Action research plan

In an action plan you have yo follow the stages of this circle

You identify the problem

You devise a plan

You implement the plan

You observe if the plan is working or not

You reflect about the plan

Problem: students don't hand in their homework on time. To see the causes of it I will ask the students to fill in a questionaire. For the moment just the English teacher is going to take part in thie action research plan.

Plan: a system of points and reward. The students will be asked randomly their homeowork and, if they have it, they will receive some points. If the students, by the end of the month, have a certain number of points, they will win a reward (it will be agreed upon between the teacher and the students)

Ways of how to become a teacher

In this chart we see the distintion between the craft and the science model. In the craft model part I wrote the knowledge you can learn by imitation and in the science model part I wrote the knowledge you actually have to study to understand it.

There are different methods to become a teacher. One is the craft model or imitation model where you learn by imitating others. Another model is the science method. In this model you have to learn a metodology, talk with other other teachers about that specific methodology and finally, create a lesson plan together.

Tweet on a theory of learning

Service Learning is in between Task-based Language Learning and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). In this method, students have to apply their skills and strategies learnt in class in a real world situation. This is an example of learning by doing. The problem with this problem is that it usually clashes with the stablished syllabus

Motivation graph

In many researches, it has been found that attention in class starts high, then it diminishes in the middle of the class time and finally attention raises again close to the end of the class.
This can help teachers to organise a more effective class creating some warm-up to introduce the topic (quite calm), making more dynamic activities in the middle of the session to keep students' attention and finally, implementing a cool-down to relax before finishing the class

Multiples intelligences and learning styles

Multiple intelligence self-assessment

Assessment: find your strengths

Index of learning styles questionnaire

Unfair (Pennycook)

I think is unfair that you work hard and, even that, you fail
I think is unfair that people keep all richness for themselves and let people be really poor

Aulas felices

Aulas felices

Here I explain three activities that can be done with secondary education students. I have taken them from an article called Aulas felices. I have chosen these activities because I think they are simple, entertaining and students can be interested in them; also because they can be beneficial for the students because these activities develop critical thinking, they foster creativity and they can be relaxing or motivating. These are the activities:

• Breathing at the begnning of the class: before starting with the lesson, devote 3 minutes to a simple breathing exercise. Ask students to close their eyes and breathe deeply as many times as you consider. Better if they think about a nice place (the beach,the moutain,a city they have visited...). The aim of this exercise is to relax, forget for a moment about problems and start the class with energy. This activity is very useful in exam period.
• Create and use a haiku to live more "awake": first ask students if they know what a haiku is, explain the concept of haiku to them and then, ask them to write one in the lines of this example "me comprometo/a vivir el presente/conscientemente". This is a motivating activity, students can write something that helps them to keep working hard. They can have the haiku in their study place.
• Publicity and counterpublicity: Teenagers are very ineterested in publicity, they are potential customers for many brands and they are the targets of many publicity campaigns. First, ask them if they remember any advert they like, why they like that advert, what do they think are the features of a good advert; ask them about ear-worms (catchy melodies that help customers to remember the product), comment about bad or inapropiate adverts. Always use examples to illustrate what you mean by ear-worm, good/bad advert. Finally, in groups, ask them to design an advert as they would like to see on TV or in a magazine. And, if they want to, they can film/record/illustrate it.