Turklish TEFL

Jeremy Harmer’s wonderful “How to Teach Writing” has some great ideas on writing activities.  One of my favorites is using instrumental music as the basis for a creative writing project.  Jeremy says to play a song for the students.  While they listen, they should write down any vocabulary that they associate with the music.  Pool the vocabulary together as a class and then have the students write a story based on it or, better yet, imagine the music to be the introductory scene of a movie.  Students then write out how the movie begins.  This could easily be built into an extended drama activity.

I love this idea and it has always worked very well in my classes.  Some pieces of music are just so evocative and immediately bring stories to life.  They can be a real spur to get the creative juices flowing.

The song I like to use is War of the Last Wolves from the Rurouni Kenshin soundtrack.  There is an excellent video on YouTube set to the music titled  “rurouni kenshin OVA the war of the last wolves.”  Unfortunately, the government attempts to ban access to YouTube have gotten stronger recently and previous access avenues are being blocked.  There is a shorter version via DailyMotion here.

You can then use the video to offer as a comparison to your students’ stories.  Maybe even have the class vote on favorites and explain why.

Other good songs are anything by Yoko Kanno.  Most will also have videos done for them as well.

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Music in the Background

Song Stories

After sickness, a major workload, and a much needed holiday, we’re back

Often in the classroom I see music only used for the odd gapfill, but there are lots of other ways to use music and I’d like to showcase a few in this series.

One thing I really like to do is use stories in the classroom – stories about my life, interesting stories, collaborative stories, ghost stories, stories from the students, etc.  There are a lot of songs out there that tell stories as well. The music really adds depth to the story and allows for a lot of extensions.

One that I really like to use in class is “Long Black Veil” sung by Dave Matthews Band (but which is originally a Johnny Cash song).

Note: You can always use Grooveshark for free streaming music if you have an Internet connection.

Long Black Veil

Level: Int & Up

Objective: 3rd conditional
I wish/If only for regrets
Extended speaking in monologue form

Song: Long Black Veil by Johnny Cash or Dave Matthews Band.  Cash’s version is easier to
understand but Dave’s version is sadder and gives the idea of a love story better.

Plan: Tell the students that they are going to listen to a story.  Do auxiliary vocabulary (Auxiliary Vocabulary – a slayer, a scene, a grave, a scaffold, eternity, a veil, an alibi, to wail, to moan). Ask students to guess the content of the story using the words.  The words are quite evocative and students often come up with some good murder stories.

Play the song once.  Ask the students to identify the mood.  Then, ask the students to compare their
original ideas about the content to the mood and what they understood from the song.

Give the students the lyrics and let them read and follow along with the song.

Do the comprehension questions quick with the class to make sure everyone is on the same page.  I’ve found that generally about half the class won’t realize the condemned man wasn’t the killer or how you know this unless the questions are done.  Afterwards, ask them what they think about the story.  In Turkey, students will often bring up Ask-i Memnu and make comparisons, so you might want to add that into your lesson plan somehow.

Ask the students to think about how the man felt before his execution and the woman afterwards (try to elicit “regretful”).  Tell them to choose the man or the woman.  If possible show them a clip of the famous scene from Hamlet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsrOXAY1arg&feature=fvst.  If not possible, explain the concept of a monologue and demonstrate.  Tell the students that they will need to write a monologue and perform it in small groups or for the class from the perspective of one of the lovers.  Review “S+wish+past perfect”, “If only+ S + past perfect”, “S + regret + v-ing” if necessary.

Alternative:

Ask them to explain to their partner what they would have done if they had been in that person’s position.  Their partner then needs to relate their partner’s opinion to the class.

Hand out the cut up of other famous lovers.  Have the students prepare and perform a monologue for the class based on these new situations.

Long Black Veil

Ten years ago on a cold dark night,
someone was killed ‘neath the town hall lights.
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed,
that the slayer who ran looked a lot like me.

Chorus ~ She walks these hills, in a long black veil.
She visits my grave, when the night winds wail.
Nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody knows, but me

The judge said, “son, what is your alibi,
if you were somewhere else, then you won’t have to die.”
Well, I said not a word, though it meant my life,
for I’d been in the arms of my best friend’s wife.

