Monday, April 27, 2015

An Idea on Introducing The Past Simple Verbs


It was only last year that I had to introduce verbs in The Past Simple Tense to kids. I did not want to write all the verbs down with their past forms. I wanted something that my kids could enjoy in the process and had a chance to see the past forms all the time. So, I came up with this tree idea.

We designed a cardboard tree where kids can hang leaves on which they wrote the verbs. On each leaf, they wrote one verb with the past form on one side. They coloured the side with the past form brown, and obviously the other side green. The tree is still hung on the bulletin board. It really helped them to memorise the verbs, and when they do not remember, they just walk over to the board and check!

Moreover, to better enable my kids’ ability to use the past forms, I prepared cards with the verbs both in present and past forms and sometimes as a warm-up activity I show one verb –either in past or present- and ask for the other form. The student who claps her/his hand first gets to answer first.


Also, though I have never done it due to the size of my class, each kid can have one verb –again either past of present form -  by mingling in the classroom they can find their pair. I actually did it on the board and asked them to come to the front and match the verbs. 

Below you can see  my tree. It's not that big since the board was not big enough. Still I hope you can get an idea.

P.S: You can download the verb cards that I prepared from here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzi_uqEZ0_7qZmE2TmZaUmk3ZFk&authuser=0





Thursday, April 16, 2015

A Book Review


Again with my 3rd graders =)

We decided to write a book review after we read a few books. I searched online to find a proper template for my kids to write on, but I left with nothing in my hands. Thus, I tried to create my own book review template. It is not perfect, but it worked in the class. I will keep trying anyway=)


I used Microsoft Word for it. I found an image of an open book on Google images and copied and paste it on a blank page. Then with the help of "add text" box, I wrote "First, Next, Then, Last", which they have learnt recently. Then, along with their and the book's names,  I added some stars so that they could rate their books. 

It went well in the class since a great amount of them chose to create their own books, which is totally fine by me. 

Here is the photo of my template a couple of examples from my kids: 

You can download the template from here :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzi_uqEZ0_7qQ2tKdHY1eDAzMDQ/view?usp=sharing

Hope you'll like it !



Sunday, April 12, 2015

Post-reading Activity

Hey Hey!

With my 3rd graders we have finished reading Cake Test book recently. As a post-reading activity they created a mind map using the characters from the book. Since this book is a non-ELT one, some of them found it difficult to follow the events. With this mind-mapping activity I saw that the story got clearer for them.

First we talked about the characters starting from the main character. In the middle is the name of the main character. Then, others followed behind him. Last, they described the main characters with 1-2 sentences. 



You can also use an online tool like www.mindmup.com , but I wanted them to write by hand as they still have spelling mistakes.






Thursday, April 2, 2015

A Note on Dyslexia

Have you ever had  a dyslexic student in your classes? How do you handle that? 

Generally speaking, teachers do not know about dyslexia since there is not enough information given at universities on the issue. When they encounter with such a child, their behaviours can be so destructive that it can be traumatic for that child. They do not try to understand or be sympathetic- this may be the result of long hours of working or overpopulated classrooms. While teachers turn their heads away, children do struggle in the process - and they even get lost. They feel outcast, less smart, and -no surprise- they hate school. With the current education system, nothing much is being done for these children. 

The major problem is that it is often confused with different kinds of mental disorders. However, it is certain that it is not classified as a mental or learning disorder. It is simply a reading disorder -maybe I shouldn't say disorder since who decides "order"? Children with dyslexia have a different way of reading than the children without it. As in the example below, they just mix the letters like "b" and "p" or "a" and "e". For me it is just like being left-handed in a world full of right-handed people. Yet, the struggle is not to compare . 



I have been reading around about dyslexia ever since I found out that some of the brilliant minds in history such as Da Vinci and Einstein had dyslexia. So, it doesn't need to stop a child to be creative - or simply be themselves. That's why when I heard that there was a work on dyslexia displayed in Istanbul Design Biennial in 2014, ı got fully interested. It was the work of  Christian Boer, who is a designer. He designed a font for dyslexic people that makes reading easier. You can learn more and even download the dyslexie font from here:


As an English teacher, even though I tell myself over and over again that dyslexia makes no difference and that not every child needs to write properly, in today’s education system I cannot prevent them to get hurt, to feel lonely, to be "different". However, I try  to learn more on the issue. I am going to follow an online course on dyslexia for teachers on this website starting from April, 20. If you are interested, you can also join for free! (and there are also lots of courses on lots of different subjects.) 



P.S. : Author Tom McLaughlin shared some tips for dyslexic children in The Guardian that are amazing. You can also check it here: