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Odds & Ends.
A few extras. They didn't seem to fit elsewhere but I thought they would be useful.
A few extras. They didn't seem to fit elsewhere but I thought they would be useful.
Last year, after "teaching practice" some education majors said it would be useful to have a list of classroom language and classroom management techniques they could learn and use. I looked around but wasn't satisfied with what I found (e.g. someone gave me a booklet from the Monkasho (Ministry of Ed.) that was about 45 pages long. All good stuff but not exactly a checklist you can remember, especially during the stress of teaching practice. So I got input from a bunch of teachers and students and made a short one (one page, plus some practice ideas on the back). HERE is the handout.
The "'7 +/- 2) has to do with working memory. Most people can remember 7 (+/- 2) pieces of information.. so try to make instructions short: imperative (command form): verb + object).
The: KISS puzzle at the bottom means: Keep It (Instructions) Short & Simple.
I hope this helps your students.
The "'7 +/- 2) has to do with working memory. Most people can remember 7 (+/- 2) pieces of information.. so try to make instructions short: imperative (command form): verb + object).
The: KISS puzzle at the bottom means: Keep It (Instructions) Short & Simple.
I hope this helps your students.
Authentic Materials, Tasks, and Student Output. by Steven Brown and Lionel Menasche, Originally presented at Three Rivers TESOL Fall Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 1 November 2003. It later appeared as a PDF on the Youngstown State University website. A revised version appears in Brown, S. Listening Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. Ann Arbor: U. of Mich. press, 2011. This is the original handout. Thanks to Lionel Menasche for permission to post it. Photo courtesy: Julia Volk. Pexels.com. Used with permission.
The "tiny url" address for this article is: http://tinyurl.com/AuthenticBrownMenasche
Clarification Language Face2face. My school is going back to face2face classes. I want to make sure students can clarify things they don't understand when speaking to partners wearing masks. This is a peer-dictation activity that does that. Stay safe!
Level up/ Level Down. Choose your own level. Except for private lessons, ever class has students at different levels. This is a handout I made to go with English Firsthand that lets student raise (to make a task more challenging) or lower (to make it easier). The "book section" refers to Firsthand but you can use these with any book. Preview = vocabulary. Interaction = fluency-oriented groupwork.
Level up/Level Down is part of a series of 9 handouts about ways to modify your textbook. Other ideas include varieties of shadowing, ways to work with pronunciation and ways to maximize student speaking time. You can download those skill sheets HERE.
Classroom Management: stuff they didn't mention in teacher training is something I wrote, originally for my own students (teachers in training) and later published on a Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto's wonderful Teaching Village blog.
Related to the issue of classroom management: Most English teachers do a lot of pairwork and groupwork. It is useful to change pair- & group-partners regularly. This lets the students get to know everyone, keeps groupings fresh, and helps deal with the fact that there are always different levels (of ability and motivation. Pair up! is a handout listing 40 different, simple ways to divide classes into pairs.
A while back, my English Firsthand co-author Steve Brown and I wrote and article about activity frames that could be used for nearly any topic, grammar point, etc. It was called One size fits all.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and University Part-Timers. A short article from the JALT Think Tank special issue on Maslow's Heirachy. (October 2019. pp. 13-16). HERE's a link to the whole issue. And HERE's a link to the archive of Think Tank issues. They are all free and connect to brain science and language teaching.
Cookies on test days. (Sugar surge) A long time ago, The Washington Post had a story about research showing how high calorie meals helped students raise test scores (Click to see the article). On test/quiz days (often the first quiz of the year), I ask students how many skipped breakfast that day. (I teach in a women's university. Unfortunately many students say yes.). I tell them about the research. Then I pull out a big bag of cookies and pass them out. They eat the cookie before the quiz. I don't think the cookie itself makes a difference. But maybe the teacher caring enough to bring cookies on a test (i.e., "high stress") day makes a difference. At least it lowers the "fear factor."
Yoga breathing. My students sometimes need to use English in high stress situations such as job interviews, taking "big tests" like the TOEIC, TOEFL, etc.
I teaching them "yogic breathing" to use in situations. By breathing like in a yoga exercise, they are able to "calm their mind" and relax. It also gives them a way to be in control of their own mental state. And they can do this "privately in public." -- Even a a room full of people, no one will notice. Chick here for the handout/poster:Breath to relax.
I teaching them "yogic breathing" to use in situations. By breathing like in a yoga exercise, they are able to "calm their mind" and relax. It also gives them a way to be in control of their own mental state. And they can do this "privately in public." -- Even a a room full of people, no one will notice. Chick here for the handout/poster:Breath to relax.
And here's a new version that uses a photograph to show the same thing.
Loving Kindness Meditation
We do a unit with our first year reading students on traditional Asian Healing. They learn meditation, yoga and Thai massage. In the meditation lesson, they try Loving Kindness Meditation (also called Metta meditation). Here is the handout they read before trying it. They they actually try it using this link from youtube.
We do a unit with our first year reading students on traditional Asian Healing. They learn meditation, yoga and Thai massage. In the meditation lesson, they try Loving Kindness Meditation (also called Metta meditation). Here is the handout they read before trying it. They they actually try it using this link from youtube.
Where's the bank? (a chant)
This is a rhythm chant (like a jazz chant -- but I can't call it that since Oxford University Press owns that term). It practices/ teaches the language students need to give directions.
Chant + lesson plan.
A PowerPoint to use with it.
Below is a video of Marc doing the chant. You are welcome to use the. video with your students. However, my main purpose in making it to to show you the rhythm. I think it is more effective for you to do the change live with your students.
This is a rhythm chant (like a jazz chant -- but I can't call it that since Oxford University Press owns that term). It practices/ teaches the language students need to give directions.
Chant + lesson plan.
A PowerPoint to use with it.
Below is a video of Marc doing the chant. You are welcome to use the. video with your students. However, my main purpose in making it to to show you the rhythm. I think it is more effective for you to do the change live with your students.