Chorus*

Now the scaffold is high, and eternity is near.
She stood in the crowd, and shed not a tear.
Oh sometimes at night, when the cold wind moans
In a long black veil, she cries over my bones

Chorus ~ She walks these hills, in a long black veil.
When the cold winds blow, and the night winds wail.
Nobody knows, nobody sees.
Nobody knows, but me.

Comprehension Questions:

1)      Where and when does the song take place?

2)     Why is the singer on trial?

3)     Was the singer actually the killer?

4)     Why didn’t he say he was innocent?

5)      Who is the woman in the long black veil?

Famous Lovers

Romeo and Juliet – Madly in love, but their families are feuding and hate each other, so they are forbidden to be together.

Antony and Cleopatra – Powerful rulers of countries.  They are in love, but Rome is scandalized by Antony’s marriage to Cleopatra.  Rome does not trust Egypt and does not want them to be united.

Scarlett O’Hara & Rhett Butler – Scarlett realizes she loves Rhett, but it is too late.  Rhett no longer loves her.

Lancelot & Guinevere – Guinevere is King Arthur’s wife, but falls deeply in love with his best friend, Lancelot.

Bonnie & Clyde – Two bank robbers and murderers that were constantly running from the law.

Sheherezade & King Shahryar – King Shahryar married a women and then killed her the morning after the wedding, but Sheherezade told the king a story every night, but would not finish it until the next night.  The king always wanted to hear the end, so he let her live.

Samson & Delilah – Samson loved Delilah, but he was attacking her land.  Her people wanted her to find the secret of his power, so they could kill him.

Here is the downloadable lesson plan.

Here is a list of other songs that tell a story.  There are tons more out there, but I tend to like something with a bit of a bite .

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Music in the Background

Pictures Painted in Sound

This video appeared on the news in Turkey and around the world on Tuesday evening.  It’s a short clip of a troupe of Israeli soldiers performing a dance while on duty in the West Bank.

Israel has been a major focal point of much discussion recently in Turkey due to the attack on the primarily Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, during the Gaza Flotilla incident a couple weeks ago.  This is on top of the major outcry that went up in Turkey a while back when Israel made some extremely violent and heavy-handed incursions into Gaza.

The comical nature of soldiers dancing on duty contrasts sharply with the context of the Occupation and recent events in which it was done.

Needless to say, it provides a great basis for a lesson.

I brought the video into both my upper-intermediate classes on Wednesday although it could easily be done with Intermediates as well.

Step 1 – Start the lesson by showing the clip.  Before showing the clip, make sure to ask any students that have seen it already to remain silent about it.

Step 2 – After the clip is shown ask the students to write a reaction response to it about how they felt while watching it.

Step 3 - Now invite students to share their reactions to the video. Let the conversation run.  The initial conversation took about an hour in both classes that I did it with and could have gone on longer.

At least one person will have seen the clip already and it will come out that it was performed by Israeli soldiers.  If the conversation doesn’t move in this direction, you might want to open up a debate on how their opinions changed once they knew where the video came from and why that might be.

Step 4 - During the last five minutes of the lesson, have the students write at least three questions they would like answered about the video.  Most of my students came up with pretty much the same questions, which were:

Were the soldiers real soldiers or actors?

Who made the video (i.e. was it actors, the soldiers, the military, an outside group)?

Who uploaded the video?

What was the message that’s trying to be sent?

Why was the call to prayer played in the beginning?

Step 5 - The second hour I ask the students to try to answer their own questions.  To do this they are given access a short newspaper article from the Herald Sun and YNet.

The students do a good job of then debating the article amongst themselves and calling on you for help with any unknown words or questions they have about the texts.

Step 6 - Finally I play the clip made by American soldiers in April (Soldiers remaking music videos is a meme going back to at least 2006).

I also make them aware of a number of other videos that I let them watch on break if interested. (Note that almost all these videos can be found in better quality on YouTube, but, since Turkey doesn’t have access to it, I didn’t link them unless I couldn’t find it elsewhere.)

American Soldiers in Iraq – Electric Avenue (This one is the most well made, but it has a short seen of blind-folded Iraqis taken prisoner, which might not be something you want to show as it’s a bit sensitive).

