Keep Calm and Teach English

The 21st March is  World Poetry Day  and it is an excellent opportunity to show students a film I am particularly fond of (in fact most teachers are): Dead Poets Society. Dead Poets Society   is a 1989 American drama film directed by Peter Weir, written by Tom Schulman, and starring Robin Williams. Set in 1959 at the fictional elite conservative boarding school Welton Academy, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry. There are tons of worksheets out there for both native and EFL students focusing on different aspects of the film. The film itself is very rich in  literature material and can provoke discussions on many issues like poetry, conformity, education, the list goes on.  The following worksheets are inspired by the ones found on the internet so in this sense they are not original. However they are written with my students in mind (ideally 15-18 year olds at B1+ level) and are adapted to what can be easily

After studying the behavior of thousands of children, Dr. Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence.  When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger. Therefore they put in extra time and effort, and that leads to higher achievement. Our brain has enough plasticity meaning that we can increase our neural growth by the actions we take, such as using good strategies, asking questions, practicing, and following good nutrition and sleep habits. Studies on different kinds of praise have shown that telling children they are smart encourages a fixed mindset,  whereas praising hard work and effort cultivates a growth mindset. When students have a growth mindset, they take on challenges and learn from them, t hey are not afraid to fail therefore increasing their abilities and achievement.  In a recent interview , Dr Dweck believes that as e

One of the most important rules a learner of English should learn is basic word order in English. It is very common for Greek EFL learners to write incorrect sentences as Greek syntax is very flexible in terms of word order. The English language however follows stricter rules and any sentence that does not follow the rules not only sounds  wrong but is  in fact wrong. We tend to emphasize the order of certain words within a sentence, like for example adverbs of frequency, but we don't give our students enough practice on basic sentence structure.  photo by  stevepb The following lesson  has been in my mind for a long time as whenever I correct my students' writings I observe the same word order mistakes over and over again. I found an interesting diagram on SVOMPT in  engames.eu  but I decided to design it a bit different.  So here it is: