Category: Lesson Activities

The IKEA effect

This is one takeaway I have from the last training day we had where Mike Griffin came here to present to us. More info the event is here

The IKEA effect

We like it better if we make it ourselves.

In the back of the “Finding Out” teacher’s book there are photocopiable cards that we can use for games. Recently I decided to let my students personalize them. I usually copy them and cut them without adding anything else to them to save time. Look at the photo. It takes time away from the lesson to get them made but it got my students more invested in the lesson and had them wanting to use them more in the classroom and lobby. A class of 8 will get everything taken care of in less than 10 minutes.

These cards come from “Finding Out 4”. They were made by year 4 primary school students.

Final tip, if you use regular laminating film for these the corners will be dangerously sharp. You can get a tool from Daiso to cut off the corners or use card style laminating film.

Students are more invested in these cards and choose to play with them more often because they made the cards themselves.

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Escape the textbook

In one of the English Firsthand teachers books, there’s a teaching tip saying, “Don’t solely rely on the book. Try other activities that let students escape the book.”

When we are using Finding Out in our elementary school-aged classes, there is not too much on each page so most teachers will have the students using English and not holding the book all lesson.

With Macmillan English, there is a lot in the book, but it’s just as important to put the textbook down.

Here are two activities that are going really well in my JHS class. Thank you to Parisa and Melissa for the ideas.

Parisa presented at ETJ in Sendai, inspiring us to inspire our students. She had her JHS class write a diary. I tried this with my JHS class and was initially met with “めんどくさい。。。” Look at the photo to see what / how much they are producing each week:

Melissa has worked hard to set up a pen pal program between schools. The project was only started recently but my student involved loves getting and writing the letters.

Thank you, Melissa and Parisa. We are all at our strongest when we can share our ideas and what we are doing.

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An apple a day keeps the shark doctor away.

Let’s play a game! Can you imagine a shark? Can you vividly see the image in your head? Good! Can you imagine a doctor? Can you see the white coat and Stethoscope in your mind’s eye?

Excellent. Now, please try and imagine a “shark doctor”. “Huh, what’s that?” would be probably be most people’s first reaction. Is a shark doctor a shark that is a doctor, a doctor with shark-like features or something even more mysterious?

In a recent activity we combined animal/object cards with a profession card to create some fantastical combinations, some of which are displayed in the pictures below. The students were able to practice phonics in addition to multiple skills simultaneously while moving around the room, and pondering new interesting combinations in a fun manner.

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