American Navy – Pump It (One of the earliest from 2006) & Move Along (Incredibly well made)

American Soldiers – This is Why I’m Hot (YouTube, This one is %100 original as far as I can tell.  Very well made in the UAE)

American Soldiers – Ridin Dirty (YouTube)

American Soldier – Vanilla Ice (YouTube)

Russian Soldier – Techno

Israeli Soldiers – Girlfriend

Swiss Soldier – Michael Jackson (YouTube)

Australian Navy – I’m on a Boat (YouTube, very funny)

British SAS – This is the Way to Amarillo

There are a ton more on YouTube as well if you have a look.

Step 7 - After having read the material and seen some previous videos, I next have the class write up a report on the video that attempts to answer all the questions they came up with in the first hour.  This could also be done as homework if you only have 2-hour classes.

Step 8+ - Finally I do some peer-editing, correction work, and final reflection.

All in all, this lesson turned out incredibly well and I was extremely pleased with the result.  The debates were varied, lively, and thoughtful.  Coming up with questions to be answered, finding the answers to those questions, and then reporting on the information was also a great way to collaborate, research and analyze information, and then synthesize said information from a variety of sources.

Finally, a note of caution, a lot of sensitive issues are raised with this topic relating to Israel and Palestine and, as I’m American, conversation also often spilled over into America’s relationship with Israel and the war in Iraq.  Be prepared to discuss these issues.

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Keepin It Real – A Today’s Zaman commercial

It’s holiday season here in Turkey.  As a result, a large number of students and teachers take off for a month or more to various places. The vacation area of choice for most students is the Southwest coasts of Turkey on the Aegean or the Mediterranean. As a teacher here you quickly become familiar with places like Bodrum, Antalya, and Fethiye.

I just returned from my own holiday on the beach last night. It was my first holiday done in true Turkish fashion, which means a lot of R & R.

As teachers, we often get excited when our students come back from holiday because we think they’ll have some interesting stories to tell. In Turkey, you quickly find out that, by and large, this isn’t the case. When students are asked what they did on holiday, more often than not the reply is either “nothing” or “I slept.” When I first started teaching here, I thought that this was just a case of students not wanting to speak about their holidays in English. I later learned that they actually meant it.

Compared to many places in the US or Europe, Turkish people have to work really hard. They work longer hours and for between 2 to 10 times less what the person in the same job would make in another country. There are also a lot more stressors in general living here. So, for many, the ideal holiday is going somewhere where you can relax, forget about the hardships of life, and do as little as possible.

So what’s a poor teacher to do during the summer slump when everyone would rather be outside and there doesn’t seem to be much to talk about? Here is a nice task-based project on vacations (what’s a task you say? Check out this fabulous guest post by Marcos Benevides over at Six Things).

Level: Pre-Intermediate and Up

Objective:  Presentation Skills
                     Research Skills
                     Unreal structures with ”would”
                     Holiday Vocabulary                   

Materials: Some big, poster-sized paper, scissors, colored markers, access to a computer lab with Internet connection or travel magazines.

Procedure: This lesson can easily be modified to last over several class periods or cut down to just one.  For instance, you can do large skills focus lessons on researching or presenting.  It can also be adapted as a short presentation follow up to the Create a Country lesson.

Step 1)  Write “Dream Vacation” up on the board.  Give a student the board marker and have the class brainstorm words associated with that topic.

Step 2)  Looking at the board, ask if everyone seems to have the same idea about what a dream vacation is like.  Now tell the students that they are going to plan a dream vacation, but that they need to go on this vacation with a partner. Have them prepare some questions to ask people to determine if they have the same ideas about what a perfect vacation entails. (For example, Do you like adventurous vacations or quite ones? Would you prefer the beach or the mountains? Would you like to go abroad or stay in Turkey? Etc.)

Step 3)  Do a mingle where the class needs to discuss their ideas of a perfect vacation and decide who would be the best person in the class for them to go with.

Step 4)  Once they’ve found someone they think they’d like to travel with, have them sit down as a pair. Once everyone is finished, students need to explain who they chose for a partner and why. This is a good place to review agreement language as Turkish students tend to have trouble remembering this language point, especially in the negative. Encourage sentences like “Seda likes relaxing on the beach and so do I“, “Burak doesn’t like swimming and neither do I.” Correlative conjunctions also work (both…and, neither….nor, either…or).

Step 5)  Now write “Money is no object” on the board. Explain the meaning of the phrase if necessary. Tell students that they are going to imagine that money was no object and that they are going to plan an ideal vacation with their partner ( If the class has access to a computer lab with Internet, then they can choose anywhere. If not, they’ll be limited to destinations in the travel magazines). The catch is that the holiday has to be abroad and it can‘t be somewhere they‘ve already been. Making it outside the students’ own country facilitates the need for more research and makes it more likely that web sites will be in English.

