Utilizing Classroom Space

This month, the blog has no pictures! However, it is an incredibly interesting subject, so please, do, read on!

One of my teachers is truly brilliant. Her lessons are so well prepared & each sequential step contained therein is so logically & carefully constructed, that to watch her lessons leaves me wondering why this teacher doesn't write a book & revolutionize the world of education! She is that good that she could make millions! :)

Class management appears easy to her, and it does seem that it comes quite naturally. But why? What is different about her? She has no formal method to control afterall!

I suppose that when someone spends some honest time thinking & planning a lesson, that they are more protective of their students carelessly ruining it. And so, although she doesn't actually use any formal behaviour management technique, her students intrinsically know that they are to behave because they sense the time and effort taken by this teacher who sincerely does care about their education; and it shows by the lessons she designs. She does not therefore have to formally say so.

To add to this idea of "natural" class management: her lessons are designed in such a creative and interesting manner that each child expects that whatever is going to happen in her lesson each day is bound to be interesting and stimulating. They expect it, because it has been true since they walked into any of her classes before this day. Therefore, class management is never an issue because the students actually look forward to her lessons, and they behave in them because they are entertained & mentally stimulated in a positive and challenging manner! Voilah! They are like mice, attentive, with poky ears, hanging on her every word!

So together with the students, I sit and "observe" as her lesson unfolds. I sit mesmerized, and her students listen with fascination too, topped with a dose of excitement. I am honestly impressed each and every time I see her teach. I sense the excitement in the students and understand why; this teacher is talented.

Inspired by her, I wanted to share an idea with you.

Any classroom has 4 walls, right? Right! Plus the ceiling and the floor = 6. Use this space to teach in!

Why study English?

Often I feel that people in foreign countries get the feeling that English speaking people are arrogant because they speak English and venture to foreign lands to "impart" this special knowledge of English to non-English speakers. Often English people are arrogant like this thinking that English is better than other languages when it is not. It is just another language.

Being "just another language" means that unless their is motivation to learn this "other language" then why would anyone bother to try?

It is true that English the most widely spoken language of the world. And further that here in Malaysia, the government is making it mandatory for students to pass English in order to go to university.

So, in fact, our jobs as English teachers is incredibly important to the lives and welfare of our students. But how do we get students to care about it?

The children do not care about matters of the world right now. They do not have English speaking friends to mix with. Usually their parents do not speak English & even if they do, they do not speak it all the time to them. They have little if not zero motivation to study English.

It is our jobs therefore, to make English lessons interesting, colourful, fun, exciting, musical, movement orientated, social, funny, and vibey so that students cannot help but listen and learn.

What's different about English Lessons?

Nothing. Unless you make it this way.

Students in Malaysia sit at their desks each lesson. The teacher stands usually at the front of the classroom next to the board. Bahasa Malayu is organized like this, so is Bahasa Cina, so is Mathematics, & so is Science. Every lesson is organized in the same way day in and day out.

So the only way to make English Lessons different is to break the monotony. If a teacher realizes how important their job is, and designs lessons that will blow students away, there is a chance that students will begin to love and learn English.

I challenge you to try!

How to make it different?

Uutilize all the walls in the classroom. 

Teachers need to show imagination, be inventive and creative, involve students in their lessons.

Some Ideas from my teacher:

Example: Collective Nouns

Divide nouns according to "People", "Animal" and "Things". Instead of getting student to sit at their desks and copy these down into their books, instead my teacher utilized the classroom walls. She stuck the noun lists onto 3 walls according to classification, and divided students into groups who stood ready at each wall. She gave them a time limit/competition. Each group had to copy down the list on the wall first. She shouted, "Go!" and off they went. You have never seen students enjoying "copying lists down" into their books so much in your life! I kid you not! These children loved it! And yet the content could not be more boring! But why?

1) It is more interesting when you have to move and actually physically & actively acquire knowledge.

Being actively involved in your own knowledge acquisition psychologically makes you hungry to learn and absorb it.

2) Copying from a wall is far more interesting that copying at your desk
3) Copying with a group is more fun than copying alone
4) Having competition adds to the fun and already you are inspired to try win!
5) It was simply different!
6) On it's own the content was boring and easily forgotten, however with this interesting way of learning it, already the students have a fun memory to attach to the lesson! Of course they are more likely to remember the information!

