Wonderful experience in Reconquista

Last June, I had the pleasure to lead two workshops at the ISP N°4 in Reconquista. It was in the frame of the IV JORNADA DE FORMACIÓN Y REFLEXION sobre la enseñanza de la lengua extranjera inglés.

The audience was great. They participated actively interacting with me and among them.

The authorities received me warmly and pampered me with two meetings before and after the presentation.

Many thanks for the wonderful reception.

ASPI PRACTICAL ISSUES 2025

 On August 23rd we had the traditional ASPI event.

This year, as on many other ocassions, I had the honour to be one of the speakers together with Viviana Regodesebes and Abigail Cernotto.

The President of ASPI, Andrea Gaitan, opened the event and introduced the first speaker, Viviana Regodesebes, who showed us how she prepared a revision session for her students at the Teaching Education Programme using "Genially" to device a "Scape Room" game.

I hope many teachers take the idea to make their lessons more fun while still demanding.

After a short break, Abigail Cernotto presented her perspective as regards teaching adults and how she tries AI to build confidence in her adult students.

There was an interesting exchange of points of view.

After the coffee break, I worked with an enthusiastic audience on trying ways of raising students awareness as regards the benefits and risks we face when using AI. I also emphasized the importance of teaching our students the efficient, effective and ethical use of AI.

A bit of theory introduced tasks which kept the audience busy. From time to time, we also laughed a bit.

I thank dearfully this marvellous audience for their active participation in the tasks. A workshop is  successful only if the participants engage in sharing their ideas.

There was full house and the event finished with raffles to give out books, dictionaries and teaching material offered by publishing houses and bookshops.

One of the things I value the most about these events, together with the possibility of getting envolved in Professional Development, is the chance we have to meet colleagues, many of whom are former students, and feel their passion for teaching.

Thanks ASPI for this invitation to enjoy the love of teaching once more.

My Presentation at the International Event in Georgia

 Last Thursday, I had the honour of being a guest speaker at the International Conference organized by the  Teachers Community Georgia.

It is a real pleasure to see how this teachers community work hard to keep up their professional development. The audience was absolutely respectful and showed great interest in the presentations.

My special thanks to Dr Inga Kharchilava for her invitation.

Here I attach my presentation in case you'd like to watch it. You'll have the chance to listen to my CV in Georgian language.

Hope you like it.

Miley Cyrus - Flowers (Official Video) an excellent trigger for an ELT lesson

Teens love Miley Cyrus.

In this song she gives an empowering message for girls. We can use the song as trigger for an engaging lesson and we can also help students to develop some soft skills so necessary for their interaction in this difficult world.

Here I share the activities based on the song.

Hope you can find them useful.

Can we call this "ART"? / How to start discussions in class.

I came across this video and I considered it a good trigger for conversation.

Would you dare to stay at this hotel glass room? 

Who do you think would enjoy staying there?

Can we consider this "ART"? Why? / Why not?

Remember students can use their mother tongue whenever they want to express an idea for which they lack vocabulary in English. Write the expressions on the board so that everybody can see them and reinforce their use once the discussion finishes.

When students are engaged in sharing opinions, they are more likely to memorise the vocabulary they learn when trying to communicate.

Hope you enjoy this lesson.

 https://youtube.com/shorts/6GqKaftF7xY?si=ZcoPazxD65Gab2et

https://www.tiktok.com/@gloss/video/7405007082535111982

WORKSHOP AT EMBA SAN JUSTO, SANTA FE

 On June 6th I ran a workshop at EMBA (Municipal School of Fine Arts) in San Justo, Santa Fe Province.

Authorities gave me a warm welcome and Luisina Montegrosso and Mariela Avico, my former students at the Teaching Education Programme and now my colleagues, made great hosts.

The audience participated enthusiastically in the activities and we spent a good time together.

At the end of the workshop, the hosts gave me a certificate issued by the Municipal Mayor, Arq. Nicolás Cuesta, and the Education Coordinator, Mgter. Mónica Astore. In this certificate they acknowledged my contribution to education in the frame of UNESCO’s Education for Sustainability Goals since San Justo Government adheres to UNESCO’s Sustainability Development Goals included in UN 2030 Agenda.

The hosts gave me a present in the name of EMBA. It was a notebook made of recycled materials. Another sample of how they care for sustainability.

Thanks for the experience. It has been actually rewarding and enriching for me.

2022 IN PHOTOS

I'm thankful for all the opportunities I've had to share ideas with educationists from various countries in the world. Here I share a compilation of the events.

EDUCATIONISTS Excellence Award and CONFERENCE ON QUALITY EDUCATION (SDG-4)

Proud and honoured to have been invited as International Guest Speaker at this international event organized by Educationists of Pakistan and Sir Sayed University of Engineering and Technology  (Karachi) in order to celebrate International Teachers' Day.

 

One of the most wonderful rewards

 Having a former student, now colleague, telling me that he's using one of my books to teach is one or the most wonderful rewards I can have as a teacher and as a book writer.