With the class, brainstorm what they’ll have to plan.

-Where to go
-What to bring
-How long to stay
-Where to stay
-What sights to see
-What to do there
-How to travel
-What money to use
-Visa requirements
-Language issues
-Safety and health
-Etc.

Step 6)  Show students the poster paper. Explain that they will need to plan their ideal vacation and find out all the details by researching it. After researching it, they will have to draw out a map of their travel plan and include any relevant images. Students can cut out images from magazines, print them out, or draw them.  I usually give one to one and a half class periods to research and then prepare the poster.

Step 7)  The pairs then present the imaginary holiday to the class. Make sure to emphasize that this is not a real holiday and of course money is always a factor, so they will need to use a lot of 2nd conditional type structures. This is good practice for students as they often have trouble with this. They’ll often use unreal would for the first sentence and then revert back to present simple or something. This is also a good presentation project because students will have to switch back and forth between present simple for facts about things like visas and historical sights and unreal sentences for their plans.

I usually give the students 15-30 minutes to divide up who will talk about what, prepare the presentation, and practice it before they do it for real.  Also make it clear that each person in the pair will have to speak for half the time.  Before starting the presentations, it’s a good idea to collect the posters and split groups members up as they often will chat about the upcoming presentation rather than listen to the presenters.

During the presentation, listeners need to pay attention to fill out an focus form.  Also encourage them to ask questions at the end of the presentation.  The listening focus questions are here (FYI:  I’m having some problems with MS Office at the moment, so these are rtf files for now).  Note that the listening focus forms should be anonymous and then handed to the group who presented them.

Step 8 )  The final stage of the project involves reflection. The reflection form is here. Students should fill it out and then discuss it with a partner.  I usually tell the students to keep the reflection forms anonymous as well.

Step 9)  Take the forms home and go over them for the next day.  Discuss the feedback as a class, possibly presenting a selection of it on the board and go over any major language issues that came up.

Have you ever walked out of the cinema and thought to yourself, “Man, I could have written a better ending than that.  Hell, my kid could have written a better one”?  I think we’ve all been there.

Well, thanks to a comment made by someone on my brother’s Facebook page, I found a site that does just that.  It’s called “How It Should Have Ended.”

This would be a great activity for any class to practice past modals.  One movie I would love to see on this site is Die Hard 4.  God was that awful.  An example of the preposterous situations in the movie is given in the pic above.    If you’re not familiar with how this film assumed everyone in the audience was an idiot with it’s over-done action sequences and mindless techno-jargon see this Penny Arcade Comic and a hilarious IMDB discussion on “What I learned from Die Hard 4.”

You could teach things like:

The director really shouldn’t have let that annoying  kid be in so many scenes.

You’d think that with a multi-million dollar budget they could at least have had some better CGI.

They should have done more research on computers.  Last time I checked, it wasn’t possible for the entire Internet to crash.

Proposed Lesson Plan:

Pick a clip from the website of a movie you think most of your students have seen (you could also just show them the webpage and they could call out the films they are familiar with so you can get a good idea for this).  Tell your students the movie you have in mind and then ask them to recap it.

Now ask them if they would change anything about the film if they had a chance, especially the ending.

Show the clip and have them compare their proposed changes to the website’s.

Draw their attention to the name of the website and discuss the language for a bit if necessary.

Put students into pairs and have them decide on a movie they have both seen that they think could’ve been better.

Students discuss what could or should have been different.  They can write these ideas down if they wish.

Students can then rewrite the ending for the movie as to how they think it should’ve have gone.  At this point it would be pretty unnatural to continue using past modals, so the writing would probably be better using normal tenses.

Students present their changed movies to the class and explain their reasoning, fielding any questions the audience might have.

Write the word “Trust” on the board.  Ask your students to take a minute and reflect on what trust means to them, where it’s important, and if it’s important in the classroom.  You can have them write down some ideas on paper if you wish.

Tell them to share their ideas with a partner.

Now ask the class if they trust you.  Hopefully, they say yes .  Tell them that you trust all of them and that you are going to prove it to them.  Ask them to volunteer a couple ways in which you might do this.

