tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67470922393031395112024-02-02T05:44:35.807+02:00English WonderlandLook for miracles, they are everywhere ;)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-54292455859369030192015-11-23T10:32:00.002+02:002015-11-23T10:32:18.849+02:002 Simple Ice-breakers To Start A LessonLast week I tried out two new ice-breakers at the very beginning of the lesson, and it worked well in both Elementary groups. To make long story short, here they are:
1) Alphabet Race. Write all the alphabet letters in a list form. Divide students into 2-3 teams. Set the timer for 2-3-5 minutes. The task can vary:
- write 1 word starting with each letter of the alphabet
- write two words Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-19052891843219915962015-10-23T12:52:00.002+02:002015-10-23T12:53:23.848+02:00The Learning Pyramid
One of the reasons why I love my job is in people that work for Unium. And it's not only about how friendly, positive, ready to help and open they are. It's also about how eager they always are to develop. How intelligent and broad-minded, well-educated and curious they are. Coming with all different backgrounds they will never stop surprising you.
And thanks to one of the colleagues I Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-70148414581014753692015-10-19T17:54:00.001+02:002015-10-19T17:56:53.715+02:00Broaden Your Students' BoardersAt some point (usually in the middle of semester) I start giving out tasks to prepare a presentation at home and deliver it in front of the class at the lesson. It's individual work, no teams or pairs. The speaker chooses the means himself - PowerPoint, posters, blackboard, etc. or nothing at all.
And this semester I have got a group of really great 5-6 graders - they are super capable, willing Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-28410474177762582992015-10-07T19:43:00.000+02:002015-10-07T19:49:37.229+02:00Motivation and Reward Systems to Implement
Not only has
the new school year started, but it’s already been two weeks, which means two
lessons with each group for me. And I’ve been really eager to start posting at
least once a week in summer, but procrastination and lack of self-pushing didn’t
let me do that.
In short, I
was lucky to be a part of two camps – one two-week regular camp, where my colleague-partner
and I were leaders of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-72447966475021073132015-05-26T23:16:00.001+02:002015-05-26T23:16:10.656+02:00Learning French flashmobA lot of people around have been talking and writing about podcasts. Every resourse/blog on personal development topic says at least a few words about podcasts and audio books - sources of information that I have been denying for several reasons. But the joy of using them has finally found me and I can't wait to share one particular podcast that I have been trying out for the last week or so.
A Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-22111899068632258572015-05-17T08:19:00.000+02:002015-05-17T08:19:02.427+02:00Speaking Club on American CultureSo I've been progressing with my Speaking Club project. Thanks to my methodists' support, we are going to have the first and second meetings repeated and I'm also about to start writing the third plan. At this point I want to share with you the second meeting plan which was devoted to American culture! We had a native speaker joining us, thanks to one of my colleagues, and were able to make it Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-51986751828151132732015-05-13T22:00:00.002+02:002015-05-13T22:03:44.498+02:003 Games for English Young LearnersLast autumn we had a seminar at Unium, devoted to playing games at our English lessons. It was organised by one of the teachers - she arranged everything, shared some of the games herself and it turned out to be a great event, like any gathering at Unium to be exact. Truly, I'm not exaggerating or something, I just really love my company and absolutely objectively - people who work there are Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-52736907223850744992015-05-08T07:38:00.006+02:002015-05-08T07:38:55.361+02:00Primary Colours WeekI have so many things to write about and I haven't written anything for so long!
Let me start with something that has just recently ended. We had a Primary Colours Week at Unium and it was awesome!
When I was in America, I remembered a Crazy Socks Day at school as something great that we don't have and as something that would make school life more fun and enjoyable. I always ask this Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-28620246825272167442015-05-01T10:37:00.001+02:002015-05-01T10:37:26.053+02:00Mrs. Dailey's Classroom: Making Thinking Visible {I Used to Think...Now I T...Mrs. Dailey's Classroom: Making Thinking Visible {I Used to Think...Now I T...: I have been reading such a unique book called, Making Thinking Visible at my school with a few teachers and it's been filled with differ...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-11966330688219182912015-04-20T00:05:00.000+02:002015-04-20T00:05:10.761+02:00How To Turn Your Lesson Into a Quest in 15 MinutesToday I decided to add more fun to our usual small competitions and unite all the exercises under one topic. We had an Adventure Islands Quest. You can see our route on the right. As you see, it takes not more then just a picture on the board.
As we were doing it I thought that I could have made a paper boat so that it would travel for real. That would have added some interactivity, you now.
ThisAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-44987641345256263782015-04-19T00:09:00.002+02:002015-04-19T00:14:39.444+02:00Waking Up With The Sun
Good morning to everyone!
