Empower yourself with Self-compassion: a guide for teachers

Self-compassion for teachers 

It is true that the teaching profession attracts generous people. Teachers are generous with their time, dedicating extra hours to planning, marking and creating to make their students enjoy classes and learn in the best way possible. Teachers are generous with their colleagues, often helping to share materials, bring in cakes and biscuits to the staff room, and attend meetings after hours. Teachers are also generous with parents, taking the time to help them to understand more about their child’s progress. Yet, many teachers are not generous to themselves – they easily get stressed out, blame themselves if a lesson doesn’t quite go as planned, focus so much on their profession that their personal lives can be negatively affected. This is why, on this ‘Teacher’s Day’ on 27th November, I would like for teachers to think about, and then hopefully practice, self-compassion. 

What is self-compassion? 

When a family member, friend or colleague goes through a tough moment in life and you feel nothing but a sense of concern, and wanting to help and support that person, this is showing compassion, not judgement or pity. Self-compassion is to direct that love towards yourself when you face similar hurdles, rather than being angry at yourself, telling yourself off or feeling inadequate. It also involves facing the problem and the feelings involved, rather than ignoring it or burying it inside yourself where it will eat away at your self-confidence and sense of worth and will likely manifest itself later as anger. 

Why is it important? 

Living a life where your inner critic’s voice is the dominant voice is not a nice way to live! Nobody would choose that, and yet so many of us fixate on the negatives, rather than the positives. For example, if we had a good day at school and then one thing went wrong, we would fixate on that one thing rather than remembering all the good that had come before or after it. Such thinking can out us into a bad mood, cause anger, depression or a feeling of wanting to give up. It is interesting to note is that students are very perceptible to how their teacher is feeling, and it has implications for their learning. A study carried out by Moskowitz & Dewaele, 2019 showed that how students perceived the contentment of their teacher was directly and positively linked to their attitude, motivation and relationship with their teacher. If we can practice self-compassion, we will directly be able to help our students learn better. 

Self-compassion stages 

Self-compassion has been theorised to have three components, each with a positive pole and a negative pole: 

  1. Self-kindness versus self-judgement. This is where you would talk to yourself as if you would a student – you acknowledge a mistake for what it is but do not let something that happened consume you.
  2. Common humanity versus isolation. This is connected to the common phrase: ‘a problem shared is a problem halved.’ By seeking out people to socialise with and talk to, you can be reassured and be helped but keeping away from people will only put the problem front and centre of your thoughts. 
  3. Mindfulness versus over-identification. This is where being calm and centred is better than over-dramatising a problem, thus letting it consume you. 

 How can I start to be more self-compassionate? 

It is really difficult to change deeply rooted habits, and to be self-compassionate is to start a long process of change, but one that is really worth it. There are great books and courses on mindfulness and self-compassion that you can read and attend that will offer you much better insight and help than I can write in this blog. However, if you want to start right away, here are some practical tips to begin with: 

  1. When you make a mistake, talk to yourself as you would a friend – be compassionate, rational and kind. I often find talking aloud if I can’t find a friend lets those emotions out into the universe and I can vocalise my what-ifs and doubts to help myself to rationalise what happened, rather than let it be emotion-driven.
  2. Breathe. Breathing in for 5 second and out for 10 seconds helps the oxygen get to the brain, the adrenalin to calm down and I can process things much more calmly, rather than over-identify (see step 3 above).
  3. When you leave the classroom, say out loud to yourself one thing that you were happy with or grateful for that day to focus the attention, rightly, on the good aspects. You can also write this thought down in a diary and then you can have a collection of good memories of the school year. This can also help you to write nice reports too at the end of term as you have a record of some great things achieved in class. 
  4. Do something active. Doing sport (don’t groan!) truly does help. It doesn’t have to be a marathon but getting off the bus two stops earlier and power-walking home gets the stress out, the endorphins up and you feel much better. 
  5. Seek out people to feel better – have a coffee, play board games, go for dinner. Get distracted, and as time passes, you’ll see it wasn’t that bad whatever was causing you stress.  

 

¡Preparémonos ahora para el…Listening!  

Foto Cabecera Articulo

Preparémonos para el Listening

¡Preparémonos ahora para el…Listening!

Consejos para el Pearson English International Certificate

¡Bienvenidos a la tercera entrega de nuestra serie de posts relacionados con la preparación de Pearson English International Certificate! Hoy pasamos ya de habilidades productivas a habilidades receptivas, y continuamos ahora con consejos de preparación para el…¡Listening!  

Si no has leído los artículos anteriores, te los comparto aquí para que no te los pierdas: 

  1. ¡Preparémonos para el…Speaking!
  2. ¡Preparémonos para el…Writing!

Las habilidades receptivas consisten en asimilar información de un texto oral o escrito, e identificar correctamente información general o específica. Esto no es tan sencillo como parece. En el caso de la comprensión auditiva, incluso los hablantes o profesionales nativos donde el inglés es su lengua materna pueden sentirse desconcertados por el acento, la rapidez con la que alguien habla o la cantidad de personas que hablan a la vez, sin importar las condiciones del examen y los distractores (es decir, ¡trampas!). Hoy, veamos algunas formas sencillas y directas de ayudar a tus alumnos a centrarse en lo importante para llegar a esas difíciles respuestas correctas.  

Atentos a estos consejos prácticos para la preparación de actividades de Listening de la certificación Pearson English International Certificate. ¡A por ello! 

1. ¡La práctica es clave, pero la implicación es lo más importante! 

Antes de que los alumnos puedan tener éxito en cualquier tipo de tarea, debemos asegurarnos de que pueden implicarse con ella. En el caso de las actividades de comprensión oral, es imprescindible tener un motivo para escuchar; y ofrecer a los alumnos algún tipo de ejercicio antes, durante y después del evento principal les ayudará a aprender a evaluar los temas, y a reflexionar sobre cómo lo han hecho casi como algo instintivo.