Ask a volunteer to come to the front.  Tell them that you are going to fall and that they have to catch you.

Do a practice run so they get a feel for your weight and so they can get the positioning down right.  The volunteer should place their hands firmly on your shoulder blades with the fingertips points up (this is very important because the wrists are weak and if they do it the opposite way they could drop you), bend their knees in a tripod fashion, and get themselves squarely under you.  See the above picture (although this example has two people supporting which is a good idea for heavier individuals).

Lean backward into them and have them take you farther and farther down each time.

Now tell them you will do it for real.  You need to keep your eyes closed, your legs straight, and cross your arms in front of you like the guy in the picture.  Then just tip backwards.  It’s a bit scary, but the volunteer will catch you.

Now switch positions and do the same with them.

Each student now grabs a partner and they start of with some practice runs and then do the real thing.  Warning:  Make sure partners are of about equal weight.  If there is a really big person in the class, you can do it with two people supporting, one at each shoulder blade.  Have them change partners a few times.

You can now do a reflective writing or a round table discussion on how they felt during the exercise.  What did they learn about themselves and each other?  Is it easy to trust others?  Why or why not?  In what ways do we need to trust each other in the classroom?

This activity is great for building up relationships in the class and fostering trust.  I highly recommend it for any class.

Related Posts:

Building Relationships 1: Tank Game

Building Relationships 2:  Human Knot

Building Relationships 4: Circle of Trust

From time to time I’ve decided to throw up a dogme lesson plan.  Like most of what I consider to be dogme lessons, this plan was written after the lesson was completed.  It is, in fact, a post-plan.  As a teacher, I always come to class with something prepared to do, but quite often I chuck it out the window as something else comes up.

These posts will be an attempt to show how I come up with the lesson as it happens.

Banking

Level:  Intermediate
Materials Used:  None
Time:  About 3 hours

In Turkey, students tend to slowly filter in to class during the first hour as being on time is not much of a concern here.  Many of my classes, therefore, start out with general conversations or light activities that people can slip into as they arrive.

About a half hour into class a reasonable number of students had arrived and one of the students was telling a story about a problem they had at the bank the other day.  Everyone was pretty interested in the story.

Decision: Do a lesson on banking.  I decided on this because 1) a number of the students worked or studied banking & finance, 2) it was clear from the conversation that banking vocabulary was weak or unknown, and 3) the students had brought up the subject and were expressing interest.

I thought a good way to do the lesson would be a role-play as I like drama and real life situations.

First (after the student finished telling their story and questions died out), we brainstormed a number of terms that the students should be using like deposit, withdraw, interest rate, signature, etc.

One student started adding words like stock and share-holder and…

Decision: Stop it there as that would be getting off track of the direction the lesson was taking and complicate things too much, especially since many students wouldn’t know those terms and situations even in Turkish.  Also, I wasn’t at all confident with that language or those situations in English either and so I doubted my ability to help create an effective lesson in that direction.

After the brainstorm session, I left all the words and phrases on the board.  Students then became bank tellers and customers.  The bank tellers pulled their chairs to the front of the class and stood behind them as customers formed lines in front of the tellers.

The activity ran for about 8 minutes.  I noticed that the students were using a lot of the language we had come up with, but that their general language was very informal.  I wound down the activity and everyone went back to their seats.

Decision: Focus on formal language, particularly things like indirect questions, modals, and if clauses.  The students obviously had less experience with this and needed the practice.

We now did a bit of feedback on the first part of the lesson.  Students asked questions and we added some more language that they needed to the board.  We then discussed the formality of the situation and talked about the language used.  The students decided that they needed to use more formal language.  We brainstormed again and put up example phrases like “Could you tell me your customer number, please?” “Do you mind waiting a minute while I…“ “I was wondering if you could tell me…“ and “If you could just sign right here…”

Switching tellers and customers, the activity ran again.  This time students were using much more appropriate language.  Again, I helped out students when they got stuck, pointed out minor errors, or commented when students became a bit too informal.

The activity ran for almost 15 minutes this time.  Students that weren’t involved in a transaction chatted in line with their fellow customers.

After this activity, I initiated a feedback session and students discussed what they liked about the activity or didn’t, who did a good job, what was easy or difficult, questions they had, etc. While this was happening, I boarded a lot of language, both good and bad, that had come from the students.  We talked about the nature of the language, why certain language was good or bad and we discussed corrections in grammar, vocabulary, and register.