Sun is hiding behind the building. But it's there.And it's the most important thing :)
I want to share something beautiful with you today. It's been 6th day now (with one failure in the middle) that I'm waking up with the sunrise. It sounds really crazy to me! Such an owl, a sleep-in person I am! I have always had troubles with waking up in general. And now I feel Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-87834624825049387192015-04-07T23:17:00.003+02:002015-04-07T23:17:16.291+02:00Reading as an Integral Part of Education ProcessLast Friday I had a wonderful day attending an annual conference on reading and literacy issues held by Reading Association of Russia (http://rusreadorg.ru/en). It was a fruitful experience as I got to learn a lot of theoretical and practical info, which I am going to share with you :)
Information and statistics
First of all, some interesting facts which were mentioned in young scientistsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-83009824510235691432015-03-29T01:17:00.000+02:002015-04-07T23:31:38.998+02:00Assigning creative tasks wiselyBeing a real fan of communicative and project-based approaches I often find myself writing a lesson plan that leads to writing and presenting a poster/idea/concept, etc. Judging by my experience with such tasks and tasks on creative essays, students nowadays are struggling with coming up with ideas and something new. Well, to some extent it's just the matter of their age - boys of 11-15 years oldAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-58413777802187757462015-03-27T23:59:00.003+02:002015-03-27T23:59:32.894+02:00The Imitation GameYesterday I had pleasure to watch a rather smashing hit - The Imitation Game. To start right away - here are the ways I'm going to use it:
1) grab some new vocab for myself ^_^. And since I recently suggested a scheme for vocab learning, I should probably show it in action
So these are the words that turned out to be new for me
2) look for pieces to use at the lessons, since Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-56427320800626473322015-03-23T23:25:00.003+02:002015-03-23T23:25:37.581+02:00How to motivate your students to do homework
Here is a tip I came across in the net I don't remember how long ago. And this semester I decided to try it out with my 5-6 graders. And as you can see from the photo, the thing is working! All the exercises for homework (including written assignments such as essays) are handed in in time and always! Now, the price I'll have to pay is the following :) - when the number hits ten, I'm gonna throw Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-48798752373694200042015-03-21T11:52:00.002+02:002015-03-21T11:53:46.566+02:00Vocabulary Learning Strategy
You might be aware of this strategy, however I want to share this little tip with you since I find this strategy to be particularly useful when studying new vocabulary at higher levels
The idea is that you create such scheme and provide two examples, synonyms and defintions for a word (these are the most important parts). Origins may help you memorize the meaning if you are familiar with Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-11058457759589234742015-03-19T20:35:00.000+02:002015-03-29T20:51:44.631+02:00Speaking Club Ideas + Making CrosswordsAs I have promised, I'm providing my plan for a Speaking Club meeting. The first we held was devoted to the topic of city life, or life in Moscow to be particular.
Despite it may seem a bit dull, such topic I mean, the approach and the way we presented the material proved itself successfull and kids loved it!
To set the scene, there were 12 students of Pre-Int and Int level. There were two of usAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-67164099641830667462015-03-17T23:06:00.003+02:002015-03-17T23:10:33.314+02:00Long Time No Write; Teacher's 8th of March
It's been a while since I wrote last, and well mainly it's connected with the beginning of a new semester both at Uni and at work :) so here I am again, swapping my teacher-student roles everyday which is fun and makes me believe The Desk Theory. Or The Desk Effect to be more accurate. It's about changing your behaviour once you are sitting at a student's desk. Like from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. I'm a Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-90939442836868587082015-02-09T01:20:00.002+02:002015-02-09T01:22:24.395+02:0012 week year №1. Week 1.So here I am, finishing up The Defining Decade, planning to write a review on it while I haven't even written any review on The 12 Week Year yet. Plus I'd like to share some notes and ideas concering my first lessons with new groups, which happened yeasterday and today. And it's already 1:30 a.m. So I'm a bit confused whether I should go to sleep and deal with all the blog entries in the morning Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-13801101167057362402015-01-29T22:23:00.003+02:002015-01-29T22:23:34.352+02:00Seminar on using videos in ESL classroom at British Council
Today I had
a chance to attend a seminar on using videos in classroom. It was very nice and useful indeed and I
thought I should share with you what I learned and what seemed to be
interesting there.
Well, first
of all the seminar itself was rather interactive – the speaker tried her best
to engage the audience as much as possible which helped to make the meeting
more beneficial and, what’s Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-38960742683685899522015-01-29T00:26:00.000+02:002015-01-29T00:26:01.132+02:00Reading The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. Intro + Chapter 1 of Part 1. JobTo make my reading more effective I decided to give some feedback on chapters from the books that I read and provide a final review when I finish.
So today I started reading a New York Time's bestseller which has been translated to dozens of languages and has reaped glory all other the world for being "excellent" and "just the right book for people of 20-30". It's The Defining Decade: Why Your Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-62348317804226719762015-01-26T20:30:00.004+02:002015-01-26T20:30:48.113+02:00Storytelling. Part 1.So here I am, preparing for my new post for the Teacher of The Year at Unium, watching different TED videos and reading articles on storytelling. I decided to make the topic of Creativity my field of study for the next post. Hopefully I will be able to gather some interesting material. So I would like to share with you what I have learned so far.
At first, I'll share two the most interesting Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-4084278627598842702015-01-25T00:49:00.005+02:002015-01-25T00:49:57.358+02:00Sherlock Holmes QuestToday was our last lesson in this semester and I'm really excited right now about strating the new Intermediate textbook in two weeks with my elder students!I hope that all of them will stay in the group, we'll add couple new faces and start fresh and kickng right away!
I would like to share with you ideas and materials I used for our last lesson. We always try to make it special - prepare a Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-34938182693193960732015-01-18T22:48:00.002+02:002015-01-18T22:48:19.984+02:00American English vs Russian
Today I came across a very interesting youtube channel run by a very funny guy who travels around Russia ans gives lessons together with recording some video lessons which are free of charge.
I'd like to give direct links to his resources and post one of his videos on rather unusual topic on some English-Russian slang equivalents. Dear Philochko, I think you are great! :) Thank you for what Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747092239303139511.post-22713453728956032672015-01-17T23:26:00.002+02:002015-01-17T23:26:48.700+02:00Learn to learn: tools for selfdevelopmentToday's post is going to be devoted to tools that I use to develop my skills and abilities: both personal and professional.
The idea to write a post on that topic belongs to The Teacher of The Year contest organizers at Unium. It's one of the topics we are supposed to wirte on as the second challenge on that competition. So I decided to make this post useful for everybody and provide some great Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09029574212000242596noreply@blogger.com0