Ejemplo actividad Listening

Ejemplo 1: Actividad de Listening

Estas habilidades son fácilmente transferibles a las condiciones del examen y ayudarán a los candidatos a gestionar mejor su tiempo y a tener más confianza en sus respuestas. A continuación, te comparto algunos ejemplos de ejercicios, pero no tienen por qué ser complicados; un ejercicio de debate para empezar, una comprobación de la comprensión a mitad de camino y algún comentario de los compañeros sobre la tarea al final, deberían ser más que suficientes para ayudar a los estudiantes a empezar a ganar confianza para esta sección del examen.

Ejemplo 2 de Actividad Listening

Ejemplo 2: Actividad Listening

Si los alumnos están comprometidos, también se sentirán menos intimidados por el nivel, puede que ni siquiera se den cuenta de que el material es más difícil. Implicarse en el proceso y disfrutarlo es mejor que centrarse en obtener siempre todas las respuestas correctas.

Ejemplo 3 de Actividad de Listening

Ejemplo 3: Actividad de Listening

También puedes encontrar algunas actividades similares en este link del British Council. 

2. Encontrando el patrón, ¡encontramos el éxito!  

 Al igual que ocurre con la preparación de muchos exámenes, los alumnos necesitan conocer “partes” del idioma para aprobar el examen. Empezando por las palabras sueltas (cat, dog, pet, etc.), pasando por las combinaciones de palabras, como las collocations (need to go, get married), los nombres compuestos (football, brainstorm) y los phrasal verbs (look after, take after), hasta llegar a partes más amplias del lenguaje, como las frases hechas y las expresiones idiomáticas (it’s raining cats and dogs).

Ejemplo de Actividad de Listening

Ejemplo 4: Actividad de Listening

Si los candidatos son capaces de reconocer los patrones de estas combinaciones lingüísticas, estarán mucho mejor preparados para encontrar las respuestas correctas, pero también para identificar las respuestas incorrectas y los distractores más difíciles.

Ejemplo de Actividad de Listening

Ejemplo 5: Actividad de Listening

Además, cuando repasen las tareas, podrán concluir una respuesta basándose en su conocimiento del lenguaje y su construcción. 

3. No tiene por qué venir de un libro de texto.  

Los ejercicios estructurados y bien planificados que se encuentran en un libro son estupendos. Se centran en un idioma concreto, te ayudan a identificar los puntos fuertes y débiles de tus alumnos y recrean las tareas exactas que tendrán que realizar en el examen. Pero la comprensión auditiva, al igual que la expresión oral, no existe de forma aislada. Complementar el trabajo con el libro y observar un lenguaje más natural y realista también puede ayudar a ampliar el vocabulario, el conocimiento de los acentos y la comprensión de los alumnos.

Ejemplo de Actividad de Listening

Ejemplo 6: Actividad de Listening

Te recomiendo las siguientes alternativas complementarias a los libros de texto para que la práctica del Listening sea dinámica y atractiva: 

  • Podcasts

    Hay una gran cantidad de podcasts, pero This American Life es una gran opción para una clase de ELT. Basado en un tema mensual, puedes escuchar una de las historias del episodio en lugar de escucharlo todo de una sola vez. También puedes imprimir las transcripciones para profundizar en un lenguaje más interesante. ¿Qué podcasts crees que serían buenos para preparar los exámenes?

Pantallazo Web

This American Life

  • Recursos en línea

    Para mí, el verdadero clásico de los recursos online es Film English. Este fantástico sitio web toma vídeos cortos de YouTube, así como de otras fuentes, y construye una clase entera en torno a ellos. No todos son audiciones, algunos vídeos no tienen guion, pero los que sí lo tienen son fantásticos, divertidos y atractivos. El contenido solía ser gratuito, pero ahora es de suscripción. Sin embargo, el fundador y propietario, Kieran Donaghy, comparte regularmente lecciones en LinkedIn, así que te recomiendo seguirlo.

Pantallazo Web: Film English

Film English

  • Apps para aprender idiomas

    Mondly by Pearson (sí, una app de Pearson, pero ¡es genial!), Duolingo, Babbella lista de aplicaciones disponibles para practicar inglés (y otros idiomas) fuera del aula es interminable. Estas aplicaciones presentan la comprensión oral de diferentes maneras. Algunas utilizan el vídeo para contextualizar el vocabulario, otras incluyen traducción y subtítulos, pero creo que todas utilizan la escucha en sus ejercicios de gramática y vocabulario. Esto puede ofrecer una buena base para el idioma y ayudar a mejorar el conocimiento de colocaciones y phrasal verbs. ¿Qué aplicaciones te gustan para aprender idiomas?

Pantallazo App

App: Mondly by Pearson

También puedes probar a sumergirte en el mundo de la IA y crear tus propias canciones hechas a medida para tus clases en SUNO. Es muy divertido.  

¡Espero que estos consejos te hayan resultado útiles! No dudes en compartir tus experiencias conmigo, me encantará conocerlas: claire.dorman@pearson.com

Spook-tacular classroom activities for a fang-tastic Halloween

As the spooky season creeps up on us like a ghost in the night, why not bring a little Halloween magic into the classroom? Whether you’re looking to trick your students into learning with a bit of treat-worthy fun, or you’re brewing up some activities that will make their skills rise from the dead, we’ve got you covered. Don’t be afraid, these activities won’t come back to haunt you—though they might scare up some serious engagement!

Unearth the History of Halloween

photograph by Powell Krueger

Underneath the sweets and scary costumes, Halloween has a rich history dating back to ancient times. Why not turn your classroom into a time-traveling crypt where students explore the haunted roots of this holiday? Split students into groups, each tasked with investigating one aspect of Halloween history—be it the Celtic festival of Samhain, the rise of Halloween in the U.S., or the origin of costumes and jack-o’-lanterns. Have each group create a ghostly news report or boo-tiful visual timeline to present their findings.

