Quirky Videos

Use the stop-play technique to elicit language from students with these imaginative short films. 

1. The Black Hole - dir. Phil and Olly
2. Signs  - dir. Patrick Hughes *
3. The Note - dir. Jon Greenhalgh

A few possible questions to ask students:

• What is the man is going to do next?
• Is he going to take something?
• What?Are the man and woman going to talk to each other?
• Do you think they will go on a date?
• What will the note say next?

 * In Signs there is one brief moment at 6.19-13sec you'd be wise to skip over if you teach young teens!

Fairy Tales in ELT

Guessing Game Cards

My students love this activity. I'm posting it firstly as it's part of an assignment, secondly because I really appreciate other teachers sharing resources they've made and of course I am keen to contribute to the ELT community.

I usually do the activity something like this.

1. Ss. put all the cards face down on a desk. 
2. The first student takes a turn to read a card out to the group.
3. If a member of the group knows the fairy tale as it is being read, they put their hand down flat on the table.
4. When the reader has finished the story, they ask one of the students with their hand down flat, 'What story is it... (Maki)?' 
5. (Maki) says, 'I think it's (Cinderella). 
6. She is told, 'That's right.' Or, 'Not quite. Anyone else?'

It would be a great introduction to a fairy tale writing activity. 

The best part of the game is that reticent students get caught up in the fun of it and listen keenly to the speaker, so I look forward to watching my students play this game every year.

These are some ideas on main activities to do after this warm-up. Thanks to my classmates at Coursera.org for many of these ideas!

Have students:

• modernise the fairy tale - students pick a modern moral to tell, e.g. the dangers of texting and walking, drugs, stranger danger, etc.

• erase the last few lines of the story and write a new ending.

• switch the gender roles - for example, The Sleeping Cutie and the princess who wakes him up from his 100 years of slumber. Cinderon, the boy who is treated badly by his evil stepfather and dreams of going to the ball to dance with the princess.

• put out some props that you wouldn't expect in a fairy tale and have each group choose two that they have to incorporate into their version of the story, like a toy helicopter, a cellphone or some soap.

• tell the fairy tale from the perspective of one of the supporting characters. For example, retell Cinderella from the Prince's point of view. Or the Fairy Godmother's, Cinderella's father, one of the mice, etc.

• comparing the fairy tales from different cultures - e.g. what are the similarities between Japanese and Serbian traditions?

Teachers TV - a great tool for professional development

Teachers TV was a free video website funded by the UK government until 2011. 

I loved this British series and wish it had continued because it was a treasure trove of brilliant, practical help for teachers and administrators. 

Sadly, funding was withdrawn for reasons unknown but at least all the videos are still online, some on YouTube or hosted on other sites like TES.

Back in the day, I spent hours every week watching videos from Teachers TV to pick up new tips and ideas. The advice dispensed on a wide range of subjects and school issues was incredibly useful.

As Sir Ken Robinson says, 

"Investing in professional development is not a cost, it's an investment."

And these online video websites are an incredibly helpful tool for professional development (PD), because busy teachers easily watch or listen to videos in their free time, in order to keep on absorbing the huge amount of information, new ideas and techniques that are necessary to do our jobs of keeping our students' minds engaged in learning.

I highly recommend watching it.

Advice I gave my students in 2014.

2014 has been a year full of personal and professional growth for me, and as a homeroom teacher getting involved in the pastoral care of my students, at times I found my internal dialogue start up with, 

"Yeah, yeah, Ms. Kuiper. That's all well and good, but to what extent are you following your own advice?". 

So, that's the challenge. As the Argentinean band Los Enanitos Verdes song Solo Dame Otra Oportunidad (Just Give Me Another Chance) goes, 

'They say best advice is that which you give yourself.'

'Dicen que el mejor consejo es el que se da uno mismo'.

So here is a re-cap of some of the advice I gave my students, and I'll try to remember to check at the end of 2015 with an update on how well I followed it myself.

• Be proud of your successes but more importantly, learn from your mistakes. #GrowthMindest

• Hone your creative, oratorical and collaborative skills.

• Get to know your own personality and how it affects other people.

• Work on building rapport with your classmates, they are your partners in learning and understand your school experience like nobody else. #VisibleLearning

• Don't cut yourself off from feeling hurt. Numbing your ability to feel sad may actually numb all of your feelings and end up limiting your ability to feel happiness. (From: The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown)

• Invest in having positive interactions with everyone. Move quickly to sort out issues.

• Apologize properly - a proper apology has three parts. (This is an invaluable interpersonal skill that everyone, not just students, should learn from an early age.)

So, what advice did you give your students this year?

Ishigaki Island at dusk, Okinawa. By @MsKuiper.

Creativity Expert - Sir Ken Robinson

Revolutionary ideas on education and razor-sharp wit. 

Sir Ken Robinson is very widely-known, yet his ideas deserve even more spreading, especially around teachers, school administrators, politicians, parents, and basically everyone.

An expert on creativity and one of the wittiest public speakers I've ever heard, Sir Ken's TED Talks are so popular that he's done at least three - they keep asking him back. I'm having difficulty deciding which one of his books to read first. Any suggestions?

One of the anecdotes he gives in one of his talks is that of British choreographer and director Gillian Lynne, most famous for her work on the musical Cats. As a young girl of eight, she simply couldn't sit still in class or turn her homework in on time. Her mother was called in to school, and this is what happened...

Picking favorite quotes from his TED Talks is difficult, so here are just two:

1) Escaping Education's Death Valley

"you can't improve education if you don't pick great people to teach and if you don't keep giving them constant support and professional development. Investing in professional development is not a cost. It's an investment"

2) From Bring on the learning revolution!

"every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly." 

See more on his website and on YouTube.   http://sirkenrobinson.com/?page_id=14

Try IT On Monday 2014 - Part I

On Saturday I went to Try IT On Monday (TIOM) 2014 with some teachers from my school. It was our first time at the event, and it was well worth it. There were over 100 teachers from international schools mostly around Tokyo to exchange ideas with. The aim of TIOM is for teachers to share IT ideas that are useful, but still easy enough to use that you can walk into your own classroom on Monday and try them out.

TIOM had a great atmosphere, professional yet relaxed - the perfect combination for teachers volunteering their time on a Saturday morning. According to the coordinator, Kiyo Horii, a successful TIOM event includes these flavors and spices:

• informal
• flexible
• variety of presentations
• open registration
• student involvement
• free lunch and snacks

Check it out at http://jascd-tiom.ning.com/

Some of the presenters (do I dare call them 'techsperts'?) were IT integrators or Google certified teachers, others were regular teachers who had figured out how to do something cool or time-saving using IT.

The sessions I saw were:

1) blogging 
2) Google sites 
3) efficient report card writing

As you can see, I really am trying IT on Monday with this new blog. Over the coming year, I will share ideas from the sessions I went to, and much, much more...

A big thanks to our hosts at Nishimachi International School - otsukaresama guys! 

Efficient report card writing session at TIOM2014 - no more spelling mistakes, ever again! 
www.schoolreportwriter.com