What Does "a" Mean?

Anticipating problems that may arise and proffering solutions to them was one of the highlights of my CELTA training. While planning your lesson, for each stage you need to predict and note down how you would respond to learner needs. Obviously, this is to give you an edge and keep you prepared and it’s always a good feeling if you have predicted something rightly.

Read More »

A For Self-Awareness

Today, after my lesson with Year 2-2 (the second arm of the Second grade), the JTE commended me for what I’d always considered a flaw in my teaching skills. 

Lesson planning is one aspect of teaching I enjoy so much. Putting together the slides and activities tailored to each of my students' needs gives me so much joy.  My greatest lessons have been birthed at this stage however, sometimes I fall below standard due to one reason or the other- mostly the lack of time, and it shows greatly. Often, the first class I go in to teach are the scapegoats who take the fall. The poor students in Year 2-1 were the victims this week. 

So here’s the backstory. While planning the grammar lesson on the subordinate conjunction “If”, I thought the activity in the ready-made lesson plans wouldn’t cut it for my students but I also had a hard time coming up with a better one. I finally settled for some kind of practice game where I spilt 10 sentences into two colour-coded, blue and orange halves.

The blue and orange made a pair and the students had to work in groups of five where each group receives a bundle of 20 strips which the selected group leader shuffles and gives each student two blue and two orange strips each. The first player puts a blue or an orange strip on the table reads the sentence/phrase out loud while the other students check to see if they have the pair to complete the sentence. Whoever had the other half read out the complete sentence and gets to keep both strips. The student with the most strips wins. The demonstration stage went ok but I didn’t anticipate the problem and possibility of one student having the two halves that make a pair, one student’s four strips were all matching pairs! If you know Japanese students, they follow instructions to the letter, so they didn’t see this coming since it didn’t come up during the demonstration. From that point onward, the activity didn’t make sense any more and the Year 2-1 students got very confused. I tried to salvage the situation by stopping the activity to point out that some students could have the complete pair, but it didn’t help much. Needless to say that the aim of the activity was defeated.

The Year 2-2 lesson was the very next period and I had only 10 minutes in between to muster all my creative juices to fix the mess.  I had a last-minute idea which I hoped would work. So, instead of making them play a modified card game of some sort, I had them work in groups to arrange the strips in the right pairs and informed them that the first group to finish wins. As I monitored, I noticed that some groups found the task a bit challenging and I told them to send spies to see how the other groups were doing. At the end of the activity, we had a feedback session to check answers and I collected all the blue cards and had them turn the orange ones over. They then had to randomly pick one orange card and complete the sentence using their own ideas. This wasn’t in my lesson plan but it worked really well as a production activity.  

As we walked out of the class after the lesson, the JTE who is a rookie teacher was in awe, told me he admired the way I completely switched the lesson around. I smiled and took the compliment graciously but I told him that in reality, I’m not usually proud of these moments because it shows my lack of detailed planning and more so, I feel bad for the students who did not get the best because I’m really not sure if I’ll have a chance to re-teach. I agreed with him though that it would take some experience and skill to be able to pull that off. 

We ended up talking about three types of teachers- the self-aware and reflective one, the one who can’t recognise a failed lesson plan even if it smacks them in the face, the one who is dogged and determined to stick to the lesson plan even when it’s obvious that it’s not working. Which one are you?

Thanks for stopping by! See you next post. 

Read More »

Happy Tears In The Classroom

Last week, I was reminded again of how much of a cry-baby I am when responding to my students’ achievements in the classroom. I am so sure that every good teacher has stories to share about precious moments like this.

So, there is no special needs class in the other school where I teach and learners with learning needs are mainstreamed with the other students and usually, these special students of mine just basically do their own thing and sometimes they sleep through the lesson. I've toyed with the idea of creating extra or different tasks for special students but the JTEs didn’t really buy the idea. In fact, one JTE specifically told me that she’ll “take care of the student” herself. I guess this might be because Japan is a group-oriented society and differentiating by task may make the student feel totally different and isolated, disability irrespective. One of the things I don't like about being an ALT is not having total control to make decisions about my students' welfare and learning, as I always have to get an OK from the JTE. The struggle I go through when I’m teaching in a class with students like this is real. I feel bad for them and I’ve always wondered what I could do to help them learn and I keep trying different ways in the hope that I'll be able to reach them somehow.

