For English Teachers - Angoltanároknak

Where to get your ELT rap tune from?

2011-12-07T12:33:00.012+01:00

Rap and hip-hop songs have become one of my favourtite teaching tools to all ages, from Very Young Learners to adults. It is unbelievable how all the students who rap along the songs I and/or we put together can use all the language chunks from these texts with so much ease.

And all the preparation I had to do for the lesson was usually no longer than 10 minutes, including the following steps:

coming up with the target vocabulary/functional language/whatever chunks I thought would be useful to practice
coming up with a short repetitive text (dialogue, poem, ...)where the above language would occur naturally in real life
typing it all up on a handout for later use in various ways in the classroom

There was only one thing that took much longer and that was to find the right tune: appropriate in style to the topic, long enough, repetitive and simple enough without words spoken over and FREE.

As I have done quite a few workshops on this topic I've collected some, so here they are, in case you would like to have a go at rapping with your sts.

And here's another thing that made me do this. I was so delighted when a teacher stopped me at my latest workshop and told me that her life as well as her sts' life had completely changed ever since she started rapping with them in September and set up their wiki together with sts from six different countries (the idea she got from another session I did on collaborative learning tools). She told me that before the children hated English classes, she wasn't particulary happy about teaching either and ever since she used these tools everything has changed. I thought this was so amazing that I felt a sudden urge to just post all the sources of these free beats as well as the mp3s of them so you can immediately play from here.

So here they go. But before you check out the differnt sites, a quick reminder that in case you want to dowload them, you usually need to register, which is easy enough.

So here I found the first ever beat I found to be useful and appropriate for text where you have a clearer message, you really want to say something, as oppossed to a nice and joyful conversation you might want to put together.

The free beat I used for the winter rap is somewhat more suitable for neutral style lyrics or even a little more festive. It's got a light air to it, so it's easy to imagine anything nice and bright to go with it.

If the words of the text sts produce are slightly more rebellious or contain some stronger messages you can use the inspirational beat I downloaded from youtube. The bloke who made this has loads more uploaded, so if you have internet access where you teach, you don't need to download them, just click on the tune you find the most appropriate.

Of course, there are loads more beats you can download for free from these sites as well as some others. I just thought that these were more appropriate for my texts and sts I'm teaching.

Let me know of how your rapping goes.

Christmas with Bear - teaching children unplugged

2011-12-06T10:08:00.014+01:00

"Is it possible to teach children unplugged?" - this a question I've often been asked on twitter. And of course, the answer has always been "Yes!". And then the next question came: "Ok, but how". Difficult to answer on twitter, innit?

Anyway, I finally had the opportunity to do a workshop on it at the local OUP conference in Budapest and it was entitled "Christmas with Bear", the materials of which are downloadable from this post. I thought that it would be useful for all of you who are already working with puppets and might be looking for Christmasy lesson ideas.

Well, I could tell you sagas about my friend, Bear, but that would be outside the scope of this post, so instead, I'll quickly summarise how Bear has become the main character in my dogme approach with children in my class (age 5 to 8 - a mix of non-readers/writers with readers/writers)

As you probably all know, an unplugged lesson has three main characteristics:

it is communication driven
it deals with emergent language
and it is very much materials light

Well, this is exactly what you can do if you have Bear around, a real little boy, who is the same age as the children you are teaching, someone who has his own life full of the wonderful things we all do. He travels, he sees and experiences, writes us emails, letters, asks questions from us, children ask questions from him, can get sick sometimes and we write him get-well cards, .... Oh well, could you list all the things that make up your life? Of course, not. Well, for the same reason I can't list all the things that make up Bear's life, but I can tell you it's a rich one.
So basically, Bear is

the source for real communication in English for the children in my class., me being non-native too (communication driven lessons)
Bear teaches whatever the children ask him to, and the kids tell Bear about their own lives too (dealing with emergent language)
And then the children produce the drawings, letters, postcards, whatever is needed in those situations (materials light - the lessons are based mostly on materials produced by the children)

Below you will find the summary of the three lessons I did with my class, including the materials they produced. Feel free to use their drawings and the worksheet available here. However, if you really want to make it a great personal experience for your children, use the drawings they produce rather than ones coming from completely unknown children.

And a few more practical tips:
If you ask children to produce the materials and you ARE planning to photcopy them, ask them to draw in pencil or a black felt-tip pen only without colouring first. Once the worksheets have been produced from their drawings, they can colour them in.
In case you are planning to use the drawings below as examples or as the materials of the lessons, do encourage children to colour them in.

If you have and questions or comments about teaching children unplugged or the Christmasy ideas below, do write to me.

Enjoy!

Christmas Bear -teaching children unplugged with a puppet

Christmas Letter Bear

Christmas worksheet

Christmas Preparations Flash Cards
If you would like to find out more practical ideas about how Bear helps me in teaching English to Young Learners, come along to one of the workshops held at the OUP Bookhop in Budapest.

Alright - ELT training RAP with subtitles then ...

2011-09-30T17:10:00.005+02:00

Just because so many of you asked me for the words of the ELT Training Rap I wrote, I made a version for you with subtitles.

Now you can rap it to or with your colleagues :-). Have fun!

ELT Rap - Lesson framework

2011-09-30T11:55:00.013+02:00

Here goes the lesson plan I had promised in my previous post. I taught my first lesson with one of my YL groups (age about 8-9) at the beginning of September based on this and after 50 mins we also did the recording, which you can have a look at here, in their class blog.

Summer Rap YL - Lesson framework

In the second lesson we took it further and focused on summer activities of THEIR choice, there was much more sentence and sentence chunk recognition, as well as replacing the activities of the first version of the rap with their activities. By the end of the lesson kids were rapping on their own the full song without any help. I thought they were amazing and it further proved to me what a powerful rapping is in the process of language acquisition.

I have already had some feedback via email from a few teachers from the OUP teacher training course groups, and it would be nice if you could share your experiences here on the blog, so that all of us can learn from them.

Looking forward to your ELT raps!

ELT Rap

2011-09-28T16:20:00.015+02:00

This is a post I owe to a lot of teachers who keep writing me to post the videoed workshop I did as part of the OUP teacher training course at the end of August. I did warn everybody that I had my sessions filmed merely for self-development purposes, but I gave in and decided to make parts of it public.

I must admit that I had a lot of fun planning and doing this workshop and it seems that this enthusiasm was catching, and I was glad to see it happenning :-)

To give you a bit of insight into what this workshop was about here are the main things we covered:

how the participant teachers use chants/rhythms and rap songs in their current teaching
how they thought this helped their learners acquire EFL
what the key aspects of rap songs that really make them an effective tool in language learning are
why it is such a powerful tool in education (not just ELT) - a bit of theoretical and histortical background
what the simple steps are in making their own ELT rap songs
what other ways there are to exploit them
how to turn coursebook material into rap songs
how to get learners to make their own rap songs and rhythm

Special thank also goes to http://www.openmindsentertainment.com/ where I downloaded the free rap beat from, and you can find loads more of your own and your learners liking.

Enjoy this taster and let me know what you think.

p.s. I built the first few lesson with my primary class on rapping, and here's the end product after the first 50 mins. As I have received quite a few request for the lesson plan, I will also put that together soon. So ELT RAP lesson plan to come in the next post...soon :-). I have also done it with lower primary classes and adults, though exploited it in different ways, but the result has always been the same: lots of fun and useful language chunks at their disposal, language they remember and start to use freely too. Hurray! Let me know if you decide to give it a try and of the outcome.

Here's the same ELT training RAP with subtitles, and the lesson plan I had promised above.

Who doesn't know teaches

2011-09-26T22:04:00.008+02:00

... and that is exactly what I did ... with my blog.

A colleague asked me via email how to change settings on blogger so that only invited people can see the blog. Well, I made a screencast for her and I set my own blog to being private. Of course, because it was a demo, I invited mysefl as the "other reader". Isn't that ironic :-).

So that is why, my dear reader, my blog disappeared for five days. But we are back.

And here's the infamous screencast, this is how I did it. (It's in Hungarian)

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Sugata Mitra's new experiments in self-teaching

2011-09-14T18:55:00.009+02:00

Even if you have seen Sugata Mitra's previous presentations on his 'Hole-in-the-wall' experiments, this one is definitely worth revisiting as it offers some his new findings as well based on research he has done all over the world, and more recently in Newcastle.

This talk is a must watch for all those who dare make decisions about education systems. The whole thing is about the future generation. Right? So we should care about it. Well, I'll let you watch, enjoy and allow your imagination go further.

At the end ask yourself: "What if...?"

Can you envisage what education would look like in your school if you followed Sugata's model? I'd be happy if you shared it with us.

I have written a closley related post on this here, called "Our children transforming education in action".

Creating a community and individualised learning through class-blogs

2011-08-29T15:47:00.037+02:00

This post is a summary of my sessions at the OUP conference - Making digital sense that took place last week during one of the hottest days in Budapest ever.

For these sessions I did not prepare a handout as it would have been full of long links not very accessible from a piece of paper, but instead from this post anybody is free to click on the links and enjoy the content of the posts instantly.

I had prepared the workshop with two types of audiences in mind: one where teachers would already have a blog, maybe a class-blog even, so they would be fairly familiar with the way it works and the values that it can bring to the classroom. The second type of audience I was thinking of was of a curious type, teachers who would like to know what a class-blog is, how it works, what they and the learners can do with them, but had never seen one or used one before.

As it turned out the majority of teachers belonged to the second group, and I'm hoping that most of them left feeling a bit more comfortable with the idea of class-blogs through the links I used in the sessions listed below, or that they will even follow up their curiosity by setting up one and testing it with their own classes.

In opening the session we collected briefly a few typical comments and fears from fellow teachers and parents in Hungary re class-blogs that I feel needed to be addressed such as:

"I don't want kids to spend even more time in front of the computer."
"Being on the internet is very dangerous, so it's best not to allow them to use it."
"I have enough admin jobs to do at school and I don't need another one." (by a teacher)

These are all very natural fears. Fears that occurred at any time in the the history of education when something new was introduced, something unknown. So this lead me to looking at some other types of tools used for communication in education and their effect on how we learn going

back as far as the 12th century, when Alexander de Villedieu - see an article from BBC's History magazine here on him too - put Latin grammar into verses. These verses spread through word of mouth and therefore people started to learn how to read in Latin. This is how literacy became more and more widespread, especially when two centuries later (!) his verses were printed.

The influence of his works on literacy and therefore education is pretty amazing - as we all agreed during the sessions too. A journalist went even as far as linking him to "videoliteracy" too.

Then we moved onto other types of communication that occur in a traditional educational systems: noticeboards, which are still very much the way to communicate with students in schools here in Hungary. At this point, after looking at some typical information put on noticeboards, the audience and its (nonexistent) motivational power on learning we realised how it was time for us to find a 21st century way of communication, which is not only one-way, from teachers to learners, but much more open serving everybody's needs and interests: those of the learners, the teachers, the parents, the fellow learners from any corner of the world.

A wonderful example of how this can turn into a real learning community in a whole school is George Couros': Forest Green School in Canada, where all classes have their blogs through which they communicate what they wish, with everyone engaged and motivated, from children to parents, educators, secretaries, basically every single member of the community.

Looking more closely at different types of class-blogs that are used for learning English as Second/Foreign language - first we read a wonderful post from Greta Sandler's class blog, Sharing Good News, where only the children contribute posts and virtually a whole world comments on their lovely pieces of writing and the videos they decide to put up. One post we looked at, written by a child called Vickucha, clearly exemplified the powerful educational value added to the useful language practice.

We also watched part of an interview with Greta where she gave very useful advice to teachers who wanted to start blogging with their classes. She pointed out a few things to remember with class-blogs:

not to grade the posts students write, as it would destroy the whole motivation
not to use it as a platform to give them homework, for the same reason as above.

She mentioned that she uses http://kidblog.org/home.php as it is a very safe and very user-friendly platform for children with no extra widgets and gadgets, so children focus only on writing their posts.

You can watch the full interview as well as some very useful links and tips for teachers who would like to start class-blogs here.

Then we also looked at my class-blog, which I started last year with my beginner class where children are of different ages from 6 to 9. As they have just started to learn EFL the posts are written by me, the teacher, and parents comment, or very often the parents write the comments their children dictate them. Here we looked at different ways of using such a class-blog with different aims:

to post their pieces of work and make recordings that allow parents to follow their progress as well as motivate kids to speak to an audience even after two lessons only. (See example here.)
to engage parents in their learning process as well (See example here.)
to provide them with extra links that take them to safe sites they can use for self-study (See example here.)
to provide them with a visual dictionary to find the words they are interested in (See example here.)
to provide them with a "talking dictionary" for the pronunciation of the words they are interested in (See example here.)

