edutopia Over the summer, teachers reflect on the year and often redesign and perfect their teaching strategies and plans. In essence, they get back to the basics of what they believe is the best way to inspire learning in their students -- in other words, they revisit and refine their philosophy of education. A school district might ask a teacher or principal applying for a job about her or his philosophy of education. In this post, I've decide to share mine, and I am curious to see if any of my beliefs resonate with you. So here they are: 1. Students want and need to learn as much as they need food, clothing, and shelter. 2. Students learn best by doing, and active teaching encourages active learning. How to study How to take notes How to memorize How to express themselves effectively These skills will help them be part of a high-performance learning team. 3. 4. 5. 6. Having access to knowledge resources is as important to a child's education as the actual curriculum content. 7.
Reflections of a Teacher and Learner Making the right choices: ‘Lean On Me’ – On the same page Every word in the song “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers has been written into a grid with some distractors. Starting in the upper left corner, students complete the lyrics choosing one of the words available right next to the last word in any direction and using each square only once. To guide them through the process, the writing worksheet provides students with a few words in each line, including the first ones, which are also capitalised in the grid for easier reference. You may want to model and play the first two lines of the song so that the students can understand the procedure. Students will be practising a number of skills as they make their choices. Sometimes they will have to make decisions concerning subject-verb agreement, sentence structure, word order, or selecting the right preposition. Before listening to the song and checking the lyrics, students are asked to write down and share what they think the last line of the song is, adding an extra purpose to the listening task.
blog-efl Writing and Public Speaking - Why Every Writer Needs a Website by: Sabrina S Siracusa Why does every writer need a website? The most obvious reason--because every serious business has one! A website acts like your storefront. It tells your potential clients that you are in business.. How to Maximize Body Language Into Your Presentation by: Faizarul Madznan A vital and visible part of your presentation is the use of body language. Writers - Cheap, Easy, Expendable by: R.H. When Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex, spoke before a Seattle audience, he began by asking, "What do you suppose my least favorite comment is?" Better Thinking Skills Through Writing by: Steve Gillman Better thinking skills come from practice. How to Improve Writing Unity by: Mark Pennington Writing unity refers to how well sentences and paragraphs stay focused on the topic sentences and thesis statement. 5 Tips To Writing Articles That Connect With Readers And Have Them Click Through by: Matthew Robert Payne TIP 1 Educate someone. . . .
Janet's Abruzzo Edublog Useful links for CELTA Anyone following my blog will know that CELTA took over my life in August last year (2014), and will continue to dominate until the same time this year (2015). I’ve been building this list in my head for a while, and it’s finally time to get it onto the blog. It’s arranged into categories, with subtitles and topics in bold to help you navigate. There’s a lot here, so just use the bits you need as you need them rather than trying to look at all of them – if not, you’ll end up being overwhelmed! A quick way to find what you need it to press CTRL + F (CMD + F on a Mac) and type a key word connected to what you’re struggling with, like ‘TTT’, ‘instructions’ or ‘writing’ – this will take you straight to the relevant section. Please let me know if any of the links are broken so I can update them, and feel free to add suggestions to the comments. Before the course CELTA is a very intensive experience, and it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into. Is the CELTA worth it? Top Reading
The Daily Ptefldactyl 3 Ways to Be Less Boring "Be less boring." That's a low bar for us as teachers. However, improvement is implicit in this command. Face it: some days, trying to be slightly less boring is all we have, while on other days, we feel like we could make the study of prairie grasses fascinating to fifth-grade kids. Here are three ideas that might help you be less boring. 1. We all know what wait time is -- ask a question and then give students time to think before calling on someone. If you're already good at wait time one, try wait time two. Closing my mouth makes class much more interesting for students and me. 2. Teachers have a Pavlovian response to hand raising. I implemented a policy that required students to signal when they don't want me to call on them. In an era of learning walks, instructional rounds, and unannounced observations, this method has another interesting advantage. 3. Your enjoyment of teaching is essential to being less boring. . . . if our focus is on the what rather than the who.
Leoxicon: About me I’ve been involved in ELT for more than 12 years in all sorts of roles: teacher, examiner, teacher trainer, senior teacher and materials developer – mainly with the British Council in Tel Aviv but also Cyprus and Turkey. In recent years, teacher training missions have taken me to Azerbaijan, Armenia and other countries in the region where I had a chance to meet, work with and learn from some wonderful and dedicated teachers and teacher trainers. Currently I am a lecturer giving courses to pre-service and in-service teachers in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), teaching methodology, vocabulary teaching and using technology in the classroom (the latter by demand rather than by choice). My other interests – as you can tell from the contents of this blog – include corpus linguistics, lexical approaches to language teaching and using video in the classroom – the topics I’ve written articles and materials on for the British Council and BBC’s TeachingEnglish website.
English Language Arts & Reading – Vision in Practice Have you ever had a great idea, but then you find yourself lost in a world of resources, many of… Read more Great Resources Don’t Have to Cost Think about the power of sharing ideas. Isn’t that at the core of education? Isn’t it funny that we will see in public restrooms signs about reducing our carbon footprint by using electric hand… Read more The Power of a Digital Platform I use Google Forms for everything. Within the Visioning Document, we read these premises: Article II: The New Learning Standards II.f New learning standards should re… Read more Simplify Collaboration with Slides Within the Visioning Document, we read this premise: 1.a The technologies that make this new digital world possible must be… Read more Technology Management and Discipline Plan This is the twelfth lesson in the series, Lesson Transformed, in which traditional lessons are transformed into engaging experiences for students which… Read more Lesson Transformed: Summer Reading
Miguel Mendoza eFL Dinosaurs in Education – Language Teaching Tips Think of a school with teachers reluctant to participate in any kind of CPD sessions (Continuous Professional Development). Is it possible for this school and its teachers to provide an impact on improving student achievement? The answer is definitely: Because you can’t teach if you don’t learn. According to Wikipedia CPD is: “Many professions define CPD as a structured approach to learning to help ensure competence to practice, taking in knowledge, skills and practical experience. In a blog post, I read some questions that describe the attitude of the dinosaurs in education. Am I getting paid for it? Most of the time these dinosaurs are: reluctant,smug, stubborn,sorry about the colleagues who care about their CPD andthey have a lack of passion for teaching,a know-it-all attitude and conviction that technology has nothing to add. So what should we do? Should we kill all dinosaurs? or Should we find a way to motivate them for CPD sessions? Last words: CPD prevents burnout and motivates teachers.