music play silently in the background and focused on my studying and somehow it became easier.  So what exactly is so special about this music? Here is was the official site of the Project says: The Study Music Project is an online musical experiment, founded by Dennis Kuo, a biochemistry major and music history minor at UCLA dedicated to compose, create, and produce music solely to enhance the student’s studying experience. The mission and vision of the Study Music Project is to provide...

Have you ever been thinking of bringing your favorite Saturday-evening-with-friends distraction to your classroom?   I have, and I have decided to take advantage of this amazing game of quick draw called Pictionary . The rules of the game are very simple – the players are divided into 2-4 teams and each team has a person who is drawing (not always the same player) and the others that are guessing. The drawers pull out cards with words written on them. The words are divided into categories, for example ˝object/person/place˝ or ˝hard˝ and there is a color for every category. The drawers have to draw the word that has a matching color with the field they are standing on the game board. The drawers have about a minute to draw the term and their teammates have to guess what they are drawing, i.e. guess the word. Of course, only drawing is allowed – no words or mime. Are you already seeing how amazing it would be to play the game with your students? Since the orig...

Here comes one more method for doing literature. It is great because it really makes the students examine the text to a tiniest detail. And if you use this as a form of a group work, you won’t regret it since everyone will be doing something according to their roles. No more hanging onto the strongest fellow students, even the weakest ones will be able to contribute. So how do you start? First you print out the roles, which you will assign to your students. Make sure that all the roles you decide to use can be played out with the text you have chosen. Then you give your students the text, tell them to work individually or in pairs and explain that each of them is given a role and has to work on literary text according to the role and the assignment he or she was given. After 10 min they have to present what their role was and what they found out. Here are just some short descriptions of roles, but you can download the whole sheet with detailed description of role...

When I think about my elementary and high school English classes, I remember I enjoyed the ones in which we listened to the songs and filled in some blanks within the lyrics or something like that most. That probably shows that my experience was pretty dull and I have to say that it really was, but it can also be a sign of how great songs are for use in class. Besides movies, TV shows and internet, music is probably one of the most common things that makes your students exposed to the language. So use it as an advantage! Familiar songs can make them more comfortable with what you are presenting in class, it won't be so stressful and they will probably be much more engaged. Here are just two songs (and one poem) that I think can help you with warming up your students for some grammar, but there are so many out there, you just have to do little researching. You can do whatever you want with them: make handouts with jumbled verses, so that your students have to put it in the ...

I’m not really a crossword person, mostly because there’s always something that I don’t know, so I always get stuck with a blank field here and there. But I think crosswords are great for practicing pretty much anything in a foreign language. Vocabulary comes as a natural choice, but grammar can be done in this way too. Your students won’t feel as stressed as they would if you only gave them a worksheet with sentences to fill in and if you give them a time limit and promise a certain reward for those who finish first – they’ll even maybe start liking grammar. What I had in mind for my crossword worksheets are irregular verbs in past simple . We all know how dull it can get learning these things by heart, but if you introduce it in a more creative way, you can make it a lot easier for them. They will probably only think about filling out the whole crossword and while doing that they won’t feel like they are practicing irregular verbs.  I made 3 different crossword...

One of the methods I really like for working on a literary text is called dicing . It is a method that allows an analysis of certain topics from different aspects. All you have to do is make a dice with these six words written on it: DESCRIBE, COMPARE, CONNECT, ANALYZE, USE, FOR / AGAINST. By throwing the dice the students are required to write down about a certain topic - they either have to compare something, analyze it or use it, etc. After that students discuss the topic. I used this method as a part of the analysis of the story Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. The lesson is pretty long (90min), but if you want, I can explain what I did in some of the next posts and maybe even give you the lesson plan . What do you think? I also used two more interesting methods, which I will explain in a few posts.  The dice for Jonathan Livingston had the following things written on it: DESCRIBE how Jonathan pursued his dreams! COMPARE Jonathan with the rest o...

One of the courses I'm taking this semester is called Language Learning Styles and Strategies . It is pretty interesting what you can do with different strategies and how they can help you be a better language learner, but during the course I realized that not much emphasis is put on LLS in the formal classroom here in Croatia and I think it's a shame. So, for those of you who think that you can help your learners learn better, faster and more efficient, here is a short project (micro-lesson) that I have to do on Tuesday, which can be a great way to start LLS training. The first thing you want to do with your students is raise their awareness of the fact that there are such things as LLS. How do you do that? You give them different types of questionnaires, do interviews with them, make them write a language learning diary, or comment in retrospective on a specific activity they do while studying; all of this depending on their language proficiency. You can also make a...

I thought I would use some of my own ideas in my first post, but I stumbled across an amazing web site, so I wanted to share it with you. TED-Ed is a sort of a video library that allows its users to take any useful educational video and easily create a customized lesson around the video. It includes videos and lessons for every school subject and since they are all in English, English language teachers can make use of all of them. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student. Here is a short website tour:         I love this video lesson on Shakespeare and his words. It deals with certain insults from Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet and explains them in a funny way. You can use it as a material for some listening activities or as an introduction to a lesson about Shakespeare or his work. It is most suitable for high school students...

Hi, everyone! I decided to start writing this blog to share my ideas for creative and interesting teaching. I am a student of English and German Language and Literature at the University of Osijek, Croatia and I'm currently doing a Master degree in Education, so this will be a great way not only to share my ideas, but also to practice my English skills.  I hope some of the methods that I'll present here will be helpful for some of you and although they will mostly be connected to foreign language teaching, many of them could be used for other school subject as well. Please feel free to give suggestions, comments and your ideas and don't hesitate to ask any questions. Looking forward to see what turns out of this blog! :) Regards, Eva