The examples above have helped us all - children, their parents and me - become a great learning community and it has also given kids plenty of fun self-study activities 24/7 whenever they feel like it. We are also able to return to any of the material we have on our class-blog to use it for revision in different ways, or just to make another comment on how wonderful the kids from our class are!

If you are Hungarian and would like to start your own blog, check out this post on how to start off a class blog with a training video in English as well as a sample letter I wrote to parents to inform them about it.

Happy blogging!

Shelly's YL ESL/EFL/ELL Carnival

2011-05-02T14:35:00.009+02:00

Thank you, Shelly, for including one of my posts in this great carnival. I feel really honoured to be mentioned amongst such renowned YL educators.

I always feel YL teaching ideas swirl around in my head, sometimes difficult to keep up with them. They tend to be pushy and almost each and every one of them wants to be the one to be tried out, the one to be posted about, the one to be shouted out... Wish I had ten YL groups, ten hands with ten computers glued to them and the mental space to be able to write them down whenever they come to me. I trouble is that I don't have any of these. So all I'm left with are my feelings of 'I haven't written about this either', lots of resentfulness towards my own limits in time, space and energy.

You know, I keep writing about education, and how important kids are. Now, I have my own kids too, and my own groups of kids that I teach too. The questions that keep waking me up are like: "Now you keep babbling on about educating kids, paying more attention to THEM, and at the same time, you spend most of the time writing ABOUT them." Oh, well, it looks like I've got something to work on there.

So that is why, Shelly, I am soooo thankful to you that you have inlcuded me even in your slideshow! You have helped me out for now. You, life-saviour :-)!

Though, I will still have to work out somehow the issue I have. Any suggestions, advice, shouts, warning, questions that lead me to the right solutions more than welcome!

Why I have been posting less?

2011-04-04T10:53:00.009+02:00

Well, not difficult to answer that question, as it has been simply because of being selfish.

And that doesn't mean that I don't want to share lots and lots of things. I do, and I wish I could do more. It's about time and prioritising things within a given time, and I'm sure a lot of you do the same things: i.e. making constant decisions about what I should do next, or what I should be doing now instead of writing this post, for example. Well, I need to write this post, because I'm feeling a little guilty for not sharing much lately. Though, here are they 'why's, i.e. the selfish actions, which truly did take up a bigger slice of my time and energy lately, and drew me away from posting on my blog.

First of all there have been a great number of free online personal development opportunities, arisen in the past few weeks and months, of which I'm going to list just a few.
The latest one was the ISTEK conference that took place this weekend. I was priviliged to be able to watch it online for free and @MarkAndrews (on twitter), the most amazing roving reporter, has also been blogging about this event, giving those of us who weren't there in flesh, a very good picture of the content of the talks/workshops and the whole atmosphere of the conference not forgetting about the ways of bringing presenters closer to us on a more personal level in his style of reporting. He is still posting interviews and fascinating accounts to this blog , so it's definitley worth revisiting it from time to time.

The night before starting to watch the above conference online, I was lucky to pop into Shelly Terrell's regular Friday evening webinars, as part of American TESOL webinars, on teaching children. You just need to enter the room as a "guest" and enter your name, and there you are listening to her presenting, watching her guiding you through her ideas, presenting slides to support the ideas she's talking about and you can also type in questions or comment in the chat box. I really recommend these mini-webinars, as they are short, very interactive full of wonderful ideas. The latest one was on using fingerplays, and you can also find a lot if not all of the ideas presented on her wiki. Also, if you want to watch this webinar, or any of her later ones, which I really recommend, go to the American TESOL site here. This Friday evening, I think 10:00 p.m. (GMT+1), though it may be 10: 30 p.m. - sorry about not knowing the time exaclty, she will be presenting on "ways of using mobile phones in your EFL classes so that parents like it too". Really looking forward to that one too.

Previously, I was on holiday, but then because of a ski-accident I "had no choice " but participate in the Virtual Round Table conference , which was what I'd originally planned anyway, but my family took me away on holiday as a birthday prezi. Well, this conference was a great birthday prezi, participating in the webinars, while looking out of the window overseeing the 2000 meters plus high mountains in Austria. What an amazing experience. The only unfortunate thing was that as soon as the host family got home and started to use the internet the connection wasn't good engough anymore. Having said that, I was still able to enjoy most of the sessions anyway and I or you can watch the recordings of them here too by clicking on the topic of your interest. Isn't this great? Getting free professional development whenever you like on whatever you prefer :-)? I find this fascinating.

There have been a great number of other webinars, such as George Couros', a school principle in Canada, who I wish could be cloned and imported to Hungary. If you are interested in his latest webinar I watched, click here, sit back and just reflect on what he says.

There have been a great number of online teaching tools too that I have been trying out myself to see how I could use them in my teaching and training, but I'm not going to list these now. Instead you can always check out Russel Stannards easy to follow explanations on a great number of teacher training videos of online teaching tools that are out there:-).

On a personal note, I've been devoting more time to my kids lately, not just at home, but trying to find ways to help the school they attend/will attend both as a parent and as an educator. I truly hope that after some time I will be able to come back to you with a post on: "How you can make yourself useful in your own little community" one day.

And I do hope that you will allow yourself to disappear from your blog or other forums to delve into your own professional/personal/passionate development simply out of selfishness :-)

What school does to our kids ...

2011-03-17T09:41:00.013+01:00

We had a wonderful four-day holiday in Hungary to celebrate March 15th. We went to some excellent multimedia-concert for kids, went cycling and hiking, did the cooking together. Basically, we had four great days together with the family.

In the evening before going back to school and starting work again, my daughter started to produce some strange symptoms, which we didn't know where they came from at the beginning. First, we noticed that she dropped a lot of things, she seemed fully distracted and some kind of palpable tension slowly started to build up in her. This eventually resulted in blaming herself for everything, saying how useless she was. This is not something that we had ever told her. So why is doing this to herself? - I asked myself. Then she burst out in tears and asked me to go with her into their room to talk.
The tension building up in her started to take shape as we were talking for quite some time that seemed like long hours. This post would not be enough to tell you about all the feelings, worries, anxiety, questions that came out of her like the steam you want to hold back, but it is escaping. My replies to her are also shortened here.
She was in tears all throughout this long chat, and these are a few things she told me.

First she would not even look up at me, but slowly started to say:
"I'm not sure I can tell you all about this, because I'm worried that you'd be angry with me. My teachers would be angry at school if they had found out."

"We love you the way you are, so just tell me anything you want."- I replied.

"Mum, I want to get the stars for my work (they get stars only for absolutely perfect work, and can get a shiny sticker after collecting ten stars), but I hate writing so much. I just can't do it right."

"Why do you want to get stars and stickers?" - I asked

"I don't know."
"If you don't know the answer to this question, then these stars and stickers are not important to YOU. What is important that YOU know that you are content with your work, or what you would like to improve on. The stars and stickers won't tell you. It's only YOU who knows it."

"Mum, I got only 8 out of 10 in my last science test, and the reason why I didn't know the answer to these two questions was... (and she explained them to me)."

"Well, you just gave yourself a 10 out of 10." - I told her. "You know what went wrong and why, so you have learnt from it and there's nothing more important than this." Then I wrote a 10 on her test paper and signed it: "from mum"

She was still crying when she told me about the next thing.

"Mum, why do we have to put our bags on the desk between the two of us when we are writing tests? I cheated by looking at my mate's work once and was told off . It felt so bad. Why can't we help each other? Why is it not allowed to teach each other? Why is it bad if we whisper the answers to each other?"
So school is teaching our kids that they are not trusted . The teacher is thinking: "you might cheat, so I'm going to prevent that". If this is what they are teaching them, how can they expect the kids to trust their own teachers, I wonder. How can one teach without mutual trust?
Why do they have to write 10-20 tests per subject per term in the first grade? Why not use collaborative learning and teaching tools as it is said that this is the method used by the school? Why not teach kids to evaluate their own work and learn from it, rather than use imposed tests and grades that don't mean anything to anybody?

Having said that, I still think that we have managed to choose one of the best teachers at this school. The problem is that today's state-school educators have been conditioned to such a state of helplessness that they don't even question any of the rituals used in "education"- see, for example, preventing kids from cheating above. They got out of the habit of thinking: "Now hang on a minute. What does this do to the kids? How will they feel if I do this? What effect will this have on their feelings and then their reactions, behaviour? Is this really necessary? " Oh, god, so many un-asked questions.

My daughter, who was the happiest little human being on earth about the thought of starting school and learning how to read and write "properly", looking forward to learning about the real-world things, have fun with her mates last September as you can see it on the photo above...and I could continue her list here through long paragraphs, produces serious stress symptoms that go unnoticed at school. The trouble is, however, that it is not only her. This is a mass phenomenon that is explained by the teachers when asked as "this is the way it is, there's nothing more I could do". There are a great number of kids who drop out of school or move school, where they will go through the same things - lucky, if they don't.
Teachers are kept so busy with administrative duties, marking kids' tests, staying up late to correct every letter that is not round enough in red that they don't have time and energy for real education. So of course, they'll end up saying "this is the way it is, there's nothing more I could do".

Can we pleeeeease wake up and start changing the education system? I am totally aware that this is not going to happen overnight, but pleeeeeease do start thinking.

This was just a plea from a mum, one of the many mums around in Hungary.

The surprising truth about what motivates us

2011-01-14T11:29:00.007+01:00

When I stumbled upon this animated talk through twitter and I watched it, it made me more aware of why I do things, the way I do them, and why I believe in spending a lot of time on sharing our knowledge and expertise for free outside our paid jobs too. It is an amazing realisation.

Now here's the great task: to make this happen in our everyday education. Wow!

Watch it and see if it resonates with the ways you are motivated and then think about how you can make use of these ideas in your own teaching. Would be interested to read your thoughts on this.

Math class needs a makeover

2011-01-06T22:58:00.008+01:00

As a math graduate I could not help not getting intriguinged by Dan Meyer's talk. Amongst others, he says "Help (children you teach) less." Do you agree?

Wouldn't you think that the same teaching principles might apply in Language teaching too?

Well, sure, in our case English language teaching.

Interested to hear what you think.

Making the most of a Christmas story - an idea for YL

2010-12-07T12:16:00.014+01:00

I was honoured to be invited by OUP again to do a workshop on teaching YL at the Christmas conference. As I promised to many participants and people from my PLN, in this post I'd like to share the materials of this workshop with the hope that you'll be able to use/adapt them for your own groups too.

In this workshop I decided to use something that would be of immediate value, something that teachers can take away and use next day with their classes, as well as something that gives them an adaptable framework to exploit stories in the classroom.

I am particularly interested in bringing in children's creativity in the learning as much as possible, making sure they have plenty of opportunities to talk about and express themselves using different types of activities: from talking about personal experiences to acting out a story in their own versions, re-animating, for example Santa into a grumpy old man through drama activities.

My other aim was to show teachers different techniques of how they could gently introduce the reading skill, without focusing on spelling as a first step, which in my experience is still the case in many schools.

So these aims set me off in search for a Christmasy picture story, and the only one I could find under the time pressure was an old handout, a photocopy of a picture story I couldn't work the source from at the time - see picture story embedded below. Doing a bit more digging this weekend I found out that it must have been a picture story published by Heinemann: 100 ideas + - most probably out of print. I'm not even sure if this is the right title of the book, so if you happen to knwo the exact title, please let me know.

I just wanted to make sure that I post this lesson with the materials letting all of you know the source of the picture story. The lines of the story were made up by me to suit the level of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th grader in Hungary, and also easily adaptable to higher levels.

During both workshops we had some serious fun with the teachers, although in the first group there were abot 50 or so teachers, in a classroom big enough for max 30 people, which shot my adrenalin high-up, as you can imagine.

Hope you will enjoy using these materials as well, and please let me know if you have any questions about the procedure, the material or the activities.

Have fun!
Bringing Xmas Into the Clss-framwork

Xmas Story Pictures Big

Xmas Story Reading H O Finished

Assessment that has worked in my teaching

2010-11-30T11:18:00.013+01:00

The question of assessment has been raised in many educational forums and platforms, webinars recently, basically my PLN, so I thought I would share my ideas on assessment with you as well.

Assessment to me is useful if it is part of the learning process, but from a completely different perspective from how it is regarded at the moment in general.
I think assessment is useful if it raises sts' awareness of what they know and what they need to improve on. After sts identify their OWN areas (not the ones I tell them), I guide them towards resources they can use to find their answers from. I truly believe that putting more emphasis on self-assessment brings more benefits to the learner and the learning process than a traditional progress- or end-of the course test. I truly believe that students will only continue to stay motivated to learn if they are the one who realise what they need to and want to learn with gentle guidance of the teacher educator.

So during and even at the end of a course I use the following process with any age-group - test formats depending on the age-group.

