Icebreakers - Ideas for the New School Year

We asked our teachers about their favorite icebreakers for the first class. Everybody agreed that icebreakers are an essential element to bond, to establish an inviting learning environment, to start connecting and getting to know our students. Here´s what CTJ teachers revealed: 

 I really believe in the importance of bonding with the students, so I prefer ice-breakers that involve the exchange of personal information. Two "oldies" that my students always enjoy are: 

The best lie: Write four sentences on the board about you. It can be general information or specific, such as what you did on your last vacation. Among the four sentences, one has to be wrong. Lie as best as you can! Students have to talk in pairs and identify the wrong sentence. Then it's their turn: they write their own sentences, one of them being wrong, and their classmate has to spot the lie. Finally, debrief the activity, asking students who the best liar in each pair was and perhaps to tell you and the group something they learned about their peer.
Numbers in my life: Write a set of numbers on the board: your apartment number, your shoe size, the age you had your first date, the age you lost your first tooth... Be creative! The less obvious the better! Students then have to try to guess what the numbers mean by asking questions (Making this also a nice opportunity to do some needs assessment!) . Then students do the same in pairs. Again, debriefing is always beneficial, for it shows your interest in the students' personal information and students get to know a little about their other classmates, too.

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Lately, I have been using wordle a lot on the first day. 
I show students many key words and ask them to make guesses about how they relate to my life . Depending on the level, I ask students to ask me questions to confirm their guesses. I have them do a word cloud like mine on sheets of paper and interact in pairs. I save their work and use what they wrote to understand who they are, and what they like. I use these sheets as name cards throughout the semester.

I found an interesting pdf with some suggestions that might be worth a try.
http://www.cylc.org/jrnylc/curriculum/pdf/classroomActivities_Facilitation.pdf

I also came across a blog post by one of the teachers in the Electronic Village Online session Neuroscience in Education - http://sasasirk.blogspot.com.br/2013/01/i-feel-you.html

The link takes you to Dan Pink's tip to discovering and nurturing our inner motivation. A simple answer to 2 questions: What's my sentence? (the thing I want to be known for) and...Was I better today than yesterday?http://seltechnology.weebly.com/whats-your-sentence.html

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Simple, sweet and fun.

I like the one we pass sweets around (jelly beans, M & M's) and tell students to help themselves and take some but not eat them yet. Then we tell students that for each piece of candy they have, they are supposed to give a piece of information about them (like favorite color, movie...).


This icebreaker can be adapted to different levels and can be used even if the students know each other (you ask for pieces of information the colleagues don't know yet).

This one is listed on Dani's pdf above, among many nice others!

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During the new teachers' workshop, one of my colleagues did something that I found really intersting: we drew our hands on a piece of paper and wrote five informations about ourselves inside the drawing. Then, the papers were mixed on the floor, and we had to get a hand that wasn't ours and find the owner, by asking him about the informations written. It was really dynamic and it doesn't put the student in the spotlight, which makes them more comfortable to speak.
Victória

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I like to play true or false using slides on the first day of class. 
Each slide has a sentence such as "The teacher is an excellent cook". 
They have to discuss in pairs and come up with a conclusion. Then, when I change the slide, there is a picture of me cooking at home or something like that. The slides begin with simple information (age, favorite soccer team, how long I have been teaching) and get tricky towards the end (what's my opinion about something). This gets them to know a bit about me and usually generates nice conversation topics about movies, books, videogames, music and so on. As soon as we finish this part of the game, we swap roles. I give them some slips and they have to write - and present! - five true/false sentences about themselves. Of course, if you have larger groups, you can cut back on the number of slides/sentences.

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I believe students feel safer and bond better with their teacher when they get to know who we are and a little about our lives, so I usually show a slide with words and numbers that relate to my life and have them guess in groups how they are related to me. Next, I show them a slide only with one of the words or numbers and have them tell the class how they think it is related to my life, ex: "Colombia", then I show a picture related to the word or number, talk a little about it ex:" I was born in Colombia" and tell them to ask me about that topic specifically. Students usually love it and end up asking lots of personal questions, sometimes I ask them questions as well. Be careful though not to overdo it or they may get bothered, choose 6 pieces of information that you would like to share. When they have finished talking about you, ask them to share 6 things about themselves with their groups, then open to the whole class. This activity is not only good to bond with them, but also to get an idea of their speaking skills.

