There are times when I wish that instead of teaching in the format of a “mixed-level-learning-center”, all my advanced students would come at the same time for a more “traditional” kind of class.

I could then present a topic for discussion, and we could have discussions in small groups which would lead to the writing task.

In such a scenario I wouldn’t have had to create the worksheet I am sharing today.

Reading Maria Theologidou’s post “Rediscovering Bookmark Favourites, Part 1” introduced me to many sites I was not familiar with, and I truly appreciated the little explanatory blurb for each site. However, one site, in particular, blew me away “Oxplore – The Home of the BIG Questions”. 

The deeper I delved into the site, the more excited I became.

Excited and frustrated.

“‘Oxplore is an engaging digital resource from the University of Oxford. As the ‘Home of Big Questions’, it aims to challenge those from 11 to 18 years with debates and ideas that go beyond what is covered in the classroom” (from the “About” page on the website).

The material there really IS geared toward teenagers. There are short texts, interactive questionnaires, and videos. The graphics are friendly.

AND…

There are a great many “BIG QUESTIONS”‘ to choose from!

BUT…

My advanced Deaf and hard-of-hearing students do not come to class with others on their level, so peer discussions are not an option.

I had to have a written task for them to do, individually.

It took me several weeks to come up with a version I could use.

At first, it seemed logical for me to choose a topic and prepare a task for that specific topic. This way I could ensure that subtitles /captioning of the videos, which my students rely on,  had correct English (the automatic captioning on YouTube is often riddled with errors and makes no sense). In addition, I could create specific questions for each section to ensure the students actually read information from different sections.

On second thought, me, the teacher, choosing the topic for the students was NOT a logical idea.

Not at all!

The site is geared toward choice, for students to go through the topics and choose the one to relate to.

Yes, but…

I ABSOLUTELY adore the video about the four ways books make us who we are. I really wanted all the students to watch it and write about it. The content is important,  the vocabulary used is enriching for these advanced students, and the engaging graphics are a treat. For some inexplicable reason, many of my smartest students with amazing language skills, think books are a waste of time…

AAargh…

So I compromised.

The first part of the worksheet is open-ended, and the students choose their topic. Three of my students are currently working on it (more to begin soon) and each one has chosen an entirely different topic!

The second part is related to the video.

It will be interesting to see how they react to it and what they write about it…

Here is the downloadable worksheet.

An Oxplore Big Question

Would you use Oxplore in class? How? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

A unicorn is a mythical animal.

A unicorn is also something desirable that is difficult to obtain.

There is a persistent myth in the weeks preceding a national matriculation exam. Like a unicorn, this myth represents something the students desire but find it to be an elusive goal, because it doesn’t exist!

I’m sure you’ve heard the hooves of a unicorn passing through your classroom at this time of year as well.

This myth goes like this:

The students believe that during the very few lessons that we actually have after the winter holidays (those precious lessons that weren’t canceled due to extra math lessons) and before the National Winter Matriculations, I will impart MAGICAL information that will enable my students to ace their exams.  Some secret knowledge which they seem to think I have withheld from them until now.

Sorry to disappoint you, students.

I tell my Deaf and hard -of -hearing 12th graders that they should be proud of themselves. This national exam is the final section of their overall grade and their previous achievements on the easier sections matter a great deal – they’ve come a long way.

I remind them to come on time and go to sleep early before the exam (I remind myself to bring pens, always needed!).

I point out that there are two dates for repeat exams.

There are plenty of things for us to review before an exam, but there are no golden rules or surefire tips hiding under this unicorn umbrella, waiting to be released at the very last second.

Sorry students.

Go away, unicorn, I know you’ll be back in May.

Have you also heard hoofbeats during the last lessons before a major exam?

 

 

Two Blue Checkmarks

If there is something I’m not using this year because I CHOSE not to do so, are WhatsApp Groups (or broadcast lists) for each of my classes. I spent too much energy, wasted energy, trying to get certain students to actually read the short messages I sent.  I then had to keep track of who had read a message and who didn’t. To add to the confusion, in some cases, a student actually had read a message but I remained unaware of the fact because the two blue checkmarks failed to appear on my screen at all (he/she read the message without opening it).  The students say they are inundated with WhatsApp groups and cannot keep track of their messages and frankly my colleagues with young children make the same complaint.

So….

* Simple announcements such as “There will be no lesson tomorrow at 09:00” – are sent to one of the students to pass on.  That seems to work.

