This document outlines an agenda for a workshop on sharpening teaching skills held on July 18-20, 2012. The morning session focuses on understanding today's students and their learning habits, as well as methodology for limited classroom resources. The afternoon focuses on cooperative learning, with objectives to overview the approach, discuss benefits and example activities, and have a debriefing. The final day discusses what makes "super teachers" and includes a presentation and discussion about modern students.
2. Sharpening the Saw mean preserving
and enhancing the greatest asset you
have- You
Stephen R Covey
3. Objectives and Outcomes
Morning Session
Our Students
• Learning habits of today’s students
• Focus on learning
• Understanding and using VAK
Methodology
for limited classroom resources
• Using pictures to teach
• Building vocabulary through mind maps
4. Afternoon Objectives and Outcomes
Focus on Learning
• Overview of Cooperative Learning
• Benefits
• Cooperative Learning Activity Ideas
• Example Activity
• Debrief
6. Discussion
What are the differences between today’s
teenagers, teenagers from 10+ years ago?
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7. A Vision of K-12 Students Today
Video Clip
What is the most interesting thing you learnt from this video
clip?
8. Thai Teenagers Today
• more creative
• more visual
• more technology literate
• more independent
• more ______________
Should teachers force students to learn the old ways, or should
teachers try to learn the new ways?
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10. “If a child can’t learn the way we
teach, maybe we should teach the
way they learn.”
Ignacio Estrada
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12. We all have preferred ways of
receiving and learning information
13. What type of learner are you?
•Visual learners learn by seeing and reading. They learn best through
textbooks, pictures, diagrams or demonstrations they can observe.
•Auditory learners excel through listening and speaking. Auditory learners will
do well in a lecture hall atmosphere, by listening to tapes or music.
•Kinesthetic or tactile learners learn best through touching and doing. Hands-
on activities work well for this type of learner, and a tactile learner tends to do
well with manual dexterity tasks.
No matter which learning style a child has - visual, auditory or tactile - a
combination of teaching styles can be effective since most people have a little
of each style and are dominant in one area. Knowing what type of learner a
child is makes teaching and learning much easier.
14. Visual Learners
Methods and Resources
•Write out notes using different coloured pens
•Draw diagrams and charts
•Use timelines
•Re-write facts, formulas, information, notes and pin them around your room.
•Use pictorial reminders
•Use highlighters
•Visually organise your notes into columns, page sections and forms
•Use mind maps
15. Auditory Learners
Methods and Resources
•Discuss facts, concepts and ideas with a friend.
•Do homework in a group
•Listen to tapes or record notes
•Walk around and talk through your notes
•Use rhymes and songs to memorise facts, times tables etc
•Give presentations and speeches to yourself.
•Read aloud
•Use auditory reminders
16. Kinesthetic learners
• Make models
• Take plenty of study breaks –
(Kinesthetic learners need more breaks than visual or auditory)
• Move around while learning something new
• Hold a stress ball
• Write notes on post-it notes and arrange them into topics
• Use the body pegs method of revising key points
(Attach a key word to a part of the body with an action)
• Label diagrams
• Re-enact information
• Go on site visits
17. Think about the questions
Share them with a friend
Share with your group
18. How do your students learn best?
Discussion questions:
What activities are you currently using in the classroom
to meet your students learning needs?
How does your learning environment support and
enhance learning?
What do you need to change in your teaching?
22. STARTING A LESSON
Open your books on page 61.
Do exercise 1. Start now!
A good start is half-way to success
Why are the students bored?
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29. 1.What colour is the car? Red
2.How many men are in the
photograph at the top of the
page? ( 3 )
3.What is under the car? ( a book )
4.How many medallions are there?
(6)
5.What word is on the cigarette
packet? ( Peace )
30. Using Pictures : Teaching Steps
Group Activity: Order the 7 teaching steps:
Teaching Steps Order 1-7
Ss write down answers
4
Ss check answers by opening their book
6
Cover up topic of the unit and ask ss to guess
1
Ss write down questions for their 5 answers
5
Elicit vocabulary & ask concept check 2
questions
T checks questions by writing them on board 7
Ss close books – ask 5 questions 3
31. Using Pictures: Teaching Steps
1. Cover up the topic of the unit and ask students to guess
2. Elicit vocabulary & ask concept checking questions
3. Ss close books – ask 5 questions
4. Students write down answers
5. Students write down the questions for their 5 answers
6. Students check answers by opening their book
7. Teacher checks questions by writing them on the board
TEACHING PRACTICE – GROUPS of 3
• You will receive an opening page from a unit.