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One of my favorite ice breakers is this one: I hand each student a piece of paper the size of a badge. On the board, I draw a square and in the center, I write my name. On each corner of the square, I write: "my favorite song/band", "my favorite food", "something nice that happened to me last year" and my favorite movie". Students should write their answers to these topics on the corners of their piece of paper and their names in the center. Next, they stick it to themselves (like a badge) and stand up. I play some music and when it stops they start talking to the nearest person about the information in the cards. It's very dynamic and fun. Finally, they sit down and share something interesting or surprising they found out about their peers. Of course the topics can be adapted.

Could you suggest other interesting ones?

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Here are two that I do every semester:
1) Tell students they can ask you anything they want about you. As they ask you the questions, don’t answer them at this point, but write the questions on the board. When you have a good number of questions, tell students that first they have to answer those questions about themselves in pairs. While students work in pairs, write your answers to the questions on the board, but making some of them true and some of them false. When they are done, ask students to report one thing they learned about their partner. Finally, tell students your answers are on the board, but that they have to guess which ones are true and which ones are false.

2) I divide the board into two big columns: YES | NO and I divide the classroom floor into two sides as well with scotch tape. Then I say a few sentences and, for each one, ss have to walk to the "yes" or "no" side of the classroom. For example, if I say "I practice a sport regularly", ss who do that have to move to the "yes" side, and ss who don't do that have to move to the "no" side. Then they have to ask a follow-up question to someone standing next to them. I usually say sentences like "I love to study English", "I was born in Brasilia", "I can play a musical instrument", "I traveled on my last vacation", etc. At the end, each st has to tell the whole class something they learned about a classmate and I take this opportunity to ask more follow-up questions.

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I cannot say I have a favorite one, I usually have a few I like to use depending on the level I am teaching, but one that never fails is the word cloud icebreaker, where I write some words on the board. Some are true and some are false information about me and have the students discuss in pairs or groups to find out which are true and which are false.

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A great icebreaker that I love to do and helps me remember everybody's name is throw the ball and say your name. It only goes in a crescendo of difficulty. Remember, the teacher always starts.
1. Ss stand in circle and throw the ball to anyone in the circle and say their own names. Until everybody in the circle has said his.
2. They throw the ball and say the name of one person whose name they have just learned. They have to memorize who they have thrown it to because they will do it several time around and throw the ball to the same person.
3. As they are throwing the ball around, you introduce a second and a third ball, it becomes a little hectic, they need to shout people's names because they have to be heard over the other two names, which are being shouted out as well. We all have a great laugh, and then you can check how many names they can remember (the ice has been broken).

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I´ve used many of those activities my friends above mentioned. No matter the activity is, it will all depend how open and willing to connect you are. Our students, just like us, have mixed feelings when they come to the first class, a blend of anticipation, excitement and anxiety. So, if you show you care for them, you are ready to be there with them, it is a crucial first connection with your learners. You are connecting emotionally to them, and this is tremendously beneficial to their learning process. 

Well, I´m always willing to give a try to a new icebreaker, a new beginning, so I just came across this wonderful Going to the Moon first-day activity that seems perfect for the group I´m going to teach:
http://expateducator.com/2013/01/28/a-new-school-year-in-the-southern-hemisphere/ . In the same post, there are other interesting ideas to start the school year. 

Throughout the years, CTJ´s Ed Tech Team has been compiling a comprehensive directory of Icebreakers that might suit you and your students. Check them out at:
http://pinterest.com/ctjonline/icebreakers/
http://www.scoop.it/t/warmers-fillers-icebreakers-for-efl-classrooms (Visual collection of ideas for EFL teachers)

http://collablogatorium.blogspot.com/2011/07/icebreakers-not-sleeping-pills.html (Carla Arena's post)

http://ctjconnected.blogspot.com/2010/01/ice-breakers.html (Dani Lyra´s suggestions)

http://tryingoutweb24ed.blogspot.com/p/ice-breakers.html  (Dani Lyra´s suggestions)

http://www.cybraryman.com/icebreakers.html 

Back to School Suggested Activities for young learners - (suggested by Maria da Luz)

Any other suggestions that we might have missed?

