The First Seminar Was Entitled Creative Teaching. This Was the Abstract

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

18 March 2011

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It was a great pleasure to visit Amnaand meet you on 8 March. Thank you for staying on for the session after you’d already done a day’s work. I’m sorry that it’s taken me until now to send you the promised summary of our work together – I was at TESOL Arabia and then came back to find my Libyan students’ return date had been changed once again and so had to arrange a series of extra classes at short notice.

The first seminar was entitled Creative teaching. This was the abstract:

There are two different ways in which we can be creative as teachers. The first is to look in new ways at the standard things we all need to do as teachers. So, for example, how do we make dictation interesting or how to do we teach numbers or body parts in ways that our learners enjoy and never forget? The second is to do something genuinely original or creative, drawing on our own and our students’ imaginations and creativity to make the classroom a wonderful place to be in and to make the English class the students’ favourite school experience. In this workshop, I’ll share a number of new ways of looking at standard practice and of being genuinely original. Come along prepared for an experiential workshop which should be fun and provide you with stimulating new ideas.

Looking in new ways at the standard things we all need to do as teachers

Dictation

-conjunction dictation: Adam n (Eve); son/sun n (daughter/moon); cat n (dog/mouse); fish n (chips); saltn (pepper/vinegar); bread n (water/butter/milk/jam); land n (sea); sea n (sky); cheese n (biscuits)

-types of number: 2.30 (time); 8/3/11 (date); 3-1 (football score); 27th May (birthday); 4.99 (price); 420 4444 (telephone number); 1794 (car engine); 6 (time post box is emptied)

-‘to’ dictation: I came to Doha on Sunday (3); I’m going to Dubai too (3?/4?); today travel is easier than ever (0); do you agree that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (0); to feel at home go to Qatar (1 and 6)

-future dictation: Today is Monday 8 March (pause for effect) 2021. I live at ….. with ….. I work as ….. The best thing that happened to me last year was ….. I get most pleasure from ….. When I look back to my life in 2011, I …..

And one more idea: simply dictate prompt words every 20 seconds – the students should write as much as possible before you say the next word. Try words like: home – brother – rain – dream – red – breakfast

Numbers

-the students rule two columns – real and ideal; you dictate things like ‘weight’ and they write down either their real or their ideal weight - it’s up to them: age, weight, height, dob, mobile number’ shoe size, pocket money, etc.

-each student invents a question to which the answer is a number – e.g., how many days in a week?

-personalized how many: in your room, how many light bulbs, pictures, pieces of furniture, socks in the drawer, other people in the last week, books, cosmetic bottles, things that should be thrown away

-random numbers – each student thinks of a random number and then has to decide how it’s relevant to them

And one more idea: how average am I? the students rule three columns, less than average, average, more than average. You tell them you’re average and you’re going to tell them things about yourself. So if you say ‘I have two brothers’, anyone who has fewer writes the number of brothers they have in the less than average column, and anyone who has more writes the number of brothers they have in the more than average column: tell them your height, shoe size, age, how many CD’s you own, etc.

Doing something genuinely original or creative

-Empty chair: the students putquestions to someone sitting in the empty chair next to the teacher and the teacher answers them. Can be done with objects too – glasses, clothing, hair, handbags, etc.

-Scrambled lines of poetry – so passeth in the passing of a day/Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower

-Postcards: working in small groups, the students write 5 questions about an image; they then answer their own questions and pass the image and the answers to another group, who have to work out the original questions. A version of this can also be done with stories (as we mentioned in the second seminar) – a student writes a description of a short incident from their own lives and in small groups the other students work out 10-15 questions about the story. These questions are passed to another group who have to rewrite the story.

Another idea: ask the students to work in pairs. Each pair chooses a postcard and has four small stick-on stars, one represents a mobile phone, one a sandwich, one a poisonous spider, and one a screwdriver. They stick their stars on the image and then work out the story, which they write on the back of the postcard. Each pair exchanges postcards with another pair and tries to invent a story. Once they’ve done this, they turn the card over and read the other pair’s story. Which is better?

The second seminar was entitled Getting learners talking. This was the abstract:

We all know that nothing is more inhibiting than having to talk in public in a language that we hardly know. Yet at the same time, as we begin to make progress, nothing gives us more satisfaction than being able to communicate in a second language. So how do we get our students from the first state of inhibition to the second state of feeling good about themselves? Part of the trick is undoubtedly to work communicatively in situations in which no single learner feels called on to perform in public. Another way of building confidence is to set up communicative situations in which learners are rehearsing what they want they say inside their own heads without necessarily having to deliver it openly. Most important of all, we need to find ways of getting our learners talking in English without the teacher monitoring, judging and, as a result, inhibiting them. In this workshop, I’ll share a number of ideas which do the trick for me, and which I hope will do it for you too.

Questions

-In small groups, ask each other a wh-question, a yes/no question, a yes/yes question and a no/no question

-Twenty questions. The students have 20yes/no questions to try to guess the content of a short-short newspaper story.

• Story 1: I’M IN TRAP ONE Locked-in Pat Barker, 43, called cops in the UK who tracked her to a loo in Krakow, Poland.
• Story 2: WRONG NAME TO PICK Jonothan Ray Gonsalez, of Box Elder, told police in Montana that he was Timothy Michael Koop Jr to evade arrest but a man by that name was also wanted by police. Gonsalez was charged with drug possession and giving a false name.

Another idea (which a small number of us discussed after the seminar): Take a small object to class – ornaments work well. The students ask twenty yes/no questions to try and find out what it looks like and what colours it has. Give out felt pens and ask the students to draw the object. Group students in 10’s and ask them to identify the two most different drawings, which they place at opposite ends of a row of desks. They arrange the remaining 8 drawings between the two opposite poles. You then reveal the object and place it on the drawing that is most like it (hopefully in the middle of the continuum).

Learner investment

-20 words: the students call out 20 words which you write on the board. They then rule three columns, past, present, future, and must assign each of the words to one of the columns before comparing their work with a classmate’s.

-Interrupting stories: working in groups of three, one student tries to tell a story about themselves and the other two students try to prevent his/her finishing it by constantly interrupting with questions

Another idea: students work in groups of three. One student tells the others about a bad habit he/she would like to give up. The other two make suggestions to help the student to give up the bad habit, but she must reject each suggestion with a sentence beginning with the words ‘Yes, but..’

Harder tasks

-Jabber: two students and an interpreter. One student speaks only English and the other only Jabber. The third student can speak both and is the interpreter. Possible scenarios: English-speaking teacher tells Jabber speaking parent that her child is badly behaved at school; Jabber speaking patient visits English speaking doctor with a medical problem; English speaking immigration officer finds problems at the airport with Jabber speaker’s entry papers

-Rod biography: the teacher tells the students about his/her family or friends or work colleagues. Each time a person is mentioned, the teacher uses blu-tack to stick a silent way rod on the board to represent this person. The people should be grouped – e.g., parents together, children together, grandparentstogether, etc. When the biography is complete, draw circlesround all the groups of people and remove the rods from the board. The class have to re-assemble them using exactly the words used by the teacher. This can also be done as a ‘mirroring’ technique: two students sit in front of the teacher who tells them a story about him/herself. They then have to reconstruct this story using exactly the same words as the teacher – the other members of the class may also contribute (works well if they have to leave their seats to do this and come up behind the two student mirrors).

Once again, it was a pleasure to meet you. I wish you every success in the future.

With best wishes, Peter (Grundy)

PS If you’re interested in the use of Art in language classes, I’ve just finished a book with several co-authors. It’s called English through Art and you can see it on the Helbling Languages website, where you can also download 4 free activities.