An Inspiring Session

Last Tuesday 30th was a cold and grey afternoon not at all inspiring for attending the week session of English Alive. When I arrived there I saw smiling faces, some of them confessed liking this kind of “British weather”, romantic people I guess or maybe just crazy. Anyway, I was encouraged by their happy faces for a while until Tim said that Russian people smile a lot in winter, not because they are happy but because it’s the only way to prevent their faces from freezing up. Then I understood my partner’s smiles. However, I didn’t have time to moan (to myself) because the teacher quickly lead us kindly (and craftily) to the first task.

We first commented on two articles: one written by an inspiring teacher and the other one written by one of his students. The task was followed by a debate about the most important qualities in a good teacher. Most of us agreed that an inspiring teacher should be understanding, patient and somebody who likes students (but does not necessary love them). Our opinions were contrasted immediately afterwards with ten commandments for motivating language learners provided by the teacher and which we had to rank ourselves. As a result, most of the teachers agreed that making the classes interesting and creating a good atmosphere in the classroom was crucial for motivating students. Therefore, we concluded that learning should be enjoyable and meaningful (not necessarily fun) and it was surprising to realize that fifty years ago not many teachers would have reached the same conclusions.
In this way we were approaching some of the keys for becoming or being closer to being inspiring teachers.
Finally we took a further step into inspiration and creativity to find ourselves writing our own variation of a poem by Walt Whitman (or better destroying it. Sorry Walt). This task exemplified to perfection how easily you can encourage students to work with language by means of an enjoyable challenge. We were all playful and excited writing our lines. A nice spectacle to watch! Or were the smiles in last Tuesday’s session due to the cold weather after all?
by Enna

WEB RECOMANADA: com veieu el curs de didàctica de l'anglés està molt animat. Les activitats de reflexió sobre la nostra pràctica docent afegeixen motivació i desig de participar. A més, una de les activitats interessants consistia en una introducció a la poesia en classe de llengua, és per això que us volem recomanar un bon portal de poesia en l'eduació, per si algú s'anima a seguir l'exemple:

The Poetry Society