For a modern twist, challenge your students to create a short, engaging social media post (photo or video) summarizing their research. Think: 30-second TikTok video or something along those lines. They can use props and costumes to recreate historical scenes or make their own “haunted history” presentations.

A Green and Sustainable Halloween

Even witches and ghosts care about sustainability these days, especially dinosaur ghosts who hate seeing fossil fuels being used so much!

For this activity, challenge your students to think about how they can celebrate Halloween in an eco-friendly way. Start with a discussion on common Halloween practices. Things like costumes, decorations, eating endless amounts of sweets and chocolate and their environmental impact.

Next ask students to brainstorm and design their own “Green Halloween.” They could come up with costume ideas made from recycled materials, eco-friendly party decorations, or suggestions for low-waste treats. Have students present their ideas to the class in a “Green Halloween Fair.” They can even vote on the best ideas, giving out fang-tastic prizes.

Turn this into a creative writing task! Students can create a flyer or social media post advertising their sustainable Halloween ideas, complete with catchy slogans and imagery. This is a great way to practice persuasive language while raising awareness.

Monstrously Mundane: Halloween Characters in Everyday Situations

What happens when your favourite Halloween characters have to deal with the same everyday problems we do? In this imaginative and humorous activity, students will take classic Halloween figures—like vampires, witches, and ghosts—and place them in totally ordinary, un-spooky situations.

Provide students with three images of typical Halloween characters (like a vampire, a witch, and a ghost). Have them brainstorm how these characters would act in an everyday scenario, such as:

  • A vampire at the bank, complaining about the opening hours because they can only visit after dark.
  • A witch at the supermarket, frustrated because they can’t find any eye of newt in the spice aisle.
  • A ghost trying to book a flight online, but struggling because they can’t select a seat, as they no longer exist.

I like to generate these images using AI and ask my students what they think the prompt may have been. Let students, either use the images and characters crated above or ask them to  create their own.

Once students have chosen their characters and scenarios, they can either write a short story or create a dialogue between the characters and other people in the scene. Encourage them to use humour, develop comics and perhaps even act out their scenes for the class.

Reading

If writing isn’t whats on your agenda in spooky season maybe you’re looking to get your students into reading. There are a whole host of readers available for check them out here. For more Reading ideas check out Liz Beer’s article from last halloween

With these spine-tingling ideas, your students will be learning and laughing while they embrace the eerie season. Not only do these activities cover key language skills, but they also let students show off their creativity in frighteningly fun ways. Plus, by sneaking in some lessons on history and sustainability, you’re giving them a more scream-worthy Halloween experience. Don’t forget to check out Pearson Readers for even more boo-rilliant resources to sink your teeth into!

¡Preparémonos para el…Writing!

Portada Blog artículo Writing

¡Preparémonos para el…Writing! 

¡Bienvenidos a esta segunda entrega de nuestra serie de posts relacionados con la preparación de Pearson English International Certificate! Espero que nuestro último post sobre el Speaking os haya sido útil. Si no habéis tenido la oportunidad de leerlo, podéis encontrarlo AQUÍ 

En esta segunda edición nos enfocamos en las tareas de escritura o Writing de Pearson English International Certificate o PEIC. Los desafíos relacionados con el Writing son muy diferentes a los del Speaking. Ambas son habilidades productivas, pero el Writing es mucho menos interactivo y, como resultado, los estudiantes a menudo lo encuentran menos atractivo y más difícil de practicar fuera del aula.  

Así que, veamos tres consejos para preparar a tus estudiantes para el Writing. ¡Incluso encontrarás algunas ideas para divertirse en clase! 

 

1. ¿Quién, qué, cuándo y por qué?  

Los estudiantes deben involucrarse con la tarea para tener éxito el día del examen. ¿Traducción? Los estudiantes deben entender a quién va dirigida la tarea y qué se está expresando. Necesitan saber si están haciendo referencia al pasado, presente o futuro, y deben ser capaces de apoyar cualquier argumento que hagan.  

Los ejercicios de comprensión son excelentes para ayudar a los estudiantes y las lecturas cortas como esta son fáciles de realizar en clase, en grupos o equipos: 

Speakout B1, Unidad 6, pág. 73  

Los alumnos pueden ver el lenguaje en contexto (en este caso, palabras de enlace), practicar el uso de ese lenguaje de manera controlada y así prepararse para el examen. 

Speakout B1, Unidad 65, pág. 73 

El rango, la coherencia y la cohesión son parte de los criterios de evaluación de PEIC, por lo que cuanto mejor sea el rango de vocabulario, mayores serán las posibilidades de obtener un buen resultado. 

 

2. ¡Escribir… puede ser divertido!  

Hablando de tareas en grupo, escribir realmente puede ser divertido cuando se hace en grupos. No, en serio, ¡puede serlo!  

La escritura a menudo se ve como un ejercicio individual, por lo que se destierra del aula como tarea y a menudo se olvida o se hace apresuradamente justo antes de la fecha límite. Podemos remediar esto ‘abriendo’ el Writing o la actividad, convirtiéndola en una actividad de toda la clase. 

Ejercicios cortos como este otro permiten el trabajo en equipo y la corrección entre compañeros o peers, y son ejercicios que ayudan a los estudiantes a procesar mejor los errores y retener frases, estructuras, modismos correctos, etc. 

Speakout B1, Unidad 3, pág. 41  

Para hacer el ejercicio más interesante, los alumnos pueden escribir sus versiones de forma anónima y la clase puede adivinar quién escribió cada texto. Luego pueden formar parejas para revisar y corregir el trabajo de los demás.  

Una discusión final en clase para resaltar los errores a mejorar ayudará a convertir un ejercicio normalmente aislado en una actividad dinámica y colaborativa. 

  

3. Elige lo que mejor te convenga.  

En la sección 9 del examen, los estudiantes eligen entre dos textos.  

El texto podría ser un informe, una reseña, un ensayo o un artículo. Los candidatos deben elegir el texto que mejor les convenga, el texto que más les guste o el que les sea más accesible en términos de lenguaje.  