• Your aim is to teach this to the 2 people in your group using the 7 steps above.
• You will have 5 minutes to plan ( write down the 5 questions you will ask )
• DO NOT write anything on the back of the page!
• You will teach your lesson in 5 minutes. Start planning now!
33. Listing style
drive ate win end
shark pool gift happy
future outdoor got steak
off else visitor black
34. classical jazz comedy
Music love Movies
pop FREE TIME action
ACTIVITIES swimming
Reading comics Sports
magazines newspapers football badminton
34
35. Mind mapping
Why is it easier to remember
words in “mind maps”
compared to lists?
36. Advantages of Mind maps
1. Word relationships
2. Personalization
3. Both sides of the brain
37.
38. classical jazz comedy
Music love Movies
pop FREE TIME action
ACTIVITIES swimming
Reading comics Sports
magazines newspapers football badminton
38
39. Mind Maps - Tips
• Try to make your mind map simple & easy to
understand – avoid having too many groups
• Use different colours for different groups
• Use pictures
• Use collocations ( e.g. verb & noun )
• Use sub-groups
40. Create a Mind Map
1. Look at the words below and decide how you will group
these words
2. Create a mind map adding these words
3. Add new words into each group
4. You have 8 minutes!
photo album bag camera
car comic computer
key mobile phone an MP3
a purse radio toy
travel card umbrella a watch
46. Afternoon Objectives and Outcomes
Focus on Learning
• Overview of Cooperative Learning
• Benefits
• Example Activity
• Debrief
47. Focus on Learning
Teachers:
• Facilitate learning
• Meet the individual needs of their students
• Optimize the learning experience
• Develop the skills that your child needs to become an
independent learner
48. Cooperative Learning Overview
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in
which small teams use a variety of learning activities to
improve their understanding of a subject. Cooperative
learning incorporates everyone, non- discriminatory of
level. Each member of a team is responsible for not only
learning what is taught, but also for helping their
teammates
49. • Positive Interdependence
• Face-to-Face Interaction
• Individual Accountability
• Interpersonal and Small Group Social Skills
•Group Processing
50. Warm Up Activity
Think about the benefits of cooperative learning. How can
cooperative learning help your students to be better
communicators in English?
What do you think were the benefits of this warm up?
51.
52.
53. 1. Presenter (presents to the class)
2. Reporter (tells the teacher about progress)
3. English monitor (makes sure that everyone uses
English in the other groups)
4. Manager (directs the group)
54. 1. Each person will draw a picture of an animal adaption –
for example a claw, or fur etc..
2. Take each adaptation and put them together to make an
animal.
3. As a group describe what your animal is using the
adaptations.
4. Give your animal a name
5. Present your animal to the group
55. • The concept of animal adaptations
• Animal parts
• Reasoning
•Critical thinking
•Creative thinking
•Using English for a meaningful reason
•Build confidence
•Develop interdependence
56.
57.
58. • Promotes effective communication skills
• Develops vocabulary
• Improves fluency
• Increase student listening skills
• Reduces language learning anxiety
•Provides meaningful and natural situations for students to
use English
• Enhances self management and confidence
•Demands involvement from all students
• Makes students responsible and accountable
• Increases learning potential and academic achievement
59. •Less talk from the teacher – more independence from
the students
•Enjoyable and prepares students for interaction
•Encourages the use of English relating to the activity
•Retention
•Develops self confidence
60. 1. What new skills or strategies did you learn today?
2. What will you do more of in the classroom?
3. What will you do less of in the classroom?
We face the most challenges in terms of technology, expectations and global changesThings that we teach today no longer apply tomorrow! Facts about the world are no longer a secret – the internet has all the answers
YOU WILL NEED THE VIDEO CLIP OF A VISION OF K-12 STUDENTS TODAY for this part.Before showing the clip ask teachers to consider this question while they are watching it. No need to elicit these, but here are some ideas expressed by the students:Create / consume / remix / share info / learn by doing / Teach me to think / create / analyze / evaluate / applyEngage me!
