We are lucky people! 💃🕺

We can teach online💻 and offline 👩‍🏫.

Individual classes ànd group ones.

Hybrid, flipped, traditional, discussion-based, laboratory, seminars/webinars, workshops!
The list 📜 can be continued.

Let's look at an online class.
How to prepare an engaging meeting?

The recipe of a tasty online class:
As in any cooking, we need
✅ the main ingredients
🔥 spices
🪂and surely the correct atmosphere that will motivate us "to cook".

Let's look at the main components.

Here are the 6 ones that I find important to start with:
1️⃣ The platform to conduct a class.
Depending on the type of your class (synchronous or asynchronous), the choice of platforms varies.

Online meetings -
🟡 Zoom
🟡Google Meet
🟡 Microsoft Teams
🟡 Skype
🟡 Jitsi Meet
🟡 GoToMeeting
🟡 Social Media meetings

Asynchronous classes:
🔵 LMS platforms (Google classroom, Moodle, Canvas, Edmodo, Schoology, etc.)
🔵 Nearpod
🔵 Bookwidgets
🔵 Quizizz
🔵 Flipgrid

To be continued.

Which platforms are your favorites?

#activities_apps

The continuation - important ingredients 💻👩‍🏫

2️⃣ The second important part is a variety of interactive platforms to demonstrate material, practice it, produce new ideas 💡.
Like in PPP - presentation , practice, production 💯.

There is a great variety of online Whiteboards.
Besides the ones mentioned in the image, take into account that Zoom has an updated variant of a whiteboard with the tools to use for collaboration (templates included).

3️⃣ Plan B ✅

For different situations:
- bad/no connection
- tech failures
- platforms that you started using just recently and don't feel comfortable with navigation yet
- running out of time because of extra topics that appeared on the way
- on the contrary, material covered but still some time left (have extra activities for such situations)
- low engagement of a student due to some reasons (accurately, try to find out what is wrong to adjust your class)

Which unexpected situations have you encountered in your classes?

#interesting_ideas
#activities_apps

So many classes, so many boards 😀.

If you haven't explored Miroverse yet, I strongly recommend you to do it ✅.


In the video, I show where you can find it and get a wonderful bunch of templates ready to be used for your classes 👨‍🏫👩‍🏫.

#activities_apps

So, here we are with the first 3 key ingredients of an online class:

1️⃣ The platform to conduct a class
2️⃣ Interactive platforms for activities
3️⃣ Plan B

Let's talk about 4️⃣.

This is called ⚓.

Anchors are certain
✅reference points within the class that students can use to navigate the material.
I can also think of them as certain 🗝️ key moments that serve as benchmarks that give the direction and provide a framework.

Some examples of them are:
🏹 Objectives and outcomes
📑 Course material
📒 Principles and approaches
💯 Classroom norms and expectations
🛣️ Class routines and procedures .

Some of the moments that I use in my class as class routines are:
- energizers
- warmers
- memory quizzes (when I ask the students about the key moments from the previous class in the form of a quiz)
- student-oriented questions
- reflections
- feedback

What are your ⚓⚓ in class?

#activities_apps
#interesting_ideas

I find it important to include questions about feelings and emotions and personal attitudes to different moments and tasks.

Here you can find 3 examples of using emojis and feeling charts in class.

The first slide is to remember the key 🗝 moments from the previous class and emotional associations with them (it serves as a wonderful formative assessment tool 🔥).

The second one is when you don't ask the students how they are but offer them to guess your feelings for today. Remember to share 3-4 answers about yourself for them to compare 😃.

The third one has one of the variants of the emotions chart. It expands the vocabulary (and that's a great ➕) and serves as a great icebreaker or warmer.

I also like to ask a student to:
- share 3-5 emojis about today/yesterday/your weekend, etc.
- share an emoji to show how you feel at the beginning/end of class
- describe your personality/day/ experience, etc. with 3-5 emojis.

Do you like using emojis?
Can you share your emoji to show how you feel about this post? 😊

#activities_apps

I have been taking part in one writing 📝 marathon on Instagram where each week is focused on a specific topic and each day gives you an inspiration to write, think, reflect about.

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

The second week of the marathon was about the flowers 🌺🌹🌷.

Below👇, I want to share some examples of formula poems about the topic.
Surely, you can use these formulas to write about anything related to your specific lesson. In my opinion, it better matches the production stage.

Do you like to use formula poems?
Which formula is your favorite one?

#activities_apps
#interesting_ideas

So, here we are with the 4 key ingredients of an online class:

1️⃣ The platform to conduct a class
2️⃣ Interactive platforms for activities
3️⃣ Plan B
4️⃣ Anchors

Today, we talk about 5️⃣ and 6️⃣.

5️⃣ Notes 📝.
I find it extremely important and helpful to keep a notebook 📒 next to me while conducting a class.
It allows me to put down:
🖋️ some ideas 💡 for the next class that may appear just on the way (topics, warmers, organization, etc.)
🖋️ Questions that arise during some discussions to return to them later not to interrupt a student.
🖋️ Word combinations, language chunks, grammar structures that need more attention
🖋️ Personal observations and reflections to review after the lesson.

