The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up... Your Lesson Plans- 3 Strategies

We've all been asking ourselves what sparks joy. I hear the Goodwill donations are out of control this year. Thanks Marie Kondo!

But let's talk about the classroom. I'm a bit jealous of those teachers that find joy in lesson planning. If it was up to me, I'd donate this process to Goodwill because it no longer brings me joy, but... it's a reality.

As ESL teachers, we move fast. No one has the luxury of time when it comes to learning a language. Everyone is contrainted by financial, physical, or mental energy boundaries. High school students need to graduate. College students need to stop paying tuition, and immigrants are ready to enter the workforce. These are all reasonable constraints.

Teachers, however, have their own constraints. ESL requires a lot of knowledge if it is to be taught well, but it's not only head knowledge, no- this is half of our job. We must create conditions for language to improve, flourish, and grow. If I, as the teacher, speak the for the duration of the class, I'm doing something wrong. And so we find ourselves in a balancing act.

We need to strategize about planning by stretching our ideas out. Less can be more. Teachers are idea people, but with the cognitive load of the job, we need to strategize to thrive. If we only spend time surviving, we will find ourselves in burn-out mode, looking towards the private sector, or being that angry old teacher that we all had in high school.

Method #1

Big Idea People

Start with a big idea, project, poster session, or field trip. Then work backwards. Think of all the linguistic material the students will need to achieve this end task. Think of areas they will need support.

For example:

I asked my class to come up with a new business idea, and they needed more support than I expected, so after class I wrote some notes and created some worksheets for the next time. I also turned this project into multiple grammar, editing, speaking, and writing assignments. Our entire 7-week course was dedicated to this project. Most activities that we did in class supported this project.

Method #2

Planner Type People

You don't need to make everything for your students. Actually, please don't. When we teach language, we don't need to provide all the content, but we do need to correct it. Let the students write the content. It will be more interesting for you and for them.

For example:

I often have my students reflect on what we learn in class. I started my Reading and Writing class with this topic last week. What is the purpose of this class? They throw out thinks like: grammar, essay writing, paragraph structure, reading, and spelling. I write these on the board. Then I ask them what other things they need to practice in class. And we add pronunciation and speaking. I write it on the board. We could stop there. I could say, "That was a great discussion." However, I should keep stretching. So, I ask the students to get in pairs and rank the different things we do in class. First, they rank from most important to least important and then from easiest to most difficult.

This achieves so many goals. 1) Students analyze what happens in class. 2) Students get to be honest, but not embarrassed about what they need me to teach in class. 3) This increases student ownership of our course. This leads to a more student centered approach.

Does this mean that I will only teach things they think are easy? No, but I can remind them that I hear them.

Method #3

Don't miss the moment

Students would NEVER try to get a teacher off track... No, but really they try! Does it work? Sometimes. However, we need to be reminded as teachers to live in the moment. We are so preoccupied with our plans that sometimes we don't know when to throw it out. We can always come back to it the next day. Language questions appear in the brain at sometimes inconvenient moments. Teachers may not be ready to answer those questions. If not, make a note and plan a lesson for it in a few days. If you are ready to answer the question, dive in! I realize we all have goals to meet, but students' needs should be driving out class time. It's not always possible, btu it can be quite magical when it happens.

Should I let my students translate?

Every language teacher understands that smartphone technology has made translating infinitely easier. Gone are the days of lugging around my language dictionary from class to class. While cell phones make life easier in this way, we are also keenly aware of their role as a nuisance. No matter what age we teach, cell phones have the power to take everyone off task.

If we ask the question of translating, we are also asking the question of cell phones.

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1. We need to teach students about translating.

Telling students that translating is "bad" is not a strategy. Students will see through this statement. Telling students to stop using their cell phones is also not going to work. So, how can we work through this issue? Take the word "run" for example. Pull up the page in the dictionary for the word run. Show students how many uses there are for the word "run." Ask students to then think of all the uses of the word run in their first langauge. I doubt that students will get over 20 uses of the word run; however, in English there are over 20 uses. There are also many phrasal verbs with this word that confuse matters even further.