Esto permitirá un mayor rango de vocabulario, mejor organización y mejor compromiso. La práctica es la mejor manera de perfeccionar esta habilidad.  

Cuantos más correos electrónicos, artículos o informes escriban los estudiantes, mejor preparados estarán para seleccionar el artículo adecuado para ellos.  

La mayoría de los libros de texto tienen bancos de escritura, pero hay otras formas de preparar a los estudiantes. ¡Estas son algunas de mis favoritas!  

  • Leer textos similares a las tareas de escritura: Pide a los alumnos que traigan artículos/reseñas/ensayos interesantes a clase para que todos los lean y analicen.
  • Ejercicios de gamificación como rompecabezas de texto (donde los estudiantes corren por la clase obteniendo oraciones para completar un texto) y ejercicios de Round Robin ayudan a hacer que las actividades de escritura sean divertidas e interesantes a la vez que mejoran las habilidades de lenguaje y cohesión. 
  • Perder el miedo a equivocares. Al corregir la escritura, los estudiantes pueden elegir uno de sus errores como el error del día. Lo comparten con la clase, explican por qué estaba mal, lo corrigen y explican lo que aprendieron de él. 

  

¡Te deseamos todo lo mejor a la hora de preparar a tus alumnos para el Writing! 

No olvides compartir tus experiencias y consejos conmigo (claire.dorman@pearson.com) y trabajemos juntos para obtener los mejores resultados.

Back-to-School bright ideas!

Another wonderful academic year is on the horizon, so here are some bright ideas to help you get organized and have fun with your new students:

1. GET AHEAD WITH YOUR PLANNING

Depending on your situation, you may know ahead of time what books and resources you’ll be using this year. Block off a few mornings before starting your year to get to know your course book. You can think about how to make tasks easier or harder, how to turn some sections into more communicative or game-based activities. You can spend time looking up resources or finding ideas on the Internet. So much happens in the first few weeks of class that spending time earlier getting this done is vital.

 2.  THINK ABOUT ASSESSMENT 

If you do know your course book ahead of time, think about which sections of the book you will use to assess your students, and how. Will you be doing a test at the start of the year to see what their level is like? Will you use mini tasks from the book every four weeks to assess progress in some areas? Does the course book come with assessment already built into its resources?

3. A WELCOMING SPACE

If you are permanently teaching in the same space every day, think about the decoration of your class. Can you put up colourful paper on the walls ready to show off students’ work in the future? Could you label in English some essential vocabulary, e.g. drawers, board, light switch. Can you put up posters that will help students with their English on the first day, such as useful phrases? If you are moving around to different rooms, perhaps you can keep some posters in your folder that can be transported from room to room and easily displayed.

5. DAY ONE AND WEEK ONE ICE BREAKERS 

It is important to get to know your students, and for students to get to know each other, to build up a good bond for the year. The first days are the time to test out the rules, expectations and rhythm of the class so that when you start to teach from the course book, the class will go a lot smoother as students will know what is expected of them. The first few days are also wonderful because everyone is excited to be back and school and is looking forward to what the academic year will bring. Here are a few ice breaker bright ideas to try out:

  • Summer break slideshow

Students can make a short presentation of 5 slides maximum showcasing what they did on their summer holidays using photos they took on their phones. Set a criteria, such as: best photo, best meal, best item you saw, best photo of you, the funniest photo and they talk through what they did on their holidays. Using presentation software such as PowerPoint, Prezi or Pitch can be useful. Challenge the listeners to come up with one question to ask the presenter after the presentation. A much faster version of this for day one could be to use the app Photo Roulette where students guess who took which photo.

Back to School bright ideas

Happy kids in sunglasses sitting at table on birthday party at summer garden and eating cupcakes

  • Get to know the teacher

Students love to find out facts about their teachers, so you can use this to help them practice their English and get to know you a little more. You could and ask a student to come and take an item. Then, students speculate with their partner or groups as to why this item is significant. For example, in the bag might be a small plastic toy dog, which shows you have a pet, an orange because it is your favourite fruit, and so on. To make this more movement based, designate one wall of your classroom as ‘true’, and the opposite as ‘false’ (use posters). Then, state some information about yourself and students run to the wall they think is the answer.

  • Student questionnaire

To assess reading and writing, you can ask students to fill in a question and answer paper on day one. For example, what is their favourite movie, music group, food etc. Then, for day two, you can prepare a ‘find someone who’ game based on the questionnaire answers.

  • Last person standing

Make sure students are sat at their desks in a rows and columns pattern.Tell one column (from front to back line) to stand up. Everyone else remains seated. Ask a question (it is best to prepare a long list of questions before class). Example questions: What’s this? How old are you? Only the students that are standing can answer the questions. If they know the answer they put their hand up. Ask one student with their hand up the answer (not necessarily in column order, try to make it random along the column). If they are correct they can sit down. Keep going until there is only one student stood up. Now the row of that student stands up and the game begins all over again. It’s a great way to bond and to review and test out what English your students know already.

  • Student parameters

Ask students to line up according to different criteria, for example ‘tallest to shortest’ ‘longest hair to shortest hair’ ‘shoe size’ ‘rainbow order t-shirts’. Time students – can they beat their time with each new criteria?

  • Question swap

Prepare some cards with some questions on, e.g. What are you looking forward to most this year? What would you do if you were suddenly a millionaire? Then, give each student in your class one question card face down.  I tell them not to look until each student has a card.  Once everyone is ready, students will move freely around the room to find another student in order to ask them the question on their card.  After they answer, that student will then ask the question on their card as well.  When both students have successfully asked and answered each of their questions, they trade cards and move around the room again to find someone new.  The goal is to ask, answer, and trade cards as many times as possible so they can meet all of their classmates.  It’s a perfect activity for teachers to join in as well.

Good luck and enjoy this new school year!

¡Preparémonos para…el Speaking!

