Starting a Lesson Differently Makes all the Difference!

       To me the beginning is what hooks students and engages them in a lesson! So I always try to find an engaging activity for  a good start. Piquing students curiosity at the start of a lesson with a picture, realia, music, or a thought provoking question relates them to the lesson, making them predict the topic, the content, targeted vocabulary or the characters involved in a story.This process stimulates their neurons according to a  study  from the University of Virginia, published in October 2014, it arouses their intrinsic motivation for an enjoyable learning experience.

     This is lesson 9 from the first Form English Course Book (intermediate).

             Lesson9 from Hayfa Mejdoub

       

      The hook in the lesson is the suspence atmosphere sparked by the soundtrack at the beginning. It engages hearing and feelings for immersion, motivation, and therefore results in a better retention. Click to listen to the audio. You'll find an explanation on how I used it in the detailed  lesson plan below.

     The following slides are my adaptation of the lesson. Using differentiation, storytelling, kinesthetic learning to respond to my students'different learning  styles.

               

              Who Was the Man? A Detailed Lesson Plan from Hayfa Mejdoub

              Your feedback on how I could improve this lesson is appreciated. ;)

My Teaching Manifesto

Cycle 6 of the 30 Goals Challenge: Inspire Forward!

Introduce us to your School... and Sway with me!

Proposing the goal for the #30goalsEdu was in itself a challenge. And now I'm achieving the second one by writing this post about my school and I'm eager to know about yours. I love challenges and this one in particular because I proposed it.

My Sway

My Flipping School Brochure

It includes the school's goals, motto and mission. I created this brochure using Gimp an open source software, and included some coding for the flipping effect!

Goal 2: Be Someone's Champion

Be someone's Champion!

We all might have come across teachers whom we won't forget... whom we admire. The kind of teachers who have a positive impact on our life. But what if you come to know you're that kind of teacher. Believe me there's no better reward for a teacher when they know they are someone's champion!

I was over the moon when I read my students messages to me. Those messages boosted my ego as a teacher and to me they are the best recognition for the countless time and efforts we spend doing our job to enlignten our students'minds, to encourage and praise, to help them value their strengths and work on their weaknesses, to loosen the pressure the day of an exam with a joke or even a smile, to acknowledge a skill or a characteristic a student has, inspite of a low test score,to broaden their horizons, your reward being - unconciously- called mom by one of your students, being remembered as THE TEACHER who inspired them.

Cycle 6 of The 30 Goals Challenge: Inspire Forward!

Send Them on Learning Missions: #EduLs

One of the best lessons I conducted with my 2nd formers this year is The Importance of Libraries. Below is the text to be read by my students.

A badge for the best sketchnote for boys.

A badge for the best sketchnote for girls.

After trying out mindmapping with my classes, I decided to venture into a new experience . Sketchnoting...The aim was to get my students to think deeply about the importance of libraries, through transforming the ideas dealt with in the text into visual thinking.

That process promotes the students active processing of information since they engage in deep comprehension. This is not all... Students are confronted to critical thinking and problem solving situations that emerge from transcribing the linear text into a visual, conveying the expected meaning.

I asked the students to find about sketchnoting before coming to class. However, they were curious to know how we will use it in class. So after finishing with the reading and the related tasks came the time to sketchnoting. I used some 'example' sketchnotes to demistify the concept and what I expected them to do. The results are not bad for a first time sketchnoting!

Below are some of the students' sketchnotes.

Sketchnoting in the EFL Classroom on PhotoPeach

UNDERSTANDING BLENDED LEARNING

   Last year, I started using a blended learning approach to teaching English for my 15-17 years old students, who are non-native speakers. I created facebook groups for many students in which I intended to share extra material related to the content dealt with in class or to make them view videos before a lesson, to share their work either homework, or (writing) activities they did in class. And later, as part of the students' project work. I'm writing about that later experience to reflect on how I could make it better.
The choice of blending was a personal initiative. I was experimenting, as I read about it I wanted to try it, especially because it extends learning beyond the classroom walls, and student's exposure to the target language beyond the three weekly hours provided at school.
I'll mainly be writing about blending as part of the project work that went through one term. Students who took part in the project were selected based on their motivation to join in. I created a facebook group for the purpose, and added my students. It was a space where I gave online instruction, online assignments, online feedback, where my students and I started discussions, posted questions... It was our common online space, but students had their individual space, they used blogs to reflect on and share their work. I had set objectives and vision of what I wanted my students to perform. The choice of blending in the project was to create a working environment for students to collaborate face to face and online, to find guidance and assistance when they were doing their tasks or assignments. It is that aspect of blended learning that 'allows the teacher to look for creative ways and use a variety of media to address the specific needs of his students'that appealed to me and to my students. It's not the "one-size-fits all", it's more individualized. For instance, students had the responsibility to join one of four groups based on their own choice of the final product they had to achieve in collaboration with their group or team. Students and teachers (team teaching) met face to face once to twice a week to discuss issues, to follow students' progress and collaborations.
. After reading chapter one I realized that planning and designing are key factors for the success of blending courses. Reflecting on my experience in blending, what I did was experimentation in incorporating technology in teaching. I like this quote 'Creating a blended learning strategy is an evolutionary process' (Sigh and Read, 2001). This is what blended learning is, no one could say that his or her experience is a fixed set that could be used as a standard, rather, educators and researchers find intersections from different experiences applicable to their own context. Even when having set one's own strategy for blending, we might modify or adjust on the way or for the next experience.

CHANGING PARADIGMS FOR LEARNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY