Fab English ideas

Three things that spark up my life

Posted on 11/10/2015 by fabenglishteacher

As you probably know by now I’m a sucker for challenges, lists, anything to make me (feel) more effective.

The first is audible.com an audio book site run by amazon, this means a) I can buy at the click of a mouse, and even more importantly b) I’m looking forward to my next commute to catch up on the fantastic book I’m listening to.

I’ve already talked to you about #teacher5aday on twitter, this month there’s the #teacher5adayPE challenge, don’t panic it’s not particularly difficult – the hardest thing for me so far was making a healthy lunch to take into school the next day ( I ducked out and did wall sits instead!).

Finally, the pomodoro app that I’ve installed on my phone, as I said, I love being ~~bossed about~~ held accountable, this is because, according to Gretchen Rubin, I’m an Obliger. Actually she’s right, and knowing it has helped me make some good habits, or at least understand why I keep starting new projects and have trouble carrying them through.

Anyway, back to the app, it’s basically a timer that you set to work for 30 minutes, followed by a break. It really helped me cut down my distractions by knowing that I could have five minutes guilt free twitter time after I’d got down to work. You can upload your to-do list with times for each activity, great fun although as with everything, we’ll see if I keep it up.

What about you? Tell us about your new toys!

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October to-do list

Posted on 03/10/2015 by fabenglishteacher

Didn’t September go quickly? Already time for our next to do list. Last month I discovered the wonderful Mrs Tina Murray and her #septembersalubrity on twitter. Teacher well-being is often low on our list of priorities and I know I, and especially my family have often paid the price for this, so this school year with the help of movements such as #teacher5aday I am really making an effort to take time out for myself, and hopefully this will show in this month’s to-do list.

Keep up the Sport

With autumn evenings getting darker more quickly and a flourish of parents’ evenings this month I will avoid the temptation to drop the sport by following the twitter #teacher5adayPE challenge, set up by Johnny Mcloghlin, so far, so easy but we’ll see if I manage the whole month.

2. Webinars

I didn’t manage to watch all those I had planned last month, but here’s this month’s line-up anyway:

11th October The wonderful Jamie Keddie is giving a webinar over at IATEFL YL SIG on youtube and teens, can’t wait to join this one!

I hope I can make Urs Kalberer‘s webinar at Cambridge English Teacher on Using Songs in the Classroom on 21st October.

23rd & 24th October – the fantastic IATEFL web conference is definitely not to be missed, and with two days of almost 24 hour coverage it will be relatively easy to pop into something great!

3. Reading

Like sport this is something I tend to let drop when the pace picks up, so now I’ve decided to timetable 30 minutes “proper” reading a day, “proper” is non-fiction for me! I have a reminder on my phone to make sure this happens and have nearly managed almost every day so far!

I’ve just passed the diploma section of my TESOL M.A. (woop woop!) and so I’m starting the reading for my final, thesis year. First on my list is Research Methods in Applied Linguistics by Dörnyei. I’m still fudging around my topic, something to do with Learner Strategies, teens, SpLD I think, so many subjects fascinate me, it’s hard to decide!

The Homework Myth looks great, like many teachers I’m expected to give homework and often wonder if there’s not something better than Murphy exercises out there. The great thing about teaching teens is that we can also encourage thinking, well-being, and curiosity during and after our lessons, in fact I think we have a duty to do so, it’s not just about irregular verbs.

Who could resist a title like Teach like your hair’s on fire? Not me!

For our school book club (which year 9 have kindly let me join!) I’m reading Will & Will by John Green.

4. Holidays!

Mustn’t forget that! If like me, you are lucky enough to have a bit of time off this month then why not plan something for that time? Otherwise by the time you have caught up with marking cleaning and dentist appointments the week has flown by with nothing to show for it.

That’s why this time I have booked a trip to the UK to visit family and friends.

What about you? Please let me know what you’ve got on your October to-do list!

Posted in Blethering, CPD, to-do lists | 5 Comments

Happy at work – happy in class

Posted on 27/09/2015 by fabenglishteacher

I flip boarded across this article from fortune magazine this morning. It’s about the five things you need to be happy at work. Having the best job in the universe I already have them but I still like reading articles like this to pump up my enthusiasm for spending Sunday afternoon marking!

Reading through the list I noticed that it also corresponded to something else, can you see it?

1.Work that challenges you

That elusive “not-to-easy-but not-impossibly-difficult” that provokes flow and gives us pride in our accomplishments.