¡Preparémonos para…el Speaking!

Hola, y bienvenidos al primer artículo de nuestra nueva serie de posts sobre Pearson English International Certificate, ¡Vamos a prepararnos! 

Estos artículos están diseñados para ayudar a preparar a tus alumnos para los próximos exámenes, y espero que ayuden a construir una comunidad en la que podamos compartir nuestras experiencias, aprender y mejorar.   

En esta primera entrega nos centraremos en la expresión oral: Speaking 

Con esto en mente, aquí tienes 3 consejos que te ayudarán a preparar a tus alumnos para el gran día: 

  

1. Tómate tu tiempo, empieza fuerte. 

Todos nos ponemos nerviosos en los exámenes, pero esos nervios son obviamente más fáciles de controlar cuando se hace un examen escrito. Con el Speaking o la expresión oral, todo el mundo puede ver si tartamudeas o se te hace un nudo en la garganta.   

Por eso mi primer consejo es que enseñes a tus alumnos a tomarse su tiempo.   

Preparar a tus alumnos para que respiren hondo y aprovechen su tiempo de reflexión antes de responder es esencial. Estrategias sencillas como contar hasta diez son eficaces o tener una lista de comprobación de funciones como: respira, lee, contesta, puede ayudar a mantener a los estudiantes tranquilos y concentrados.   

Los candidatos deben escuchar las preguntas de la sección 10. ¿Qué palabras se enfatizan?

Los ejercicios de pronunciación son una buena forma de ayudar a los alumnos a identificar el acento (así como el registro y otros aspectos). 


 En la sección 12 de la prueba 2, el juego de rol, los candidatos deberán leer atentamente la tarjeta. En esta sección se evalúa cómo turnarse, pero también si el alumno sabe qué tipo de lenguaje utilizar. ¿Es formal o informal? ¿Cuál es la relación entre los papeles? La tarjeta contiene todas las pistas que necesitan.   

 

2. Haz un mapa mental para reforzar el vocabulario.   

Si los alumnos consiguen ceñirse al tema y respetar los límites de tiempo, más probabilidades tendrán de obtener una buena puntuación. Un vocabulario más amplio puede ayudar en este sentido.  

Más descripción significa pasajes orales más largos y esto puede ayudar a demostrar el conocimiento de ‘collocations’ y modismos también.   

Speakout 3rd Edition – B2  

 

Speakout 3rd Edition – B2

Esta práctica del vocabulario también ayudará a los alumnos a prepararse para las demás destrezas del examen. 

  

3. Practicar, practicar y practicar   

Cuanto más practiquen los alumnos la expresión oral o Speaking, más seguros se sentirán en el examen.     

La mayoría de los libros de texto ofrecen numerosas actividades para practicar la expresión oral o el Speaking: juegos, temas de debate y comparación de fotos aparecen en libros como Speakout 3rd. Edition 

Speakout 3rd Edition – B2

 

Reservar un tiempo al final de la clase para sesiones de preguntas y respuestas también es una buena forma de hacer que los alumnos hablen y practiquen. Pueden estar relacionadas con los temas o la gramática que se han visto en una clase concreta, con acontecimientos culturales o con simples tareas cotidianas. 

 

Las nuevas tecnologías también pueden ayudar a los estudiantes a ganar confianza. 

Las apps de aprendizaje de idiomas son una forma estupenda para que los estudiantes practiquen. Además, permiten dedicar más tiempo en clase a perfeccionar el lenguaje. Si te interesa explorar más a fondo este tipo de nuevas tecnologías, puedes echar un vistazo a las nuevas herramientas que tenemos en nuestro catálogo de Pearson, como Mondly by Pearson. También tiene IA incorporada en algunos de nuestros productos, lo que permite un entorno seguro y de confianza, totalmente integrado en el curso.   

Speakout 3rd Edition – B1, Speak Anywhere  

  

Otras fuentes relevantes para practicar son otras apps como Khan Academy (también disponible para niños), que proporciona prácticas a medida y de forma gratuita; YouTube, con prácticas específicas para cada fase de los exámenes; e incluso chatbots como Gemini y ChatGPT. 

   

En Pearson, aparte de este blog, también contamos con otra amplia biblioteca de artículos con consejos muy útiles para profesores y alumnos. Échales un vistazo aquí.    

En resumen, lo más importante es que, con la práctica, los alumnos adquieran confianza. Esa confianza es clave para empezar con fuerza, así como tomarse su tiempo y utilizar el vocabulario que han aprendido para obtener los mejores resultados. 

Envíame tus trucos y consejos a claire.dorman@pearson.com, emails y vídeos son bienvenidos. ¡Preparémonos para el Speaking ayudándonos unos a otros!

Ideas to encourage a love of reading over the summer

In Spain, as previous educational laws have, the LOMLOE seeks to encourage schools to foster a love of books and to promote the habit of reading amongst students. Why? Because reading has a direct impact on crucial aspects of education:

  • Improvement of reading comprehension.
  • Development of communication skills.
  • Correct management of information.
  • Development of critical thinking.
  • Acquisition of  knowledge.
  • Development of empathy for different realities.

Therefore, by encouraging a love of reading during the school year, students will want to continue reading during their summer holidays. Here are some ideas for learners and parents to continue to have a love of reading over the summer.

Visit a library

Summer months are hot! Cool off with weekly trips to the library to read, browse and borrow new books. Libraries not only have traditional books, but also digital copies for your digital device, magazines, newspapers and audio books. Very often they put on activities for children, so check out their schedule in advance.

Read different things

Set a challenge where students have to read many different kinds of texts over the summer and take a selfie when they do so – for example, a books, a comic, a leaflet, a cereal box. They can present the information to you on the first day back from holidays.

Audio books when travelling

Ask parents to listen to audio books in the car when travelling this summer, or have it downloaded to listen to on the plane or train. If the paper version is also available, their son or daughter can read along with the audio.