Step1: Tell the sts about the steps and the reasons behind this way of testing

Step2.: They write the test with no help. This is the traditional part of the assessment.

Step3: I mark it as they finish by ticking the right answers and put a ? next to he wrong answers

Step4: They start looking for places in their book/WB/notes/computer, etc where the answers might be. Here, if you do this for the first time, you might need to offer more guidance in terms of where they could find the answers to their questions.

Step5: They correct/rewrite as many questions marked with ? as possible on their own using the resources they have found OR I guided them to.

Step6: I mark them again as in Step 3.

Step7: THEY write their questions they would like to know more about the language points or ideas from the reading, etc they had problems with.

Step8: Discuss their questions in groups to find out as many answers as possible, i.e.peer teaching combined with micro-teaching.

I have found this process frutiful both with adults, young adults and young learners. Used it in very mixed ability classes as well (learners were from beginner to low intermediate level) with very good results. No one felt bad, frustrated, as this type of assessment has become part of their OWN learning and it was not regarded as assessment for the sake of it. The feedback I got from sts was overwhelmingly positive.

Implementing such a completely different type of assessment in an institution is quite a challenging task, however. When I did it at International House Budapest, some teachers received it with, I thought, mixed feelings. Not all teachers were ready to accept it and try it out.

The teachers who did try it out came back, again with different feeback. There were teachers who said that students didn't quite understand the purpose of it, whereas others reported how much sts had loved it and seen the value of it.

As with the introduction of any new activitity or technique, be that drama or community language learning, etc, it is key for the teacher to believe in its usefulness and be fully aware of the steps described above.

A tip for implementation to both learners and teachers would be asking them to compare the two types of assessment: traditional progress/end-of-course assessment with the one presented above, going through their effect on learning. Ask for their opinion, letting all points of view and feelings heard before it is done for the first time.

Another thing that I do whenever I introduce something new - new technique, method, etc - to either teachers or learners is asking them to reflect on the experience right after the first 'trial'. They talk about how they felt during the process, why, how was it different from - in this case - the traditional assessment, what they think it lead to, etc.

So, here are the implementation steps in brief:

1. Description of the process to the learners/staff
2. Eliciting opinions/feelings about it (very often at this stage it is not received well and this is quite natural)
3. Trying it out with the aim of being able to reflect on the experience
4. Reflecting individually and in groups/whole class (even if there are 300 learners) on the experience.

You will see how attitudes differ at stage 2 and 4 :-). It always happens. Although not with every learner/teacher, but there're always a few who oppose the new idea. It is essential, therefore, not to give up and watch how perception of the learners or teachers changes over time.

If you'd like to try it out, good luck and let us know about your experiences. Also, if you have any questions, please ask.

Hope to hear your opinion on this type of assessment.

Analysing video of teaching Very Young Learners

2010-11-18T14:30:00.007+01:00

I have found this video example of a lesson teaching Very Young Learners French. John Bach, from Canada uploaded it on Vimeo for teacher training purposes, but later it was deleted and re-edited a bit by www.learner.org

To help us understand the French lesson, for those of us who are not that good at French, the lesson is also subtitled in English.

I would like to use this video now, as part of the Very Young Learners Course starting today. However, I think it is a great idea to watch it and think of the questions below for those who are interested in teaching VYL in general.

So for those of you who participate in the course I'd like you to watch it and reflect on the following:

1. What are some ideas you have learnt from this lesson?
2. How can you apply them in your own teaching of Very Young Learners?
3. How is your teaching context different and what differences would this bring into your teaching of VYL group as opposed to Mr Scott's?
4. Is there anything that Mr Scott says about the teaching of VYL or anything in his lesson that you would disagree with?

Please leave a comment for all of us to share our ideas and learn from each other.

Seven Ways of Looking at Grammar

2010-10-21T10:09:00.008+02:00

This talk gives teachers a great opportunity to think about how we, EFL teachers, really teach grammar.

Is our view of grammar the one that students can really internalise and apply?
What do students really need to know about grammar in order to communicate?
These were just a couple of questions that occured to me as I started to watch.

Insightful and interesting talk.

So without adding my own thoughts any further, I just copied out the the description of the talk on youtube:

"What is grammar, and how is it internalized in the mind? Is it made up of symbolic code or of neural connections? Is it a sedimented trace left by previous conversations or an innate human capacity? Our answers to these questions obviously shape the way we go about teaching second languages.

In this talk, Scott Thornbury reviews some of the main models of grammar—often couched as metaphors—and looks at their implications for classroom practice. Thornbury is a faculty member in The New School MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program and an author whose work has been published by Oxford University Press."

Enjoy and let me know what questions you came up with for yourself.

Isaac Asimov on education

2010-10-19T11:15:00.011+02:00

Here's another interesting interview with Isaac Asimov recorded in 1988! Well-worth watching and thinking about whether much of it has become reality or not after 22 years.

Our children transforming education in action

2010-10-18T10:29:00.032+02:00

Last weekend I witnessed a wonderful process that I thought would be interesting to share with you for a lot of reasons. As I pointed out in previous posts there is a lot to learn from our kids. We, teachers have got so blinded in our old education system that it's hard for us to see and accept that there are things the we should be doing differently. We have done it the same way for decades. So why on earth would I want to change this. 'We survived, so our kids will too.' This is a typical quote I hear from teachers, almost day-by-day. However, I'm not goint to get into this, as this is all spelt out very clearly be Sir Ken Robinson here.

Instead, here's the lesson I saw the other day.

We had a 9-year guest kid, Máté, a boy over at our house. I have two daughters, almost 7 and 5.

The boy started to play with the two finger-boards he had brought along. This was the first time I saw such a thing, and it was new to my daughters too. He put on the table a wooden box- and he just played for fun, making all sorts of flips using his fingers. He even described what the terms were for each of these kick-flip and …. god knows what.

My daughters watched him with their mouth open, and after a few minutes they asked if they could try the same tricks with the fingerboards too. Máté gave them the two boards, built two 'tracks' for each of my daughters and off he let them try themselves out with the fingerboards.
Obvioulsy, this wasn't an easy thing to do, so after about 4-5 trials they gave it back to Máté and said: Would you show it to us, but as slowly as possible so that we can see how you are using your fingers to flip the finger-boards? Sure, Máté answered, but added that , 'well, I can't show you slowly, because it wouldn't work, but I can show you how I do it, and then we can watch a youtube video that shows this trick in slow motion. That is where I learnt it from too. Look, now watch my fingers: this is where I put my pointing finger and this is where I put my middle finger. Then you... ' So he continued explaining as he was showing the tricks.

Then he gave the two boards back to the girls who tried to do their best at it. Of course, it still didn't work, but this time they knew exaclty where to put their fingers. They tried on and on again. They did not look demotivated by their countinuous 'failure' to do it 'right'.

Then they asked for the youtube video, which I helped them find, showing what needed to be typed in, as they don't write in English yet ….. and you can imagine how this story continues.

The reason why I told you this story, is that this was the example of what good education is.

To translate this into teaching technical terms this is what happened.

Interest raising: There was an example of a real life situation and need that raised the interest of the rest of the group.
Test phase: the kids try themselves out in the thing they would like to learn. Their inner motivation is the driving force. This phase also serves to raise their self-awareness in terms of needs and identify points they need to improve on (in this case how to use their fingers)
Model#1: children see a model of what they want pointing out their own needs. When the model was presented the children were focussed on the things they felt they needed to improve on.
Focussed practice (in CELTA/DELTA terms this would be known as 'controlled practice' or 'restricted use' by Jim Scrivener's terms): Kids practice using their fingers as seen in the model.
Model#2: children watched the same technique via another tool (a youtube video - here comes technology). This increased variety of sources, therefore became another motivating source to learn from. Kids had the opportunity to watch it as many times as they wanted to, until they felt comfortable with the skills they wanted to find out more about.
Freer practice: the went on and tried again, using their fingers as shown in the slow-motion youtube video. Did it until they felt content with their performance at that particular stage of their learning.

Oh, these kids must have attended the DELTA or at least done a CELTA course, becuase they know exactly what the stages of the learning process are, plus they have excellent classroom managment skills, including knowledge of child-phychology: the effect of praise and positive reinforcement rather than pointing out negatives. Knowledge of when controlled practice was needed, basically all about teaching. WOW! How amazing!

Well, of course what they demonstrated in about 40 minutes is what a good lesson looks like, and they know all this, becuase they were born with this ability. Before we move on, however, here are some questions to reflect on:

Was there a formal teacher present? No, I – Erika - only stepped in when they asked me to show them how to use technology and searching the English words they had already known: finger board, kick-flip. I only added 'slow motion'. My role was rather of a facilitator one.
Who was the main source of knowledge? Máté, the child.
Who was the main 'teacher'? Well, difficult question to answer, because the driving force was Máté and then the learning took place as a result of this. There was no teaching taking place in the traditional sense, where there's a teacher in front of the class explaining mathematical formulas and calculations, and sts listening, watching or staring, some out the window. The learning took place, because there was interest. (see Sugata Mitra's further demontsrations on this). So I would say there was no teacher present, if the roles attributed to a 'teacher' are the ones that are in practice in the public education world-wide.
Was there a need for a teacher who pointed out what was wrong and what had to be improved? No. Kids observed themselves carefully and were fully – in line with their current aptitudes - aware of what they needed to improve on.
Were kids demotivated by their mistakes/'failure'? No, because they did not perceive it as 'failure'. Instead it was 'something we need to find out and practise a lot'.
Did the learning take place in a group or individually? In a group.
Are they the same age? No. A group of 5 to 9 year-olds, in this case.

The answers to the questions above will help us further in our new – currently a dream, which will become true - educational transformation.

Kids can do this so naturally, so why don't WE, adults learn from them? It's high time we paid more attention to what kids can teach us before they go to school and all their innate knowledge, abilities and aptitudes are slowly or quickly, for that matter, anaesthetised and then killed.

Now if we took the staging model of a lesson from the kids, the one described above, it can be applied to anything. And the reason why I say anything, is that I do not believe we should separate teaching mathemetics from physics, from biology, etc, the list of subjects being taught today at any most public schools. In real life we do not use them separately, so why should we teach them separately?

Instead the starting point of education could be the answers to the following question. What are the skills and knowledge our kids need to acquire/know at every stage of their life in order to bring out the best from within themselves in the social and cultural environment where they live? Quite a loaded question, isn't it?

So, let me give you a personal example. We live in a small town, very close to the capital Budapest, Hungary. My kids started to express an interest in going down to the shop on their own, and I have heard several parents from their class saying the same things. So let's take this as a starting point of a lesson at the age of 5-7.

So, what do they need to know in order to be able to do this? Let's draw up a quick list of what these are and then apply the staging above to the 'go shopping on your own' lesson.

They need to be able to:

cross the street together as group to get to the shop;
for this they need to know the traffic signs that are used for this purpose, getting around;
help each other in order to cross the streets;
draw up a shopping list, depending on what they need;
find out how much things cost so that they can add up the total costs;
substract to find out how much change they will need to get;
identify where the different types of items are placed in a shop;
organise themselves into a group before they leave the shop;
cross the streets again to get back to their original place safely, etc.

As you have proably noticed there are things listed above that are only part of a maths lesson (adding, subtracting, identifying groups), only part of environment lessons (knowing the street signs). Unfortunately, there are also skills listed above that not only are they not taught at shcool, such as helping each other to do/achieve something, but they are penalised for it. Helping each other is still regarded as cheating at school. Now this, I find, mind-boggling.

All in all, in transforming education, the point where we should start it the question highlihgted above. Listing the skills and knowledge our kids need to know at every stage of their life in order to bring out the best from within themselves in the social and cultural environment where they live.

This also implies that every social and cultural environment should draw up their own local needs of the kids, involving the kids themsleves in the process as well.

Can you imagine a school, where kids can wander between rooms (not classrooms!), sit in where they would liket to: in one of the rooms they are learning how to make bread, in the other one, how to use up all the extra CO2 that causes all the trouble (Gunter Pauli's talk on TEDx Danubia, Budapest to find out), or in another room how to apply water-colours on different kinds of paper depending on what texture they like best?

I can.

Changing Education Paradigms

2010-10-15T18:07:00.015+02:00

Another thought-provoking talk by Sir Ken Robinson reanimated.

Gives us lots to think about what we could do in our schools too.

Here's a quote from it:

"We are getting our children through education by anaesthetising them. We should be doing exactly the opposite. We should be waking them up to what is inside of themselves...."

I believe we can do this. It's all up to us.

But I'll let you watch first. So just go on, and click here.

To see the talk in full, about 55 mins, click here. Well-worth watching. It really resonates with what the situation here is. Give it a thought.

Online felkészülés az Euro B2 Nyelvvizsgára

2010-10-15T08:49:00.030+02:00

Kedves Tanártársaim!