If we have a conversation about translating and the limitations of it, students will learn how to use it more effectively. Most likely students will not find 20 uses of the word "run" in their native language, so open the conversation about how translating is not a 1 for 1 correlation. Yes, words like eat, sleep, and walk are a 1 for 1 correlation, but these words can be used to have deeper meanings and connotations that are not clearly translatable.

2. We need to build an appreciation for our students' languages

Every year languages are dying across the globe. With the fading of language, we lose culture and knowledge. While most of my students do not come from a dying language, I think as educators we need to embrace learning our students' worlds. Yes, I am an English teacher, but I want students to value each other and where they come from.

Also, it is very difficult to "pick up" a language with no reference to your L1 (first language). Just find a few YouTube videos of Finnish (for example), you may not be able to pick anything up. Translating is the first step to building a foundation of language so th

I think asking for "English Only" in a classroom has well-meaning intentions, but I think teachers should consider the power dynamic it creates. Yes, students should not be leaving other students out by only speaking in their native language, but there is a way in which we can honor our students' languages instead of cutting them off immediately. Find videos about different languages here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXwQZgmkgzDh0zBTPlQ0XWvgfvTMZQ_R1

Anyone that has spent a significant time in a different culture understands the kind of toll it can take on a person. I encourage students to teach each other pieces of their language as a way to appreciate one another. I also make an effort to learn a bit of my students' languages as a way to more effectively teach them. I can't be fluent in everything, but I can make an effort to appreciate their language.

3. We need to let students translate, carefully.

Cell phones have changed everything. I remember spending hours using my Chinese dictionary looking up words by their radicals. This was very time consuming. Now, I can just use my finger to write the character into a field and Google will automatically search for me. This is an incredible time saver.

However, we need to discuss in our class the way memory works. Memory is aided by physically using our hand to write something down. Taking a photo of the board or a screenshot of the phone does not use as many neural connections as physically writing the word with my hand. Faster isn't always more efficient. Words are easily forgotten if they are not used. Students should be encouraged to use the word in many ways, so they can commit it to memory.

The Magic of VoiceThread in the Classroom Part 3

There are many interesting ideas you can use to spice up your VoiceThreads. While most of these were used with beginners, they could be adapted to fit higher level language classrooms as well. Here are four ideas for interesting VoiceThreads:

1. Finish the story. In many of Keith Folse’s speaking books, he provides prompts for “finish the story” activities. Because students can look up answers to real life stories online, you may want to change dates or names if you are using a factual story. I’ve used the story from the movie “127 Hours” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1542344/ and asked students to respond with what happened. Students get extra points for getting the correct answer. You could also use stories from textbooks like Easy True Stories https://www.amazon.com/Easy-True-Stories-Picture-Based-Beginning/dp/080131089X You supply the beginning of the story and students must guess how it ended. They lose all points if their ending is the same as another student’s ending, so they have to listen to everyone else’s ideas too.

2. Would You Rather? Remember that game “Would you rather?” where the card has two options and both options really stink, but you have to pick between them? This is a pretty fun game on VT. Basically you have students pick between the two options and they need to give an explanation. If you want to make it harder, don’t let students repeat explanations.

3. Experiment with register. ESL students need help in understanding the way that intonation is used in different settings. VT is a great place to experiment with register. Have students record a VT like a sports radio announcer, give a business pitch like on Shark Tank, practice talking to your boss for a big raise, or try to sell a car. Any scenario that fits with your textbook and practices a different intonation will stretch their abilities.

4.

Have students prep for a class project. Don’t forget you can have students talk out their main points for a paper, prep for an upcoming presentation, or summarize a reading text. Anywhere that you want to incorporate speaking and technology in your classroom you can use VT.

*I have not received any financial support from Voice Thread.