7 principles of good pedagogical practice by Chickering and Gamson (part 1)
Posted by: sabridv on: July 6, 2010
I’ve reading this article written by Javier Garcia Calvo and as I have found it quite interesting, I’ve decided to make a summary in English (since it is available in Spanish)
Principle 1: Propiciate the contact between students and teachers.
TICs can be useful to increase these contact inside and outside the classroom. Especially in the case of shy students that aren’t used to ask questions in class or to propose new ideas to the teachers. The most succesful type of student-teacher communication is the assynchronous one. Traditionally, this type of interaction took place in education when the students handed in homework or work done in class and it was limited to three conversational stages:
1) The teacher asked for the homework
2) The student answered by doing the homework
3) The teacher gives feedback by writing comments or giving the student a mark.
With the use of new technolgies the communication increases and for many students the results of learning are more intimate, protected and convenient than the more demanding and intimidating face to face relationships. Communication is also easier because both the student and the teacher have the opportunity of reflecting about what they have written and interpret the messages they have received. With TICs, participation and contributions from a greater number of students is possible.
Do you agree with it? I’ll write about the other 6 principles soon. Let me know if you are interested in reading about them.
The Hokey Pokey
Posted by: sabridv on: July 4, 2010
We all know that children learn through playing and singing. Trying to find something to change a bit my class routine, I realised that I have totally forgotten about the Hokey Pokey song. It’s been a long while, since I last used it in my class. I’m sure it will bring a lot of laughter and fun to my second grade students. A good way of starting the class. So here it goes the video and the lyrics from http://www.supersimplesongs.com
Lyrics & Gestures
(Begin with everyone standing in a circle)
Hey everybody. It’s time to do the Hokey Pokey!
Make a BIIIIIG circle.
You put one hand in. (Put one hand in the circle.)
One hand out. (Put that hand out of the circle.)
One hand in. (Put the hand back into the circle.)
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. (Shake your hand.)
You do the Hokey Pokey (Spin and dance) and turn around
Everybody turn around. (Turn around in a circle.)
You put two hands in.
Two hands out.
Two hands in.
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
You do the Hokey Pokey and clap your hands.
Everybody clap your hands.
You put one foot in.
One foot out.
One foot in.
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
You do the Hokey Pokey and sit down.
Everybody please sit down.
You put two feet in.
Two feet out.
Two feet in.
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
You do the Hokey Pokey and stand up.
Everybody please stand up.
You put your head in.
Your head out.
Your head in.
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
You to the Hokey Pokey and sing a song.
La la la la la la!
You put your backside in.
Your backside out.
Your backside in.
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
You do the Hokey Pokey and be quiet.
Everybody please be quiet. Shh!
You put your whole self in.
Your whole self out.
Your whole self in.
And you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
You do the Hokey Pokey and take a bow.
Everybody take a bow.
What do you generally do in your class routines? Can you give me some more ideas?
Bunny Chow (Traditional South African Dish)
Posted by: sabridv on: June 14, 2010
Today, I’m sharing with you a short activity I’m planning to do as part of my world cup project with my 5º grade students. In this activity, students will learn how to prepare Bunny Chows, a very traditional dish from South Africa.
They will have to watch the following video from You Tube and complete the activities you will find below.
1) Write down the missing ingredients.
Ingredients:
1 loaf of b_ _ _ _
Chop O _ _ _ _ _ 20 g
T _ _ _ _ _ Puré 300 g
S _ _ _
R_ _ Chilli
R _ _ Chilli Powder
G _ _ _ _ _ 50 g
G _ _ _ _ _ 50 g
2 ) Complete with the appropriate words:
CUT BLENDER FRENCH FRIES GARNISH MIX FRY
First, _____________ the onions.
Put two spoons of Yoghurt and the onions in the _____________
Fry and __________ in a frying pan the ginger, the garlic, the tomato puré, the red chillis and some salt. Let them cook for some minuter.
___________ the inside part of the bread and place the mixture inside it. ___________ it with some chop onions and chillis. Accompany it with _____________________.
Hope you use it in your classes. Please, share your experience with it and more ideas on how to exploit the world cup tournament.
Robots Lesson Plan
Posted by: sabridv on: June 13, 2010
With my second grade students we are doing a thematic project on toys. As in the last classes we’ve been talking about robots, I’ve decided to prepare a lesson plan on the trailer of the film “Robots”.
I started the class by asking them if they had seen the film. As most of them answered yes, I asked them how many characters there were in the film, if they remembered their names, their colours and what they can do.
After that, we watched the trailer. They were supposed to count how many robots appeared.
After watching it, I asked them: Can the robots talk, sing, walk, take photos, kick, read, cook? Then, we watched it a second time and I stopped the video each time a new robot was introduced. I questioned them:
What colour is it? Is it a boy or a girl? Is it tall or short? Is it fat or thin? Is it beautiful or ugly?
Finally, I gave each of the students a picture of one of the robots. They had to colour it and complete the sentences about it. You can download the worksheet here.