Azoknak akik angol középfokú nyelvvizsgára készítik fel diákjaikat, íme egy új lehetőség, a hathetes online felkészítő tanfolyam az Euro B2 szintű nyelvvizsgára.

Az online felkészülésnek, felkészítésnek több előnye is van. Ha tanárként használjuk,

kitűnő alkalmat ad arra, hogy a diákjainkat a számukra 'menő' felületeken keresztül motiváljuk a tanulásra, manapság az internet használata a mindennapi életük természetes része;
változatossá tehetjük diákjaink számára a felkészülést az órán azzal, hogy a tankönyvi felkészítő anyagot online fejlesztő gyakorlatokkal egészítjük ki;
interaktív táblával könnyen használható órán, így érdekesebbé tehetjük az általában száraznak tekintett nyelvvizsgafelkészítést;
az interaktív tábla használatakor a diákokat további vizuális hatások érik és fizikailag is megmozgatjuk őket, így több tanuló típusnak (vizuális, auditív, kinesztetikus) nyújthatunk megfelelő módszereket;
mivel az online feladatok leckékbe vannak rendezve, könnyen beépíthetőek a tervezett órákba;
mivel a diákok külön-külön is regisztrálhatnak - nemcsak egy név alatt, amit osztályként használnak - érdekes házifeladatnak is használhatóak a felkészítő gyakorlatok;
a leckék kimondottan az adott vizsgafeladatoknak megfelelő stratégiákat gyakoroltatják a diákokkal, ezért egy-egy szöveget, a felkészítő feladatok megoldása után, tovább lehet használni szókincs vagy nyelvtani struktúrák tanítására, ismétlésére, vagy az témáról beszédkészég gyakorlására;
a diákok egyénileg is használhatják otthon, és arra bátorítanám őket, hogy többször is elvégezzék a felkészítő gyakorlatokat (preparation tasks), mert így könnyedén kialakulnak a megfelelő vizsgastratégiák.

Az Euro államilag akkreditált nemzetközi nyelvvizsgákról itt olvashatsz többet. Ugyanezen az oldalon még további kiegészítő tananyagot is találsz. Erről az oldalról lehet regisztrálni az online felkészítő tanfolyamra is.

Ha egyből az online felkészítő tanfolyam oldalára szeretnétek menni, íme itt van.

És egy nagyon fontos dolog számomra. Mivel több felkészítő anyag szerzője vagyok, nagyon fontos lenne számomra a véleményetek, visszajelzésetek.

Amikor a felkészítő, gyakorló feladatokat használjátok, kérlek figyeljétek meg, hogy mit szeretnek jobban a diákok, mi az ami szerintetek hasznos volt, min kellene változtatni, stb.

Nemsokára felteszek egy kérdőívet ezzel kapcsolatban erre az oldara, ami lehetőséget ad az egyszerű visszajelzésre: néhány klikkeléssel, illetve vélemény leírásával.

És egy gyors tipp azon kollégák számára, akik nem annyira jártasak az online felületek kezelésében, mint ahogy én sem voltam az négy hónappal ezelőtt, az órán hívjatok ki két önkéntes diákot, hogy az interaktív táblán regisztráljanak, és elkezdjék a tanfolyamot. Hogy ez nekik mekkora sikerélmény lesz!!!

Addig is élvezetes gyakorlást kívánok mindannyiatoknak!

Erika

Hogyan kezdjünk el osztály-blogot írni és miért

2010-10-12T10:43:00.012+02:00

Mivel az utóbbi időben egyre többet foglalkozom azzal, hogy miként fordíthatjuk hasznunkra a gyerekek nyelvoktatásában a technika által adott lehetőségeket, meglehetősen belemerültem és sokat tanultam. Például twitteren keresztül, ahol egy csodálatos PLN-em (Személyes tanulási közösségem) alakult ki, több online konferencián és webinar-on vettem részt - amik számomra három hónappal ezelőtt ismeretlen fogalmak voltak). Így módszertani ismereteimet legjobb tudásom szerint építem bele az olyan internetes tanulási eszközökbe, mint például a blogolás.

Persze, ez most mind szépnek és jónak tűnik, és ezrével jelennek meg írások, blog bejegyzések arról, hogy miként lehet ezeket használni, példákkal alátámasztva, de ezek nagy átlagban angol anyanyelvi diákok részére készültek, akiknek nem a nyelvtanulás a fő cél. Ezért gondoltam, hogy mint kezdő 'blogger' (úristen, már ez a szó is bekerült a szókincsembe), tovább adom eddigi tapasztalataimat, amik az angol nyelv elsajátítását célozzák meg.

A mi csoportunkban hihetetlen módon motiválta őket. Borzasztóan sajnálom, hogy nem filmeztem le őket, amint tízszer visszanézték a példát, ami szerint az ő alkotásukat leírhatják, hogy magukban többször ismételgették a saját leíró szövegeiket, mert ŐK AKARTÁK. Nekem semmi más dolgom nem volt, mint irányítani és segíteni, a kérték. Mert belső motiváció hajtotta őket. Szóval ez az élmény annyira lenyűgözött, hogy gondoltam megosztom a folyamatot, ami idevezetett. Hátha ti is kedvet kaptok az osztály-blogozásra :-)

Íme a folyamat

Először is megtanultam, hogyan kell létrehozni egy blogot - ami sokkal könnyebb volt, mint hittem volna. Ez a tréning video, amit Russell Stanndard által készített, most már világhíres TTV (Teacher Training Videos) sorozatban találtam, segített kb 10 perc alatt elkészítenem a saját blogomat. Ez segített abban is, hogy a kezdő kisiskolás csoportommal (2-3 osztályos gyerekek) elkészítsük az első blogunkat.

Hogy mire is jó az osztályblog?

Az alábbi levélben, amit a szülőknek írtam, röviden összegezve van, ezért inkább ezt a levelet másoltam be alább.

Kedves Szülők!

A mai napon létrehoztam az angolcsoportunknak egy blogot Incredible English (elérési címe http://fun-class.blogspot.com) címmel több célt szolgálva:

hogy a mai gyerekeknek megfelelő környezetben (számítógép használatán keresztül) is tanulhassanak;
hogy tovább motiváljam őket, konkrét célt mutatva nekik;
hogy munkáikhoz modelleket láthassanak és hallgathassanak, mielőtt ők is elkészítik;
hogy munkáikon keresztül angol nyelvű beszédkészségük fejlődjön;
hogy megosszuk munkáikat szülőkkel, barátokkal, és mindenkivel, aki látni és hallani szeretné őket;
hogy a gyerekek visszajelzést kapjanak szülőktől, családtagoktól, barátoktól;
hogy fejlesszem a blogolásban használatos készségeiket: együttműködés, egymástól tanulás, tudás-megosztása, kritikus gondolkodás (pl. mi kerülhet nyilvánosság elé és mi nem, stb.)
hogy örömük teljen a munkáikban, sikerélményük legyen :-)))

Egyelőre a hozzászólások nincsenek moderálva, vagyis nincsnek megszűrve, de amint nem megfelelő tartalom kerül fel a blogra, például egy nem helyénvaló megjegyzés, ezeket kitörlöm. Egyedül nekem van adminisztrátori jogom a bloghoz, de bejegyzéseket bárki írhat, aki rátalál, és mondanivalója van. Én minden hozzászólásról azonnal kapok értesítést.

A gyerekeket megtanítom, hogyan kell írásban vagy hangfelvétellel véleményt nyílvánítani, nyilvánosan dicsérni a gyerekek munkáit :-) a mai napon feltett platformot használva (voicethread), így otthon meg tudják mutatni a szülőknek, hogyan kell ezen keresztül hozzászólni. Ettől függetlenül, lehet használni a szokásos "Post a comment" (Írjon egy hozzászólást) módot is, hogy elmondják véleményüket a gyerekek munkáiról.

Kérem, hogy ezt a lehetőséget használják is ki, amennyire csak lehet, mert NAGYON jó érzés a gyerekeknek, ha nyilvánosan megdícsérik és értékelik munkáikat. Bárki követheti a blogra feltett újdonságokat (új bejegyzéseket vagy beküldött véleményeket, amennyiben ráklikkel a "subscribe to" vagy "follow" gombokra és követi az utasításokat. Ha bármiben elakadnak, nyugodtan írjanak, és segítek. A mai napon a saját alkotásomat és ennek angol leírását tettem fel, amit a gyerekek annyiszor hallgatnak meg, amennyiszer szeretnék. Ennek alapján fogjuk a jövő órán az ő leírásaikat rögzíteni.

Ha bármi kérdésük lenne, szívesen állok rendelkezésükre.

Üdvözlettel: Erika

Szóval, ha kedvet kaptatok hasonló tanulási-tanítási eszközök használatára, nyugodtan írjatok kérdésekkel, észrevételekkel.

Analysing video of teaching Very Young Learners

2010-10-08T22:55:00.010+02:00

I have found this video example of a lesson teaching Very Young Learners French. John Bach, from Canada uploaded it on Vimeo for teacher training purposes, so THANK YOU John!

To help us understand the French lesson, for those of us who are not that good at French, the lesson is also subtitled in English.

I would like to use this video now, as part of the Very Young Learners Course starting today. However, I think it is a great idea to watch it and think of the questions below for those who are interested in teaching VYL in general.

So for those of you who participate in the course I'd like you to watch it and reflect on the following:

1. What are some ideas you have learnt from this lesson?
2. How can you apply them in your own teaching of Very Young Learners?
3. How is your teaching context different and what differences would this bring into your teaching of VYL group as opposed to Mr Scott's?
4. Is there anything that Mr Scott says about the teaching of VYL or anything in his lesson that you would disagree with?

Please leave a comment for all of us to share our ideas and learn from each other.

Chicken pox and teaching from John Bach on Vimeo.

Türelem angolt terem - szülőknek és tanároknak

2010-10-07T14:56:00.047+02:00

Bizonyára ismerős az a mondat, hogy „A gyerek egyszer tanuljon meg rendesen az anyanyelvén, majd az iskolában ráér idegen nyelvet tanulni!” Én is hasonlót mondogattam érdeklődő szülőknek: „Majd ráér.” Mindez addig tartott míg az óvodás lányaim természetes kíváncsíságától hajtva, egy angolovis csoportot verbuváltam, amin keresztül a gyerekek bebizonyították mennyire érdemes az angol nyelvvel foglalkozni már óvodás korban is.

Az alábbiakban a foglalkozások alatt gyűjtött tapasztalataimat összegzem és néhány gyakran feltett szülői kérdésekre adok választ, illetve gyakorlatias útmutatót a szülők részére, akik támogatni szeretnék gyerekeiket „angolovis” életükben is.

Miért kezdje el a gyerekem az „angolozást” már óvodás korban?

Mivel ekkor még ugyanolyan módon sajátítja el az idegen nyelvet, mint a saját anyanyelvét: könnyedén és görcsök nélkül. Természetes adottságára támaszkodva megfigyeli a környezetében elhangzottakat, és következtet a kifejezések értelmére, megfigyeli a kifejezések hangzását, hangsúlyozását. Nincsenek az iskolai oktatás során már jelentkező kötöttségek által korlátolva, így csakis a gyermeki kíváncsiságuk és játékkedvük által motiválva sajátítják el az új nyelvet.

Az „angolozás” felruházza a gyerekeket olyan tanulási készségekkel, amik későbbiekben vagy más nyelvek tanulása során is tud kamatoztatni. Például kialakul bennük az a nagyon hasznos készség, hogy, egy mesében hallott ismeretlen szó vagy szavak értelmére rájöjjenek a látott képek-, az addig történtek alapján. Óvodás korban a természetes kíváncsiságuknak óriási a hajtóereje. Ezért, ha egy ismeretlen szóval, mondattal találkoznak egy mese vagy játék során, nem esnek pánikba, hanem megpróbálnak a rendelkezésükre álló képekből, látott mozdulatokból, egyéb megértett szavakból rájönni az ismeretlen értelmére. Ez a tanulási készség óriási segítségükre lesz bármilyen tantárgy tanulásakor, és rendelkezésükre áll majd új dolgok felfedezésekor.

Nem gátolja őket, ha hibáznak, hanem ezeket összehasonlítják a tanártól, szülőtől, CD-ROM-on hallottakkal és természetüktől fogva ezt utánozzák majd. Így képesek saját megfigyeléseik alapján kijavítani önmagukat. Az egyik leghatékonyabb tanulási készség ennek a folyamatnak a használata - bármilyen tantárgyról is legyen szó: kísérletezik egy új szóval kifejezéssel, összehasonlítja a hallottakkal, látottakkal – például kiejtés során, apa vagy a tanárnéni hová teszi a nyelvét, hogy „th” hang „angolos” legyen -, felfedezi a különbségeket, újra kísérletezik az újonnan hallottakkal, esetleg más szituációkban is. Ez a folyamat észrevétlenül és állandóan működik úgy az anyanyelv elsajátításakor mind a korai – óvodai angolnyelvtanulás során. Ha ezt felismerjük és lehetővé tesszük gyerekünk számára az „angolovizást”, ez a nélkülözhetetlen tanulási készség a későbbiekben is felgyorsítja a nyelv elsajátításának ütemét.