* My classes of Deaf and hard-of-hearing students are small.  I copy a prewritten message, add a name and send it. Messages with a name elicit a slightly higher percentage of responses.  I resorted to sending question marks ( “? ? ? “) to three nonresponding students this year,  and two of them actually apologized for not answering.  I had written words of praise and encouragement, I wanted them to see them! The third student didn’t see the question marks either…

* I’ve completely stopped sending reminders before tests – reminders such as “bring a pen”, “bring your dictionary”, etc. The ones who need the reminders aren’t the ones who read the messages anyway…

BLUE on YELLOW

Fact – Some struggling students who have trouble reading, find it easier to read dark blue letters on a pale yellow background. This particular contrast is helpful in certain cases.

Fact – There are many struggling students for whom the SIDE EFFECTS of the contrasting colors make a difference. It’s not that the contrast is directly addressing the source of their difficulties, rather it’s a helpful step in convincing new students that we are truly trying to help them.  When the students see that you made a special worksheet just for them, used scissors to cut their reading passage into paragraphs so that it wouldn’t be overwhelming and even gave them a personal set of flashcards they begin, slowly, to trust you. Trust is crucial…

Here are two samples of such worksheets (the yellow color isn’t as pale as I would like)

All about YOU 2            All about YOU

 

*** The new reading glasses I wear around my neck are blue, and their case is too (Monet’s Water Lillies, lots of blue)! As I’ve worn multifocal glasses for many years, having reading glasses is a big change for me.

 

Feeling Blue

My multi-level, personalized learning center is still reeling from the surprise closure of the learning management system I had been using, Edmodo.  Imagine Google Classroom, but free and very easy to use. It turned out that a small class, one teacher, cannot use Google Classroom. So, thanks to the support of my principal, I’ve begun using a combination of Wakelet (free) and TeacherMade (an inexpensive subscription). While this combination overlaps with a large percentage of the functions I used to have, and both are very user-friendly, the material needs to be organized and posted! I had TEN YEARS worth of organized material there!  All the new 10th graders have heard of Edmodo, as I keep saying things like: “We have a digital version of this, you can sit at the computer… oh wait, we actually don’t… Not yet…

That makes me feel blue…

But…

Blue Skies and Blue Waters actually don’t make me feel blue at all – quite the opposite!

 

“Are you sure Teacher T.  didn’t have a baby? I don’t know what to write for someone who moved to a new apartment”, asked one of my 10th-grade students near the end of the previous school year.

“Just write HAPPY BIRTHDAY! – that works for everything” advised another.

As I launched into my “greetings/best wishes lesson”,  I hoped to recreate the lesson we had several years ago when the aforementioned Teacher T. actually did have a baby: “Students Writing for an Authentic Audience Affords a Peek into their Hearts”.

The students back in 2018 were motivated to write, we practiced vocabulary, grammar, and syntax in context. In addition, we focused on  PRAGMATICS, which is something my Deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students certainly need to work on.

Well,…

It wasn’t a repeat performance.

For starters,  moving to a new apartment clearly doesn’t tug at students’ heartstrings the same way that having a new baby does.

I understood that but nonetheless, I handed out whiteboard markers, wrote a suitable title on the board, and attempted to inspire the students by acting out how pleased the teacher would be when she arrived at class and found all these good wishes on the board.

One student actually started off on the right track – he wanted to write: HAVE A GOOD MOOD APARTMENT! So that led to the kind of educational discussion I was hoping to have.

But then a student literally stood with her hands on her hips, gave me a sort of “Are you kidding me” look, and said very emphatically:

“She knows Hebrew.

I know Hebrew.

And YOU want ME to write to her in ENGLISH?!”

She proceeded to shake her head sorrowfully…

The OLD teacher in me immediately began thinking:

“Which of our old “Writing for an Authentic Audience” projects was worth revisiting? Or should I look into new options?  Perhaps we could…”

These thoughts were drowned out by the NEW teacher in me shouting:

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

This past year was really difficult, despite being back in class. It was a struggle to have a sense of continuity when we actually never had the allotted number of lessons a week. Even those students who didn’t feel the need to skip at least one day of school a week were often absent due to class excursions, lectures, exams in other subjects / getting tutoring hours for upcoming exams in other subjects.

And of course, some students were also absent due to illness. I was too, as a matter of fact. The pandemic hasn’t disappeared yet…

The NEW teacher in me says “focus on building “islands of stability before thinking about anything else. ”

It doesn’t matter that my summer tradition has always been to find/learn some new tweak, practice, routine, or different take to start a new school year with.

I need to figure out how to bring back what actually worked well before the pandemic hit and was lost or dramatically downsized.

Look back, not forward, before this school year begins.

How’s that for being open to change?

Since I teach in a multi-level, mixed-grade learning center, some examples of what I would like to see  once again in class:

… students coming to class, actually remembering what they are working on and independently pulling out the material they need.