2. A sense of progress
A feeling that you’re actually getting somewhere, ticking lists and accomplishing tasks.

3. No fear
The carrot is more motivating than the stick, we obviously aren’t going to perform to our best if we are terrified of being humiliated, called-out or even sacked.

4. Autonomy
A sense of choice is important, people want to feel they have control over their own lives.

5. Belonging
Relationships and a feeling of team-spirit will always make workers go that extra mile.

It’s the perfect learning environment isn’t it?!

Students want work that is challenging but not demotivating by its difficulty, we need to encourage them to stick at tasks and not give up at the first fence.

Students need to know where they are going in their learning journey, and how far along that path they are.

Fear- this is the one that spoke loudest to me, obviously students aren’t going to learn if they are afraid to make mistakes or give their views in the language classroom.

Everyone wants some autonomy, the secret in the classroom is to make students feel accompanied and supported while also allowing them as much autonomy as possible within that, even if that means simply letting them choose which order to do the tasks in, or choosing their partner.

A sense of belonging to a language class means students feel free to experiment and aren’t ashamed of trying, more importantly it makes class fun.

Basically this article shows that at work, and in class we all just want to feel both motivated to do our best and comfortable while doing so.

Posted in Blethering, classroom management tips | 2 Comments

Connect, Notice, Learn, Exercise, Volunteer

Posted on 23/09/2015 by fabenglishteacher

As an EFL teacher in a secondary school in Geneva I sometimes feel on the edge of everything;

-the teaching PLN on twitter seems to be mainly UK based (maybe I’m missing an enormous vibrant community of motivated French-speaking teachers from my region).

-teaching in a secondary school isn’t quite the same as a lot of EFL teaching I see online, we have different obligations, maybe more teaching time (so less preparation) and a ton of marking.

– Geneva may look as though it’s in the middle of Europe on a map, but it’s not when you have a conference anywhere in Switzerland, believe me! Everyone I know at ETAS greets me with the comment “What time did you get up for the train then?”!

This means I can a) sit quietly in the corner and feel left out, or b) butt in everywhere and glean the best from the lot of them, and I’m sure that, knowing me you can guess how it works!

Back to the point Rachael!

I’ve been aware of the #teacher5aday movement on twitter for a while now, it was set up by Martyn Reah to encourage teacher well-being, you know, the thing that you leave bottom of your list of priorities while you get on with planning, marking, trouble-shooting and generally doing loads for others. He explains it here.

Martyn’s 5 a day are the title of this post, they are also my phone screensaver as you can see in the image above, to remind me to take note, or #notice if you prefer.

Another great twitter movement is #septembersalubrity, presented by the wonderful Mrs Tina Murray. Every morning break I’m on twitter to find her daily suggestion for getting the most from our teaching lives.

September is the time of resolutions, these hashtags are simple ways of keeping them going, for example here’s what I’ve been up to this month:

#connect – I’ve set up a Whatsapp conversation group with a few friends so we can keep in touch (chat together when waiting for footy training to finish!)

#notice– I’ve started walking at lunch in the park next to our school, it seems that autumn is coming!

#Learn – I always feel this is the one of the five-a-day I let slide, but then I remind myself that I am studying an M.A. so maybe I’m not doing to badly on this front.

#Exercise– I’ve started going swimming ~~a couple of times ok make that~~ once a week after school, I love it and must work hard not to replace it with “urgent” tasks that can wait.

#volunteer -I’ve always thought volunteering brings us so much, not just in feel good factor, but in actual skills that make us a better teacher, person, whatever and look good on the CV too! It’s a great way to step out of your comfort zone and meet people that you might not have got to know otherwise, I get such a buzz from meeting up with the ETAS crowd (so they get two mentions in this post!!) and I’ve learnt so much by helping organise our village race with the local tourist office – you want catering for 300? Give me a call!

As Tina Murray points out, it’s the accountability that makes us stick to our resolutions, which is why I’ve just told you about mine! – Let me know about yours and we can keep each other motivated during the hard times ahead!

Posted in Blethering, survival tips | 1 Comment

Pay it Forward

Posted on 13/09/2015 by fabenglishteacher

Yesterday I had a fantastic time at the ETAS Professional Development day, the wonderful new website was presented, and I’m proud to say I’ve helped on the Geneva and Teen SIG pages.

During the conference I had the chance to do two of my favourite things;

Learn – I participated in one great workshops and got some super ideas for classes this week, for example getting all the students to immerse themselves in a detailed photo (city scene for example) by closing the blinds and giving them a few minutes to really get into the image, and then asking them to describe what they can see, hear, smell etc. (Thank you Rebecca Robb Benne). This is great as I have a lesson on using can with sense verbs this week.