The following class, my students in groups created their own robots. They made a poster in which they draw them and wrote similar sentences about them.
Hope you find it useful and if you use it in your classes share your experience with us. I would also love to get more ideas on how to work with this topic in my class. Thanks in advance!
Baam Game
Posted by: sabridv on: June 7, 2010
A long time ago, I’ve seen this game in Ddeubel’s ning: ESL Classroom 2.0 and I’ve totally forgotten about it for a very looooong time. Yesterday, I was trying to find a fun activity to do with my secondary school students about a play we are seeing on Tuesday and this game came back to my mind. The idea is very simple, but I think it is a game that really motivates students to take part. This is mainly because winning the game isn’t related to the students’ competence in the language, but with LUCK!
The game’s rules:
2. Appoint a scorekeeper.
3. Teams answer correctly and earn money. If a team is correct, they can continue until max. 3 times or until they get BAAM!
4. If a team hits BAAM! they go bankrupt!
5. The team with the most money at the end is the winner.
Baboons a 2010 Soccer World Cup problem- Lesson Plan
Posted by: sabridv on: May 13, 2010
With my 5º grade students at school we are doing a thematic project on the World Cup. Sean Banville’s web page Breaking News English has inspired me. I love his site so I’ll take the chance to recommend it to you! He has “EFL / ESL English Lesson Plans & Podcast for studying Current Events and News. There are thousands of FREE 13-page, Ready-to-Print Handouts with Downloads & Quizzes.”
The thing is, that he has written a wonderful lesson plan about the problem of baboons for the 2010 world cup organisers. But, as his lesson plans are aimed at adults and teenagers with an intermediate or above level, I couldn’t use it with my children at school. However, I have adapted the news article and prepared a new lesson plan about the same topic for young learners.
First, I asked my students to search for information about baboons on the net as a homework. I asked them to complete a fact file about them, similar to this one:
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
SIZE:
WEIGHT:
LIFESPAN:
HABITAT:
COUNTRIES WHERE THEY LIVE:
DIET:
GESTATION:
I also asked them to find out why baboons are a problem for the world cup organisers. The next class, we did the reading activities you will find in this file.
Hope you’ve found it useful and do share some more ideas to work on this topic. I will be grateful!
Blogs Worth Taking a Look at…
Posted by: sabridv on: May 11, 2010
I am very honoured because Philb81 has tagged me in his wonderful blog Classroom201X as one of his 10 blogs worth taking a look at. This is a new initiative in the ELT blogosphere at the moment. If someone tags you in their list of 10 recommended teaching blogs, you then prepare your own list of 10 other blogs you would be willing to recommend, paste the logo above into your post and link back to the person/blog that initially tagged you. So here goes my list of 10 blogs to recommend (they are presented in alphabetical order):
- David Truss Pair-a-dimes: Great reflections on education, technology and learning.
- ELT notes : I always find a lot of food for thought from Claudia’s reflections.
- English Raven: It helps me to have a look at TEFL from a different perspective
- Kalinago English: I have taken lots of ideas from this blog and I have already tried many of her lesson plans. Thanks Karene for all the hard work!
- L_missbossy’s ELT PLayground: A great blog about TEFL for Young learners
- Marisa Constantinides- TEFL matters: Reflections on TEFL from a teacher trainer.
- Movie Segemnts to Assess Grammar Goals: It contains a series of movie segments and activities to assess or practice grammar points through fun, challenging exercises. Thanks for sharing Claudio!
- Succesful Teaching: A blog where you can get some strategies and ideas in order to have a succesful teaching experience. Thanks Pat for all the inspiration.
- TEFLclips: A site dedicated to the possibilities for YouTube and other video sharing sites in the classroom. I love using videos in my classes and this site has helped me a lot. Thanks a lot Jamie.
- Tu remanso: A blog in Spanish worth having a look at for some good reflections on education. Thanks Cinthia for sharing your reflections.
Hope you’ve found some new blogs WORTH TAKING A LOOK AT…
ESL / EFL Lesson Plans Carnival
Posted by: sabridv on: May 4, 2010
I am very honured to have taken part in Karenne’s ESL/ EFL Carnival. I think that it was an excellent idea having made it thematic. The contributions had to be lesson plans. Therefor, there is a great collection of wonderful and very creative lesson plans. I suggest that you should go and have a look at them. You will find fresh ideas and new blogs to follow. Do have a look…
Ask me anything!
Posted by: sabridv on: February 11, 2010
Just out of curiosity I have started trying out Formspring.me. Basically it is a new social network that allows people to ask you questions. What type of questions? Any type. Then, you can decide whether to answer them or not.
I started wondering about the uses we may give to it. First, I thought about the most obvious one: how-to-make-questions practice in an EFL classroom. Secondly, I thought about my blog. It may become a very useful tool for direct communication between blog-readers and blog-authors. I’m still thinking about all of this. I have just started using it, so I believe that as time goes by, we’ll see the results. I invite you all to leave your questions about me in: http://www.formspring.me/sabridv . I’ll be glad to answer them.
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