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Academic Series - Tuning Up Students Brains' with Lead-Ins

"Years of experience with classroom teaching and more relatively recent research on the stimulation of brain activity indicate a coordinated connection between the eyes, the mind and the body, principally the hands. The experience of sensation related to imagination and thought processes can immediately heighten the experience of learning."

In this special academic series post, Katy Cox, our CTJ educational consultant and former General Academic Coordinator, with years of classroom observation experience, tells us what a lead-in is, its importance to learning and practical ideas for the EFL/ESL classroom.

Other practical ideas for lead-ins to inspire you:

               

               Unit:  Healthy Food

Lead-in props:  two unmarked, closed paper bags, one with a hamburger, the other with fruit that emits a citric or other fruity odor.

Prodecure: after sts enter the classroom, they are invited to smell both bags – without seeing the contents – and say which bag they prefer, and why. The teacher announces that the bag most preferred will be given to a student at the end of the class. The lesson then proceeds with visuals and activities related to the unit topic. Bags are “raffled” randomly to “winners” at the end of the hour.

               Unit: Travel Problems

Lead-in props:  passport, money belt, foreign coins or bills, vaccination form, common medication ( Advil, motion sickness medicine, anti-acid tablets, etc), health insurance card, etc. Each student receives an item and discusses with a partner what importance that item might have on a trip – i.e. you are going to take a trip; how would this item be useful to you? Then go to the second phase: You are in the middle of your trip, and suddenly you don’t have this item; what problems could arise because of this?

Lesson then proceeds with book visuals and related exercises.

               Unit – Good Luck Charms

Lead-in props:  rabbit’s foot, good luck coin, etc; items from various cultures representing talismans which either attract good luck or ward off evil. Students discuss symbolic significance of each item and which aspects of each one might be positive or protective ( i.e. rabbit: agile, fast, prolific in propagation, clever at environmental blending, etc.). The teacher can conduct an auction of the items to see which ones obtain the highest and lowest bids.

Lesson then proceeds with visuals and related exercises.

               Unit -  Sports and Sports equipment

Lead-in props:  blind-fold strips and various kinds of balls (tennis, golf, squash, baseball, etc). Half of the class or groups of three or four blindfold an equal number of students; the teacher gives two or three balls to the blindfolded sts, who pass them among each other, feeling how they are made and of what material. The “seeing” students ask questions about the balls in play. Then the process is reversed, after the first group of balls is identified, and the other students are blindfolded and given a different set of balls. Once all the balls have been identified, the sports which have been mentioned during the “discovery” phase are put into columns on the board in accordance with book indications; this serves as scaffolding for the opening unit page.

Do you have any other suggestions and ideas of lead-ins that worked in your English classes?

Katy Cox

Academic Series - Multiculturalism in the EFL class

We language teachers know that learning a foreign language involves many different aspects. Besides mastering the structure of the language and acquiring the necessary vocabulary to be able to communicate, learners have to be exposed to other features of the language in order to assimilate it in a more holistic manner.

Among the various issues a language program should deal with, the study of culture is a very important one. As Harmer points out,

By the end of the twentieth century, English was already well on its way to becoming a genuine lingua franca, that is a language used widely for communication between people who do not share the same first (or even second) language. (HARMER, 2007, p. 13)

Therefore, teachers should keep in mind that culture and language teaching are intertwined and should not be taught separately, for twenty-first century students need to develop their international communication skills.

Nevertheless, although most teachers know the importance of addressing this topic, they tend to overlook the cultural facets a lesson may bring, and many are the reasons they encounter to justify their choice for not doing so. The most common ones are the lack of time due to the complex school syllabus and their own lack of knowledge of the topic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yavuzcan/tags/people/ 

Having identified that, we two, as teacher trainers, felt motivated to conduct research on this topic in order to help other teachers become aware of their tasks as purveyors of multiculturalism and also to motivate and encourage them to explore the various cultural aspects present in their lessons.

