Creative Teacherette

This post is another one in the "section" of creative writing. As I have already said, it can be pretty difficult to get your students to write their own stories, so these methods can be of great help.  Mini saga is a story of exactly 50 words, that your students have to write. It can also have a title of up to 15 words, but the title can also be omitted. It is great to stimulate creativity and determine the crucial elements of a story. Here's an example of a mini saga by Daniel H. Pink: "When I was shot, fear seized me at first. No surprise that. But once I realized I wasn’t going to die – despite the thermonuclear pain and widening puddle of weirdly warm blood – my mind recalibrated. And one thought, comforting yet disturbing, leapt into my head: I need to tweet this."

When I was a child, I loved to fill out things in workbooks and magazines for children. When I started going to school, I loved to fill out things in course- and workbooks and today I love doing so as well. No wonder, I have collected English coursebooks and workbooks throughout my whole education. Those were not only my personal ones, but I also have a collection of my brother's English coursebooks and some of my mother's as well. Some of my friends have also been so kind as to give me their coursebooks. So, as you can see, for us, (future) teachers, it can be pretty easy to get to materials on certain topics. And the best thing is that you can re-use these as many times as you want. 

I'm still pretty busy, but yesterday I spent the whole day doing this DIY project for my practicum, so I just wanted to share what I made with you. I had to hold a class to 6th graders and I wanted to amp it up a bit because the topic wasn't very interesting. Therefore, I decided to create these true / false flags for the students to use during a typical true/false activity. I read some statements connected to the text we were working on and they had to raise a "T" flag if a statement was correct and an "F" flag if it was false. They were ecstatic when they saw the flags, so if you have some free time, try spending it on creating them, your students will love you and you'll be able to reuse them for sure. So, you'll need the following: - some long and thick straws in two colors - some paper in two colors - scissors - glue - ruler - markers

Remember my blog post about creative writing activities , where your students have to connect the titles of their favorite songs into a story? Well, besides their favorite song titles you can use visual statements, which can be found everywhere on the internet.  Some of my favorite web - sites for this are: http://weheartit.com/ http://www.visualstatements.net/ http://pinterest.com/fashark/visual-statements/ http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/visual%20statement http://www.someecards.com/ You can also use these to teach your students how English language functions in terms of irony and sarcasm ( someecards ) . If they are longer you can tell them to write a story about what a visual statement is saying. Or you can make a bigger project where your students write their impressions about learning English on a poster and incorporate some visual statements in their stories, so you end up with a "picture story" of some sort. Another idea is to use vi...

Hi, everyone! I know I've been MIA for the last month or so, but I had a lot going on at the university. I'm slowly finishing my studies and although there's still a lot to be done, I think I'll be able to spend some of my time on this blog in the next couple of months. Today I wanted to tell you how my first time in an EFL classroom as a student of teaching foreign languages went by. Once again, I got reassured that teaching is what I want to do for the rest of my life! One of my colleagues and I visited a local elementary school and we got to observe an English class of third graders. Their teacher, Jelena, blew me away. I always thought that teaching kids at such young age is chaotic and exhausting and all over the place, but seeing this class made me realize that all the things that we were taught in college really can be transferred to an enjoyable practice. The topic of the lesson were days of the week and some activities that can be done in one’s...

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...