ESL Teacher's Confessions

 Webinar #6 -  Long Story Short : How to make your first ESL video lesson.  This webinar was entitled “Long Story Short” – the host was Ms. Malgorzata Gaca. The aim of this webinar was to provide useful tips and ideas on how to record our first ESL video lesson. As many language teachers are adapting their lessons to be virtual – Malgorzata provides us novel educators with ways to go about it.  She claimed that making ESL videos isn’t rocket science but there are a few key things that teachers should consider. To make a good video there are some basic things to think about such as a good camera (video quality), a good microphone, good lighting, and a non-distracting background. It’s crucial that students are able to see what the teacher does and hear what he/she is saying. These elements could be overwhelming for a language teacher, as they are not video-editors, but they are important elements to keep in mind.  I enjoyed that she took the time to explain how di...

  Webinar #6 – Arts and Crafts A few weeks ago, GPTE students were able to attend another Webinar with the special guest - Kasia Biernat. The main topic of this workshop was to learn about Arts and Crafts in our ESL lessons. The speaker gave us practical tips as well as some inspirational activities.  There are many benefits of using arts and crafts in our lessons, especially since young children love being creative and expressing themselves, she mentioned that art can be …  use as an activity for natural stimulus for communication,  create as a follow-up activity for a number of topics,  provides relaxation,  with younger children – it improves their motor skills,  provides conditions for peripheral learning,  boost student-teacher interaction, Thus, the implementation of art and crafts in the classroom may reap many benefits when done correctly. The speaker also provided some possible activities. She mentioned that she gets inspired by the diffe...

  Student practice – Mental health week For the first week of February, it was children's mental health week (1-7 February 2021). As means of building awareness, the school (where I am completing my internship) organized a few activities and events for pupils.  There has never been a more important time to talk about well-being and mental health. Especially in these hard times, a special task to support and encourage children and parents to find ways to share their thoughts and feelings. When one thinks about mental health, children are often excluded. Thus, I greatly appreciate that the school included our pupils and giving them tasks to express their feelings and ways to cope with them.  mentor teacher prepared a delightful week with genius activities – so I had to show you guys.  The morning started with an encouraging message with a few minutes of silence for meditation and self-reflection. Starting the day off with encouraging words allowed them to be filled wit...

 An ESL Lesson from China: Reflections Lesson from China: Reflections  This was an English lesson conducted in China with the topic of “what time is it?”. The class contained about 15 students with the approximate age of 10 years old.  What I like d about the lesson:   - Good routine before the lesson  - The use of technology in the classroom (more interactive and modern)  - A lot of oral choral repetition (pronunciation) change of voice/ tone + ask individual students - Phonetic practice! Chorally repeating after the teacher, the class practiced the /i/ sound - Not just learning single words but also language chunks  - Before introducing new conceptions, the teacher review past lexical items  - Frequent change of activities – students at that age usually have a short attention span  - Students did not write anything down in their notebooks, no use of a language textbook What I personally didn’t lik e about the lesso...

 Webinar #4 - Teaching Young Learners online  GPTE students were able to watch a Webinar which was hosted by Ada Chmielewska and Natalia Nesteruk. The webinar hosts are experienced ESL teachers who currently own their own language school entitled SpearkArt.  The webinar was quite interesting as the teachers shared their personal experiences teaching aboard as well as their experience teaching English online. Due to the current pandemic, many schools were forced to move their lessons online. So, the hosts were able to provide reassurance to new teachers by explaining the advantages of teaching online as well as some lesson examples – which were creative and out of the box.  The teachers explained that they try to conduct online lessons similar to physical lessons ( AKA in a real classroom). As, they both need to build relationships with parents, and students, provide a community support system, and provide online learning goals. The speakers tried to make us see ...

  Webinar 3 – Action Songs in an ESL classroom This webinar was hosted by the elementary teacher - Marta Szymanska. She provided useful insight about incorporating songs in our ESL lessons. She mentioned different ways that action songs can be used in our lessons, for instance: Songs for routines (signal to change the activity) Brain break/ movement Allows time for pupils to have a break and release their energy. Story/theme of the lesson With the use of movement and gestures, it can help build students listening skills and comprehension. Warm up Action songs can be used to introduce a new topic. Speech therapy exercises Songs can be an effective tool to practice new sounds and reinforce words.   Finger dexterity exercises Develop their motor skills. Musical development Develop their musical abilities such as rhythm. I enjoyed that she focused on movement, as it takes the pressure off teachers. As many n...