We then realized that an important question surrounds teachers as they plan their lessons – whose culture should we address? Snow ponders that

As you consider the issue of culture in English language courses, you may tend to think first and foremost of U.S. and British culture, but with a little reflection it is clear that neither of these terms is fully satisfactory as a label for the kind of culture most closely associated with English. (SNOW, 2007, p. 205)

In the globalized culture era, taking multiculturalism into account when planning lessons is imperative. Snow also highlights that

In today’s world, the growing global role of English means that students may need to use English not only for communicating with people from English-speaking countries but also for communicating with people from many other nations and cultures. (SNOW, 2007, p. 211)

With that in mind, the first step to be followed is to spot the cultural themes a lesson may bring. Some lessons present topics in a very overt way, making it easier for teachers to explore them. Moran states that:

… explicit forms of cultural expression, such as perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes can be explicitly stated in oral or written form. Therefore, being able to identify any of these themes within a lesson may be the gateway to incorporate cultural subjects into the learning environment. (MORAN, 2001, p. 75)

However, some lessons don’t present evident cultural spots to be explored. That’s when the teacher should analyze them more carefully in order to set a link between the core of the lesson and the globalized world, stressing the importance of addressing and respecting cultural diversity. For instance, any grammar topic can be worked on through examples that contain multicultural information; most listening and reading comprehension tasks can be linked to the students’ personal experiences, as well as to the students’ cultural background; speaking activities can be used as opportunities to demystify stereotypes.

The use of realia

As you can see, various activities can be developed for that purpose. The use of realia, for example, is a great option, for students truly enjoy novelty. A discussion about where such an object comes from, what it’s used for, and how people from different countries would take advantage of it can be a simple but involving activity. Also, as Snow (2007, p. 209) mentions, magazines, newspapers, travel guides, maps, souvenirs are valuable resources that can be used in a variety of ways as a vehicle for allowing students to learn about the cultures of other nations.

Research projects

Another form of tackling culture is through the encouragement of research projects. Having set a link between the lesson topic and culture, the teacher can inspire students to find out more about other countries and their cultures. Students should visit the library, surf the net, and even try to meet foreigners that could share ideas with them. After conducting some research, students should present the results to their classmates or write a report about it. This experience will undoubtedly raise students’ cultural awareness, broadening their understanding of diversity and polishing their international communication skills.

Authentic materials

The printed and visual media are also of a great help when it comes to incorporating culture into the EFL lesson. Besides helping build the reading and listening skills, books, films, and radio broadcasts provide a great deal of cultural knowledge input. Thus, teachers should make use of this rich material to explore both historical and contemporary cultural and social issues.  Pairwork and groupwork activities can be designed to generate discussion about the material studied, always emphasizing the need of respecting diversity.

Critical-incident exercises

The integration of cultural themes into the lesson also plays an important role in the development of intercultural competence. Some activities are proposed by Snow (2007, p. 213) to serve that purpose. He names one of them as critical-incident exercises, which are “useful for encouraging students to be more careful and think more broadly as they interpret the behavior of people from unfamiliar cultural backgrounds.”  Critical-incident exercises consist of two basic parts:

11)    a story in which people of different cultural backgrounds have a communication problem;

22)    a discussion question that invites students to analyze the incident and attempt to arrive at a better understanding of why the problem occurred.

Snow states that

these exercises are a good springboard for discussion of cultural differences, especially differences in beliefs and values. They also help students develop a number of very basic but important intercultural communication skills and habits:

-       They help students become more consciously aware of the processes by which they interpret the behavior of foreigners;

-       They encourage students to pause and think rather than jumping rapidly to conclusions;

-       They help students build the habit of considering a broad variety of possible explanations of behavior that seems strange or problematic rather than stopping with obvious, kneejerk interpretations. (SNOW, 2007, p.213)

These are only a few suggestions on how to make culture themes present in EFL classes. As Brown (2007, p. 133) states, “a language is part of a culture, and a culture is part of a language.”  Once teachers are aware of how much culture surrounds their day-to-day classroom routines, they will be able to come up with a number of ideas on how to culturally enrich their lessons through the use of practical and straightforward activities.

References:

BROWN, H. D. Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. 3^rd ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2007.

