My participation in the RTP workshops at LIU was a very enriching experience. I attended the "Active Grammar Teaching Workshop" with the trainer Mrs. Barbara Jean El-Hajj. I gained a lot of new information that I am so excited to share with you, my dear readers.
First of all, The workshop had a very active start with a mingle activity that aimed to break the ice among the participants and get them to find common interests between them. It was very entertaining and communicative.
Afterwards, we discovered different approaches to grammar teaching through a Gallery Walk activity. Then we focused on couple of approaches, and discussed their steps, advantages, and disadvantages. Some of the most useful approaches are Guided Discovery, Test-Teach-Test, and Present-Practice-Produce.
Later on, Mrs. BJ explained that a teacher should use variety of activities of different control level in her lessons. Students don't like lectures, and they rarely enjoy grammar. We as teachers should try our best to make our lessons as interactive, entertaining, and productive as possible. She first introduced us to some controlled practice activities that we could use with our students. In controlled practice activities, the teacher knows the answer that the student is going to produce. There is only one correct response. This is the type of activity that we should first go for with our students to practice. Some of the activities and games that belong to this type are: Scoot, which we applied in class, Bingo, Jeopardy, Who wants to be a millionaire? which we also enjoyed practicing, Cut up sentence Kabadi, Dictation and many others. The second type which comes right after the first one in terms of control is semi-controlled activities. Here, there is an increased amount of freedom, which maintains interest and challenge for the student. The teacher can't guess all the specific answers so there will be an unanticipated and surprising few. Time marker - Make a Sentence, Adverbial charades and Grammar Auction are few examples on this type. The third type is Free Practice Activities. Usually, those activities come last in a lesson. Here the students have complete freedom in the language they produce. Students have the greatest opportunity to personalize the language, experiment, and incorporate previously learned grammar, vocabulary, and other points. Some examples on this type include: Adding to the Story, My Day Mingle, and picture dialogue.
(You can find the procedure of each activity online, but you surely can request that from me as well!)
Finally, the participants sat in groups according to the classes they teach. I worked with my group on planning a lesson in which we used one activity of each type previously mentioned. Then we shared it with the whole group.
At the end, each participant received a certificate and we took a group picture. Although we stayed till afternoon, but time flew by so fast. This workshop was very effective, practical and fun. Added to gaining educational skills and knowledge, I got to meet many teachers from different schools and extend my social network. I can't wait to attend another workshop and I would encourage all teachers to seek every possible opportunity to improve their skills and take their teaching up to the next level!
First of all, The workshop had a very active start with a mingle activity that aimed to break the ice among the participants and get them to find common interests between them. It was very entertaining and communicative.
Afterwards, we discovered different approaches to grammar teaching through a Gallery Walk activity. Then we focused on couple of approaches, and discussed their steps, advantages, and disadvantages. Some of the most useful approaches are Guided Discovery, Test-Teach-Test, and Present-Practice-Produce.
Later on, Mrs. BJ explained that a teacher should use variety of activities of different control level in her lessons. Students don't like lectures, and they rarely enjoy grammar. We as teachers should try our best to make our lessons as interactive, entertaining, and productive as possible. She first introduced us to some controlled practice activities that we could use with our students. In controlled practice activities, the teacher knows the answer that the student is going to produce. There is only one correct response. This is the type of activity that we should first go for with our students to practice. Some of the activities and games that belong to this type are: Scoot, which we applied in class, Bingo, Jeopardy, Who wants to be a millionaire? which we also enjoyed practicing, Cut up sentence Kabadi, Dictation and many others. The second type which comes right after the first one in terms of control is semi-controlled activities. Here, there is an increased amount of freedom, which maintains interest and challenge for the student. The teacher can't guess all the specific answers so there will be an unanticipated and surprising few. Time marker - Make a Sentence, Adverbial charades and Grammar Auction are few examples on this type. The third type is Free Practice Activities. Usually, those activities come last in a lesson. Here the students have complete freedom in the language they produce. Students have the greatest opportunity to personalize the language, experiment, and incorporate previously learned grammar, vocabulary, and other points. Some examples on this type include: Adding to the Story, My Day Mingle, and picture dialogue.
(You can find the procedure of each activity online, but you surely can request that from me as well!)
Finally, the participants sat in groups according to the classes they teach. I worked with my group on planning a lesson in which we used one activity of each type previously mentioned. Then we shared it with the whole group.
At the end, each participant received a certificate and we took a group picture. Although we stayed till afternoon, but time flew by so fast. This workshop was very effective, practical and fun. Added to gaining educational skills and knowledge, I got to meet many teachers from different schools and extend my social network. I can't wait to attend another workshop and I would encourage all teachers to seek every possible opportunity to improve their skills and take their teaching up to the next level!
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| A smile ☺with the charming trainer ❤ |
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| Group Picture ✌ |
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| Interactive designed space ☺ |
It looks interesting training, and we can benefit from these kinds of training, but only if we apply what we have learned. Usually teacher prefer to teach grammar rather than reading and writing but most of them have no idea how they teach it or use worksheets only to practice. That why it's too important to learn methods that help teachers to teach grammar
ReplyDeleteAmazing words that encouraged me to get into such events. i wish the teachers try hard to attend any event that help them to improve their skills and develop themselves in their classrooms.
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting! Well, no wonder! It's Mrs. BJ and the attendee is Nourhan! :D
ReplyDeleteGrammar DOES sound scary to the majority of students. Probably it's because of the boring style teachers had. Every lesson would start with sentences on the board, concluding rules and finally solving drills. Such workshops are extremely beneficial! In my opinion, this is one of the areas we, English teachers, need to work on the most!
I really enjoyed reading your description of the workshop. Activities mentioned are interactive as well as effective.
Good luck dear!
very interesting, i wish all teachers will attend any workshop that is done. these workshops are very important and beneficial. and it is interesting to teach grammar the english language is based ongrammar
ReplyDelete