6️⃣ Evaluation and assessment.
Definitely, everyone wants to see the progress - how far they have moved towards their goal 🥅 - students, parents, and teachers.
The variety of online platforms to make this process interactive, interesting, and involving is huge.
I will mention two of my favorites.
💻 One of them is Bookwidgets.
This platform offers a variety of options to create for any type of assessment -
🔵formative and summative,
🟢quick exit tickets and profound detailed tests,
🟠speaking, writing, reading, grammar and vocabulary activities in different kinds of modes.

💻 The other one is Flippity.
This tool is rich in a variety of options to offer - flashcards, Madlibs, game certificates, class organizers, matching games, timelines, and other incredible variants.
The one that I like to use for an informal assessment at the end of a topic/unit/term is Quiz show.
They simplified the preparations, and now it takes less time.

In the end, evaluation is not only about grades. That's about the experience and our reflection on it.

What are your important elements of an online class?

#understanding_deeper
#activities_apps

E 🇬🇧 N 🇺🇸 G 🇭🇲 L 🇨🇦 I 🇳🇿 S 🇿🇦 H
LANGUAGE DAY - April, 23.

Congratulations 🎉!

Here you can find a ppt with some interesting facts to discuss in class plus a challenge-time activity.

What are your favorite facts about the English language?

#activities_apps
#interesting_ideas

Have a look at what a great variety of activities and tasks you can do with AI help ✅.

These are the examples of https://app.twee.com/

#activities_apps
#open_mind

So many people, so many dictionaries' preferences.
⠀
How do you choose the right one?
For me, it all depends on what outcome I'm pursuing.

🔹 If you need to find the meaning of a word, its usage in different combinations, and get to know synonyms or antonyms, then
- Macmillan Dictionary.
- Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Language (LDOCE)
- Oxford Dictionary
- Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary
will come in handy.

🔹 If it happens that I cannot find the pronunciation I am looking, then
- YouGlish - YouTube + English.
It will take me to the right minute in video viewing. Below the video playback window, I can find the subtitles with each word being clickable and having it's detailed description

🔹 To find the right word for a collocation or a phrase -
- Ozdic
- WordHippo.
- Collocation Dictionary.
Synonyms, antonyms, registers, key phrases and lots of other language "goodies" to choose from.

🔹 For a more in-depth dive into the language, I go to Corpora - excerpts of different kinds of texts, examples of language use orally and in writing, a variety of genres:
- Skell
- The British National Corpus.
- COCA - corpus of contemporary American English

⠀
What's your dictionary choice?

#interesting_ideas
#activities_apps

Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right. - Phil McGraw

Have you already picked up some AI helpers for your lesson planning?

This AI tool allows you to create images on the basis of the provided text.

Here are the 3 variants of how I have used that in my classes:
💠 As I am really keen on motivating students to speak, I often choose inspiring quotes.
This time after choosing a saying, I generated an image with the help of AI, shared it with my student, asked her to improvise and say what ideas she had.
Then, I asked her to plunge into creating her own variant of a quote.
After that, I shared the original quote and some discussion was generated around it.

💠 I created a text with a different AI tool (twee.com) and then generated an image with Lexica.art.
I shared the image and asked a student to predict what the text could be about.
Then, the student read the original story and compared it with his own guess.

💠 With one of my students we are studying the "Cities" topic.
So, to start our vocab practice lesson, I asked her to describe a location where she would like to find herself at the moment .
After she shared her vision, we again used the Lexica.art page to create an image.
It was interesting to thrash out the comparison between her vision and the one of the AI.

You can find some generated images and the quote example above.

What other ways of using an image-generator tool can you come up with?

#activities_apps
#interesting_ideas

How do you choose students for an individual or group work?
⠀
⠀⠀I have a few favorite picks for that.
⠀
⠀⠀⠀I'll call the first group "Handicraft".
⠀
🔹 Take plastic spoons/ice popsicle sticks/plastic glasses or any other handy material and write the students' names on each of them.
⠀⠀For the answer, you randomly draw one of the selected items and determine the lucky guy to reply.
⠀
🔹 Happiness Envelope - write students' names on pieces of paper and put them in an envelope/paper bag.
Choose a fortunate exit ticket for the answer.
⠀
🔹 Democratic Election - if students are working in a group, they choose one speaker each time they share their answers with the class.
⠀
⠀⠀By the way, all of the above options would work for a group distribution as well.
⠀
⠀⠀If you find these variants obsolete, here are two perfect platforms to pick your jammy mates.
⠀
🔸 ClassDojo - Here you can find a great variety of tools gathered in one place. There's a random selection, a timer, group distribution.

Plus, portfolios, student messages, and parent communication. It's all here, in one place.
Besides, the freedom to choose which points to score for the work done (or its absence).
⠀
🔸 ClassroomScreen - you can prepare a class list to choose individuals to answer, or to split into groups.
Also, you will find the traffic lights (e.g. for reflection or to determine the stage of work), work symbols, a timer, sound level, and many other useful things.
⠀
⠀⠀Above, you can see some screenshots of the platforms' tools.
⠀
The links to the platforms are in the comments.

