Assessment in the mixed-ability classroom. Erika Osvath is a freelance teacher, teacher trainer and materials writer.
She joins us on the blog ahead of her webinar ‘Mixed-ability teaching: Assessment and feedback’, to preview the session and topics she will explore. One of greatest challenges facing teachers of mixed-ability classes is assessment, especially in contexts where uniformly administered tests and giving grades are part of the requirements of the educational system. These forms of assessment, however, tend to lead to unfair results. They are like holding a running event where participants set off from a different spot on the track. Naturally, in each case the distance covered and the rate of progress will depend on individual abilities. Also, students tend to interpret their grades competitively, comparing their own performance to the others in the group, which, again, leads to anxiety and low self-esteem, becoming an obstacle to further improvement. Error Correction in Writing: Grammar and Vocabulary Checklist. Do you think you can correct some of your own writing errors?
Yes. You just need this checklist! If you have read my last posts, you may have noticed that lately, I’m kind of obsessed with writing. I wrote about connectors of contrast hereI did a collaborative writing activity hereStudents wrote about unusual traditions hereAnd here, I recommended some amazing websites to make your writing stronger. Tour the States - Official Music Video. CNN Learn English. Learning Technology News.
Teaching With YouTube. Teaching With Video: 9 Tips For Teaching With YouTube.
1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: Stream a Huge Playlist of Songs Based on the Bestselling Book. Image by HayeurJF, via Flickr Commons Though the burials of ancient Egyptian rulers offer at least one notable exception, nearly all the world’s religions have agreed on one thing—if one thing only: you can’t take your stuff with you.
You can leave it to the local church, mosque, or synagogue, your heirs, a charity of your choice, your dog; but your material possessions will not go wherever you might when it’s over. However, should consciousness somehow survive the body, or get uploaded to a new one in some sci-fi future, perhaps you can take with you the experiences, memories, sensations, and ideas you’ve accumulated over a lifetime. And if that’s the case, we should all be greedy for knowledge and experience rather than property and consumer goods. And the “1,000… Before You Die” series of books, might be considered guides to curating your afterlife.
Tourism: Developing Writing Skills through Collaborative Writing. It is true that I don’t dedicate enough time to writing activities.
I ask my students to do small writing tasks but not the real thing, at least not as often as they would probably need. Would it be a plausible excuse to say that I have 148 students and that it takes an awful lot of time, time I don’t have, to correct their essays? No, I know. I need to make amends, and I have started this week. Carol Read - The secret of working with children. Thinking About Discipline - Part 3. Some Classic Mistakes In my first two posts in this series on Discipline, I mentioned some of the causes of undisciplined behaviour and a few proactive steps which I believe will help in creating a classroom atmosphere which promotes disciplined behaviour.
101 Ways For Teachers To Be More Creative. 101 Ways For Teachers To Be More Creative Ed note: This post has been republished from a 2013 post.
Creativity isn’t always something that just happens. It can take quite a bit of work to nurture, grow, and develop creativity, even for those who are immersed in creative and dynamic fields. Help please: Frayer models. What better place to think through a lesson idea than on my blog?!
Hopefully all you great teachers can offer a few ideas… I recently came across the idea of Frayer models while browsing Teacher’s Toolkit. I found other explanations and examples of their use on this blog, and concise definition here. To be honest I’d never heard of them, but they look very useful. White Christmas. The Top 100 Documentaries We Can Use to Change the World. By Films For Action / filmsforaction.org/ Jun 10, 2015 Documentaries have an incredible power to raise awareness and create transformative changes in consciousness both at the personal and global levels.
Over the last 8 years, we've watched hundreds of social change documentaries and cataloged the best of them on the site. There's now so many that we realized we needed to filter this down even further. So what follows is our list of the very best 100 - hand-picked for their quality, insight and potential to inspire positive change. BusyTeacher.org Mobile. If you teach adults English as a second language, you know the unique challenges and rewards that come with working with older students....