A tanulási készségeken belül a gyermek hozzászokik az anyanyelvétől eltérő hangokhoz és nyelvritmushoz, ezeket felismeri, és könnyebben tudja utánozni, kiejteni ezeket. Például ösztönösen rájön, hogy miként kell a hangképző szerveit használni, hogy különböző hangok jöjjenek létre, ugyanúgy, mint anyanyelve hangjainak elsajátítása során. A kiejtést tanulják a leggyorsabban a gyerekek ebben a korban, és ha ez már ovis korban természetessé válik számukra, nagy előnyükre lesz a későbbi nyelvtanulás folyamán, bármilyen nyelvről is legyen szó.

Óvodás korban a nyelv elsajátítása nyelvi mozgásos játékokon, mondókákon, hallott és előadott meséken, dalokon, logikai készségfeljesztésen keresztül történik. Mindezek a foglakozások megfelelnek a korbeli sajátosságaiknak, ugyanúgy mint az óvodában, és élvezetessé teszik számukra a mindennapi játékot, továbbá sikerélményt nyújt a nyelv megértése vagy használatakor. Például, egyszerű angol nyelvű meséket is tudnak nézni és nagyjából megértik; egyszerű kérdésekre válaszolni külföldiekkel való találkozás során; angolul is mondókázni játék, például legózás vagy rajzolás közben, angolul is énekelgetni oviba menet, vicces rímeket gyártani.

Az iskolai nyelvtanuláshoz való hozzáállása pozitív lesz. Ezt nagyon fontosnak tartom,mert jelenleg az iskolai teljesítmény orientált nyelvoktatás során, az elvárások súlya alatt a gyerekekben sok-sok görcs alakul ki. Lehet, hogy az iskolában nyelvtani feladatokat és teszteket kitűnően meg tudnak oldani, de nem mernek megszólalni angolul, ha hirtelen anya egyik angol ismerőse jön vacsorára. Óvodás korban a gyerekek számára az angol nyelv csak egy további játékos eszköz, ami később, az iskolai tanulás során is kommunikációs eszközzé válik. Azok a gyerekek, akik ilyen játékokon keresztül találkoztak a nyelvvel először, sokkal bátrabban fognak kísérletezni a tanult nyelvvel, különböző szerkezetekkel, szavakkal, kiejtéssel. Így az iskolai nyelvtanuláskor is jobban helyt tudnak állni.

A gyerekek ebben a korban a nyelvvel együtt magukba szívják a hozzá tartozó kultúrát is. Megtanulják, hogy szokás köszönni, kérni valamit, megköszönni, udvariasan visszautasítani angolul, és sorolhatnám tovább. Ezáltal arra is fokozatosan maguktól rájönnek, hogy minden nyelvhez tartozó kultúrában mások a viselkedési szokások, ezeket természetesen és könnyedén elfogadják és alkalmazkodnak hozzá iskolás, illetve felnőtt korukban. A másság elfogadására és toleranciára nevel észrevétlenül.

Nem fog a saját anyanyelve elsajátításának kárára menni?

Határozottan nem. Az anyanyelvük elsajátítása attól függ, hogy gyeremekük mennyi mesét, verset hall magyarul – az anyanyevén. Az angol nyelv elsajátítása „angolovis” keretek között úgyis később kezdődik el, három éves korban, és sokkal egyszerűbb fogalmakat és ennek megfelelő nyelvet fed le, mint amit már anyanyelvükön tudnak. Az mindenképpen nagyon fontos, hogy minél többet olvassunk vagy mondjunk mesét, verset gyerekeinknek az anyanyelvükön, mert ez a későbbiekben kihatással lesz az idegen nyelven elsajátítandó választékos nyelvtudására is. Minél választékosabban beszél magyarul, annál nagyobb eséllyel fog választékosan beszélni a tanult idegen nyelven.

Még nem ismeri a nyelvtani szerkezeteket magyarul sem, hogyan tudná ezeket elsajátítani angolul?

Nem kell ismernie a magyar nyelvtant ahhoz, hogy új nyelvet sajátítson el. Óvodás korban, egészen kisiskolás korig a gyerekek kifejezéseket sajátítanak el, amiknek meghatározott, számukra hasznos funkciókat töltenek be. Tehát nem nyelvtani szerkezetek alapján rögzül bennük egy-egy új mondat. Íme egy példa ilyen kifejezésekre: 'Where's Densel?' (Hol van Densel?) 'Where are your shoes?' (Hol van a cipőd?). Mindkét kérdésben a gyerekeknek nyilvánvaló a gesztusokból, a történetetből, látottakból, hallottakból, hogy valamit vagy valakit keresünk. Ez a két kérdés funkciója, és ennek alapján figyelik meg, tárolják a kifejezés értelmét. Aztán amikor készen állnak a használatára, kísérleteznek vele, és maguktól minden kényszertől mentesen azt kérdik anyától este - ez egy saját gyerekeimtől merített példa -, hogy 'Where dad?' (Apa hol?), ami teljesen érthető: a gyermekem érdeklődik, hogy hol van apa, miért nem ért még haza. Ugye ismerős a helyzet? Valós, és a gyerekek angulul is helyt állnak benne. Hurrá!

Hogyan tanulnak idegen nyelvet a gyerekek 3-7 éves korban?

Mint az anyanyelvüket. Ebben a korban a gyerekek nem tudatosan tanulnak, és nem köti semmilyen logikai szabály. Ők játszani szeretnek, és csak akkor kommunikálnak, ha annak értelmét látják az ő világuknak megfelelően. Az a hiedelem járja, hogy „a kicsikre csak úgy ragad az új nyelv”, de ezt összetévesztik az ebben a korban jellemző gyermeki nyitottsággal, kíváncsisággal, ami természetükből fakad. Tudományosan bizonyított tény, hogy, bizony, elég lassú az idegennyelv elsajátításának üteme ebben a korban, tehát nagy-nagy türelemmel kell lennünk mind szülőként mind tanárként. Ugyanúgy mint az anyanyelvük elsajátításakor, a gyerekeknek szükségük van egy 'néma', csak hallgatási szakaszra, amikor még nem akarnak megszólalni. Ez része a természetes nyelvelsajátítási folyamatnak.
Ugyanolyan korosztályuknak megfelelő tevékenységeken keresztül sajátítják el az angol nyelvet, tehát az óvodai foglakozásoknak megfelelő készségfejlesztés és tudás átadás szükséges – csak ezúttal angol nyelven.

Tippek Szülőknek

Hogyan segíthetünk otthon? Sok-sok szülő feltette nekem ezt a kérdést. Ki azért, mert ő maga is beszélt egy kicsit vagy nagyon jól angolul, ki azért, mert nem tudott, és úgy érezte, neki is dolga van ezen a téren. Egyetértek abban, hogy a szülő is NAGYON sokat segíthet otthon mindkét esetben. Lássunk néhány példát, miként is tudjuk ezt megtenni.

Tegyük fel a Süti és barátai hanganyagot, miközben rajzol, festeget, feladatlapozik, gyurmázik vagy bármilyen hasonló tevékenységet végez. Minél többet hallják a gyerekek az ismerős vagy még új énekeket, meséket, mondókákat, annál könnyebben sajátítják el azokat. Ne lepődjenek meg, ha egyszer csak „munka” közben bekapcsolódnak a dalokba vagy hangosan felkiáltanak „Ez a kedvenc mesém!”. Nem gond, ha a gyerek már azokat a mondókákat, dalocskákat és meséket is hallja, amiket majd később fognak az angoloviban használni. Amikor újat hallanak, legfeljebb felkapják a fejüket, hogy „Ezt még nem ismerem.” Ilyenkor vagy megpróbálják megfejteni a hallott dal értelmét vagy sem, vagy csak a dallamot kezdik el dúdolgatni.

Dicsérjük a gyereket akkor is, ha halandzsázik és azt mondja, ő angolul beszél. Próbáljunk meg rákérdezni, hogy jól értjük-e, amit mondott. Pl. „Tényleg? Olyan hosszú ormánya volt az elefántnak?” Ha a gyerek nem éppen erre gondolt és úgy érzi szóvá kell tennie, minden bizonnyal azt fogja mondani, hogy: „Én nem azt mondtam, hanem azt hogy pirosra festettem az ég alját.” Amennyiben pedig a gyereknek egyszerűen tetszik, hogy anya/apa azt értette, hogy „olyan hosszú ormánya van az elefántnak”, tovább fogja fűzni a játékot, és máskor is szívesen teszi. Halandzsázáskor a gyerek az angol hangokat próbálja utánozni, kísérletezik velük, gyakorolja. Ezt teszi anélkül, hogy tudná. Huzamosabb angolnyelvtanulás után– fél- vagy egy év után kortól függően – már észrevehetően értelmes szavakat is belefűznek a halandzsába. Sokszor, ha a szülő tud angolul és ezekre a beszélgetésekre is odafigyel, azt veszi észre, hogy ki lehet következtetni, mit akart mondani a gyerek angolul.

Tegyük fizikailag könnyen elérhetővé az „angolozós” játékokat, munkafüzetet, CD-ROM-ot, a Süti és barátai oktatócsomagot, amiben élvezetes, változatos, különböző készségekfejlsztő feladatok és játékok vannak mind a munkafüzetetben mind a CD-ROM-on. Így gyermekünk, magától is kéri, hogy elkészíthesse a munkafüzetetből a bábokat anya vagy apa segítségével vagy 'feladatlapozzon' vagy akár a CD-ROM-on található játékokkal játsszon.

Hagyjuk, hogy a gyerek döntsön abban, hogy melyik 'feladatot' szeretné megoldani, melyik játokot szeretné játszani a CD-ROM-on. Minden egyén a saját belső motiváltsága és igénye szerint képes csak elsajátítani új nyelvet. A Süti és barátai oktatócsomagban is bármilyen sorrendben használhatóak a játékok és feladatok. Ha a gyerekük menet közben úgy érzi, hogy még nehéz számára, akkor kis segítséggel bátoríthatjuk, de csak addig, amíg ő is partner ebben.

Bátran üljünk le a gyerekünkkel angolozni, akkor is, ha mi magunk egyáltalán nem beszélünk vagy csak nagyon picit. A Süti és barátai szülői oktatócsomagban nagyon részletes leírás található minden fejezethez, munkalaphoz és játékhoz, mikor mit mondjon és tegyen a szülő. Az együtt „angolozás” sokkal élvezetesebb a gyerek számára is, nem beszélve arról, hogy lehetőség nyílik az együtt-játszás során az együtt-tanulásra is. Ez mindenképpen pozitívan hat a gyerekük motiváltságára is, akkor is, ha hetente „csak” 20-30 percre ülnek le együtt-angolozásra.

Ne kérdezzük ki a szavakat oly módon, hogy „Hogy mondják a 'csokinak' angolul?” A gyerek ebben a korban nem fordításokon keresztül sajátítják el az új nyelvet, hanem ugyanúgy, mint az anyanyelvüket. Lásd fennebb a folyamat leírását.

Helyette játszhatunk a képes kártyákkal, amik például a Süti és barátai oktatócsomag része. Számtalan élvezetes játék leírása található a szülői útmutatóban, amiken keresztül észrevétlenül elsajátítják az új szavak és kifejezések értelmét. Ezek a játékok mindig nagy sikert aratnak, mivel nagyban hasonlítanak az óvodában játszottakhoz.

Ne javítsuk ki a gyereket, csak akkor, ha ő külön kéri. Neki a nyelv ebben a korban csak a játék része, és az a jó, ha megmarad annak. A javítással, elvesztheti önbizalmát, és már nem mer többet kísérletezni a nyelvvel, ugyanúgy, ahogyan azt az anyanyelvével még természetesen megtehette.

Helyette, ha a szülő beszél angolul, ismételje meg a mondatot vagy a kérdést helyesen, mint ahogy ezt a szülők természetesen teszik a gyerekeik anyanyelvük elsajátításakor. Például: Ha a gyerek azt mondja „Cookie like fish. Lulu no like fish.” („Süti szeret halat. Lulu nem szeret halat”) Erre a szülő csak csodálkozva válaszoljon visszaismételve a helyes mondatokat: „Really? Cookie likes fish and Lulu doesn’t like fish! Wow!” („Tényleg? Süti szereti a halat és Lulu nem szereti! Hűha!) A gyerek, ha már készen áll rá, észreveszi a szerkezetbeli különbségeket és esetleg újra elismétli, ezúttal helyesen, mivel anya vagy apa rácsodálkozott: „Yes, Cookie likes fish and Lulu doesn’t like fish.” Ha a szülő nem beszél angolul, a CD-ROM-on levő dalok, mondókák, játékok szövegeiből a gyerekek amúgy is mindig hallják a helyes kifejezéseket, kiejtést, és ösztönösen ezt fogják utánozni. Emiatt is fontos, hogy minél többet játszon ezzel, és hallgassa.