A miracle happened last week. One boy who usually sits and stares into space and does nothing even after I've asked the girl beside him to work with him and help him, surprised me and the JTE. 

So, in that class, the students learned how to use the target sentence “There is…/There are…” Students got into groups of five after I modelled the game and they started playing a board game to practise using the target language. As I went round monitoring, the JTE called my attention to the table of my boy whom I’ve been worried about. My heart did a flip as I saw him throw the dice and make a very correct sentence using the target language. In the JTE’s words “this is the first time I’ve seen his smile since I started working in this school” of course at this point I couldn’t hold back the tears and I had to quickly step out into the hallway to comport myself. At the end of the activity, as we took a roll call of champions, guess who won one round of the games in his group? Yup! My boy.

Like I told the JTE, there’ll definitely be more of board games in that class because we’ll be foolish not to use this newly found key as often as possible and hopefully, we’ll find out other ways to help him learn and participate in class.

In other news, school’s out! The summer holidays officially begin today. It’s been one great ride of adventures, fun, bonding with my students, learning, unlearning and relearning. I'll be doing a lot of reading and research on more ways to reach out to special needs students in regular classes. I am new to teaching SEN so please I'll appreciate ideas and links in the comment. I would like to appreciate you for coming on this ride with me so far. Thank you for every time that you took time out to read my posts. Thank you for every time you read and left me a note, I really appreciate that. 
I might also have some kind of online training for Nigerian teachers coming soon I’ll keep you guys posted, please watch this space.

Thank you so much for stopping by, see you next post!

Read More »

Backing Up Your Backup Plan

How’s it going? Hope everyone is having a great school-week so far. It’s almost Friday and I  can’t wait! Gosh, I am so super teacher-tired!

This week has gone well really and there’s nothing much to report except that my laptop almost did the unthinkable on Tuesday morning, sending me into a state of panic because I had no back-up plan!

In fairness to my faithful, soon-to-be 5 years old Samsung laptop, it has been showing signs of tiredness but I’ve been coaxing and urging it to take one more step because I’m not ready for a new one yet. But on Tuesday morning when I got to school and tried to turn it on in preparation for my four back to back lessons which I had from first till 4th period, it just didn’t come on. Instead, I got an error message that the system was “scanning and repairing Drive C” and this was about 25 minutes before the start of class. After what seemed like forever, it finally rebooted just about 5 minutes before class time. Phew!

At that moment, I was reminded of the importance of having a plan B. I mean, technology is great and often 99.999% reliable but you never can tell when the 0.0001% error will show up. It goes without saying that you should always have a backup plan as a teacher.

To be honest with you, I haven’t learned my lesson yet. I still haven’t created back-ups since Tuesday because the laptop has been working perfectly after that episode LOL but maybe next week I will! So, my plan is to upload my slides and materials for each week on Google drive so I can access them from anywhere if something goes wrong. I could also back up my back-up plan by printing out hard copies of slides and materials but that would mean having a lot of paper to throw away after a while. Anyways we’ll see.

Do you use technology in your classroom? If you do, how do you back up your plans for the times when technology acts up?   

This has got to be the most boring post ever but I’m glad you made it up to this point.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next post!

Read More »

The Importance of Being Extra

Teaching style depends on personality type. Some teachers are quiet and cool, they speak slowly, get their point across and manage to keep the students interested. My goodness, I’ll never know how they do it, they are the real MVPs. You see me, I am extra. No, scratch that- I’m extra- extra LOL. If you pass by my class you’ll hear a lot of productive noise and above all, lots of laughter. My class has to be fun; otherwise, I’d bore myself to death, not to talk of my students. In my opinion, to successfully get young people engaged in learning, you’d have to be crazy, humorous, cool and innovative all at once. Let me tell you about my typical lesson.