Dull material presented in a colourful way will be stored in long term memory far more easily than dull material presented in a dull way.

Example: Verbs

Stick verb word-cards along all the walls of the classroom. For example, run, walk, jump, sing, dance, and so on.

Students made a line along all the walls of the room. They were instructed to start off by walking until they passed a word-card, at which point they were to act out the new verb and not stop acting it out until they reached the next word-card on the wall, at which point, they were to start doing the new action instead.

There were challenges: Students were shy (especially the first kid who had to sing infront of the class, shame, poor kid! :)). But as the teacher persisted and helped with demonstrating until all the students had unwittingly repeated all verbs many times without noticing. Their inhibitions were less but not gone. However the point is that despite challenges, the lesson was fun, funny, embarrassing, interesting, creative, and most importantly: memorable!

A variety of emotions in a lesson is a good thing! Not only will students be more inclined to remember the lesson, but they will learn to be socially intelligent too! 

The memories we retain most of all are of those that were rich in emotion...

Example: Survey

I was talking to this teacher this morning about this blog. She told me that she doesn't like to use the classroom every lesson; that she feels that already the lesson is more interesting if she changes the venue every lesson. So she uses the field, the library, and the English room often! I never knew why she kept changing the venue until this morning but again she surprises me with her thinking and planning.

For this lesson, she wrote down some survey questions on the board of the library, and asked the students to go around and ask each other the questions. Students were asked to write down their answers on a piece of paper. The objective was to get the answers to the questions by atleast 2 students. They were given a time limit of 4 minutes.

It was effective. Why?
1) Students hardly ever get an opportunity to actually speak with their friends in class.
2) It involves lots of moving around
3) It was fun
4) It involved a time limit and therefore already they were working towards achieving something within a certain time, so motivation was high to complete the task.
5) It was in a different venue.

Take the lesson out of the classroom and utilize the other spaces in the school!

Other Examples:

• Stick things to the walls, shout out a name and get students to run to the correct word/picture.
• Stick things to the ceiling, get students to lie down and copy things down. 
• Take students to the field and get them do something quite out of the ordinary!
• Circle time! Incorporate "circle time" into each lesson. Make sure the circle is perfect! 
• Use balls and let students role balls to each other and whoever gets the ball needs to speak!

English is not special unless teachers start making it extra special! And it needs to be because otherwise there is no reason students will learn it! Go the extra mile, be creative, and inventive! Use all the walls in the classroom, or take the lesson out of the classroom completely! Make English the most fun and memorable time of the school day, every day!

Have fun! 

Big thank-you to Nur Haryana from Api Api School. Your lessons are incredibly inspiring to both me and to your students! Thank-you! :)

In June, only half a month due to the holiday, teachers returned to school and were very busy preparing for and implementing the new term. We worked together compiling and reporting assessments and the final band scores. Creative projects were put on hold for these two weeks.

June 2015 Pekan Nanas

June was a very fast month in Pontian Pekan Nanas.  The beginning of the month was the two week break that I think everyone needed, students and teachers alike.  

The first week back was report card week.  Most of my schools were talking with parents about how their children are doing.  Lots of stress for the teachers.

The next week was back to normal with lessons.  Students seemed to have a lot of energy even though it was crazy hot this week.  Teachers did well just to keep them from hurting each other/themselves ;)

No pictures this month sorry.

See you on the blog next month.

Jason

May CPD

In May Pontian had a third CPD with all the teachers in the area.  The topic was speaking lessons.  John ELP was in charge of the show and he did a great job, giving the teachers lots of useful information that they can take back to their teachers.  There was also a large language proficiency aspect to his presentation dealing with the -ed sounds and -s sounds.

Group Tongue Twisters

Individual Tongue Twisters

Robynne had two activities that were lots of fun.  Here is a ball toss game.

Here is her describe the missing person game.  Be a TV star!

Next up was Jason playing Pictionary and describe the picture game.

In this game one team member would turn their back to the front.  The rest of the team had to describe the picture to the one player and they had to try and draw the picture.  Team that was closest to the same picture wins the points.  It was lots of fun.

Feedback from after the CPD was very positive and it seems like  all the teachers were happy to be there and felt like they left with valuable information.