After a break, I thought we could work on complaints at the bank as that is basically what started off the lesson.  I started by giving an example of a lot of problems I’d been having with Internet banking lately.  My plan was to have some students come up with complaints, others be tellers who would decide on a particular emotion to react with, and others to be managers to be called in to help out.

After I told my story though, a number of other students started complaining about Internet banking as well.  Still others didn’t trust it and were very curious about those who used it and whether it was safe or not.

Decision: Scrap the original plan and allow an open class discussion.  The students were obviously highly interested in the topic and to stop it and move on to something else would perhaps be de-motivating.  The students were still recycling much of the language we had been practicing and they were all actively involved in the discussion.

My job was simply to support students in the language they were using if they got stuck, especially regarding vocabulary, and to get them to self-correct some areas of language that we had been working on lately or that particular students were having problems with.

The discussion ran for a good 30 minutes.  This time I dictated a number of sentences back to them where they used vocabulary that was too general or structures that were a bit too simple.  They copied the sentences down and then had to work in pairs to find ways of improving the sentences using more specific vocabulary we’d covered that day or by making the language more structurally complex.  Changes were then discussed as a class.

Including the rather open ended chat in the beginning and breaks, the entire lesson took a little over 3 hours.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

So what do you think of the lesson outcome, decisions made, etc?  Is this similar to how you run a dogme lesson or different?  What would you change or have done differently?  If you’re not familiar with dogme, does this lesson help you understand the approach better?

Related Articles:

D is for Dogme

The Dogme of Dogme

Sources for Teaching Unplugged

Further Dogme Links

This activity works best with between 8-15 people.  If there are too few it goes really quick.  If there are too many it simply takes too long or just doesn’t work.  You can split your class into groups and make it a race if you have a larger class.

Participants need to form a circle.  Then everyone needs to reach across the circle and lock hands with someone else, grabbing the hands of two different people.

Now tell students that they have to untangle themselves without breaking their grips.

This is a great trust-building exercise.  Most people don’t believe it’s possible at first but the vast majority of groups untangle themselves successfully.  In the end, all participants should be facing outwards, forming the original circle.

If participants get really stuck you can allow one unclasp and reclasp.

The sense of accomplishment when the knot is untangled is fantastic.

Obviously this activity brings out a lot of language related to body parts, prepositions of movement and place, directions, and imperatives.

Here’s a video of the activity being done (apologies for the religious theme):

Related Posts:

Building Relationships 1: Tank Game

Building Relationships 3:  Trust Falls

Building Relationships 4:  Circle of Trust

This is for the Blog Carnival being hosted by the wonderful Karenne Sylvester of KalinagoEnglish.

Rather than simply just posting a lesson I thought I’d go into some detail about my thinking behind it as well.  I’ve divided the lessons into stages.  Just click on the stage title (for part 1, 2, and 4) to download and view that part of the lesson.  The file for the entire lesson can plan also be downloaded here.

Lesson:  The Easter Bunny Hates You!

Level:  Pre-Intermediate and Up

Planning the Lesson – Like most of my lessons, this was one that was created from the content rather than finding content to suit a specific aim.  I saw the original video and immediately wanted to incorporate it into one of my classes, so I started to think of ways to do it.

I think creating lessons around content rather than finding content to fit a language point is really the way to go.  It comes across as much less artificial and lessons aren’t as restrictive because a variety of language is allowed to emerge rather than an unrealistic overemphasis on a particular structure or lexical set.

I also tend to like lessons that have a cultural element to them.  They are a bit more interesting, encourage sharing and discussion between teacher and students, and often help students understand the language more.

Part 1:  Create Tension and Mingle

(Listening & Speaking)

Creating tension is probably one of the most important elements of any lesson.  Tension can be created with something as simple as a question or a picture.  Tension pulls the students into a lesson and then keeps them interested.

I’m not sure if this lesson would work in more Christian countries because the Easter Bunny is probably pretty familiar. Here in Turkey, he is not well known, so students never recognize the word Easter and most students know the word “rabbit” but not “bunny” for whatever reason.

The lesson starts with a question, “Who or what is the Easter Bunny?”  Immediately students are curious.  As the mingle progresses they become more and more interested in who or what the Easter Bunny is, and a burning desire to know is created.  Usually, when I take a break after the first hour, most students run to the Internet and do a quick search for the Easter Bunny before they come back.