Thanks, Hermann, for your sharing.

Here my own presentation

 It's really enriching to share perspectives with different educationists from all over the world. 

I hope my colleagues have also gathered some ideas from my presentation.

Workshop for Doteducation.net

I'm proud and honoured to lead this workshop on 7th May.

Hope you can join me there.

 

"And now, please, teach us really important things."

The vignette illustrates the silent claim students have been making for quite a few years and this pandemic has made more evident. We seem not to be educating them in the right direction.

Teachers are making an extraordinary effort to meet today’s education needs. They are updating their ITC management knowledge and they are putting all this knowledge at work to create online synchronic and asynchronous lessons. Nevertheless, this endeavor appears not to be sufficient to hit the target.

The problem is neither teachers nor students. The problem is that curriculums should have been changed to parallel the critical circumstances as well as the issues that changing times pose on education.

Students have a quite facilitated access to information, so teachers do not need to teach so much content. Students have any kind of content at their fingertips just clicking a key of their computers. Moreover, once students finish schooling, it is very likely that much of the learned content could be outdated. The content should be the tool used by teachers to help students develop skills that are more necessary.

Students need to develop:

Communication skills to keep contact with their peers, their teachers and anyone they might be interested in interacting with. Students need to understand that just speaking our minds whenever we want does not help positive communication. They must become aware of how the way in which we put our ideas forward enhances or hinders interaction. We must also help them to become aware of the relevance active listening has in positive interaction. Students need to develop their listening skills, understanding that communication is not just stating our point but also perceiving how our speech impacts on our interactants.

This practice will help students to develop awareness of themselves and awareness of others, which derives in respect for differences. They will understand that thinking differently does not make us enemies.

Collaboration skills will follow. If we can respect individual perspectives and we can interact with others, we will be able to work together with others. With the fast knowledge development we are encountering these days, nobody is capable to cover all updated information. Students need to value the benefits of sharing responsibility to achieve a common aim.

Students will be able to work collaboratively only if they develop their individual and social responsibility. Working together, students will perceive how individual effort contributes to reach the finish as a team. They will also experience the negative result of selfish and competitive behavior.

Thinking skills are paramount these days. Students need to develop the capacity to draw their own conclusions once they face new situations. They need to distinguish reliable sources of information, to read contexts and to choose the correct way to solve everyday problems. This will be possible if they strengthen their critical and creative thinking skills.

Students can build up these skills while they learn any kind of content. What actually matters is the way lessons develop and how teachers assess their performance. These are two issues I’m planning to write about soon.

 

Language Fuel Experience

I'm so happy to share my new experience with you!

I'm proud to have been chosen as member of the Language Fuel ELT Training Library authors team.

Here I show you the first lesson I've prepared.

PLAYING IN ENGLISH WITH ENGLISH

Fun and competition are highly motivating. Both can be enhanced through games. If games are carefully planned, relevant practice can be added to the teaching and learning process.

Here are some suggestions for developing reading skills:

·         Sentence Search. Say a word (e.g. year) as a prompt for students to skim the text, spot the word, and then read the complete sentence (e.g. We’re in year 1)

·         Concept Search. Name a concept (e.g. age) and have students scan the text and spot the sentence that represents or describes the mentioned concept (e.g. I’m 14)

·         Correct the Mistake. Read a sentence from the text but change a word. Have students skim the text, spot the sentence and read it correctly.

When students play, they develop their grammar, lexis and phonology in an integrated way. They are paying attention to meaning, so they have to read in a meaningful way.

And remember that enjoyable activities make learning more memorable!

Didactic Sequences

We've been working for quite a few years on Innovative Didactic Sequences. This is why I find this article reinforces some of the concepts we are used to applying in our plans.
Hope you find the ideas interesting.

Diseña actividades de aprendizaje más efectivas con secuencias didácticas

Some Ideas on Innovation in the Classroom

Many people think of innovation in terms of ICT development and use. I just want to point out that innovation is much more than that.

If we want to be really innovative, we need to re-think reality from many different perspectives. It is necessary for teachers to be aware of their students’ needs. It is teachers’ role to try to guide students into discovering their potential as individuals and their possibilities when working collaboratively.

We cannot invent many procedures or strategies, but we can adapt them to achieve new aims.

Nowadays, teachers need to help students to develop critical and creative thinking through problem-solving situations. And these situations should be as real as possible so as to make learning significant.

To be innovative is to be able to challenge students while keeping a balance between support and demand. In this way, teachers can provide a supportive classroom environment for students’ growth. Students will develop assertiveness by trusting their own capabilities and they will have a sense of satisfaction when they reach their goals.

To be innovative is to find new ways to enhance students’ self-discovery. This will result in students’ engagement and self-determination.

One of the most relevant factors is feedback. If teachers expect their students to develop creativity and autonomy, they should provide feedback which is encouraging and positive. Even when they are correcting mistakes, teachers should highlight achievements and value the risk-taking attitudes of their students. This formative assessment is a core element in innovation since students need to be re-directed all throughout the learning process and, in order not to discourage them, teachers should take the role of mentors. They will show the way and stimulate students to reflect and proceed according to their beliefs.