Time challenges

Ask parent to set daily or weekly time challenges, where time is reserved for the whole family to read together. It can start off small, e.g. 20 minutes a day, and with each week that passes, the length of reading time increases. Also, having a routine where reading is always done at the same hour, e.g. after lunch, is a great way not to skip or forget.

Book to movie

Ask students to choose a book that has been made into a movie. They must read the book first and then watch the movie and say how each was the same or different to the other.

Reading play dates

Set up a social reading group among friends in class. Children can first of all play together, and then after lunch spend some time reading together. They can either read their own books or read the same book together and practice reading aloud or acting out parts of the book.

Stamps and rewards

Ask your students to read 6 books over the summer. Give each student a reading card where they can write the titles of the books and a space for a stamp or parent signature. Each time they read a book, their parents stamp or sign their reading card. If they manage to read all six books, the children get a reward (either from the school or from their parents)

Pearson Readers

We have a great catalogue of Pearson English Readers available which has over 480 books to choose from, both fiction and non-fiction, including Disney and Marvel stories. Books are graded by level and organised by age, containing a wide variety of activities to accompany the stories. Take a look, get started, and happy reading!

 

Building a Classroom Community: How to Encourage Diversity and Inclusion in the English Classroom

Diversity and inclusion

Creating a teaching environment that is as welcoming a possible to all members of the group is hard work, but wonderful when it all comes together. Addressing all our students’ needs as much as we can should not mean a lot of extra work for the teacher, but adapting our normal lesson plans to embrace neurodiversity will go a long way to creating that inclusive teaching environment. Here are some ideas you can incorporate into your teaching:

Entering the classroom

Consider where your students are coming from and their energy levels. Will they have just come from playing outside with their friends and need calming? Have they been sat down previously and will likely be full of energy when they come in? This will help you to decide what the first welcome idea will be. Have the instructions on the board, e.g.

Play the word domino game from yesterday with your partner. You have 7 minutes.

Lucas hand out the laptops.
Abigail and Frank come and see me.

Some students may need extra tasks to use up their energy in order to concentrate later. Can you provide a task, such as delivering a message to another classroom?

Getting ready to listen and learn

Do students know exactly where to sit every lesson and who they work with? This kind of routine helps children to settle quickly and feel at ease. If you like changing seats every month then you can provide a seating plan on the wall for students to consult if they have trouble remembering. Can all the students see the board and you easily? Are they in the best place for learning for their particular learning goals? For example, if someone is easily distracted by movement outside the window, consider positioning the chairs and table away from the distraction. Finally, are the walls of the classroom too ‘busy’? Having too much information up on the wall can be a distraction for some students who find it hard to focus.

Another tip to consider is having a visual schedule of the lesson to help students understand what is coming next. If you follow a class routine, this is helpful for students to understand the flow of the class and what should come next. A schedule looks like this:

It can be placed on the wall next to the board in large letters or printed off and put on a student’s desk to follow. If this is too much for some students to process, consider using ‘Now and Next’ cards so students are focused on the present moment and not too overwhelmed with what is to come. These cards look like this:

 

Furthermore, some students may require a step-by-step visual approach to an activity, such as this:

Finally, do some of your students need to fiddle with an object to keep listening to you? If so, have something like blue-tac on hand.

Giving Instructions

Clear instructions are vital for students, especially those learning a foreign language, yet it is one of the hardest tasks for a teacher to carry out. We are nervous that our students do not understand us, so we say an instruction again and add more words; we try to joke with our students, but they do not quite get it: or a student asks us a question during a difficult moment in class and we respond unclearly. Take for example the last scenario. A student asks for help while you are trying to help another student. You may respond like this:

“Hold on, I’ll be with you soon”.

Students can interpret this in a variety of ways, e.g.

  1. I need to wait patiently until my teacher can help me (correct interpretation of that the teacher wants!)
  2. I do not consider your request as important as my current task.
  3. I need to hold something? A pen? The table? For how long?

A lack of understanding by a student when giving instructions for how to complete an activity can be shown in a variety of disruptive ways, for example acting out, procrastination (because they really do not understand the task), not participating, playing with a friend, and so on. Consider these tips when giving instructions:

  • Use imperative sentences and avoid extra detail. Write down the instructions in advance if you need to until you get very good at saying instructions clearly. Compare:

“Listen to the people talking then write your answers in the space”.

“Listen and write.”

The second command is much clearer.

  • Try not to deviate from the course book instructions, especially if the students are trying to follow what is written.
  • Use non-verbal communication strategies to help students to process the instruction.
  • Use visuals and flashcards of items to support students with their comprehension of items, for example, show a picture of a pair of scissors.
  • Avoid saying the instruction again in a different way and with more detail if at first students do not understand. Follow this pattern of Say the instructions, Stop, Observe if students understand (checking questions can help here), Repeat.

Assessing Understanding

You can implement different routines to help you to know if students understand the task or not. For example, students show you with the thumbs up / thumbs in the middle/ thumbs down visual to show who does not understand well. If this causes embarrassment to some students, you can implement a ‘buddy’ system where students check with each other what they have to do and ask each other for clarification. Finally, asking students to repeat back instructions or give answers to a task in front of others is sometimes very hard. Provide sentence starters to help them tell you. Finally, some students feel overwhelmed at the idea that they may get suddenly called on to answer a question. There is nothing wrong in telling that student that “No, for this next feedback I won’t call on you”, or “I will ask for your help for question three”

Task Differentiation

Asking, or expecting, each student in your class to undertake activities in the course book all together and all at the same time is unrealistic. Think about how to slightly change an activity in a course book to make it more challenging, or indeed, less overwhelming for some students. This is not meant to imply designing extra worksheets for students, but instead slightly changing a task already provided. For example:

 

Image taken from Rise and Shine Book 4

Activity 2: To make it harder, ask students to complete the activity, then write the sentences again from memory. How many words can they get right? To make it easier, ask students to only complete answers 2 and 3. Or, you provide clues, such as starting letters, on a mini whiteboard in front of them to help students complete the missing words.