Show the cartoon for 30 secs and ask teachers to discuss it.As teachers we often concentrate so much on teaching and not enough on whether our students are actually learning. This is clearly illustrated in this cartoon, where the boy ‘taught’ the dog to whistle, but he was unsuccessful as the dog had not learnt it. This is similar to how we teach teenagers – we need to use effective techniques that help today’s students learn, rather than only use old techniques that teachers have used for many years. Let’s have a look at a video and see how today’s teenagers learn and how they want to learn.
An interesting quote for teachers to consider while they’re thinking about their answer. If they agree with this, then they obviously think that teachers should change their styles to suit the students. If they disagree with this, then it means teachers believe that students should try to adapt to the teachers old ways. Hopefully this quote will help them to see that it’s the teachers who should change more, and not the students!
First thing to understand – there is a gap! Beware! Should teachers force students to learn the old ways, or should teachers try to learn the new ways?The answer for this question is that teachers do not need to learn completely new ways of teaching in order to suit the learning style of the today’s students. This would be too difficult. Instead, a more realistic approach is to combine some of the older techniques ( like roleplays, drilling, etc. ) with some of the newer techniques ( mindmapping, DVDs, projects ).This was very much our approach when we published World Wonders & English Explorer – 2 brand new series for teenagers. We wanted to combine some of the older techniques that teachers are familiar with, with some newer techniques to motivate their new generation of teenage students. Let’s have a look at some examples:
Show the first page of unit 7 for a few seconds.Ask “When you were looking at this, what did you look at first – the picture or the text?” ( answer: most teachers will say the picture ).Ask: “Why? ( answer: because it’s colourful, attractive and interesting, and because they are visual learners! )When students open the book on this page, do you think they will also look at the picture first, like you did? ( Answer: Yes )Ask: “Why?” ( reasons same as for the teachers, and add that students are even more likely to look at the pictures because they are mostly visual learners! Say: “However, most teachers will do exactly like the teacher from the previous slide – they’ll say open your books, and do the activities at the bottom of the page.” The teacher may even say stop looking at the picture and complete the exercises!Say: “Why should we fight against what students do naturally, and why don’t we try to spend more time on what they are interested in? I would like to share with you some ideas on how to maximize the use of pictures in class.”Explain the topics of all units start with My ____. For example, this unit starts with “My history”, so it’s all about special occasions when students were young.Today’s teenagers enjoy challenge and competition, so we could make a simple game. Tell students to close their student books and cover up the topic ( My ____ ) and then allow students to guess the topic. I am going to demonstrate this, so I need you to put your student hats on. When you guess, do not shout out the answer. Are you ready?
When finished, ask:“Who got 1 point?” ( hands up )Who got 2 points? Etc. until you find who got the most points.Award them a prize. Put your teachers’ hats on.Did you enjoy that? Do you think your students would enjoy that?This activity is a great activity for the first lesson to introduce the topics in the book to them. Or it can be done quickly at the beginning of each new unit.
Now I want you to put your student’s hats on again.Elicit vocabulary from the page adding concept check questions.E.g.What can you see at the top there? ( answer: a car )What colour is it? ( Answer: red )What are these? ( point to the medallions )? ( answer: medallions )On what part of your body do you wear them? ( answer: either round your neck or at then top of your shirt or jacket )What kind of people have medallions ( possible answer: winners of sporting events, soldiers, etc. )Have you got a medallion? ( try to see if any teachers have any, and if so, ask them what they got them for )What is this? ( point to the photograph at the bottom ) ( answer: a photograph )Do you think it’s an old or new photograph ( answer: old )Why? ( answer: because it’s black and white ) What’s this? ( point to the lighter ) ( answer: lighter )What do people use lighters for ( answer: usually for lighting cigarettes! )What’s this? ( point to the packet of cigarettes ) ( answer: a packet of cigarettes ) What’s this? ( point to the letter ) ( answer: letter )What’s this? ( point to the baseball ) ( answer: baseball )Have you ever played baseball? ( find out if any teachers have played it, if so, ask them where! )
Now, we’re going to play a memory game. I’m going to give you 45 seconds to look at the picture, and try to remember as much as you can. Then I will ask you to stop looking, and ask you 5 questions. Let teachers look either at the board or at their handouts of the sample unit.Give them 45 seconds. Tell them to stop and put their sample unit away if they were using that. No cheating! Switch to next blank slide so they can’t see the answers.Tell them to write their answer in the World Wonders notebook.Questions as follows:What colour is the car?How many men are in the photograph at the top of the page? ( answer: 3 )What is under the car? ( a book )How many medallions are there? ( 6 )What word is on the cigarette packet? ( Peace )
Before we check for the answers, for 5 bonus points, write down the questions, I asked you for the answers you have just written. Let teachers work alone to write the questions. ( 3 mins )Say: Right, we now going to check the answers! ( switch to the next slide and confirm the answers ).