… students practicing their vocabulary on Quizlet without asking what the icon for Quizlet looks like …

… getting the WORD STATION up and running again and ensuring the students use it regularly without asking me what to do …

You can read about that “work station” here:                  https://visualisingideas.edublogs.org/2010/12/25/y-a-l-p-10-minute-system-part-2/

… reviving the lessons involving the “look up and read” method adapted from John Fanselow’s book “Small Changes in Teaching, Big Results in Learning”.

You can read about that here: https://visualisingideas.edublogs.org/2018/04/22/one-tweak-at-a-time-reflecting-on-fanselows-textbook-for-efl-teachers-2-read-and-look-up/

And…

of course…

… seeing students continue to use the one thing that actually was an island of stability for both the students and I throughout the years of teaching alongside a pandemic (including the distance learning part!) , the tool that enabled each student to log on and only see his/her personal assignments, called…

AARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The wonderful off-the-school-grid Learning Management System I rely on, Edmodo, is shutting down.

For good.

It was just announced – in Mid August!

School begins Sept. 1st.

I’ve been using it for at least 10 years and have a vast amount of material organized into small units, for different groups, levels and individual students. I even have a small pedagogical library there!

The one thing that was not harmed by the pandemic (on the contrary!) is disappearing.

Writing for an authentic audience?

That will have to wait.

I’m going back to basics first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him”.

W. Somerset Maugham’s opening sentence of the story “Mr. Know All’ is crystal clear.

This is a story dealing with prejudices.

I should be saying:

“Great, Naomi. You already have a pre-reading task ready on “being too quick to judge”, go prepare something else for the upcoming school year”.

I try to convince myself:

“You even posted about the importance of focusing on the central idea of the story in the pre-reading task, including a quote from a reading expert! Move on!” (Shifting the focus of pre-reading tasks, August 2018)

But I can’t.

 

Look at the next sentence:

“The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy”.

The war in question is World War 1.

You may think that it doesn’t really matter that my Deaf and hard-of-hearing students haven’t a clue as to when that war ended (some are a bit surprised that there was a WW1 even though the numbering should have been a clue…) but it actually matters a great deal.

For starters, if I don’t emphasize the time frame my students cannot fathom why the characters are spending two weeks on a ship instead of hopping on a plane, spending their time ignoring the other passengers.

There would be no drama without the journey on the ship.

But then my students get the whole issue of nationalities mixed up.

And it all comes up in the first paragraph.

The narrator was traveling from San Francisco to Yokohama

My students assume the narrator was American (once we ensure everyone knows where these cities are located…) because who else travels from San Francisco?

After my students have already jumped to conclusions it’s much harder for them to internalize the information about the British Empire and who is or isn’t a real “British Gentleman”.

“… I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.”

Those surnames do not indicate any nationality at all to my students…

In short, I created a new slideshow.

While there are a few spaces where students are required to fill in the missing information (“look it up, students!!), this is not a task meant to be completed independently, without teacher involvement.

While difficult vocabulary items can be glossed, setting the stage for the story is crucial.

Now I can work on updating the glossary…

Here is the slideshow.

Pre Reading Mr Know All.

There aren’t many authentic opportunities for a teacher in the school system to truly model seeing mistakes as an opportunity for growth and improvement.

You know what I’m talking about.

We teachers are always being told that we should teach the students to try, fail, and learn from their mistakes.

To view mistakes as a learning opportunity.

Important, right?

A truly important message for my Deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students learning English as a foreign language.

Yet we are expected to get this message across in a school system geared toward good grades and “getting it right”. A system in which the students trust me to know the material I am teaching them well.

So how do I show my students, at least occasionally, in an authentic way,  how I make mistakes, try to understand what went wrong, and try again? And again and again?

EUREKA!

Fast forward to the day after our recent annual national sports tournament day, for schools with programs for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students from around the country.

We’re back at school.

One 10th grade student catches me coming down the stairs on the way to the classroom:

(No hello first…)

” Why didn’t you take a picture of me when I was ‘doing’ the penalty kick?!! The teacher of the other school took pictures of her students! I saw you with the camera by the football field!”

The second 10th-grade student said “Hello” and “Good Morning”. And then (more politely)  wanted to know why I only sent her one photograph of herself at the netball game,  (standing still!) when she clearly saw me taking lots of pictures of her during the first part of the game.

Both students got the same candid reply:

“You know, I’m trying to learn artistic photography with a real camera (as opposed to a cell phone camera) and it was really hard for me to take pictures when you were moving so fast. Most of my photos were awful. You still have two more years at the high school. I hope you participate in lots of school events and I’ll keep trying. Maybe in the future, I’ll succeed in taking a good picture of you”.