HARMER, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. 4^th ed. Cambridge: Pearson Longman, 2007.

MORAN, P. R. Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice. Boston: Heinle Cengage Learning, 2001.

SNOW, D. From Language Learner to Language Teacher: An introduction to teaching English as a foreign language. 1^st ed. Alexandria: TESOL, 2007.

 

An Alternative to Oral Tests?

Inspired by Isabela’s post on assessment and learning outcomes, I started looking for alternatives to oral assessment and came across this interesting idea on Mr. Negrete’s  EFL Blog. Mr Negrete’s students created videos in English, which were then put up for voting. The students whose video received the most votes would be exempt from the oral part of the midterm examination. If the aim of the oral assessment is indeed to verify whether students have attained the subject matter, then I believe this was a successful project.

One way this form of assessment could be adapted to our EFL teaching reality would be to have students produce either videos or audio podcasts, in which they would use the target language. Even though the product would serve for assessment, I believe one of the main benefits would be all the rehearsing students would go through before handing in a final project, versus the one-chance-only they would have in an oral exam setting, not to mention the reduction in students’ stress and anxiety that usually come with tests.

Some considerations for such a final project:

• Students must know it is a graded exercise (the oral test grade!) and how they will be assessed; rubrics should be clear for students.
• There must be defined tasks; that is, students must know what needs to be present in the final product;
• Students must have the option of taking the oral test if they choose to;
• The teacher must guide students throughout the project, offering orientation and guidance; there must be dates when subproducts are presented, so that any changes can be made before the final product is put up for grading.

A simple example, considering a teacher who wants to test students’ ability to describe people, would be to have them record a game of Guess who?, testing not only describing people but also asking questions. Another variety would be to have students have a telephone conversation, in which one of the students needs to write down a message and deliver it to a person he/she does not know, be it in a party or in a meeting room, with the description and directions given by the other student.

The Dreaded "D" Word

Dictionaries have always been part of the language classroom – even if only as background props used by teachers and students when an unknown word crops up. However, despite their usefulness, they are seldom allowed to take center stage.

For many teachers and students, the idea of using monolingual learners’ dictionaries to supplement the staple diet of every class sounds unappealing. This is partly due to teachers’ ignorance of the strategies they can employ to help their learners build dictionary skills and partly due to students’ lack of ability to use dictionaries appropriately.

In this post, we will consider some of the reasons teachers should integrate dictionary work into their classes, and take a look at some possible class activities.

Why should we use dictionaries?

Dictionaries provide not only definitions of words, but also phonemic transcriptions. These are especially useful given the confusing nature of English spelling, which often

misleads us as to how words should be pronounced (consider, for instance, though, trough and thought).

Another reason is that by reading through the example sentences illustrating how words are commonly used, students are exposed to natural-sounding ways of using new input, to words and phrases that usually co-occur with the headword, and to the grammatical patterns a word can take. An interesting side-effect of this is that users can acquire the ability to self-correct once they realize how much potential there is to be exploited in dictionary examples.

In addition, building dictionary skills leads students towards autonomy, thereby giving them the chance to work independently, especially in situations where this is crucial (e.g. when writing a business email to a foreign colleague).

Teachers often forget that one’s first encounter with a monolingual dictionary can be very daunting and that learners may need time to become comfortable with definitions written in the target language. However, integrating continual dictionary work into your classes should help your students overcome their initial reservations.

Ideas for using dictionaries

1 Elicit the meanings and pronunciation of new words from the students. When no one can provide these, have one or two students look up the words in the dictionary. Encourage them to help each other with phonemic transcriptions. Point out the example sentences and how the students can use them as a way of increasing their access to how words are used – by learning collocates, grammatical patterns, etc.

2 Before a test, or after the students have worked intensively on a unit or two, split the class into small groups. Have each group pick out a few words from each unit and look up how they’re transcribed phonemically. They then give these transcriptions to the other groups, who must write the words in ordinary spelling.

Note: Tell the students which pages of the coursebook each group will cover so that they don’t pick out the same words. Extend this activity by having the students work on meaning and collocations, too.

3 Give the students definitions of new words on small cards and ask them to work out what words are being defined. Then hand out cards with example sentences of the words and get the students to match the sentences to the definitions.