#interesting_ideas
#activities_apps

If you need some extra help with

🔹punctuation practice

🔸 paragraph construction and organization

🔹sentence and fragment differentiation

🔸parts of speech

🔹and other grammar related activities
for beginner-intermediate levels, these two websites offer a great variety of them.

Both are freemium pages that combine free and paid content.

The links are in the comments.

#activities_apps

⠀ How can you use numbers in language learning?

Of course, I'm not talking about memorizing the numbers, but about how you can play around with tasks and add creativity.
⠀
Option 1 - my life in numbers.
⠀
Here are some options:
🔹 You write a number that is important to you and ask students to guess what it means. You can regulate the rules for asking questions - only general ones, for example (which need Yes/No answers only).
⠀
🔹You can present several facts from your life in numbers 2-3 of which will be wrong. Ask students to guess which ones are not correct and why.
⠀
⠀⠀Then, based on your examples, ask students to make up their own facts and play a guessing game in pairs and/or groups.
⠀
Option 2 - My Day in Numbers

🔹 Ask students to talk about yesterday/tomorrow/last vacation, etc. in numbers.
⠀⠀Example - I visited 3 cities over the vacations.
Yesterday I ate 1 kg of ice cream.
⠀
⠀⠀⠀This is great for practicing vocabulary and related grammatical structures.
⠀
Option 3 - Number storytelling or making a story with numbers.

🔹 Ask them to compose a story on a certain topic with the obligatory inclusion of, let's say, 3-5 numbers. (3 wishes and 12 months are there to help you 😊).
⠀⠀Thus can be great for developing writing skills and creative thinking.
⠀
⠀⠀And what 3 digits could tell us about your life?

Share your variants in the comments.

#activities_apps
#interesting_ideas

⠀ Quotes
⠀
⠀
⠀⠀I have a love for quotations. I tend to use them in my classes as discussions and interesting debates triggers.
⠀
⠀⠀These are a few of my fave choices:
⠀
📘 Unfinished Quotes
⠀
- Take a saying and omit the beginning or the end.
- Then ask the students to come up with the variations of what was left out to make the idea complete.
- Then you show them the original saying, giving them another opportunity to practice their spontaneous speaking skills.
⠀
📘 Image and quote
⠀
- You choose a saying and use AI (artificial intelligence) to generate an image from it.
- You show the image and ask the students to guess what idea it represents (without showing the original text)
- Then, show the variant of the saying, and here you are with another creative task for the development of speech.
⠀
📘 Word substitution.
⠀
- It starts in the standard way - by picking up a quote.
- You show it to the students and ask them to replace some concept from it with their version
- Students share their ideas and comment on their choices
- Discuss options and vote for the most unconventional/interesting/ or perhaps the most predictable choice.
⠀
⠀⠀For example, the other day I chose this saying for one of my classes:
A bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else.
⠀
⠀⠀Here you can replace both the city name and the adjectives, depending on the focus of the lesson.
⠀
⠀⠀We decided it was better to wait out the bad weather in Paris than anywhere else.
⠀
⠀⠀How would you change this quote? Share your ideas in the comments.

#interesting_ideas
#activities_apps

🔷 Here I have collected a series of resources on the topic "Communication".

Some of the resources have links to YouTube videos for further discussion.

The links are in the comments.

You are welcome to share your ideas and your activities on the topic.


#activities_apps

🎮 Games can be extremely motivating for a language practice .

You can find the links to some word games in the comments.

The variety is great — from solving the crosswords to unscrambling and guessing the key words.

And what are your fave word games?

#activities_apps

⚡ Yesterday, in my IG account I shared some videos from my class where the students had an 🔤 line energizer.

The idea of the activity is the following:
🔸The students are divided into teams
🔸 They are given a certain time limit
🔸Within the given time, they have to cooperate and find as many objects in their bags, backpacks, pockets as possible to create an 🔤 line with these items.
🔸Then they name the things they have
🔸The winners 🏆 are the ones who can build a longer line.

In the comments you can find the links to my fave YouTube channels where I get ideas for such activities.

What is your favorite energizer or an ice-breaker?

#activities_apps
#interesting_ideas

🔲 This resource is one of my favorites as it's free and offers a variety of activities that can be created.

It's flippity.net.

Today I want to tell you about a word search generator that is a piece of cake to use.

The steps are the following:
✔️ Go to flippity.net
✔️ Choose Word Search variant
✔️ Click "Instructions"
✔️ Delete the example variant and type in the words you are going to practice
✔️ Click "generate"
✔️ Share with the learners. You can also find the keys available.

Do you like to use such types of activities in class?

#activities_apps

✔️ In case you are looking for some useful resources to identify the level of English proficiency, here are 4 awesome links you can use for free.

🔵 Each of them has its own peculiarities and features.
So, you can try the tests yourselves first before making your final choices for the class.

#activities_apps