I also love mingles as they involve lots of speaking, listening, and movement plus in this one the students have to remember and adapt information they’ve learned.

Part 2:  Satisfying Curiosity & Personalization

(Reading, Listening, & Speaking)

While students have probably already checked the Internet for the information, this phase of the lesson gives them a chance to really understand what the Easter Bunny is and compare it to the ideas they came up with in the first hour.  They can also ask you questions about this rather strange tradition and this can lead to a discussion on holidays and traditions in your students’ country.

Part 3:  Video Humor

Establish that today is not Easter.  Then write the question, “What is the Easter Bunny doing right now?” on the board.  Either as a class or in groups get as many ideas as possible and put some of them on the board.  Language of possibility is desired here (i.e. He might be painting eggs for next year).  This language can be demonstrated and analyzed if necessary.  Show them the video:

The Easter Bunny Hates You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPb0po2jzfg

Compare students’ guesses on the board to the actual video.

I think videos are a great way to provide context, change up the routine, and intro material in the classroom.

And I think an important feature of any classroom is humor.  Humor is one of the things that makes sitting in a class and learning English for 4 hours bearable.  It also increases motivation, creates a good atmosphere, and helps build relationships in the class.  For these reasons I love to use lesson materials that contain humorous elements and what is funnier than the Easter Bunny kicking some ass?

Part 4:  Creative Writing

In this phase of the lesson the students have been given a funny story, so they have a place to begin.  The story is quite creative itself and opens the way for the students’ own creativity.

Here the students are given free reign to come up with a variety of ideas related to the Easter Bunny’s past.  Allowing the students to be creative is another important element for many a lesson and the language, laughter, and stories that come out of these types of activities are simply fantastic.

Part 5:  Final Comparison and Wrapping Things Up

After students write and discuss their own work, it’s always a lot of fun to show the “official” version of the story.  Students get a big kick out of comparing what they came up with with what the makers of the video came up with.  It’s a good way to get feedback and bring the lesson to a close.

Grammar Outline for Modals of Deduction

I hope you enjoyed the lesson   The full lesson plan can be found here.

I have a number of posts in the works, but have something more pressing that I would really love all your feedback on.  I’m trying to convince my fellow manager to follow suit on a few issues and would also like to know if anyone thinks I’m on the right track or not as well.

I’ve been managing my current school, Oxford House College, for about 3 months now.  It is an absolutely fantastic school, one of the best in Turkey as far as I’m concerned and I’ve very proud to work there.  Everyone from the owner to the managers to the teachers are dedicated to teaching and we are constantly improving.

Before I ask for your input I should let you all know that we use an ongoing enrollment system.  While there are some drawbacks such as shifting classes and difficulty in planning or building on previous material, I love the system.

For anyone that doesn’t know, ongoing enrollment means that students do not buy courses, they buy hours.  They can enter a class at any time.  They don’t go through a course in the traditional sense that there is an official start and finish date.

They can also advance at any time.  The system is tailored to the students’ needs.  If they work hard, practice a lot, or are just good at learning languages, they can move up quickly.  If they are slower, very busy, or just taking more time, they move at a slower rate.  The teachers constantly keep the students progress in mind and when they feel the student is ready, they move them to the next level or tell them to stay longer, whatever the case may be.

We are trying to work with a set of can-do statements similar to the Common European Framework’s. However, these statements have been annotated or changed to apply specifically to Turkish learners.

If a students can talk about their present routines, their family, and fill out a form, but can’t write an email to a friend well, then the teacher specifically focuses on that can-do task until they are reasonably proficient and then the student(s) can move up.

Keeping this in mind, I’ve slowly been making and been trying to make a number of perhaps radical changes since I accepted the position.  I would love to know what your thoughts are on the issues.

#1 Exams

I have eliminated all exams.  Of course, if the teacher feels they really need to, they can give one, but exams are not required and the students know that the teacher’s opinion is all that matters.  I have done this because I trust my teachers.  I have an excellent team right now.  My teachers are with the students every class.  They know their students.  How can an exam tell them anything they don’t already know?

What’s more, students are becoming intrinsically motivated and focusing on progressing in their communicative ability.  They know there is no exam at the end, so they don’t skip class and show up at exam time and they don’t save all their studying for a week before the end of a course (technically we don’t have courses, but you get the idea).