4 Write a couple of new words in phonemic script on the board. Split the class into two groups and get them to take turns trying to guess how the words are pronounced. Award a point for each correct answer.

5 Prepare a quiz with mistakes your students have made, e.g. incorrect use of dependent prepositions, awkward collocations, etc. Using dictionaries, the students work together to correct the errors.

6 Prepare a quiz with useful collocations which you think your students might not know. Gap example sentences from the dictionary, leaving only the headword. Students then have to look up the headwords to find out what the collocations are, e.g.:

Managers are __________ aware of the need to provide new staff with appropriate support. (Answer: acutely aware)

7 When students are confused about a pair of words, ask them to look both words up in the dictionary and find the difference between them. This works with words which have similar meanings (e.g. say and tell), those that students have difficulty pronouncing accurately (e.g. ship and sheep) and those that are pronounced the same (e.g. won and one).

8 Split the class into two teams. Explain that you will dictate some words, but that you will also mispronounce some of them. If the students are not sure whether a word was pronounced correctly or not, they look it up in the dictionary. Points are awarded for each (first) correct answer.

9 Tell the students that you are going to dictate a number of sentences, but you will hum some words in each sentence. (Make sure all the words you hum are the same part of speech, i.e. all prepositions, verbs, nouns, etc.) The students write down the complete sentences, including the missing words. They then check their answers in pairs, by looking up the appropriate dictionary entries.

Note: Students are often not aware of how to learn how to use prepositions accurately. This can be a useful strategy to help them understand that they can use a dictionary whenever they are not sure which preposition to use.

10 To teach students how to make their writing more “colorful”, pick out some sentences from their essays that make little use of interesting adjectives or adverbs. Get them to work together, using dictionaries, to make their writing more vivid by adding adjective + noun, adverb + adjective or adverb + verb couplings. For example, they can rewrite The girl was beautiful as The girl was remarkably beautiful.

Many teachers and students do not feel comfortable using dictionaries, and for this reason many of the activities proposed here aim at building dictionary skills without necessarily making use of dictionaries proper. However, it is my firm belief that students should be told about the important role dictionaries can play in their learning process. By gradually introducing our students to dictionary skill-building tasks such as these, we can make them feel more at ease with the dreaded “d” word – as well as making the task much lighter and more appealing to everyone involved.

Online resources:

Learners’ dictionaries

www.dictionary.cambridge.org

www.ldoceonline.com

www.oup.com/elt/oald

www.macmillandictionary.com

www.mycobuild.com

ELTChat summary on how to integrate dictionary work into classes

http://eltchat.org/wordpress/summary/how-to-integrate-dictionary-work-into-lessons-an-eltchat-summary-18072012/

* This post was originally published in issue 80 of English Teaching Professional.

QR Codes Treasure Hunt for Beginners

Learn more about QR Codes

I have a group of teens 1 at CTJ South Lake Branch with few students. For this very reason, I'm always looking for extra activities which can keep them motivated. I heard about QR codes last year. I was teaching at Maristao (a high school in Brasilia) with Dani Lyra, and she mentioned how she had used it in one of her classes and how engaged students were trying to find out what the codes were about. Since that time, I wanted to develop an activity in which students depended on the codes to solve a problem. That's how I came up with the idea of the treasure hunt.




LEVEL: Teens 1
When: After all unit 1
Objective: Ask personal questions (third person)
People involved: teacher, students and staff

Preparation:

1. If you are going to use students´ device, one class before the activity, ask them to download a QR reader app (there are free QR readers available for iOS and Android).
2. Think of the person you want to be your "secret" one. Look for information about this person. In our case, it was Romero Britto. 
3. I did the activity in the second part of my class, so in the first part, I had the the opportunity to revise all the questions they were supposed to ask. This was of undue importance because I asked all people involved not to answer students questions if they were incorrect.
4. Create the codes which contain the instructions. I created mine on a site Carla Arena suggested -  qrstuff.com. Give the Qr Codes to the other people involved with the questions students should ask and  the answer they should give. In  my case, I wanted students to practice the questions orally, so the codes just led them to where they should go.
5. Students were to find out who the secret famous person was. So, they had to go to the places I indicated in the secret messages (QR codes) and follow all the instructions given. For example: The first code was in the classroom. They had to scan it, using their mobile devices,  and it said, "Go to 'Secretaria'. Look for Juliana. Ask her if it is a man or a woman.After asking the question correctly, students would not only receive the answer but also another code which guided them to the next person. For example, after asking Juliana, they received the second code, that was:Go to the library. Look for Dalva. Ask her how old he is.
   