Their reactions?

The “net-ball girl” – “Okay, I’ll be competing again. You keep practicing and try again. I got one picture, that’s a good start”.

The “soccer boy” – “Well, I’m not blaming you but if it’s hard you should practice. Maybe next year you’ll do better”.

Maybe I will take better photos of sports events and other school activities next year.

Maybe I won’t.

Either way, bringing my camera will work out well!

---

Additional notes:

• I ALSO told the “soccer boy” that I got hit by a soccer ball kicked directly at my leg while standing by the field, which didn’t encourage me to stick around. He didn’t really find that detail relevant… A true photographer doesn’t let small discomforts get in his/her way, right?
• One of the few “action photographs” I do have from the girls’ netball game is actually a funny one of a boy who barged in during the warmup time and caught the ball! You aren’t going to see it though – I don’t post pictures of my students anywhere online.

Ping: “Oh Pong, listen to this! I’ve got a new idea for the next school year. Let’s use…”

Pong (interrupting):  Now hold it right there. Did you just say a new idea? As in a NEW IDEA? Weren’t you the teacher complaining about feeling overwhelmed and tired?

Ping: That was me…

Pong: So convince me why I should even LISTEN to this new idea when you can stick with what you already have. Go ahead, let’s see what you can come up with.

Ping: It doesn’t require much teacher preparation time.

Pong: Not bad. Keep going.

Ping: Making small changes, even “tweaks” to the routine always boosts my work-related motivation level, and I really need some of that after this school year.

And the students might learn something…

Pong: Okay, okay, good points. Let’s hear the new idea.

Ping: You see, we’ll have “Grammar Pens” to… (Pong interrupts)

Pong: Wait a minute. “Grammar Pencils” are “A THING”. You can Google them and find sites to purchase them from. Those pencils have confusing grammar points on them, such as “to, two & too” or “there, their and they’re”. Are you already planning out-of-pocket purchases for the English Room?!!

PIng: No, no, calm down. Absolutely not. This idea was just inspired by those products. Our students prefer pens and purchasing things like pencils makes no sense as they aren’t made for long-term use.

Pong: Whew… (sighs in relief).

Ping: You know those students who never bring a pen to class? I once read that in such cases a student should leave something of his/hers until the pen is returned at the end of the lesson. Such a method would be problematic to implement with some of our Deaf and hard-of-hearing adolescents (I don’t what anyone taking off their belt, for example!). However,  I thought that perhaps I could still turn the situation into an educational experience.

So, before I let them use one of the English Room pens, they will have to tell me what the difference is between your/you’re,   its/it’s,  have/has, etc. I can add confusing vocab items such as long/no longer too.

Pong: What happens if they don’t know the answer?

Ping: We do what we always do, unrelated to this particular idea – I tell the student, and then the student has to tell it back to me.

Pong: How are you going to emboss/ engrave the target words onto the pens?

Ping:  I’M NOT!  Even if I knew how to do such a thing I wouldn’t.  It’s the same principle that holds true for playing board games in EFL lessons – you don’t want the target item to appear in a fixed place. On a board game, if an instruction or a vocabulary item is written in the top left corner, the students quickly memorize what they need to say or do when they reach that corner, and stop reading the words written.  If the words are permanently on “the red pen”, or the “large pen”, the students will just use such cues to retrieve an answer without focusing on the words written.  The cards can’t have numbers on them, for the same reason.

I’ll place a little box with the target words on cards beside our pen holder.  Easy to shuffle cards or pull out ones that are below/above a certain student’s level.  You get a lot more repetition with cards, compared to “fixed words”.

Take a card, respond, get a pen – easy peasy!

I can use it with the highlighters/colored markers too!

Pong: If you’ve got all that worked out, why did you call me in? I usually only show up when there’s a problem.

Ping: (Sighs in regret)* There is a problem.

Actually, there are two problems.

Pong: Start with the easier problem.

Ping: It’s a learning center, so not all the students are doing the same thing. If a student began the lesson working on the computer, and then went on to something else, he/she may ask for a pen in the middle of the lesson, not at the beginning…

At the moment they just go over to the table and take one without my involvement.

Pong: Hmmm… What’s the other problem?

Ping: What about the students who ALWAYS bring their pens, pencils, erasers, dictionaries, markers, and anything else they might possibly need for the lesson?

They need to practice these items too…

Pong: Why don’t you ask your readers for advice? Maybe they can offer suggestions.

Do you have any suggestions for me to consider?

____________________________________________

• Can you guess which poem I have been teaching recently, yet again?