Innovations in class

Here's a quick and simple class idea. The New York Times  invited readers to share an innovation that they have made in their daily lives. Get your students to check them out, vote on them and then create their own.

And on the theme of creativity and innovation here's a complete lesson plan from the TeachingEnglish site's Great lesson plans section

Level: B1+

Age group: Older teens/adults

Timing: 60 - 90 minutes

Aims: 

• To discuss what constitutes creativity and identify examples of innovation in Britain and internationally
• To identify the meaning of vocabulary in the context of creativity and innovation
• To practise the sub-skill of reading for gist 
• To identify the form of the present perfect tense and explore its use to link the past with the present with the word since
• To distinguish between when to use the past simple tense (to refer to completed actions in the past) and when to use the present perfect tense (to connect the present with a past time)

Sources for class activities, lesson plans and teaching tips

I think ELT blogs are get better and better and for me are a great source for class materials and teaching tips. Here are some of my favourites:

• Kieran Donaghy's Film English - comprehensive lesson plans for different ages and levels based around short films
• David Mainwood's EFL Smart Blog - imaginative lesson plans and activities with good visual stimuli, searchable by level, skill, topic and grammar point
• Dale Coulter's Languge Moments  - practical ideas for classes using a dogme approach. Easily adaptable to different ages and levels. The blog also has some interesting reflections on DIY professional development
• Ian James' TEFL teacher - I highly recommend his Dear victim, dear burglar lesson plan (Advanced)
• David Petrie's TEFL Geek - his current Twelve days of Geekmas series have some really excellent teaching and learning tips
• Sandy Millin  - has some sound class activities particularly at FCE level
• The Consultants-E blog - some very good, practical ideas for using mobiles as an educational tool
• David Dodgson's Relflections of a teacher and a learner - as a very experienced teacher David offers some great insights into class dynamics and comes up with ideas for activities that can bring out the best from students
• Steve Muir's allatc - a new blog with ideas for advanced students that includes the excellent lesson plan My blackberry's not working
• Gary Jones' Listen now - good, quality podcasts with worksheets and teacher's notes

If you decide to take my advice and follow these blogs, you can make your life simpler by using Google Reader- that way you can see all your favourite blogs in one place and easily keep up to date with new posts.

Good & reliable suggestions for lesson plans and class activities using visual stimuli

If you're looking for innovative and well-prepared lesson plans that use visual/video stimuli, try:

• Kieran Donaghy's Film English website 
• Jamie Keddie's LessonStream - which you can search by subject & level

David Mainwood's EFL Smartblog also uses lots of short videos and has lesson plans/activities that focus on grammar concepts. For example, I just used 2 of these for practising the present continuous in a Junior class and the students loved them - particularly the clip about Mr Bean making a sandwich.

Also, don't forget the LearnEnglish website - particularly video-based listenings such as the Word on the street series, I wanna talk about. They come with online activities that work really well on the IWB. Just used this one on Learning languages as an assessed task for an Advanced A class. They wrote the answers to the task first in their notebooks and then we checked them by completing them on the IWB.

Also you can find quirky videos like this one on YouTube about David after the dentist (specially if you've got quirky friends who constantly post links to them on facebook) and, for example, get students to write their comment about the video, randomly distribute them in the class and ask the students to try and identify who wrote the comment.

Another site providing lesson plans based on film clips

Looking for short film clips to liven up your class? Then Film English might be your answer. It provides regular topical lesson plans using a good choice of short film clips. Check it out!

Jamie Keddie's new site

LessonStream is Jamie Keddie's new site and an improvement on his highly popular TEFLclips. It's much easier to find things - lesson plans are listed by age, level and topic.

A great site with good ideas and a useful source for interesting, short video material to use in class.

Life not sweet enough? The answer: a lesson plan on chocolate mousse

Here's the lesson plan for upper-immediate upwards and featuring a video by Nigella Lawson..

Thanks to Jon Brown for this one. Enjoy!

Hi everyone!

Although I've technically set up this blog, I want to make it clear it's not mine but rather a space which everyone at the centre has equal rights to (and, hopefully, writes to).

The idea was originally Anne's (L). She thought that a blog could be more effective than the News section of the Teachers' Guide in letting people know what's going on: it's easier to update, everyone can access it easily and each post comes with a date so you know what's current or has passed its sell by date.

The rest is up to all of us to make of it what we will.

So here's my first contribution for those of you have classes of C1 and above, age 15 and above:



Get your students to watch the video and then discuss with them what they think makes a good or a bad teacher. If you've set up a class blog with them, they can make postings saying what they think there.