Students need to learn that failure is just a step forward towards success. It is better to try and make a mistake than not to try. A comfortable learning environment of mutual trust between teachers and students will help a lot.

A Pronunciation Tip

When students work on spelling, they will use all the English phonemes. Profit from this opportunity to help them notice the differences between English and Spanish.  When they work, tell them “Imagine an English person says this. How does it sound?” You’ll have incredibly accurate productions from many of the students. They have the encyclopedic concept of how an English person behaves and, among many other details, pronunciation is a great issue.

Some Reasons to Give Diagnotic Tests to Beginners

Diagnostic tests are usually meant to provide teachers with insight into the learners’ level of

proficiency. With this information, teachers can decide on the adjustments needed to level

learners from the start.

But, how do we go about assessing students who have had no systematic contact with

English? If they haven’t been taught, we cannot assess what they have learned. So why a

Diagnostic test for the Starter level?

Now more than ever, regardless of where we live or what our mother tongue is, we are

surrounded by English. In fields like technology, management and marketing, most world

languages borrow specific jargon from English. Many of these borrowed words become part

of our everyday talk. Besides, it is quite easy to turn on the radio or television and receive

English input. Young people also listen to songs in English, go online and use chatrooms:

these are some of the ways in which students have already been in contact with English

when they start studying it formally.

And this is where this diagnostic test comes in. Students are expected to do this test with no

teacher intervention (this is why instructions are given in Spanish). Its exercises are designed to raise awareness of the knowledge they already have and of the reading skills they can use to expand this knowledge or overcome comprehension gaps.

Calendars are designed in similar ways around the world. This helps us use the physical form as a support for inferring meaning from context.

Students will need to use their observation and decode the format to do Exercise 1.

Observation proves to be of paramount importance. Students might know the name of some

months, but they will be able to check their order and the first three letters of their names in

the calendar provided. This will enable them to do Exercise 1.a.

For Exercise 1.b, holidays are listed on the top right corner. The use of the learners’ previous

knowledge of celebrations in Argentina will enable them to associate English and Spanish

equivalents. Adolescents will surely know the meaning of some of the lexical items, and

this knowledge will lead them to the discovery of some new ones. Talking about the skills

and knowledge they have put to use will be empowering and will build confidence for the

language learning process.

In Exercise 1.c, students are asked to order letters to form the days of the week. As the

first three letters are provided in the calendar and all the words end in “day”, it will not be

too difficult for learners to work out the correct spellings. If they observe the calendar and

associate days with the ending of their names (“day”), they will only have to put a few letters

in order. They will be discovering the correct spelling.

Exercise 2 asks students to identify words our language has borrowed from English and they

quite often use. This will help learners become aware of how much vocabulary in English

they have already incorporated.

In Exercise 4 students are expected to match words and numbers. Most people know how

to count orally in English, but they have not necessarily seen those numbers in writing. This

activity will help learners become aware of the lack of grapheme-phoneme correspondence

in English.

Exercises 5 and 6 present students with known and unknown items they have to match with

their Spanish equivalent (Ex. 5) or graphic representation (Ex. 6). This enhances their risktaking

resolution of the linguistic problems.

When teachers give assessed tests back, both teachers and students will be able to reflect

upon many aspects of the teaching/learning process which the classroom community will

construct cooperatively:

• Shared feelings and expectations

• Attitudes towards learning

• Skills to be developed

• Strategies which will enhance learning

If teachers profit from this pooling of feelings, knowledge and resources, a really enjoyable

teaching/ learning adventure will have started.

If you want to help students to be creative, be creative yourself!

Encourage students to keep a record of the words they learn. They can prepare their personal picture dictionaries. Tell them to use a folder so that they can add pages whenever it is necessary. They can write the word and draw or stick a picture that represents the meaning. They can add a sentence using the word. This is an excellent way of having students more involved in their learning process.

A game with dictionaries:

Ask students to read a sentence from their dictionaries, but they will have to change the defined word by "tip tip" (eg: Pinocchio has a long tip tip = nose). Their classmates have to guess the word. The student or group who guesses more words is the winner. It's an excellent way of practising vocabulary. Students produce the words in a sentence, which favours fluency and helps them to fix meanings while they have a good time.

Do you ever have to deal with discipline problems?

Remember to highlight good attitudes. Praise students when they do something good. In this way, you are going to enhance positive leadership.

Keep a "week behaviour poster". Have two columns headed with a smiling face and a sad face on one corner of the classroom. When students do something right, write their names in the "smiling column". If they do something bad, write their names in the "sad column". When they repeat behaviours, put a tick next to their names. You will keep a record of good and bad behaviour. The students who have the most ticks next to their names become the secretaries of the following week (or negotiate something they would like to do). Remember to withdraw the poster every time you leave the classroom because this is private between you and your students!