Keep Calm and Teach English

Our eTwinning project is coming to an end. In the course of this project we exchanged postcards with our partners and learnt a lot about Wroclaw, a beautiful city in western Poland. Our final mission was to co-write a story. We chose to write a love story between one of Wroclaw's city trademark dwarfs, and our own "Daughter of Veroia", a small statuette of a young maiden, found in our city. We then  narrated and recorded the story in a joint video:

In the course of the newly initiated Theme Week in Greek Junior High Schools, I have designed the following page primarily as a way to organise the material needed for discussing gender stereotypes. photo by  GDJ Suitable for B1 or higher level students of 15 years and older.

For Safer Internet Day 2017 , 1,500 young people aged 8-17 years took part in an online survey conducted by ResearchBods and commissioned by the UK Safer Internet Centre. The aim was to explore the role of images and videos in young people’s digital lives and the influence this can have on their self-esteem, behaviour and emotions. The findings reveal how important images and videos are in young people's digital lives, demonstrating the positive role this plays as well as the risks and pressures they may face as a result. It underlines the importance of ensuring that all children have the skills, knowledge, confidence and resilience to communicate using images and videos safely, responsibly and creatively. Parents, teachers and most importantly schools in general should be able to understand the implications such surveys convey in order to guide children and teens towards better and  safer  internet use. 

Doing Projects and Project- Based Learning are not quite the same thing. T he chart below by Amy Mayer, clarifies the main difference between the two.  “Projects” can represent a range of tasks that can be done at home or in the classroom by groups of students, quickly or over time. While project-based learning (PBL) also features projects, in PBL the focus is more on the process of learning and learner-peer-content interaction than the end-product itself. For more information on this engaging, learner-centred method you can browse my learning diary  on  the "Introducing Project-Based Learning" MOOC,  which comprises a wide range of examples, materials and ideas on how to implement PBL in our classroom.

One more interesting and inspiring MOOC offered by the European Schoolnet Academy has ended. This MOOC's aim was to train and empower teachers in fostering the sense of initiative and the entrepreneurial mind-set of their students by developing innovative and creative attitudes and skills. The sense of initiative and entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action through creativity, innovation, and risk-taking as well as the ability to plan and manage projects . It is a key competence that can be developed through any school subject,  from primary to secondary and beyond. It does not necessarily involve a specific school subject. Rather, it requires a way of teaching in which experiential learning and project work have the main role.

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 ...

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...