My teachers don’t feel the need to teach to an exam, they can focus on what the learners actually want and need to learn.  It makes classes more flexible and allows students and teachers much more control over the direction of the course.

#2 Course books

We no longer have a primary course book.   Course books have a whole slew of problems associated with them.  They aren’t made for our learners, they are often boring, they take a step-by-step approach to language learning that often isn’t realistic, and they are too grammar focused.

We have a number of course book series available and lots of supplementary material in our small library as well as tons of high quality digital lessons on the computer all organized by level, skill, grammar point, and content.  Teachers identify the needs of the class and find or create appropriate material.

Too often students and teachers get bogged down in slogging from one page to the next and focusing on grammar mcnuggets (thanks Darren and Scott ) Why are we teaching past simple or letter writing if our students already do it well?  Skip it and move on to lessons they actually need.  A course should be dynamic and fluid, not linear.

#3 The Internal Syllabus

I’d like to do an entire post on this concept sometime, but for now, just a brief summary.  The syllabus comes from the students.  I’m terribly partial to Harmer’s EASA approach (which was brought up nicely on English Raven not too long ago) or Test-Teach-Test styles in general.

Come in with an engaging activity and then see what the students do well with and what they struggle with.  Make notes on the points they struggle on and then, in that lesson or another, teach, review, or revise the material.

This way you don’t cover stuff the students are already good at.  That’s boring and a waste of time for everyone.  You really focus on students’ needs.

It’s also much more skills and content focused.  You are constantly practicing skills rather than isolated grammar or lexical sets.

In true Dogme style, if students are searching for language to communicate, teach it to them.  Don’t worry about the course book or the lesson plan.  What could possibly be more important than what the students are trying to say?  This also ensures the perfect context.  The students know what they are trying to say, they just don’t know it in English.  Supply it and I guarantee it will stick better and make more sense to them.

An internal syllabus isn’t just about language points, it’s about content as well.  What are the students interested in?  What do they want to learn?  Get to know them.  Get the feedback from them.  Ask what they want.  Then bring in material based on that information.

An internal syllabus is created in the dialogue between teachers and students.

#4 Cut Down on the Worksheets

Gap-fill worksheets are banned and so are book activities that do the same.

I’m trying to get my teachers to cut down on worksheet use in class in general.

Yes, yes, I know.  I’m a Dogmeist now.  I need help .  Most of the material for a lesson can come from the students themselves.  You can get at least a two-hour lesson out of picture with tons of wonderful, student-produced language.

Let’s not bombard our students with worksheets and busy work.  Give one sheet to every 2 students so they are always working together and helping each other out.

Worksheets should be short and help to scaffold a primary activity.  I hate coming into classes and seeing students spend 20 minutes figuring out a crossword puzzle or filling in some blanks.  Then another 5-10 minutes is wasted going over the answers.

If you want your students to practice prepositions of place have them hide objects around the room, describe pictures of their bedroom for a partner to draw, show them a scene from Wallace & Grommit and the Wrong Trousers and have them describe what’s happening, play Simon Says, anything but an unproductive worksheet where very little language is produced or engaged with.

#5 Skills and Content Focused Learning

We have 3 and 4-hour lessons at our school.   I encourage my teachers to see this as an extended learning opportunity rather than discrete hours with separate lessons.

Pick a topic like Art.  The first lesson can be a listening on abstract art, the second a reading on surrealism, and the third can be a heated debate or discussion on the connection between politics and art.

Throughout the 3 hours, students are building and revising related vocabulary and structures, but they are also coming across lots of new information and getting a chance to focus on particular skills throughout.

Were your students sick and they come in talking about it?  Have a conversation about it.  Brainstorm illnesses and discuss remedies.  Do a doctor-patient role-play.  Write about your last visit to the doctor then exchange with a partner and do some peer correction.

Our students should be learning to communicate and learning different skill sets, not obsessing over grammar  and vocabulary.  Of course, grammar and vocabulary have their place, but skills and content are so much more interesting, contextualized, and, IMO, effective.

What Do You Think?

Well, that’s the end of the main pushes I’ve been trying to make that directly concern teaching in the classroom.  What do you all think.  Good ideas?  Bad ideas?  Should I modify them.  I’m really looking for your feedback on this one and I’d appreciate any and all comments.

Related Reading:

No Good Reason to Grade