In real life, to those who do not know me well, I seem introverted and shy but I kid you not, the moment I walk into the class the let's-run-this-show spirit comes upon me and I immediately transform into this energy goddess no matter how bad I was feeling before class time! I walk into the class mouth first, chat the students up, and sometimes I dance to invisible music in my head as I set up my computer. Note that the class hasn’t started yet, the students still have about five minutes prep time so, they’re looking at me and already laughing, wondering what this crazy teacher has in store for them today, I make sure I never disappoint. I try to bring in something new that they’ve never seen before. 

One thing that has worked for me this week has been the use of Bitmojis to spice up my lesson. Bitmoji is an app owned by the same company that runs the Snapchat app, and it allows you to create a Bitmoji character that looks like you, just like the "so extra" picture in this post. Imagine the excitement and surprise when “I” showed up on the screen LOL. You can use Bitmojis to spice your lessons in any imaginable way and I'm thinking of making stickers from them too. Sometimes I use hilarious GIF images that move around on the screen when I’m running my slide show. I can’t stand “normal” lessons, you guys.

Today I wore extra big, star-shaped glasses that made the kids laugh out loud, they didn’t see it coming. Amidst good mornings and laughter, the students who bumped into me at the entrance tried to make comments about my glasses in English. While teaching the grammar point “What do you think of ….?” / I think (that)…”, during the introduction stage, after several examples using pictures, I turned my back to the class for a minute then I put my glasses on, turned around, struck a pose and asked: “What do you think of my glasses?” ”Ha-ha, I think they’re crazy”, “I think that Lola is cute” “I think it’s funny”. See? Target language used, lesson aim achieved, we all laughed, end.of.story.  Look, a little silliness never hurt anyone.

Sometimes my silliness is spontaneous, in response to the tempo in the class; most times it begins at the planning stage. I have a good time planning my lessons, especially when creating resources and visuals. I imagine how it’ll play out and make necessary adjustments. By the time I’m done, I’m so pumped up and excited and this translates into my lessons. I know I’m blowing my own trumpet but hey, it’s mine!

Oh, I enjoy my students, genuinely laugh at their jokes, and I am very generous with praises, and sometimes I get so emotional when they have done very well as a group and I put my hand to my heart and tell I love them. Of course, there’ll always be those naughty ones who try to hijack your lesson, I dramatically roll my eyes and bless them with a look that says “really!” and they adjust immediately. Balance is very important.

I realise that not everyone can be energetic and extra like me and I’m not asking you to become who you’re not but no matter your personality type, enthusiasm is one ingredient that you can never do without. Don’t be dull and never sulk no matter what you’re going through at that time; nobody likes a teacher who shows up in class sucking lemons. Do all you can in the best way that agrees with your personality to let your students know that you’re interested in them and that you’re happy to be their teacher.

Phew, this week is almost over! Tomorrow I'll tell you about my bloopers, all the many things that didn't go so well this week and how I handled them. 

Please leave a note and let me know which part of this post resonates with you the most.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next post!

Read More »

A Great Teacher Makes Puzzles

My finished product

Azul Terronez’s TED Talk, “What makes a good teacher great?” inspired this blog post title. In the talk, he recounts how every time he would ask his students this question and he shared a few of the interesting responses he’d collected over time. One that I really like that has stuck with me, which I now use is “A great teacher sings” but hey, this post is not about that talk so go and look for it and have a listen- right after you’re done reading this post of course LOL!

Anyways, “A great teacher makes puzzles” wasn't part of the responses Azul spoke about but I’ve added it because I successfully created jigsaw puzzles for an activity this week. Yayyyy.

So, this week the JTE asked me to plan for a lesson which wasn’t part of the topics I’ve been scheduled to teach and which was also kind of boring to teach. I took up the challenge, happy that she trusted that I could make something out of it and I put my thinking hat on and set to work. You see, I’m never one to shy away from lesson planning, though I work in a setting that has already-made lesson plans available for teachers still, most times I find myself tweaking and making my own stuff not because those plans are not good but because they weren’t designed specifically for MY OWN students.

So back to the lesson which was about the present perfect continuous tense with focus on Japan’s World Heritage sites! Wait a minute, I couldn’t understand why such a complex topic was included in JHS 3rd graders textbook when they clearly didn’t have enough English yet to grasp this but anyways. After much deliberation, I decided to make a jigsaw puzzle activity to keep my students interested especially because one of the classes was scheduled for right after lunchtime when the food is travelling around their body and making them sleepy.