   The process was the same until the last code, which was in class again. In this code, I led them to a google page where they saw Romero Britto's paintings.

Follow-up:  I asked them to create a page in Skitch (a mobile app), including Romero Britto's picture. They were supposed to make sentences with all the information collected.

Conclusion: I loved the result! Thinking of all the steps and procedures was hard, but my job during the activity was just monitoring them and check if they were speaking English all the time. I love when I can integrate other skills in my classes. It wasn't just another language practice activity. They had to download apps, learn how to use them, include photos and text... They were autonomous. I was there just to help. That's it! They were responsible for finding the clues, the answers, writing the text. They were responsible for their own learning process, and it was magic!

Our contributor for this post

The Ed Tech Team RESOURCES:
Here´s a QR Code Treasure Hunt Generator you might want to try: http://www.classtools.net/QR/
40 ways of using QR Codes in the classroom 

Jeremy Harmer Says it All

Our CTJ teachers asked; Jeremy Harmer, our inspired and inspiring ELT guest of the month, gave educators some food for thought on various topics related to our field, igniting our professional minds to go above and beyond.

Hello Dani. I am so pleased you picked up on the ‘door out’ way of thinking about ending lessons. Apart from the ones I mentioned, we might want to select a student and ask him or her to summarise what has happened; we might give a period of quiet where students sit and think about the lessons and then individual students can say anything they want about what ahs happened in the lesson; we might want to end with a fantastic video or song; we might end by telling a story which encourages them to look forward to the next lesson; we might want to….. the list is endless. The most important thing, it seems to me, is to think carefully about how we end lessons and then vary the ways we do it. Surprise!

Hi Carlos! There are so many of them. A teacher at school who believed in me and let me do amazing things that I wouldn’t have believed possible. A lecturer at university who understood how to inform but also entertain – and who looked as if he loved what he was doing. Now? People I read and listen to – my generation includes people like Scott Thornbury who always enlightens and challenges me  - but also a whole tribe of new teachers and writers from Brazil (I met many of them at BRAZTESOL and CJT) and other countries who are ‘pushing the boundaries’, challenging us all, have great energy, new ideas and fresh eyes. I am so lucky to live, partly, in their world! To learn from people all we have to do, I think is open our ears and our eyes and start by saying ‘how can I make this work for me?’ rather than ‘That’s never going to work in my situation!!!

I remember one teacher standing outside the classroom and throwing in an orange, a book and something else. I can’t remember what the point of this was, but it got the students’ attention! How to start a lesson, Selma? Well there are all sorts of warmers and ice breakers, fund things to do. A story, a game a poem, an information gap activity to lead into the next stage of the lesson. But I think we need to vary the way we start lessons so that students have something to look forward to or be curious about. Sometimes, for example, we will start a lesson in a more formal way, explaining what we are going to do, or giving information. Sometimes we may go straight into a teaching sequence. But sometimes we will do something completely unexpected. Starting lessons – like ending a lesson (see above) – needs to live somewhere between comforting predictability and unsettling craziness. I guess it depends on you and the students.

You know what, Patricia, my greatest challenge was once when I went to Paris (which is very close to London of course) to speak to French College teachers (secondary teachers). They didn’t react like anyone else ever and to be honest I don’t think my talk was a great success! What I learned? First, try to know more about who you will be with and think how to work with them in an appropriate way; and secondly, culture does matter, and all teaching and learning takes place in a setting which is more socially constructed than linguistically focused.

I think it helps, Thiago, if you love doing it! I love working with teachers. Secondly (and I’m sure about this, having watched so many teachers with students and presenters etc), it’s all about passion in a way. If a speaker or teacher has a passion for what they do (or at least looks as if they have a passion) it is difficult to resist them! As far as a connection is concerned – well people are just so interesting. Listen, watch, enjoy – and the connection is there straight away!

