Today's lesson was a bit shorter than usual but we still had time to discuss the article by Sue Clarke about Stirrers and Settlers that we had to read as homework.
The article is oriented towards education in Primary Classrooms, but I think that since we're dealing with English as a Foreign Language (EFL), our students (and ourselves as teachers) can benefit a lot from these techniques regardless of their age.
In the first place, according to the author of the article, Stirrers and Settlers are a way of channelling this (the students') energy. This means that teachers can find different ways to get their students moving and talking or working silently by themselves as needed.
The whole objective of including Stirrers and Settlers is achieving a balanced lesson. After all, as language teachers we do want our students to communicate and participate actively in our lessons but we surely don't want our classrooms to be places of perpetual chaos.
One of the most concrete reasons to include them presented in the article is that children have a short concentration span, but in fact most teenagers (and sure, adults as well) have a short concentration span too. Knowing this, including long and tedious activities in our lessons would only make our students' learning processes harder, so I enthusiastically support the integration of Stirrers and Settlers in our EFL lessons.
In this other article, the author suggests songs, roleplays, ball games, class games and mingles as Stirrers, and drawing, silent reading or story-telling, word games and arts and crafts as Settlers.
The type of settler activity I like the most among the ones suggested by Sue Clark, is Categorising and Brainstorming. I think it is a very versatile technique that can be adapted to different topics, levels of proficiency and students' interests, so it is easy to integrate and modify according to the group we're teaching. Besides, brainstorming and categorising can be very helpful to activate and build prior knowledge at the beginning of a lesson.
Regarding stirrers, I'm very fond of Surveys, as suggested by Clark, because they give students a chance to move around the classroom and to use some features of the language repeatedly. For instance, if teaching students how to ask for and tell the time, one could make everyone draw a clock with a different time and then have students ask their classmates 'what time is it?' to give them a chance to practice.
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Fourth lesson (Oct 4th)
Today we worked on a dictation race about vocal health. The activity consists in organising students into groups and assigning them a text that will be placed at a certain distance from them. The idea was that someone from each group would have to stand up and memorise a section of the text that they would later dictate to the rest of the group. We were supposed to keep on doing this until we'd written the entire text. I believe it is a good activity because it promotes team work and everybody feels like they're an important component of their groups. Besides, it is easily adapted to different levels and topics.
I found this video of a dictation race in a Korean EFL classroom that is more oriented towards beginners. I think the teacher shows them the sentences written down because, since Korean has a different writing system, it is quite challenging for the students, but I think it'd be better for our context (EFL for Spanish speakers) to read the sentences out loud only so that students get to practice listening. Overall, I'm very convinced that the 'game factor' would be super engaging so I'll definitely do this in my final practicum next semester (with the necessary adaptations to the group I'll be teaching of course).
Sunday, 2 October 2016
Healthy voice
Today my voice was sounding a little strange, and since I ran out of honey (no ginger and honey lemonade for me), I figured it was a good moment to do some research on vocal health.
The amount of information is a tad overwhelming so I chose only a couple of exercises from this really cool website. I chose them mostly because I think they can be helpful for teachers and for students so for instance they could be used at the beginning of a lesson.
According to the website, we should devote 10-15 minutes before a presentation (could be a lesson) to warm up our voice. The idea is to combine different warm up exercises that target three different areas: body, breath and voice.
Body: ‘Rag dolls’
Stand with your feet a shoulder width apart, breathe in through the nose and bending from the waist allow yourself to flop like a rag doll while breathing out through your mouth. Shake any tension out of your arms, neck, shoulders and allow yourself to literally hang loose. And then breathing in through your nose very gently and slowly bring yourself upright and breathe out through your mouth.
Breath: Diaphragm breathing
>> Legs shoulder-width apart and knees unlocked (maybe a little bent)
>> Relax shoulders and core muscles
>> Place your hands on your stomach
>> Inhale to the count of five (maybe start with three if students are not used to it). Feel the diaphragm rising.
>> Exhale to the count of five. Feel the diaphragm expanding
>> Do a couple of repetitions making sure shoulders, legs and stomach are relaxed.
I found some information about diaphragmatic breathing in this article. The author presents a comparison (with the pictures below) of chest and diaphragmatic breathing that can be really useful for people who learn better visually.
Voice: ‘Sounding vowels’
‘Use the out breath to sound each of the vowels in turn. Let each go without force, flowing smoothly from your relaxed throat.’
Voice: ‘Articulation’
This is an exercise I really liked because, since it looks like a game, it can help students relax and have fun while also warming up their voice.
These are the tongue twisters suggested in the webpage:
Theophilus Thistler, the thistle sifter, in sifting a sieve of unsifted thistles,
thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.
You know New York,
You need New York,
You know you need unique New York.
And these are some others I found here:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
We surely shall see the sun shine soon
Bonus: According to a pinterest.com user, peppermint tea is great for singers (I’m guessing it does the same for teachers, though) because
>> it helps cure a stuffy nose and improves breathing
>> it helps to reduce a dry throat
>> reduces phlegm production
>> it helps reduce the risk of common colds
>> it keeps your breath fresh
Considering that I have a bunch of peppermint growing in my garden, I will at least give it a try.
The amount of information is a tad overwhelming so I chose only a couple of exercises from this really cool website. I chose them mostly because I think they can be helpful for teachers and for students so for instance they could be used at the beginning of a lesson.
According to the website, we should devote 10-15 minutes before a presentation (could be a lesson) to warm up our voice. The idea is to combine different warm up exercises that target three different areas: body, breath and voice.
Body: ‘Rag dolls’
Stand with your feet a shoulder width apart, breathe in through the nose and bending from the waist allow yourself to flop like a rag doll while breathing out through your mouth. Shake any tension out of your arms, neck, shoulders and allow yourself to literally hang loose. And then breathing in through your nose very gently and slowly bring yourself upright and breathe out through your mouth.
 |
It was a little difficult for me to understand the steps but I think this picture fits the description |
Breath: Diaphragm breathing
>> Legs shoulder-width apart and knees unlocked (maybe a little bent)
>> Relax shoulders and core muscles
>> Place your hands on your stomach
>> Inhale to the count of five (maybe start with three if students are not used to it). Feel the diaphragm rising.
>> Exhale to the count of five. Feel the diaphragm expanding
>> Do a couple of repetitions making sure shoulders, legs and stomach are relaxed.
I found some information about diaphragmatic breathing in this article. The author presents a comparison (with the pictures below) of chest and diaphragmatic breathing that can be really useful for people who learn better visually.
Voice: ‘Sounding vowels’
‘Use the out breath to sound each of the vowels in turn. Let each go without force, flowing smoothly from your relaxed throat.’
Voice: ‘Articulation’
This is an exercise I really liked because, since it looks like a game, it can help students relax and have fun while also warming up their voice.
These are the tongue twisters suggested in the webpage:
Theophilus Thistler, the thistle sifter, in sifting a sieve of unsifted thistles,
thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.
You know New York,
You need New York,
You know you need unique New York.
And these are some others I found here:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
We surely shall see the sun shine soon
Bonus: According to a pinterest.com user, peppermint tea is great for singers (I’m guessing it does the same for teachers, though) because
>> it helps cure a stuffy nose and improves breathing
>> it helps to reduce a dry throat
>> reduces phlegm production
>> it helps reduce the risk of common colds
>> it keeps your breath fresh
Considering that I have a bunch of peppermint growing in my garden, I will at least give it a try.
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