Teachers get into groups of 3 and order the teaching steps on their handout. When finished, reveal answers on next page.
Show the answers. If time, elicit the rationale for each step. Note that the above technique can not be used for all pictures – only pictures with a lot of detail in them. For pictures with a little detail, simply follow the first 2 steps. Explain that teachers will do some teaching practice as outlined in the slide above. Give out 3 different units for each group of 3 ( book 1, unit 2 – My Things ; Book 1, unit 5 – My home ; Book 2, unit 3 – Words & pictures )Give them 5 minutes to prepare.Then give them 10-15 minutes to ‘teach’ their page to the 2 people in their group. When one’s finished, the next one should teach until all 3 have had the chance to teach.Early finishers – Ask them to write down the advantages of using this technique.
Explain that you will be sharing with them a new way to record vocabulary. Ask: “Has anyone heard of Tony Buzan?” If so, ask who he is. ( Answer: He was the inventor of mindmaps and has written many books on ways of learning more efficiently, how memory works, and how to read faster ).Explain you’re going to do an experiment – you will show them 14 words ( taken from the word lists ) for 40 seconds and they are to remember as many as they can. Show the next slide for 40 seconds.After 40 seconds return to this slide, and get them to write down as many words as they can remember. Return to the next slide to reveal the answer and ask how many words they remembered. ( e.g. Who got more than 12? Who got between 6 and 9? Etc. )Explain they will do exactly the same activity again, but this time they will see the words laid out differently – in a mind map. This time, when they write down the words from their memory ( having seen it for 40 seconds ), they should record the words in a mind map style – exactly as the original.Repeat the procedure, reveal the answers and then ask them their scores. You should find that most of them get much higher scores for the mindmap.
Ask teachers to make their own mindmaps on a piece of A4 ( not in their small world wonders notebooks ) using the instructions above.When they’ve finished allow them to show other groups.Rationale: The critical thinking that is done to put the words into groups helps to transfer the words from short-term memory into long-term memory. Although this exercise takes a little time, it is well worth doing in class until students are confident to create mindmaps on their own. Once they have reached this stage, teachers can ask them to create mindmaps for homework.Ask: “When can students create mindmaps – at the start, middle or end of a unit?” ( answer: best at the end of the unit as it gives students a chance to review everything they have learnt.) Ask: “How can we help students take out the important words from a unit?” ( answer: this usually takes a long time, and when creating English Explorer, we decided to make it easy for students have a clear record of all the vocabulary for each unit. That’s why we created a separate section at the back of the book.” Show next slide.
As you can see, all the words we have just looked at, originated from this unit. We added pictures to help students understand the meaning. So, at the end of each unit, ask students to review the vocabulary at the back of the book and create a mindmap.!
YOU NEED THE BRAINSTORM VIDEO CLIP ( LABELLED WRITING ) FOR THIS ACTIVITY:Before playing the video clip, tell the participants they are going to watch a teacher using a brainstorming technique to get ideas form her students. She also writes everything up in a mindmap style.As they watch, they should consider : What do you like about this teacher? ( possibleanswers: she is friendly and ecouraging, and clearly organizes the words on the board in the mindmap style ) What do you think can be improved? ( she often spoonfeeds the students too much, giving them the answers, instead of elicting – e.g. place > location, she should not allow students to copy the words DURING the activity as that slows down the brainstorm process – students should copy them down afterwards; she does not correct pronunciation errors – e.g. ‘pleasant’ )
NotebooksIf they would like to find out more about resources related to National Geographic, tell them to refer to the link provided at the bottom of the back cover of the World Wonders notebook ( http://elt.heinle.com/ng ). They can also find contact details of the offices of both Cengage Learning & Macpress!
We spoon feed students! We need to allow them to start to feed themselves with our guidance