The process

After making my lesson plan game tight, I began to wonder how to successfully make this puzzle business a reality. I searched all over the internet looking for apps or websites where I could create downloadable and printable puzzles but I didn’t find any. I knew I could’ve just printed the pictures and just cut them into jigsaw style pieces but I wanted actual, traditional jigsaw patterns. I finally got an idea and downloaded a 16 puzzle-piece pattern, printed it on one side of the paper and the picture on the other side, laminated and cut along the jigsaw pattern and that was it! It was very tasking to cut the pieces out as I had to do a lot but seeing my students actively participating and enjoying the activity made it worth the while. The activity woke them up and they worked in groups, competing to be the first to complete the puzzle. I realise that my method may be a “no-brainer” for very sharp-witted teachers but for someone like me who overthinks and over plans, it was a big deal, a kind of “Eureka” moment LOL! So, I’m putting this on here to make the job easier for overthinking teachers like me who might want to do a jigsaw puzzle activity. I hope you find this tip helpful.
I should also add that completing the puzzles wasn’t the main goal, it was just a fun activity I used to achieve my main aim. After completing the puzzles, they had to write four sentences about their picture, one of which was written in the present perfect continuous tense. Of course, I gave them questions to guide them and a model of what they were expected to do. 

To reiterate a very salient point, don’t do an activity if you have no way of using it to achieve the goal of the lesson. Can you justify why your students are drawing in an English lesson when they're supposed to be learning about “Imperatives”? And after they’re done drawing then what? 

Yes, a great teacher makes puzzles slash any other fun activity and uses it as a means to an end. I hope this post makes sense. Leave me a note to let me know if it does and please do share other ways of creating jigsaw puzzles if you know any. 

Ok, you may now go on YouTube and listen to the TED Talk I mentioned earlier! I would've posted a link on here but for copyright issues. 

 Thanks for stopping by, see you next post!

Read More »

A Girl Has No Name, But Your Students Do!

This has got to be the corniest blog post title of all times but hey, I’ll go with it. If you don’t watch Game of Thrones then you probably don’t know that this title is GoT-themed and inspired by my favourite character Arya Stark, whom I consider the most rounded and consistent character from the beginning till the end of the epic TV series.  Oh no, I digress.

What’s in a name, you say?

Some teachers go through the school year never learning their students’ names or worse, calling them by a different name. This wouldn’t matter if they were Arya Stark the girl who has no name. What’s a major teaching faux pas is just pointing randomly at a student and saying “you”. The unwilling student goes “who, me?” and turns around to look at, or point at someone else. Imagine the minutes you lose going “No, you, I mean you behind him.” Participation would be more effective if only you’ll simply say their name. Needless to say that calling your students by their names shows that they’re important, that they matter and are not just a face in the crowd.
Learning the names of your students may be tasking if you’ve got so many. And, if you’re like me having just one lesson period every two weeks’ contact with each class, then you’ll have a problem memorising the names and most especially putting faces to the names. So, here are some things that I’ve been doing to try to learn the names of about 700 students that I meet only once every week at different times, in the two schools that I’m assigned to.

First thing I did was to request for the seating chart and rewrite the students’ names from Japanese characters to romaji, then I went about using this seating chart like a boss LOL.  So, I would put the chart out of sight, look at a student and their name on the chart, go close to them and say something like "How about you, (student’s name)".  The smiles and surprise on their faces when I called their names were nice and heart-warming. One cheeky boy who tried to cover his name badge with his hand, thinking I was reading off the name badges, almost jumped out of his skin when I addressed him by his name. If you’re familiar with how Japanese people react dramatically when something surprises them I’m sure you can picture this very cute scenario.  Also, when a student participates, I say “well done (student’s name)” to boost their confidence. One time I went to a class and wasn’t aware that the seats had been reshuffled and the JTE forgot to tell me. The first few minutes were hilarious as I looked at one student and called them by another’s name. They gave me this puzzled look, glancing at the real owner of the name while the other students erupted in laughter. Uh oh, boss moves busted.