Originally, Vinicius, I didn’t have a great desire to be a teacher really. I wanted to be a musician, but I wasn’t good enough :-( But then someone said I could do a short course about teaching and then I could get a job, maybe in some other country, so I thought I’d try that. I was incredibly fortunate to find, before that first training course had ended, that I really enjoyed it, and that the rewards for me, as a teacher, were likely to be far greater than the negative points. I was inspired by my trainers – and by the teachers at school who had believed in me and encouraged me.

Hello Rick…yes I have been coming to Brazil for years. How quickly time passes…But coming to Brazil has been an ongoing and repeated joy for me.

What’s changed? Well in Brazil there’s a confidence and an expertise in the language teaching profession which is stronger and more exciting than it has ever been – at least if the people I meet on my visits are anything to go by. There’s an enthusiasm and creativity among the younger teachers that is incredibly exciting. Part of this is a desire to examine things in a new way and not accept things just because they are ‘there’. Of course part of that is driven by the new technologies that have become part of our educational life. But it’s more than that. It’s a desire to constantly question and interrogate what we do. That’s what keeps even older teachers young, I think, and what makes it all worth doing.

That’s a really interesting question, Clarissa, especially since our students now live in a world where information about almost anything is instantly available on the Internet, for example. The challenge is to make coursebooks relevant in that reality, and really useful. So what we have to do is find ways to train students to learn, to suggest where they can go next in their learning, and create material that will help teachers make sense of the chaotic world of learning and teaching.

My first reaction to your question, Lilian, is to say that a good teacher can (or should be able to) teach well with nothing but a stick in the desert. However, we live in a world in which information technology informs everything we do, one way or another. And so it would be crazy to ignore that in the socially constructed world of the classroom. And anyway, technology enhances the learning experience of learning, can make things more ‘current’ and more ‘real’ – and a lot of English use, which students need to be comfortable with, around the world is digitally delivered. We are so lucky to live and teach in the age we do. But (and, to use an old cliché, it’s a big but) I have a default question I always ask about technology (or any other teaching innovation) and it is: ‘why is X the best way to do this?’ If we can’t answer that question satisfactorily then we should use a way that IS better, even if it doesn’t use technology. Best analogy? The blackboard. Innovative technology, I bet, when it first appeared. Now indispensable! But finally: ‘Ask not what we can do for technology, but what technology can do for us!’

I’m glad you were at that session in IATEFL, Alba. I enjoyed doing it. I think my point then was (and still is) that we don’t quite know the best ways to correct people – especially when you consider that language learners are individuals and each one may respond differently, and benefit from different correction techniques.

But I think we DO know that heavy correction during a fluency activity sort of ruins the point of the activity – although helping students with a more ‘gentle’ variety is almost certainly helpful for some.

I like the approach that my brother took when he was teaching at the Wimbledon School of English. He did a questionnaire and asked all the students how they wanted to be corrected – because he was worried that he only ever used reformulation, and he wasn’t sure if it worked (neither am I! Do students REALLY hear the difference between what they say and what we say?) When he got the results he could then correct in the way the students said they wanted to be corrected – although interestingly they realized that wasn’t quite what they wanted once they’d experienced it. So then he changed again. What I like is that he consulted the students as experts in their own learning, and the dialogue he had with them was useful and productive. 

Hi Inez! I think the job of a coursebook writer is to provide clear engaging material that will help teachers and students to learn. The progression needs to be clear, the instruction rubrics have to be transparent, and both teacher and students need to see the point of what they are being asked to do.

Of course we try and come up with enjoyable and interesting topics too, but that depends so much on who the teachers and students are. It’s up to teachers to make what the coursebook writer has provided alive and enjoyable. So how to ‘give the teacher a voice’? Maybe by not putting too much in the book; maybe by leaving metaphorical spaces between exercises. Maybe by providing lots of suggestions for what can be done; maybe by offering alternatives at various points; maybe by suggesting how students and teachers can follow up topics and language material.

Thanks for your kind words about that plenary in July. I loved being at the CTJ. Lovely place!