Webinars: A Cookbook for Educators – a book by Nicky Hockly. Lesson idea: introducing dreams and ambitions. You really must check out these two sites: All at C and Vocabulary in Chunks. I’ve started to use a lot more videos in class and these have some great resources on them! Sometimes I come across resources, especially videos, that make me think ‘this would be really useful for introducing a lesson on [INSERT TOPIC HERE]’. I often forget about them if the topic doesn’t come up in the textbook soon. Story cubes – Circle writing with narrative tenses. Story cubes are dice with unique pictures on every side. I’ve been using story cubes in the classroom since before my CELTA, when I was volunteering and I had no idea what to do with early finishers. I would often hand them a few story cubes and ask them to tell each other a story. Here’s a rather cutesy trailer which shows just that: Since then, I’ve discovered that lots of EFL teachers use story cubes and there’s actually a lot written about them (I’ll include a few links a the end).
The Christmas Quiz. LingoRank. English Levels. English Language Site for Students and Teachers. Primary Literacy Teaching Resources and Printables. All.at.C. MAIN ACTIVITY using cohesive devices (linking words, relative clauses and pronouns) to describe a sequence of actions SUITABLE FOR teens and adults, upper-intermediate (B2) and above Click here for the Teacher’s Notes Photo taken from Dace Praulins, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, 19 Ridiculously Simple DIYs Every Elementary School Teacher Should Know. Scholastic TIMESAVERS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHOTOCOPIABLE | SCHOLASTIC TIMESAVERS | MARY GLASGOW--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------● Timesaver Resource Books: Secondary | maryglasgowplus.com/book_lists/4200The series includes cross-cultural lessons, grammar, vocabulary or skill development, games, raps and communicative activities and everyday, practical English.
Blog Challenge: Compare and Contrast Photos. Present Continuous with Mr Bean - Spring Clean. Funny English. Mr Bean's Guest. Download Free PowerPoint Themes & PPT Templates. Film in Action: Teaching language using moving images (Delta Teacher Development Series): Amazon.co.uk: Kieran Donaghy: 9781909783072: Books.
10 Fun-Filled Formative Assessment Ideas. Success. This EFL lesson is designed around a short film by Lara Lee for The School of Life titled Success, and the theme of the nature of success. Students talk about success, watch a short film, and read a transcript. Building Social and Emotional Skills in Elementary Students: So Similar. This is part eight of the nine-part series from the Project Happiness curriculum. We are looking at important factors that influence the happiness and social and emotional learning of elementary school age children, helping students learn life skills, manage emotions, and increase empathy. Each blog features one letter of the acronym HAPPINESS: Life Skills Resources and Featured Courses. Calculate your carbon footprint » Just One Earth. 100 Activities for Fast Finishers. Across Cultures (PDF+AUDIO) Se connecter à Facebook.
Fuel Creativity in the Classroom With Divergent Thinking. A different side of EFL: Passive users or critical thinkers? Developing critical and creative thinking skills with technology. Using Old Tech (Not Edtech) to Teach Thinking Skills. I've been trying to use Google Docs to good effect in my ninth grade history classroom. Mike Hosking Breakfast - Photos. The 37 Best Websites To Learn Something New. Forget overpriced schools, long days in a crowded classroom, and pitifully poor results. These websites and apps cover myriads of science, art, and technology topics. Young Digital Planet. Storyline Online - Where Reading Is Fun!
The role of Interactive Whiteboard in Second Language Learning Survey. How scaffolding can improve your CLIL lesson. Three CLIL activities to start a lesson. British Council. HEART (Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers) Humane Resource Guides. Eltpics’s favorites. Register and degrees of formality. Speaking classes don't always need to be fun. Fluency practice: What do you know about Britain? TeachingEnglish. Where are the World’s Hungriest People? Take a Look. Realia. Wheel-of-words.jpg (JPEG Image, 1156 × 1052 pixels) - Scaled (88%) Dramatic Languages. ELT Ireland digital resources.