Share – I was lucky enough to give a workshop on finding the Great in Grammar and shared some of the ideas I picked up from various books, webinars, and presentations.

This brought something home to me, what is the point of learning if we don’t share it or pay it forward to other teachers?

I’ve learnt a lot about self-improvement and well-being from teacher5aday and #septembersalubrity and I think teachers could not only learn but connect, and feel the benefits of helping others by paying forward a tip or idea they have learnt somewhere.

Please join me on this and share with #teacherspayitforward either on twitter or by commenting below.

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Start thinking about your last lesson already

Posted on 04/09/2015 by fabenglishteacher

Every Monday students find slips of paper waiting on their desks when they arrive and I encourage them to write about something great that happened over the last seven days.

To be perfectly honest I don’t put them all in the memory jar that I keep on the shelf, I keep those that mention exceptional events, football team victories, great results in a Maths test, courage, bravery, kind actions, funny moments, etc. However I don’t let the students know that, or see me throwing them away.

The plan is to open the jar in our last lesson next June, I will have added some photos, links to work on the class blog, etc. We will spend our last lesson reminiscing about the year that’s passed and looking at what we’ve learnt and how we’ve changed.

Instead of the usual sweets and games to pass the time until the final bell of the year, we’ll spend our time thinking about learning and personal development – some of my favourite things!

Posted in Creativity, Fab ideas, Fab YL ideas | 2 Comments

September to-do list

Posted on 01/09/2015 by fabenglishteacher

New school year, new resolutions, I love resolutions, and I love to-do lists!

6th September – IATEFL SIG webinar (YL) Joe Dale ‘Producing & Sharing Personalised multimedia ebooks for ipads, android & windows tablets which promote creativity, collaboration & facilitate feedback’. Wow, that’s a mouthful! However I really enjoyed Joe’s session at IATEFL YL SIG pre-conference so I’ll bet this will be fantastic, can’t wait!

9th September-Macmillan webinars three back to school webinars to start term on the right foot.

12th September – ETAS PD Day, a professional development conference packed with loads of great workshops (including yours truly!) and a chance to network with likeminded professionals.

Even more exciting, the new website will go live on this day (so I’d better finish the Teen SIG page!)

17th September– “Teacherholics” a regular Geneva teachermeet, can’t wait to see everyone after the hols!

23rd September – Cambridge English teacher webinars Karen Saxby Engaging parents in their children’s language learning. A subject dear to my heart, Karen also gave a great talk at IATEFL and I’m looking forward to seeing what she has to say on this topic.

Books to read:

Neurotribes: The legacy of Autism and the future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman. Recommended by a friend, this is the BIG SpLD book of the moment.

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath, I’m a bit of a sucker for (quality) self-improvement books, and this looks pretty good.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, again recommended by a friend, it’s my resolution to try and read more fiction this year so let’s hope this gets read.

What with the above, and starting a new school year, September looks set to a busy month, what about you? What have you got planned?

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My Summer Booklist

Posted on 30/08/2015 by fabenglishteacher

These are some of the books I’ve read this summer, you’ll notice I’ve added the kindle so you’ll have a more realistic picture.

Language Learner Strategies by Cohen & Macaro
I’ve read loads of books and articles on this subject for my M.A. literature review which I’ve just handed in, including Teaching and Researching: Language Learning Strategies by Rebecca Oxford. The Teaching and Researching… series is a great way to start learning about any subject in EFL, not only do they provide great introductions and background to the subject, they also give ideas for possible research in the particular area and have a fantastic bibliography so you can go even further if you want.

Teaching Grammar Effectively by Gûnter Gerngross,Herbert Puchta & Scott Thornbury.
I’d ordered this book a while ago as the title grabbed me, added to which it was co-written by the wonderful Herbert Puchta; if you haven’t had time to see him speak at a conference then do so! Added to this, I’m giving a workshop on Finding the GREAT in Grammar at ETAS PD Day in a couple of weeks so I wanted to do my homework well. The book is a great read, packed with loads of really practical ideas.

I also read Discourse Analysis by Barbara Johnstone, for my M.A. While I do find all aspects of EFL and teaching interesting, I must admit I found Teaching Young Learners more up my street.

Thinking About Language Teaching by Michael Swan is a great read, it’s a collection of his articles, which are both informative and interesting. It’s not often I laugh out loud while reading EFL articles so it was a treat to take this book to the beach. I’ll be writing a review on the book for ETAS so watch out for it.

