Педагогическая эклектика (английский, методика, жизнь)

On Friday I'll do my best to post something else about alternative fun types of running dictations (not that the usual one is not fun) 💜

- Young learners; - Pre-teens; - Older teens and adults (just for a little bit of fun). I wouldn’t advise anybody to use this activity with teens from 12 to 14. At that time, they are too occupied with growing physically, they are basically usually too tired to run and that could lead to disruptions and misbehavior.

There are plenty of reasons to do it: a) Spelling (if you make a text that contains target vocabulary, it’s a nice way to revise it); b) Memory (kind of self-explanatory, right?); c) Stirring activity (when the students are overly excited – it gives them an outlet, or overly tired – it excites them); d) Various other reasons (as a language from text resource, for context setting, it can be a text with questions for discussion etc.) – these are just some reasons off the top of my head.

We all know what running dictations are, right? Just in case, it’s an activity where students work in pairs when one student is the runner, and the other is the writer. Usually there is a text somewhere, one of the students runs and remembers the text (words, sentences), the other writes it down. They also change. However, there are several questions any teacher should ruminate over before doing it. #methodology #work_at_school #work #activities_ideas

I am back, surprise, surprise... Hopefully, some time in the future I will have enough energy and other resources to post at least twice a week, but probably not yet.

There was one more hands-on presentation - one about various AI tools conducted by Evheniy Usachev. I also got a chance to meet some old acquaintances and catch up with them. As well as devirtualize with some amazing people. However, there is always a fly in the ointment. There was a section on failure we experience as teachers. It's my personal opinion but most of them were actually failures, not just talks about them. Maria's (manka_English) talk about pre-schoolers was really poignant and thought-provoking. Other than this one, though... Some insights: 1) when someone prattles on about smth you find dull, it's tough to be attentive (a reminder to activate schemata and of the importance of lead-in activities in general). 2) Teachers in Russia want someone to tell them it's ok not to take Cambridge exams (I agree here, a teacher doesn't have to have a CAE or CPE certificate, but in my opinion, C1 is a must to teach pre-schoolers and teens and adults of levels from B1+). 3) My colleagues are amazing! Every time I venture out of my safe bubble at school, I reaffirm myself in this understanding. 4) Every year most conferences are dedicated to the current trends and it's understandable. 2022 it was Critical Thinking, 2022 - EQ, this year it's AI. However, there are less and less little general/advanced methodology talks. And some people, myself included, desperately need them. #methodology #work #conference #CPD #random_musings

Going to the 2023 Trendy conference I honestly wasn't expecting much. Frankly speaking, my expectations were spot on, bar a couple notable presentations. The first was Kate Redkina with her talk about our perception of students. That we tend to pay more attention to the "good" students, give them more feedback, praise them more. Looking back I can say that I was guilty of that as well, but for a short while and not anymore. I am fortunate to work in an environment that makes it obvious that a "bad" English student can be amazing at a plethora of other subjects. And I've always been an advocate of underdogs having been one myself all of my school career, though it was not academically but rather communication-wise. The second was by Elena Sarnavskaya who gave precise and very specific instructions on how to use Chat GPT. Very useful for some teachers, but given the size and detail of the prompt you need to write, it seems easier to me to write the text yourself.

And it's only Monday...

One last thing I’d like to share today is an analogy that came to my mind. I was speaking with one of the mentees and told her that one of their responsibilities while observing classes is to pick up bits and pieces that will make-up their “teacher”, like the crazy but brilliant doctor from the iconic book by Mary Shelley did. Recalling my early teaching days and even contemplating the current period of my teaching career, I am still playing Victor Frankenstein and creating my “monster” teacher out of the parts I am still collecting and will probably never stop. The fingers fall off and need replacing, the leg doesn’t work quite well for the context and so on. All our teaching careers are littered with our parts and the process, unlike the one in the book, is never complete. It’s absolutely fine to discard something that doesn’t work even if you love it dearly. I hope that the “monster” my assistant creates will be a functional one. And she’ll never be scared of improving some parts of herself to create a better version. However, some pieces should be put to storage as there might still be the right time for them. #work #interns #mentorship

It has been already two weeks since I started mentoring one of the novice teachers the school hired as “assistants”. At the moment in time, frankly speaking, there is not much assisting going on. The programme is so that they will only be taking part in lessons from November and teaching full lessons in January (approximately). For now, my wonderful mentee is just observing my lessons and attending input sessions with an actual CELTA trainer. If, after reading the last part, you thought that the girls are extremely lucky, well, I have to agree with you here. Especially given the fact that there are only 3 of them, and they get paid (GASP!). I must say that I am quite fortunate as well as I have learned (or was reminded of) several valuable things in the last weeks. One is that failures are subjective. I think that the lesson is a failure as I am very strict to myself. But the mentee notes the flexibility as I change the outline on the go, and is pretty impressed (though it doesn’t really take much to impress them). The other is that being responsible for the possible future employee is not an easy burden to carry. If my mentee decides to stay at my school and is accepted, some things that she might do in the future will reflect on me. And our brains are wired in a way that we remember negative things better. Well, I have made my bed and shall lie in it. Fingers crossed, it’ll all turn out great. #work #interns #mentorship

Can you guess what the words were? I understand that it might be virtually impossible without context, but as I have already said, there is no correct answer! Go ahead and use your imagination! ☺️ #activities_ideas #tech_stuff #AI #lesson_materials

JUST ANOTHER AI TRICK This blog is not to be dedicated to just my ranting, but also different tricks I use in my classes. This sharing will serve two main purposes: 1) My readers will hopefully learn something new and applicable. 2) I will not forget any of the above-mentioned tricks. 😅 A couple of days ago I was preparing for a private lesson and was thinking about how to revise some vocabulary from the previous lesson. Most of the lexical items, picked out personally by the student, were not united under an umbrella of a common topic. I usually prepare a list of open, genuine questions using the words, but this time I wanted to season the lesson with a bit of creativity. So I invented some sentences with the words, put them in an AI picture generator and voila! A nice activity to activate schemata and revise the lexical items. How to do it: 1) Use your imagination and write some weird sentences/prompts. 2) Put them in a picture generator. 3) Ask your students to guess what the prompts were. 4) The end. What to use: 1) https://www.freepik.com/ai-images-editor - 40 pictures a day for free, plenty enough 2) https://web.telegram.org/a/#6016052075 - prompts only in Russian, but we can translate, can’t we? Benefits: 1) A quick warm-up. 2) Good for activating schemata. 3) A task that fits both grammar and vocabulary revision. 4) Allows the student to think creatively. 5) Open ended as there is no correct answer and even in mixed-level classes everybody will participate. 6) Very engaging (well, to my students). #activities_ideas #tech_stuff #AI #lesson_materials

#life #funsies

Here are some more pictures that different AI picture generators managed to come up with for the prompt "урок английского языка для взрослых студентов в цирке с конями".