Working in pairs or groups

When looking at tasks in a course book where students work with a friend or small group to complete the task, first analyse the task to see whether it has more social or academic demands, or if it has a balance of both. From there, you can plan some support strategies. For example:

 

Image taken from Rise and Shine Book 4

This task has a high social demand. Some elements to consider are listening, waiting, turn taking, participating, sounding interested, eye contact, sensory issues. The academic challenge is fairly low as the grammar used is predominantly ‘can’ sentences, possessives and adjectives to talk about upcycling. Therefore, as the teacher, you need to think about providing strategies for supporting the social challenge of the task for students.

Image taken from Rise and Shine Book 3

This task has a high academic challenge. The students focus more on writing sentences, using the correct grammar and vocabulary, check spelling and then putting all the information attractively together in a. project. The teacher needs to focus more on the academic support to help the student achieve the task.

Further considerations for the teacher when students work in pairs or small groups are:

  • Who is in the group?
  • How big is the group?
  • Should you have a ‘buddy’ system or will you provide the support needed?
  • Helping students to understand how to take turns.
  • How does every student contribute – what’s their role within a certain project?

One useful approach to help all students keep on track during a project and to focus on the stages of a project is the Bell Wallace TASC Wheel (TASC means Thinking Actively in a Social Context).

 

 

Students start with the orange ‘Gather/Organise’ or red ‘Identify’ stage and work their way around the wheel, completing each stage.

Leaving the Classroom

An exit routine is just as important as a welcome routine. It helps students to leave the classroom calmly, proud of what they have achieved and knowing what they have to do for homework. Some aspects to consider are making sure you give enough time for students to tidy up in order to avoid stress and chaos. How can you calmly communicate what students have to do for homework? Do you need to provide more detailed, printed instructions for some to students to glue into their workbooks? Do you need to make a quick video and post it to the school web for students to watch calmly at home and understand? Do you have a system for leaving in a calm and ordered way?

Seeing your students as individuals who each have their own strengths and challenges is vital. It is hard for one person to provide support to all, but small changes in class can go a long way to help all students achieve their goals. Do not try to take on everything all at once without support. You need your directors and fellow teachers to help you with ideas and extra care. Also, some changes take time. If something does not work the first time in class, such as implementing a new welcome routine, keep trying as changes need time to be understood and adapted to by students. I will leave you with the final thought by author Alexander Den Heijer: “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

 

 

 

Beyond Borders: Crafting Holistic English Language Learning Experiences

In today’s global context, ELL teaching transcends traditional boundaries. It’s about empowering students to navigate the world confidently in English while nurturing their role as proactive global citizens. Including examples from Your World, the Pearson coursebook for teenagers, this blog explores crafting impactful learning experiences that blend language mastery with environmental and emotional intelligence.

Embracing Emotions: It’s Essential

 

Understanding emotions is crucial in our learning journey. Acknowledging and expressing feelings like frustration or sadness is vital for mental wellbeing. By integrating emotional literacy into ELL, we promote resilience, aiding students in articulating their experiences and building emotional strength alongside language skills. While it’s important we find solutions to problems it’s also important we allow ourselves time to get through negative emotions before moving on.

Using Role-Plays for Deeper Learning

Role-plays about common, and sometimes painful, dilemmas, such as a lost phone, serve as springboard for broader lessons and greater scope for empathy when considering world issues. These scenarios encourage students to articulate feelings, and solutions in English.

Practical Example: The Broken Phone Scenario

  • Problem Identification: A student expresses the frustration of losing a phone, discussing immediate feelings and their root. Also look at potential impacts like the environmental toll of manufacturing one mobile phone.
  • Sustainable Solutions Discussion: Shift focus away from the broken/lost phone to eco-friendly resolutions, while acknowledging it’s incredible annoying to break a phone, what are the next steps? Could repairing or recycling be viable options? This conversation fosters critical thinking and eco-consciousness. It also focuses on finding a solution from within rather than simply “buying a new one”
  • Mental Health Benefits: Having a broken phone and an enforced digital detox for a few days can do wonders for your mental health. Perhaps take the chance to plan a few “phone free” activities students could do it their phone was broken for an entire weekend!
  • Role-Play Expansion: Students brainstorm and role-play scenarios offering sustainable solutions, practicing English while embedding sustainability in their thought process.
  • Global Impact Reflection: Conclude with a discussion on how individual choices, like opting for repaired or second-hand electronics, contribute to global sustainability efforts. Remind students there are many ways they can make a difference in the world. This is just one tiny solution.

Celebrating Diversity: A Europe day Celebration

After engaging with the Europe Day Competition from the workbook, a natural progression is to host a Europe Day celebration in the classroom.

This event can serve as a celebration of the European Union’s cultural diversity. Imagine a classroom transformed into a mini-Europe, where each corner represents a different member state, adorned with national flags, traditional costumes, and homemade replicas of famous landmarks. Students could share insights into each country’s contribution to environmental sustainability, highlighting how these nations are pioneers in renewable energy, waste reduction, and conservation efforts.

Europe Day Celebration:

  • Team Formation and Role Assignment: Students assess their strengths and interests. It’s important that everyone has a chance to present how they want to present. There’s a chance not every student will want to stand in front of a class and read a powerpoint. Look for other presentation options and roles.
  • Research and Presentation: Each group selects an EU Member State. They will beyond flags cuisine and capital cities. Allow students to look into areas like language, and cultural expressions though art. Assed to that encourage deeper research into climate policy and other areas related to the Sustainable Development Goals.  It only take a second to find out how much energy is produced by using renewables in Iceland. (Spoiler alert, it’s 99%)
  • Cultural Exchange and Reflection: Students prepare and share their presentations, engaging in a rich exchange of cultural knowledge and language practice. This activity not only enhances understanding of diverse cultures but also fosters a sense of European unity and global citizenship.