Caged in Chaos by Victoria Briggs
This book is FANTASTIC! I’m reading up on how to help students with learning difficulties. There’s quite a few good books out there on dyslexia, such as these, however it’s harder to find useful, practical stuff for other learning difficulties and although dyslexia is perhaps the biggest challenge to a language learner, it is also important for the teacher to have an idea on how to support a student with ADHD for example or, as in the case of this book , dyspraxia. This will be the subject of my next workshop at Paris TESOL in November, but more about that later.

Not only does this book include practical ideas to help dyspraxic students but it’s written by a dyspraxic students so you really get a feel about how the writer feels.

Make It Stick was full of useful tips for me to hand on to my students about the value of interleaved spaced practice and a billion other things. Although I tell them until I’m blue in the face that it’s better to revise five times ten minutes rather than leave their vocal lists until the night before the test, what would I know? I’m only the teacher after all!

Don’t think I’ve just read EFL stuff though this summer! I must admit to being a bit disappointed by The Girl on the Train. I loved The Versions of Us however.

Like a great many others I was waiting for Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, it was better than I expected after having read the reviews, like seeing old friends again. It made me realise just how long it had been since I first read To Kill a Mockingbird, so I reread that too.

If you like Young Adult literature (I pretend I’m just finding material for our book club) then you MUST read Every Day by David Levithan, the idea behind the story is amazing, I just hope there will be a sequel.

As every summer, I haven’t read half the books I’d hoped to. What about you, can you recommend me your “you’ve GOT TO read this” books please?

Posted in Blethering | 5 Comments

The mysterious case of the missing notebook

Posted on 16/08/2015 by fabenglishteacher

I don’t know about you, but I work best with notepads. I know that my phone has (and now I deeply regret not using) all the necessary storage facilities for notes, resources to come back to etc. but, apart from highlighting in kindle, I’m an old fashioned kinda girl and love buying a new notebook for an event such as a conference, and then noting all the ideas that pop up from all the sources around me.

So you can imagine how complete I felt when I bought this summer’s notebook, and with all the rest, relaxation and stimulation brought on by two weeks travelling and reading up on loads of exciting stuff, how many (wonderful) ideas I noted down.

We arrived home yesterday evening and in a tightly honed and practiced manoeuvre, managed to empty the camper van within the hour, with everything back in it’s place (usually the wash basket!)

Everything that is, EXCEPT MY NOTEBOOK! I wrote notes on a few books, a couple of presentations, not to mention ideas that just came up (set a reading project for year 8, etc.), and now…

No-one has seen it, it’s not in the camper van, it’s not in the house, a whole summer’s thoughts just disappeared in a puff of smoke.

I feel bereft, but at the same time liberated, some of the notes are coming back to me, and who knows, maybe at some point the notebook itself will do too.

Posted in teaching journal | 2 Comments

What have you learnt so far this summer?

Posted on 31/07/2015 by fabenglishteacher

Summer is a time to slow down and look around at what’s going on, both web-wise and in my own life. Reading this great post got me thinking about what I’ve learnt so far this summer.

JUST SAY NO!

This has to be my major accomplishment, after years of organising a village race I have finally admitted that I don’t have time to do it anymore and that someone else must take over, now it’s just a question of finding that person. I didn’t bust into spontaneous flames when I announced my retirement, and I hoping I can keep the momentum going and start saying no to more things that have become a burden – leaving me more time for the fun stuff!

PEOPLE ARE WONDERFUL!

Despite the stress involved in organising the above mentioned race, every year my faith in humankind is restored by an anonymous person who will step up and thank me for asking them to help, or offer more than is expected. I love working with people like this, they make it all worthwhile.

I AM AMBITIOUS!

There I’ve said it, it’s taken me this long to admit to myself – and my boss. I didn’t used to be, at all. It has crept up on me and now I’m bursting with energy, a bit like this;

not for fame and wealth, obviously or I wouldn’t be a teacher, but to share and learn new things as much as possible.

I CAN BE CREATIVE!

This is very new and exciting because I don’t have a creative bone in my body, but with a bit of holiday downtime I’m learning to use my brain in new ways.

I CAN GET UP AT 7 AT THE WEEKENDS TO GO RUNNING!

Even though I’m usually an early riser, even I didn’t think that I’d be able to pull this one off, and more than once! I’ve also discovered the joy at being able to run every day, Lord knows how I’ll survive when I start back in September!

Even better, the summer isn’t over yet, we’re off on our family hols later today (as soon as I post this and finish packing in fact!) so I can’t wait to see what else I’ll learn this summer.

More importantly, what have YOU learnt so far this summer?

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