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Cool Kids for Eco Beats Project – ImpactEco (NGO)
How can environmental awareness be developed in a small country such as Serbia? Read on to see how we managed to squeeze ecology into the regular high school curriculum. Project Cool Kids for Eco Beats educates students in elementary schools and high schools and helps them develop environmental literacy and awareness through a series of interactive and enticing workshops. The goal is to create proactive citizens of the planet and empower them to make a difference in their closest environment. The project lasts for 4 weeks, and the workshops are organized once a week. The topics range from pollution, endangered species, climate change to current green news and projects. We are…
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Low-Waste Zombieland Lapbook – Halloween Writing and Storytelling
Big holidays always leave enormous piles of garbage behind them and teachers need to try to reduce the ELT footprint in any way possible. I love creating lap books, and I make them from a lot of recyclables – I desperately try to promote low waste in my classrooms. Every material in my shop begs buyers not to print the first decorative page and to use dry erase pockets for materials so that they can reuse them. I will guide you step by step to create your own Zombieland lap book and I will share tips on how to use it, as well as how to store it to reuse…
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Free Online Professional Development Opportunities for Educators
Living in 2019 has many benefits, and the one that helps us educators is online learning. We can learn or teach online for the comforts of our homes for free – and every teacher deserves something free. Professional development is a major aspect of my teaching practice. Learning about new research or interesting innovative teaching methods empowers me to keep improving. I am very keen on planing my professional development. I am interested in inclusion, ICT in education, environmental education, and innovative teaching methodology. When it comes to free webinars and courses, I always choose them based on certain criteria. All of them offer free certification – a certificate or…
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Environmental Education at its Best – A Visit to a Swedish Preschool in Stockholm
If you are a nature lover like me, the need to develop environmental awareness in your children will eventually creep in your teaching style and curriculum. This is why I became a National Geographic Certified Educator and must say that it was a life-changing experience for me. After that, I completed two more programs at National Geographic: Geo-Inquiry Process and Teaching Global Climate Change in your classroom. I will write about all of these programs in separate posts. Finally, I decided that the topic of my master thesis will be developing environmental awareness by learning English in bilingual preschools. This is a pretty serious topic in my country since there…
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Contextual Grammar Teaching – Activities for Making Grammar Meaningful to Your Students
How do we develop a learning environment where the grammar is learned through exploration without burnout? Keep reading for example activities of thematic contextual grammar activities that develop the four language skills simultaneously. What is contextualized grammar instruction? The eternal debate of teaching grammar implicitly or explicitly will probably never cease. This debate created the need for further research, and now almost all researchers agree that grammar should not be taught explicitly. (Goode, 2000; Sams, 2003;). The rationale for teaching grammar in such a way is the early language acquisition – children learn their native language through an authentic context, and they can speak it perfectly without anyone explaining what is present…
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Turn Off The TV – Podcasts for Children
We all know that our children have too much screen time. Luckily, there are many things that we can to avoid that nowadays. One of them are fun, full of content and jolly podcasts made by kids for kids, or even by adults for kids! You can use them with your children and with the kids at school as well – the kids will be entertained and they will learn seamlessly, since peer learning is a very effective learning method. They will practice their listening skills and comprehension, while they acquire new content seamlessly. The post is separated into science podcasts, story podcasts, arts and culture and current events. Let’s…
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Presenting at EdmodoCon in Miami 2019: From Blended to Distance Learning: Engaging Large Student Groups Online
EdmodoCon is a global professional development conference—one you can attend for free through your laptop or mobile device. Educators from around the world share inspiring stories and practical strategies from the best in the education community. For a small fee, attendees can earn one graduate credit from Dominican University. This year, EdmodoCon is centered on helping you discover valuable new resources for social and emotional learning, digital citizenship, and student engagement through three unique learning tracks. When is EdmodoCon? EdmodoCon 2019 is on Saturday, November 2nd in Miami, Florida from 9am to 5pm Eastern Daylight Time. Attend each session or just your favorite subjects.See the full agenda → Who will…
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Teaching Listening and Speaking to Young Learners
Developing listening skills is the first step in the second language acquisition process. The learners need to listen to meaningful and comprehensible language during their silent period of language acquisition. Speaking, as a productive skill, comes after the development of basic listening skills. According to Shin and Crandal (2014), when designing listening activities for young learners, it is important to remember the following seven principles: Prepare teacher talk carefully. Use listening activities that reflect real-life learning. Use listening activities that are developmentally appropriate. Use a variety of techniques to make listening input comprehensible. Check comprehension using a variety of response types. Keep listening active – always give learners a listening…
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Introduction to TEYL – What are the Prerequisites for Success in Early Language Acquisition?
Over the past decade, many things have changed in the global education system. One of the most significant changes for us, as ESL teachers, is that the age of compulsory English has been lowered throughout the globe. English has become a compulsory target language in many primary schools, even in countries where the parents could choose the language for their children. The main reason for this is the growing demand for English in order to develop language skills and attend foreign education courses and acquire a more quality education. The second reason, but equally important, is a greater employment possibility in the native speaker’s country, as well as abroad. And…
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Online Teacher Conferences in October 2019
British Council, Macmillan and Cambridge University Press are organizing web conferences which will provide useful and practical advice that you can apply to your own context, whether you are a teacher or a teacher educator. Attendance is free and open to all. Sessions will also be recorded and made available after the event. Whether you just want to casually attend, or interact in the discussion panels, these conferences are easily accessible to everyone, the presenters are well-educated, and most of all, they are free. WORLD TEACHER’S DAY WEB CONFERENCE – BRITISH COUNCIL AND IATEFL 5TH OF OCTOBER Join IATEFL and British Council to celebrate World Teachers’ Day with a one-day web conference, featuring 16 separate sessions…