This celebration would not only solidify students’ research and presentation skills but also deepen their understanding of the interconnectedness of European cultures.

Through activities like a “taste of Europe” food fair or a collaborative art project depicting Europe’s scenic diversity, students can experience the joys of cultural exchange. Such a celebration reinforces a shared commitment to fostering a peaceful, inclusive society. It’s an opportunity for students to practice empathy, appreciate diversity, and understand their role in the global community, all within the enriching context of learning English.

What next?

We don’t need to reimagine ELL, we don’t need to reinvent it. By integrating emotional literacy, environmental consciousness, and cultural diversity into our curriculum, we’re not just enhancing language skills—we’re empowering students to make meaningful contributions to the world. This holistic approach prepares them to face future complexities with resilience and empathy. It ensures students leave our classrooms ready to enact positive change. Together, we’re shaping a generation that values sustainability, emotional wellbeing, and global unity.

How Can Mediation Skills be Taught in the Classroom?

Mediation skills are a vital tool of communication both in your own language and also in the language you are learning. To communicate, we all have to take information, understand it, and then explain it to others. This sounds simple and easy, and you may ask, why do we need to teach this in our lessons? It takes a unique set of skills to be able to do this well and not to be either too dominant or unforthcoming when speaking with others, thus we need to focus on helping our students to develop this skill in class. Furthermore, it is a key assessment component in many exams, and the CEFR upon which many exams are based, breaks down the meaning of using mediation in groups and the English level to which they correspond:

Mediation scales

(Image taken from Completing the CEFR Descriptive Scheme: The CEFR Companion Volume, 2022)

 

What is mediation?

In simple terms, mediation means the ability to read or hear a message, understand it and then communicate it appropriately. This is more than just simple interaction, as mediation implies skills like leading a discussion, managing conflict within a group, proposing solutions, simplifying a message and so on. It requires the speaker to be aware of who they are speaking to and the context they are in to communicate successfully. The Council of Europe has broken down this concept into the image below:

Mediation

(Image taken from The Council of Europe, 2020)

As you can see, these skills are not only useful for students to use at school but are the types of skills most in demand by universities and employers. They are often referred to as future skills or employability skills in teaching course books. These refer to skills that cannot be carried out successfully by technology and still rely on humans to act. It is therefore well worth working on these in class to prepare our students for the future.

 

Teaching mediation skills in class

Your World, the Pearson course book for teenagers, is a great example of a book that consistently incorporates teaching future skills in class, especially mediation skills. Let’s look at an example of how to teach a mediation skills lesson in class. The lesson example comes from Your World 2.

Activity 1 & 2:

Mediation activities

 

The aim of the activity is for the students to participate in a group discussion and make a decision.

The mediation skill in practice is to collaborate in a group, work towards a common goal and give the opportunity for everyone to contribute their opinion. If we refer back to the Council of Europe mediation levels above, this activity is aimed at students wishing to achieve a B1 level.

Mediation

 

The activity begins with a warm-up for students to recall vocabulary regarding holidays and practice speaking interaction skills. The prepare stage helps students to understand and respond to the reading task about different styles of holidays. They are practicing their comprehension skills and learning new vocabulary. These four holiday suggestions will be used later in the mediation task.

Activity 3:

Mediation activity

The next stage is the scenario. It gives a realistic reason for students to talk together and presents some problems that they must consider when discussing. For example, it talks about what Sophie and Alex like and do not like which will also have to factor into what the students themselves like and dislike. This type of activity is by far the best kind of collaboration activity as it asks students to solve a problem together, as they would in real life. The question asks students to summarise in their own words what they have to do (which is another mediation activity: understand and summarise a text). An example answer could be: We need to agree on the best summer holiday activity for our group of friends.

Activity 4:

Mediation Activity 4 - Your World

The activity now clearly shows the students the aim of the activity. The aim is not a linguistic one – it is not ‘I will practice the present perfect’ (the course book has other grammar pages where this type of aim can be found) – but instead it is ‘ask others for their opinions, listen to their opinions and express your own opinions clearly, but respectfully.’ We obviously want students to practice their English language skills, but the focus in on how they interact in a group in order to achieve a desired outcome.

As the activity is clearly labelled as ‘mediation’ and the aims are written down in an easy-to-understand way for the students, they are very clear on how you will be assessing them as the criteria for success is clear for all. Furthermore, to help students achieve the task in English, there are some useful language expressions which students have already seen in an earlier unit in a different context, so it is an opportunity for students to practice and reinforce what they have seen before. As teachers, we can always extend the list of phrases if we feel our students need an extra challenge, and we can add in a pronunciation stage here to make sure that our students will be saying these phrases correctly.

Activity 5 and 6:

Mediation activities - Your World

Now students attempt the task. An example of a successful group task would look like this:

An example of a task that has areas to improve for next time would look like this:

Ma

Monitor students carefully as they do the task. Write down any errors they make, both mediation errors (e.g. if they laughed at a student’s idea and it was not very respectful) and also linguistic errors, such as pronunciation or grammar, but also make a note of things they did well. You will use these notes later.

Ask students to self-reflect in stage 6, which can help them to understand the feedback from you better. Students being able to recognize their own strengths and areas to improve on helps them to become more autonomous learners. Also, invite thew whole class to comment on what the group finally chose, as each group is likely to have chosen something different. Finally, you can put the positive feedback and areas to improve that you wrote down while students were completing the task on the board for whole class feedback. You can then let each group know what score they received for the task (this can be done privately or whole class depending on how you would like to give the feedback) and future recommendations.

Reflection

These types of tasks may seem very familiar to you already – setting a context for speaking, then monitoring and giving feedback. However, most teachers are still focusing on language errors during these activities. When practicing future skills such as mediation, please bear in mind that you need to be helping the students to develop other skills, and looking at the CEFR descriptors will help you when designing activities, modifying activities in your course book and then assessing them correctly. This will help students at school, during exams where they have a collaboration section that is assessed, and also in the future at university or at work.