És a tapasztaltom szerint a legeslegfontosabb: legyen türelmünk kivárni míg maguktól szólalnak meg angolul. Mivel mi felnőtt ésszel gondolkodunk a nyelvtanuláról, könnyen megfeledkezünk arról, hogy ők nem tanulják a nyelvet, hanem elsajátítják. Ha pici gyerekként nem vártuk el, hogy egy hét vagy egy hónap után beszéljen, most se tegyük. Most is ugyanúgy ki kell várni az egy-két évet, míg maguktól el kezdenek beszélni angolul. Ezzel én is így jártam saját gyerekeimmel, pedig nekem is voltak kétségeim. Most már ott tartunk, hogy ŐK mondják, hogy "anya, most egy darabig csak angolul beszéljünk. Jó?"

Lemegyünk a Dunához sétálni, kagylót gyűjtögetni bicajjal, roller és közeben angolul beszélgetünk. Csak úgy ...természetesen, mert ŐK akarják.

Where good ideas come from

2010-09-25T10:30:00.018+02:00

Here's a great video by Steven Johnson on where good ideas come from.

Funny and enjoyable way of making us realise what we could do instead of sitting at home alone, thinking that there's nothing we can do in this system. As a result, we just go with a flow, sinking comfortably into our secure "this is hopeless" feeling ... (I wonder where this may come from.)

Well, here's what we can do. Just watch:

And here's one way to connect with other ELT teachers - recommended by Shaun Wilden in an extremely concise and clear way - to enable yourself to develop.

All you need to do here is to

sign up on twitter;
join #eltchat;
follow the @eltchat;
follow the ideas, take on board what you prefer;
try them out, see if they work for you;
reflect on them.

It's definitely worth a try :-)). Have fun!

Some great teaching tips

2010-09-16T20:07:00.020+02:00

I just stumbled upon a great youtube video of Colin Granger, a teacher, teacher trainer, an ELT textbook writer and also a theatre director. He gives excellent tips on how we can make our teaching better.

He speaks about

how to start a lesson and what to avoid at this stage;
how to hold students' attention;
how to involve students;
why it's not a good idea to keep saying "That's wrong";
what everybody should have with them in class, the students as well as the teacher..

Before watching, you can brainstorm your own ideas on the topics above. Can you guess what he might say for each of these?

When you have finished with your guesses, check Colin's answers below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o1Eoq6so54 Well-worth watching!

He also talks about the key to teaching teenagers and "inbetweenagers" here.

Enjoy!

Sugata Mitra on Child-driven education

2010-09-07T22:11:00.005+02:00

"A teacher who can be replaced by a machine, should be."

"If children have interest, then education happens."

What is your view on this? Let us know what YOU think :-).

Grading OR the world of possiblity

2010-09-07T09:54:00.033+02:00

At the OUP training days as part of the Team-building sessions I described in an earlier post I told teachers about one of my passions: playing the piano. The idea to build such a task into your lessons or the whole school activity came from George Couros, from his presentation on Identity Day through Elluminate (see the upcoming free webinars here), which I also told you about earlier. So basically, at the end of my mini-presentation using some simple photos I said the following: "If I could choose my music teacher, it would be Booby McFerrin.", and I played some of his music then to the teachers, giving them youtube links they could watch to try and find out why I'd love him to teach me.

Well, now I must admit, I have found another teacher, Benjamin Zander, who I would choose, and although, I guess, I must be quite picky about such things, as music teachers :-), I believe there would be many others like him, whom I would love to learn from.

Anyway, the point I'd like to make now is very much relevant in Hungary, and it is about bringing back the grading system (1 to 5) in primary schools, and the whole attitude and trend in the education system that is built on competition, causing anxiety and stress to all kids. What has been given up is a type of education where kids have been allowed to learn through experience, to make mistakes and learn from them, helping them evaluate their own performance, and have been taught to find their own voices in life so that they can be heard. Oh, God. Big words, but true.

The main reason I dare write about this so vehemently, although it has been bothering me for long years, is that during the OUP training days I found about one hundred teachers from all over Hungary opposing the grading system - also as part of the Team-building sessions -, the amount of homework children are given, instead of letting them play freely, .... all in all, the type of competitive teaching schools represent nowadays. Unfortunately, these teachers also felt that there was nothing they could do about it, to which I disagreed and this post is meant to show one thing I can do about it. So I write about it :-).

Now by this point, I'm sure a lot of you are asking yourselves "What the heck does playing the piano, Bobby McFerrin, now Benjamin Zander and the grading system, plus all the rest of it have to do with each other?" Well, the answer is in the video below, which made me a bit emotional. when I watched it. I'm glad I have found Zander (through Twitter), and I'm glad I have the opportunity to share it with you. Maybe it won't make you tearful, but I hope it will help you spread the idea.

So watch it and let everybody know. That's what we can do :-)

Enjoy! And just in case you cannot play the embeded video, here's the link to it: http://vimeo.com/18625943

Benjamin Zander - PopTech 2008 from PopTech on Vimeo.

Shouting well

2010-09-04T17:52:00.026+02:00

Some of you know that this September is quite an experience for me because of great changes in the life of my daughters. Alma (6 and 1/2) just started school and Kamó (5) was left without her sister and quite a few good friends at kindergarten, where she advanced to the colour yellow. At this kindergarten, Gyöngyharmat, in Dunakeszi, they are organised in different colour groups depending on their age, to be more precise, the date of their birth. This is quite important for Kamó as she has missed the last colour she could have received in the kindergarten, red, by eight days. Can you imagine how important this is for her and for us?

Anyway, I need to get back on track. The other great loss for Kamó was one of her nursery teachers, who moved to another town. So they got a new teacher.

We got home after the most exciting day in September, the BIG start in their new life, and of course, Alma had endless stories to tell about her teachers and happenings at school. Kamó was listening patiently, as she usually does. Then I asked her about what the first day was like.

"And what's is your new nursery teacher like, Kamó?"

"She is sooooo lovely, mum. She is really VERY nice."

"Oh, that's great!" I said with relief and then I asked: "And what makes her 'VERY nice' for you?"

"Because she can shout so well.", came the immediate response, to which I was ...shocked. And I was left speechless for a few moments. Seeing this it became obvious for her that I needed some further explanation.

"You know, mum, she only shouts at bad kids, you know when they are doing something really naughty."

"Right, I see, but I still don't really understand what you mean by 'shouting well'. How can a teacher 'shout well'?" I was really puzzled.

"Just like YOU do, mum. You know, during the English playschool we do with you, for example. " Now this was THE shock. It really felt terrible. Me, a shouting teacher. Now that sounds just great.

"Right, I see, and what do I do exactly when I shout well?"

"You know that well, mum. Why do I have to tell you?"

"Well, you might think I know that, but in all fairness, I don't. I have learnt a lot from you in our English playschool, and you teach me a lesson almost every day. So I really would be happy if you gave me some examples of when I shout well." I tried to ask as calmly as possible, but I was still disturbed.

"I see, mum. Well, you know, you shout well, when we misbehave. When, for example, you ask us to do something three times, and we don't listen to you. We ARE bad then, so you shout well."

I started to feel a little better by this point, but I still needed some reassurance.

"So is that a good thing for you, Kamó?"

"It certainly is, because then we ARE bad."

Of course, I told my husband and a lot of people around me about this great feedback I received , and I realised how much truth there is in what Kamó said about shouting.

But, now I know that I can shout well :-). Hurray!!!!!

Problems with English

2010-09-04T17:01:00.003+02:00

I found Arjana on twitter and she found some hilarious youtube videos in both American and English version just for your students. In her blog post below she also added the links with worksheets for these videos for pre-int, intermediate and advanced students. Absolute MUST watch if you want to have a few good laughs.

I had a great time watching them :-)).
Thank you Arjana!

Follow Arjana on twitter on http://twitter.com/abfromz

and her fabulous blog post:

Problems with English

Ideas collected during the OUP training days - Part 1

2010-09-03T15:54:00.066+02:00

At the end of August I was honoured to be invited to do some sessions at the annual OUP training days in Budapest. It was a phenomenal experience to be working with so many teachers, a good hundred in the three groups of the 'Pre-school/Primary' section, so intensively.

One of the sessions I did was on 'Team-building' in which I also presented five case studies for teachers to discuss what they thought the source of the problems were, and offer some practical solutions to the teacher.

I experienced four of these cases when I was at the beginning of my teaching career, and one about a year ago, all five from teaching EFL in Hungary to pre-school or primary groups. The cases vary from teaching Roma with non-Roma children together - a very sensitive situation in Hungary - to teacherORpupil authority, etc.
Experiencing these situations have taught me some good lessons, and I wanted to continue with this process to find out what other solutions there might have been. I must say, some of them created quite intense discussion, in some of the groups, which I thoroughly enjoyed :-).

I had asked teachers in all three groups to collect ideas on what the teacher could do to solve the problem(s) with the view to posting them on this blog and reflecting on them.

In this post I decided to start with the one I went through in my first year of teaching primary kids, right after doing the IHC (International House TEFL to Adults Certificate, quite similar to the well-known CELTA). I thought of this as a useful one to start with as after doing the CELTA quite a few English teachers find themselves teaching kids classes as well, depending on the demands of the school.

And here's the description of this situation teachers were given to brainstorm solutions for:

"You have a strong need to feel you are the only source of authority and security in the classroom. You are not mean to the students and many of them like you. You don't interfere when children are mean to each other except, of course, when this takes such violent forms that it disrupts the class. The class has by now been divided into mini-groups, who don't really communicate with each other."

These are the ideas teachers came up with during the sessions, plus a couple of personal comments and some activities for each of them.

You (the teacher) must not allow kids to be mean to each other in any shape or form and should interfere as soon as you notice this. Letting them do it sets a bad precedent, and the message kids perceive from this is that "It's OK to be mean with each other as long as we do it quietly." I personally thought that this was one of the most important things to keep in mind in this case.
Regroup the class regularly so that kids get to know all their classmates: learning about what each of them is good at, what they can learn from each other and developing social skills - for example, expressing if they dislike something tactfully . Some games that help you reorganise class quickly. 1. Ask them to stand in alphabetical order (with the alphabet on the board to refer to :-)) and then put them in pairs or groups, depending on the type of the activity that follows; 2. Fruit groups: ask the class to stand up and you give a number from 1-4 or a fruit name (four different ones) to each of them. So, for example, as they stand the first child is 'orange', the second is 'apple', the third one is 'banana', the fourth one is 'kiwi', the fifth one again 'orange', the sixth one 'apple' and so on. Then ask all 'oranges' to sit together, same with the rest of the fruits. 3. Find the rest of your picture: If you are teaching, for example animals, and have 20 kids in your class, you need five different animal cards. Cut each of these into four equal pieces. Each child is given one of these cut-outs. The aim of this regrouping game is to find the missing three pieces of their animal-card without looking at what the others have. So they'll have to mingle and say/ask "I've got the head of a giraffe. What have you got?". As soon as they have found all the missing parts of their animals, they sit down together. And there you have five new groups of 4 kids.
Do project work regularly, so that kids get used to working together and contributing ideas to a common project, working towards a common goal. For example, in groups of 4 kids create a poster of healthy/unhealthy food by cutting out pictures of food from leaflets and magazines of supermarkets. Easy to pick up a pile on your way to school :-). The great thing about this is that, just as with the idea above with the animal-cards cut into four, it can be adapted to any topic you are teaching: environment, seasons, ... anything.
Use a lot of drama games and acting out stories where kids have the opportunity to play different roles. Such activities allow kids to 'hide' behind roles and feelings using, for example different voices, funny movements.
Once they have become familiar with a story, ask them to act it out with different feelings: sad, happy, angry, etc. Another idea is to ask them to act out the story with a different ending. In my experience, kids absolutely love doing this, especially, if this becomes a part of the story-drama routine. Both of these ideas give more room for creativity and increase level of engagement.
Do simple trust and empathy games every now and then. One simple idea is the 'Blind trust game' I learnt when I was part of a drama club as a uni student. Ask all kids to stand up and find a partner. One stands in front of the other. The one in the front closes their eyes and the one in the back holds the shoulders of their partner. The person holding the shoulders will have to lead their partner making sure they don't hit themselves, possibly don't touch anything and anybody. As they lead each other, it's best if you put some nice soothing music on, and see what effect it will have :-). Make sure you repeat this game later, but with different pairs to develop a sense of responsibility for and trust in each other. I did this game with pre-school kids up to adults and the changes and feelings I witnessed were absolutely awesome.