Of course, using the seating chart doesn’t mean that I always manage to match the students’ faces with their names afterwards. Ah, bless the cheeky ones; I learn their names faster for very obvious reasons. So now, I take advantage of my lunchtime engagements (I have lunch with a different class each day) to learn a few names, making a mental note of the faces at the same time. Each class is broken into lunch groups and I can only sit and talk with one lunch group of about 8 students at a time so, let’s say in a week I manage to memorize about 72 names and faces out of 400. I’m slowly making progress and soon when I meet a student in the hallway and they enthusiastically say “Hello Lola” I’ll be able to say hello and call their name too. If you have any ideas about how I can learn names faster please drop a note in the comment section.

Names are important. Learning the names of your students is a very big deal. I cannot reiterate this enough.

Dear teacher, how many names and faces of your learners can you remember off the top of your head right now?

Thanks for stopping by.  See you next post!

Photo Credit: Photo found on Google photos.

Read More »

Becoming A More Hireable Teacher

The teaching career is becoming more lucrative and highly competitive and good schools who are doing it right insist on getting the best hands in the industry and are willing to pay good money. Aim for schools like that and build your self up to measure up to their standards.

Recently I heard the story of a teacher who went on a job hunting spree and was being pulled in different directions because his hire-o-meter was very high. Two major schools want him so badly and have kept on jerking the employment benefits higher and higher to outdo themselves. As at the time of this post, he is torn between which employer to select.  Now, that is what I am talking about!  

So, how do you become an irresistible teacher that every school is fighting over? How do you slam your desired job in that top school?  Yes, some teachers earn even higher than bankers, how did they get there and how can you? I have outlined four steps to help you increase your hireability so that you can land your dream job.

#1: Assess your skills: Good schools will not take any teacher without the knowledge of modern teaching skills. You cannot be aiming at getting a job in 21st Century schools and still be stuck in the rut of chalk and talk methods. Are you tech savvy? Can you plan engaging lessons? Are you abreast of current teaching trends the world over? Take a critical look at your CV  and ask yourself if you even know about the curriculum your dream school uses and have any relevant qualifications to fit in the system. Most schools do not want to hire teachers they will start to train, they want teachers who already have it and can hit the ground running so do not go saying " I am a fast learner", it is either you have it or you don't! 

#2: Grow as fast as you can: Although most schools, like any other organization, look out for experience, some employers will also overlook experience and take into account the fact a candidate is upwardly mobile and forward-thinking. An administrator once told me that he would choose a teacher who is inexperienced but shows prospects of creativity and growth over one who has been in the trade forever but not current. So, if you are inexperienced, perhaps in your first to the third year of teaching, you can still dazzle your prospective employers and ace that job with a very impressive teaching portfolio. Gather certificates from relevant training sessions, get recommendations, your statement of teaching philosophy, students' work examples and even pictures.  

# 3: Look the part: Ever heard the phrase "dress for success?" Having done all of the above, ensure you look sharp when you are called for the interview. Gone are the days when teachers look shabby and downtrodden, schools are on the look out for teachers who can model decent and proper dressing for students in this age of torn jeans and sagging pants. No one is asking you to break the bank to do this, work within your means, invest in a good suit, smell nice, look tidy and no mouth odour, please. 

# 4: Work on your presentation skills: Most importantly, build your communication skills and be able to sell your self with your mouth. Some teachers have great CVs but are not able to sell themselves enough to get the job. Take a course in communication skills if need be,  do not be stiff during an interview session, use jokes and anecdotes but not overtly so. Take an elocution and diction course to improve your pronunciation skills and sound polished when you speak.  Every International school wants a teacher who sounds almost like a native when they speak.

If you are yet to land your dream job in spite of meeting the criteria above, do not feel bad and give up. Like I said, the market place is almost saturated so, while waiting to get that job why not begin from the point where you are and make a difference? Besides, there is always room for improvement and no knowledge gained is wasted. Keep working on your self, keep building your CV to the point that even if there is no available role, one will be created just to keep you.

Become irresistible! 

CIAO,

Read More »

Teacher Training Alert- ONYENKUZI 10.0

Listen - as a TEACHER...You Play one of THE most IMPORTANT roles in society--especially in Nigeria and across Africa! Why? Because day after day you can be a CHANGE AGENT, purposefully investing in and raising up young future leaders in your classrooms.

Onyenkuzi 10.0 is an INCREDIBLE virtual coaching program that will help TEACHERS feel Purposeful and EMPOWERED in and outside the classroom. Only 10 spots are offered at a very low price. So, GET ON BOARD.

Share with the teachers you know who need a boost of encouragement, inspiration and direction. This program will increase vision and expose teachers to POSSIBILITIES for making an impact and feeling more fulfilled in their work.

This coaching program runs for one month and is entirely online. Participants would have direct one-on-one access to a coach via email, will be in a WhatsApp group with other teachers and take part in group discussion and brainstorm sessions and be part of an internet-based research project. Successful participants will receive a certificate of completion.

May/June Batch begins 17th May 2017. 

To get more information and registration details, send a mail to Joy@teachtoleadng.org

Get Empowered,

CIAO

Read More »

The Trendy Teacher

This a shout out post to all the Nigerian teachers out there who are current, trendy and keeping abreast of what is happening in the education world in order to create a worthwhile learning experience. If that is you, "oya dab!"

Read More »

Smart wORK IS bETTER THAN hARD wORK

Credit: http://quotesgram.com/smart-quotes-work/

Why re-invent the wheel when it has already been created?

Why struggle to create a worksheet, an activity or a puzzle from scratch when you can easily download it or tweak one that your colleague used last week. 

Read More »

SOS!

First of all, so sorry I haven't posted for so loooong...it's been a little crazy around here- between extension lessons for the Exams classes, studying like crazy to meet up with an on-going online course and getting set for the start of the last term for this academic session phew!  

Read More »

Happy New Year- Let's Teach Without Talking!



source: http://www2.humboldt.edu/elearning/approach/cnrs-resources/learning-teaching-resources

Happy New Year! Happy New Term!

I am so excited at the many possibilities this year holds for me especially in my career. I am determined to grow and become better in all areas how about you?

So how did the first week of school go? I didn't realize how much I missed my students until they showed up in my room on Monday.

Read More »

Words on Marble

Hey there! The term is slowly rolling to an end yeah? Just a few more weeks to go before the winter (Christmas) break. So how has it been so far?

For me it has been one big bowl of juggling administrative and academic duties, add a dose of student behavior issues, a bout of flu, several helpings of great instructional delivery, a pinch of not-so-great instructional delivery, and some spoons of I-really-don’t-feel-like-going-to-work-today, all rolled into one.

Read More »

THE PERFECT TEACHER

Hey there,

So I found the article below on http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/oct/11/show-care-students-view-what-makes-perfect-teacher. Very inspiring.

Read More »

The First day

To succeed in any sphere of life, a plan is needed. Actors and actresses have a script they follow, a good chef needs a recipe to come up with a mouth-watering delicacy, a wedding planner needs a plan and no coach takes his players to the field without proper planning and preparations.   In the same vein, your success in the coming school year leans heavily on your success on the very first day of school.  

Read More »

Back to School!

The summer holiday is fast ebbing away and while some teachers struggle to hold on to the fragments of its dying embers, others look forward to an exciting school year. So how many days do you have left, 3 days, one week or two more weeks? Don’t matter; it is still enough to get yourself into work mode.

Read More »

A Memorable Lesson

What is your most memorable lesson? Have you ever taught an unforgettable lesson, forever etched on the mind of your students such that if they are awoken from a deep slumber and asked any question they can very easily answer and go back to sleep. Below is Lola’s account of her memorable lesson, read on and take note of the best practices she employed.

Read More »

Hey There! Welcome to my blog.

"Education has taken a downward spiral, the Nigerian educational system is plunging like a low neckline; we have low quality teachers; schools don't pay well; the government is starving the educational sector" bla bla bla, yada, yada yada! Phew!
Playing the blame game, all talk and no action will lead us nowhere. How does that saying go again? " Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" Right? Or something like that. It may be a cliche but rings true no doubt.

Read More »