If you have tried out any of these activities, do let us know how they worked for your classes. It would also be great to hear of any other ideas you may have to help this teacher solve her problems :-)

Thank you all for sharing!

I'll get back to you with another case-study and solutions offered soon.

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! | Video on TED.com

2010-08-28T21:40:00.009+02:00

This is simply a MUST watch for all educators. The reason why I'm quickly putting it on now is that it echoes what teachers at the August OUP training days came up with. Actually, in one of the groups of about thirty eight teachers, if you'd been present when we were fuming about too much homework, the grading system, the focus on passing tests and 'achieving results'... long list, you would have smelt the air burning. That's how strongly these English teachers felt about it. And the process continued in the other two groups of teachers - so Sir Ken Robinson is speaking on behalf of the 100 plus teachers I worked with this week. Hurray!

For those of you who are not yet familiar with TED talks, here's a quick tip. You can choose to watch it with subtitles either in Hungarian or in English, as you wish.

Enjoy and let us know what you think about it in relation to your teaching.

Feedback on the OUP training days and conference

2010-08-27T10:10:00.009+02:00

After three days of intensive in-service teacher training and another conference day on Word Skills organised by Oxford University Press for teachers in Hungary I was walking down the stairs with my hands full of equipment: laptop, speakers, flashcards and bags full of "trainer stuff". - Yes, I do have five hands to carry all of this :-) -
I must admit I was exhausted by that time just as anyone else, I thought, who either presented or participated in the sessions during these four intensive days.

So I was watching my steps down the stairs not to drop anything and then I was stopped by a teacher, who obviously wasn't at the beginning of her teaching career. I still remember her slightly scared, "what's going to happen here?"-face, almost trying to hide from everybody around, me and the other 35 teachers present on the first day, first session of the training programme.
But this time she looked different. She was shining, was full of energy, which I envied, of course, and this is what she told me.

"Erika, I've got something to tell you and I would like you to pass it on to all the other speakers of these four training days."

"Yes, sure. Do tell me."

And then she went on: "You know, this was my first time here at these training days. My colleagues had been telling me that I shouldn't miss it because I would learn more in these fours days than I had done during my studies at university. To tell you the truth, what I have learnt here exceeded any of my expectations. I've got so much, so many ideas, so many things to think about, I feel all the presenters should know. And do please give a big thanks to OUP, who made this possible. Without them none of this would have happened. So please make sure you let everyone know. Will you?"

"OK, I will. Thank YOU!"

I was there left speechless for a second. Then I added: "Thank YOU for coming".

I was far too tired to say anything else at that moment, but the thing all participant teachers need to know as well is how much WE, the presenters LEARN FROM THEM during these workshops.

THANK YOU, TEACHERS! None of this learning would have happened without you!

p.s. More posts coming up soon on teachers' input and ideas on various topics from the OUP training days.

Developing a Learning Society

2010-08-06T10:06:00.014+02:00

I watched this wonderful and thought-provoking YouTube video a minute ago. Well, of course, I received it through Twitter, where else. So, anyway, it immediately gave me an idea of how I would use it during the induction week with my teachers and I'd like to share this with you, just as I believe in sharing, learning and shaping our teaching together with the whole school staff.

Before you go on reading, it would be great if you watched the YouTube video first and thought about how YOU could/would use it in your school at the beginning of the year. Jot them down for later reference. This is an essential step as every school is different having unique needs, depending on number of things: country, region, culture, type of school, type of teaching your school represents, teachers you are working with, facilities, and most importantly your students. So take a few minutes to watch it and note down your own thoughts. When you have done that, read on and compare with the ideas below. What are the similarities/differences? What could we learn from your ideas? And then share it with us by posting.

So let's see how I would use it in my school during the induction week in an intro session for the academic year.

1. I would introduce the story of how I got hooked onto twitter, and the type of teachers I decided to follow. This would lead to the YouTube video I stumbled upon in this PLN.

2. Also, ask if anyone is using Twitter as a self-development tool. If there are a number of people using this or other platforms for self-development, I would ask them to share their stories in groups of 4-5, say, and in feedback summarise the most inspiring one.

3. Then I would play them the YouTube video - being lucky enough to have a internet access and a projector - above and ask them to jot down any words, ideas, first reactions that occur to them as watching, even if it feels like a silly thing at that moment. Even things like: , "wow", "bullshit" (excuse me), admin blog, cultural awareness SIG, etc.

4. As a next step, again, just as for anybody else, I would ask teachers to take more time to think about how we could apply this idea in our own school, with our students, teachers, administrative staff...everybody, to allow us to develop a different kind of learning society. Here they would have to think of one or two concrete ideas to later share with their group members. This is one of the most important steps in this process, so I would let teachers think about it for at least ten minutes.

5. Teachers then share their ideas in their groups to see which one would serve the school best and is also feasible. If it's less feasible, for example because of no internet access for sts within the school, how could the idea be tweaked to make it work. This stage would most probably take up about 15 to 20 minutes.

6. I would then ask teachers to report one idea they choose as their best to the whole staff, and then we would reflect on these together to see what the majority of staff thinks.

7. As a closing stage we would all make note of what everyone of us needs to do to make the idea(s) we decided to take further work in the next academic year. At the end of the first term, we would come back to it to see what has worked and what needs to be improved,plus how.

So these are the steps I have come up with now quickly, but some if it might need to be changed at second glance. In any case, do let me know if you tried it out and tell me what result came out of this process.

And now I'll have to go back to packing. Leaving to Romania to visit our family and friends for two weeks. Hurray!!! Then back to teacher training. Hurray!!!

"Teach kids first and curriculum second"

2010-08-02T12:11:00.016+02:00

I can't agree more with George Couros! What they did at their school is amazing and inspiring. The idea that he presented at the 2010 Reform Symposium , is something that could be and should be used in any school: organising an 'Identity Day'. Listen and watch to find out how kids and teachers share their passion, something that is unique about them, something they would like to share with everyone: their school-mates, all the teachers in the school and parents. Involving parents in this process must have been rewarding as well. This is something that can be done as part of the English classes as well, not just as a school. "You can't teach a child if you don't know them", is another quote I keep highlighting myself whenever opportunity arises. So to find out details about the process of how it can be done, jump on the link above, register and watch. The first 10-15 minutes are taken up by preparing the session, so if you join in the presentation after that, I'm sure you'll be part of a wonderful conference session. From home, at your leisure time, can pause it anytime you need a break. What can be easier than that?

So "teach kids first and curriculum second, teach them first, not the other way around." I think that we need to spread this idea around to school principals/directors here in Hungary as well. I'm more than convinced that it would benefit everyone.

Teacher Development through Elluminate

2010-08-01T21:51:00.022+02:00

I first found out about this learning platform from Tamás Lőrincz. He took his time to show a couple of us what it was, but I didn't quite get into it at that time because I wasn't quite sure why this would benefit me. He was also the one who introduced me to Twitter. This was about a month ago. It didn't take long for me to realise how much I could learn from tweets and Elluminate sessions. Tamás, I owe you a great BIG THANKS, as you made my professional self-development possible. I truly hope that many more teachers will be 'infected' by these learning platforms. This, I feel is very important, especially in times when teachers in Hungary get such little support to develop in their teaching career.

Now I'll go back to the session I'm listening to live at the moment. So, as I chose some great people to follow, such as Shelly Terrell and so many others, I found out through their tweets about the 2010 Reform Symposium, a brilliant conference made available to ANYONE around THE WORLD LIVE. As time allowed with my family I joined in some of the sessions this weekend. (I'm listening to the closing questions :-)) There are no words to describe how much I've learnt from them. The ideas brought up about education, although raised by presenters from the US, are true all over the world, including Hungary. Why would Hungary be an exception? It was sooo revealing.

The Closing session, called Timeless and Priceless, is/was also absolutely brilliant. If you want to listen to it and watch, all you need to do is to go on the page, register and off you go searching for topics you're interested in, and you'll be able to listen and watch sessions that were recorded, so that they become available to those who had not been able to participate live.

So teachers, do register on these platforms and enable yourself to develop! Gosh, that sounds like a strange collocation, but this is really what happens. This is what I have experienced.

My ideas above may sound like rambling. My excuse is that I was typing as I was listening and sometimes watching in for the slides.

Teaching kids to take charge

2010-07-14T14:56:00.025+02:00

This is how Kiran Bir Sethi teaches kids to take charge and this is what we need to do in Hungarian education as well. I'll let you watch and contemplate what it might mean to you. Try to translate it to your own teaching situation. What would it take to achieve the same feeling of 'I CAN' amongst the kids you are teaching?

I'm sure you'll be able to come up with concrete ideas of how we can make children become aware, enable them and then empower them when teaching English, or other subjects for that matter. Share your ideas with us.

My dream ...

2010-07-12T09:55:00.011+02:00

of how we could...should teach English as a Second Language in school. This video is a great example of that. I know it needs more than just a youtube video. I'll come back to it later in a lot more detail, but it really made my day. Thank you 5th graders and teachers!

I have experienced as a child how much more successful language learning can be IF it happens through engaging and interesting ways of doing, making, discovering things for yourself. Isn't the experience itself more important for kids at this age than , say, the grammatical structures, forming correct sentences, knowing the equivalent of English words in L1. Mind you, how far is this possible without a context?

Anyway, before I go rambling on, have a nice summer, my dear reader and I promise, I'll be back.

Amit a szülőknek is tudniuk kell a nyelvtanfolyam előtt

2010-07-08T12:25:00.012+02:00

Bizonyára ti is megtapasztaltátok, mennyire fontos, hogy a szülőket is bevonjátok az angol oktatásotok folyamatába, és ha ez megtörténik, milyen jó hatással van a gyerekek hozzáállására az idegen nyelv iránt.

Alább összegyűjtöttem egy néhány dolgot, amit érdemes a szülőkkel a tanfolyam elkezdése előtt megbeszélni, tudatosítani bennük egy olyan fórumon keresztül, ahol elkezdődhet az oktatás folyamán is olyannyira nélkülözhetetlen együttműködés.

Az alábbi témákat szinte kötelező megbeszélni, legalábbis szerintem:

Az angoltanfolyam célja az adott korcsoportban
Általános korosztálybeli jellemzők, amik befolyásolják a nyelvtanulásukat
Az ebből adódó alkalmazott oktatási módszertant
A kiválasztott tankönyvet, megindokolva, hogy módszertanilag miként illeszkedik a fentiekhez.
Hogyan segíthetnek otthon a szülők: mit tegyenek és mit ne tegyenek
Gyakran feltett szülői kérdésre a válaszok

Egy következő bejegyzésemben feltöltök egy példát, amit az egyik kisiskolás csoportom szüleivel osztottam meg.

Természetesen, az is nagyon fontos, hogy minél inkább megkönnyítsük a kommunikációt a szülőkkel és a gyerekekkel egyaránt. Ennek is - főleg a mai számítógép adta lehetőségek világában - számtalan módja van. Erre is kitérek majd példákkal, és megírom, hogy nekem milyen tapasztalataim vannak ezekkel kapcsolatban.

Csak sietnem kell, mert különben megszökök szabadságra egy kicsit töltődni. Azért még előtte jelentkezem!

Going online in the classroom and in my life

2010-07-07T18:49:00.027+02:00

This is an article I wrote for the mELTing pot Extra, the IATEFL-Hungary magazine published for the IATEFL conference 2009.

It was interesting to read it again. I would probably change a few ideas here and there. I'm on twitter, Mark :-) and I'm loving it! Not to mention the blog I'm writing at this very minute.
Mind you, we just had 3 days of no internet access again, and it made me realise how much I missed following tweets and reading blogs and ...see what's out there and get new ideas.

I have just found an interesting article that supports the idea I wrote in the last paragraph a year ago. Although it is on education in the US, it's definitely true for Hungary as well as Eastern Europe, I think. So educators, can we do something about this?

Anyway, read on and let me know what you think. What is YOUR balance between face2face and online communication, in both your personal and your professional lives?

Today’s balance

Sorry, IATEFL magazine. I have no internet access, so there will be no article.

My last minute attempt to write it on balancing this online thing in my life and in the classroom was jeopardised by God, who likes playing jokes on me, it seems. So, here’s my back-up plan then.

I do believe that teaching quality does not depend on any amount of online things a teacher uses in their lessons. To take this idea to the extreme, here are a couple examples, where computers were nowhere near the classroom, and yet the students learnt a lot.

I was observing classes as part of a training programme and one of the major problems we found in the teaching group was the exaggerated amount of unnecessary teacher-talking-time. The teaching task I set for the next day was for everybody to teach from 5 to 20 minutes without saying a word or using any “talking machines”, such as the tape recorder or any thingamajigs, apart from themselves, the board and the board-pen. I have hardly ever seen students involved so much in their learning. As soon as they realized that it was them who had to do the work - experimenting with the pronunciation, putting the right sentence together, and many other things - they were all the more engaged, took control of the learning process and were proud of their achievements. Teachers felt the thrill of it as well. They did a great job teaching new words and giving them written and spoken practice in these.

Another example is from Romania, a country where power cuts used to be quite frequent and regarded as normal to save energy. The teacher prepared a great listening, a story of an adventure holiday, to introduce the past simple to her elementary students. The second she wanted to press the play button the power was cut. The teacher then took a few seconds to say: “I’m going to tell you a story of my last summer holiday. There were three very interesting things that happened to me. Can you shout out a few ideas? What happened, do you think?” The students overcoming some kind of state of amazement started to come up with ideas slowly. “Listen to my story and try to find out what the three things were.”, the teacher then continued after praising the students for their ideas. And again, it turned into an even more engaging listening lesson with students listening carefully.

The amount of teaching and learning materials available online, however, is almost endless and it would be a shame if we disregarded them. It can make both teaching and learning effective, engaging, fun and even more varied.

Their obvious function would be in the classroom. Even if it’s only the teacher who has access to the internet, there are a number of further typical ways of making use of online resources for teaching purposes, which I’m sure all of you know of. From acquiring and printing full teaching materials on specific topics fairly quickly to being able to make your own crossword games for your students, including using the phonemic script, finding the right collocations through cobuild corpus, etc.

If you are lucky enough to work in a school where a computer lab is available, language teaching using online resources could be very much personalised. Students do the same activities, but at their own pace; there’s always another activity for early finishers, plenty of sites with wonderful games and activities to supplement your coursebook materials.

If there’s only one computer with online access connected to a projector in the classroom, one can use something that is quite appreciated by the students: the up-to-date listenings and lessons built around these. For example, use the news items of the day to maximise student motivation and engagement. Right-on. Can teachers plan around it on the spot? Is it user-friendly for all language teachers? Who would feel comfortable using it? Some would say that most probably only the well-qualified and experienced native teachers are the ones who are brave enough to do that, although even they might have problems setting up and using the computer with the projector. However, most English language teachers on earth are non-native. So how are you going to make them feel brave enough to deal with all those unknown words? There are no teacher’s books available to rely on. Are there any tools they could use to overcome their handicap, i.e. not knowing words that may appear in the article/video broadcast/podcast? Yes, they are right there. Their solution is to admit to their students that “this is an interesting word” and use online dictionaries to find out together what the meaning/connotation/pronunciation/preposition/collocation or whatever they might be looking for is. The teacher could also ask volunteer students to do the search. Students may know some searching methods we have never thought of. So why not use their computer knowledge as well?

The area where I think the use of online resources, could play the greatest role is learner training, i.e. making students aware of what practice sites there are available out there and how they could use them outside their classroom. How could I – including myself, a non-native English teacher and a language learner - improve my pronunciation, intonation, fluency, grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading skills, etc.? There are zillions of free sites online for all of these purposes.

Ultimately, it comes down to the responsibility of the Director of Education, Director of Studies or the senior teacher(s) of the specific languages to make their teachers aware of what useful sites there are in the ether and how this information could be passed on to their students in the given circumstances of the specific school. Our responsibility as language teachers is to try and use this knowledge to experiment with what works for us and what doesn’t. So feel free to find your balance together with your students. You can be just as great a language teacher without the internet. And for those of you who are hard-core onliners in the classroom, remember, you never know when the next power cut strikes. Talking and writing have proved to be good solutions in teaching for thousands of years.

Hogyan tanítsuk meg a gyerekeket a visszajelzésre

2010-07-02T18:35:00.009+02:00

Egy korábbi bejegyzésemben erről már szót ejtettem. Igazából abbéli aggodalmamnak adtam hangot, hogy a mai iskolai oktatás elvárásai miatt - és most jön egy NAGY általánosítás - a gyerekekből, akarva-akaratlanul, kiöljük az visszajelés adásának még a lehetőségét is. Természetesen, ennek következményeként, még felnőtt korukban sem tudnak konstruktív visszajelzést adni. Ezt tapasztaltam tanulmányi igazgatóként is az International House Nyelviskolában, ahol feladatom részeként havonta több-száz felnőtt diákok által írt "feedback"-et olvastam. Úgy érzem, sok feladat vár az iskolaigazgatókra és az oktatókra e téren, és természetesen az oktatási reform részeként is.

Íme három visszajelzés-kérési technika, amik a tanításom során beváltak kisiskolás, felsős és felnőtt csoportok tanítása során egyaránt.

1. Visszajelzés 'smiley'-kal. Óra elején a tábla jobb oldalára felírom a tervezett tevékenyésgeket pontokba szedve, mondjuk 1-től 5-ig. Óra végén kiegészítem a plussz játékokkal/feladatokkal, amiket nem előre tervezve, de beillesztettük az órába, és törlöm, amit kihagytunk. Vagyis, úgymond, újra szerkeztem az óravázlatot a történtek alapján, míg az óra elején csak a terv volt felírva. Utána mindegyik pont mellé rajzolok három arcot: :-) , :-/, és :-(. Az osztállyal megszavaztatom a feladatokat. Amelyik a legtöbb :-)-t kapta, rákérdezek, hogy mi tetszett benne. Természetesen, amelyik a legtöbb :-( 'nem tetszett' arcot kapta, annál megkérdem, miért nem tetszett. És ami még ennél is fontosabb, hogy szerintük hogyan lehetne ezt a feladatot érdekesebbé tenni számukra. Ezt interaktív táblával sokkal egyszerűbb megoldani, le is lehet menteni, és visszanézni a későbbiekben.

2. Naplóvezetés. Ez inkább 10-től 18 éves korig ajánlott. Minden gyereknek van egy egyszerű füzete, egy angol naplója, amin keresztül a tanár és a diák 'leveleznek'. Ebbe hetente vagy kéthetente egyszer a tanulóknak kb 15 perce van arra óra végén, hogy leírják milyen volt az elmúlt egy-két hét angolóra. Sokat segít az elején, ha konkrét kérdéseket írunk fel a táblára, amiket ők a naplóban kell megválaszoljanak. Például: "Which game/activity did you like the best? Why", "Which activity did you NOT like that much? Why not?", "How would you change it to make it more interesting?". Fontos, hogy a gyerekeket az őszinte válaszadásra ösztönözzük, és írásban is köszönjük ezt meg nekik. Az is lényeges, hogy válaszaink ne késsenek, és ne javítsuk ki a gyerekek által írottakat. A hangsúly itt nem a nyelvhelyességen van, hanem a mondanivalón.

3. Visszajelzés wikin. Azon tanároknak, akik az internet adta lehetőségeket is ki tudják használni a nyelvoktatás során, ez egy kitűnő lehetőség. Tapasztalatom szerint a gyerekek hihetetlenül fogékonyak a számítógépen keresztüli tanulási módszerek iránt, és fantasztikusan motiválja őket. Ehhez itt láss egy példát.
Visszatértve a wikire. A tanárnak egy wiki tanfolyamot kell létrehozni. Itt találsz segítséget ehhez. Ezen keresztül a diákokat meg lehet "hívni" a tanfolyamra, akik követhetik a feltett anyagokat is, és válaszolhatnak is feltett kérdésekre.

És miért hasznos tanítani a visszajelzést? Mert megtanulnak kritikusan gondolkodni a szó jó értelmében, megtanulják diplomatikusan kifejezésre juttatni véleményüket, konstruktívan visszajelzést adni. Nemcsak azt hogy "ez nem volt olyan jó", de azt is megtanulják a gyerekek, hogy szerintük miként lehetne érdekesebbé/hasznosabbá tenni. Idővel arra is rájönnek, hogy nekik is hasznuk származik a konstruktív és diplomatikus véleménynyílvánításból, hiszen a tanárnéni/tanárbácsi a következő órán, már úgy alakította a feladatot vagy játékot, ahogy ők kérték.... És nem utolsó sorban, már önmagában ez a készség, a diplomatikus visszajelzés adása nagy hasznukra válik majd az életben is. Például, amikor felnőtt korukban egy másik nyelv tanulása során visszajelzést kér a tanár.

Epilógus:
Ne lepődjünk meg, és ne adjuk fel, ha első alkalommal a tanulók nem igen reagálnak kérdéseinkre. Idő kell nekik is míg megszokják, hogy véleményt mondhatnak, és ha nem-tetszésüket fejezi ki valami iránt, annak nem lesz negatív következménye. Sőt, csakis jobb lesz mindenki számára.

Hogyan tudjunk meg többet az ovis angolnyelvoktatás módszertanáról?

2010-06-28T14:41:00.005+02:00

Mint minden angol nyelvtanár és egyben anyuka, nálunk is eljött az ideje annak, amikor az ovis lányaim folyton azzal nyagattak, hogy "Anya, most mit mondtál a telefonba angolul? És kivel beszéltél? Miért?" Így kezdődött el az "angolovi", ovis barátokkal, mert ugye, így az igazi. Különben is, hogy lehetne ovi ovisok nélkül. Tehát csoport kellett, és összejött.

Nagyrészük már iskolás, de még mindig "angolovi"-zunk. Természetesen, nem volt számomra sem fájdalommentes ez a tapasztalat, bármennyire is angol nyelvtanár vagyok, és már 1995 óta folgalkoztam ovisok nyelvoktatásával. De eddig nem tanítottam a saját gyerekeimet, és nem foglalkoztam vele ennyire mélyrehatóan. Nem igen volt időm mindenre, a csoportos, céges, egyéni oktatás, a tanárképző tanfolyamok, és egyebek mellett. Most úgy éreztem, ez nagyon fontos számomra és a gyerekek számára. Jól kell csináljam, mert különben 'baj lesz'. De kitől tudjam meg, hogyan lehet ezt igazán jól csinálni?

Sokat lendített az önbizalmamon, amikor ráleltem egy fantasztikus sorozatra, amit bizonyára sokan ismertek: Cookie and friends (OUP). A tanári kézikönyve visszaigazolta az addigi tapasztalataimon alapuló elképzeléseimet az óvodáskori angol nyelvoktásról.Számtalan ötlettel felvértezve, az ember, vagyis az anyuka, aki egyben angol nyelvtanár, angolórát tervez ovisoknak. Aztán nem éppen úgy alakul, ahogy azt tervezte. Még akkor sem, ha már egy tucat gyerekpszihológiai szakkönyvet is elolvasott. Az angolovis foglalkozáson néha, úgy érzem, maguktól szárnyalnak a gyerekek, néha küzdök, izzadok. Volt olyan is, hogy azt mondtam magamnak: "Na ez volt az utolsó, én már tényleg nem tudom, hogyan lehetne ezt másképp csinálni, hogy 'mindig jól sikerüljön'." Végső elkeseredésemben a gyerekekhez fordultam, amikor 'már megint nem élvezték annyira, ahogy én azt elképzeltem'. Megkérdeztem tőlük: 'No, ez a játék milyen volt?' Volt aki hümmögött, volt aki 'viselkedett, mert nem volt otthon' és azt válaszolta: "Naaagyon jóóó volt." És volt a kisebbik lányom, aki azt mondta: "Anya, énekelni jó volt, és azt is szerettem, amikor elkészítettük a békákat. De kicsit uncsi volt így énekelni." Miért volt uncsi? - kérdem én, a tanárnéni. "Azért, mert csak a bábokkal adtuk elő. Jobb lenne, ha mi ugrálnánk úgy mint a békák, míg énekelünk, és nem a bábokat toszogatnánk." Minden gyerek egyetértett vele, és rögtön ki is próbáltuk. A siker nem maradt el.

Ezt ezek után már tudatosan csináltam: rákérdeztem mi tetszett, mi nem tetszett és hogyan csinálhatnánk másképp. Most már annyira rákaptak, hogy maguktól mondják. Szó szerint ontják az ötleteket. Őszinték, és emiatt sokat tanulok tőlük. És sokat tanultam róluk.

Lehet, hogy a későbbi iskolás nyelvoktatás során is több figyelmet kellene szentelnünk a gyerekektől kapott visszajelzéseknek? Meg vagyok győződve, hogy "I'm stating the obvious". Csak abban nem vagyok biztos, hogy az iskolába járó gyerekeket, hogyan tanítjuk meg az őszinte és hasznos visszajelzések adására. Hogyan lehetünk abban biztosak, hogy nem öljük ki belőlük a természetes véleménynyilvánítást, hanem lehetővé tesszük magunk számára, hogy tanuljunk tőlük?
Azt hiszem, egy-két hasznos tippel még visszatérek erre.