[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 1 | January 4, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]

As a teacher, it’s strange to think of New Year’s resolutions in January because we tend to think more about setting goals in time for the new school year, instead. However, in the spirit of the start of the calendar year, I’ll ignore the master calendar and talk about my resolutions as if they weren’t already in place, or already drifting from my crosshairs.

A resolution is the commitment to do or not to do something. It could be to check the student writing journals more frequently or trying to use Padlet as an exit card once a week. But is that really the kind of resolution we should be attempting? (more…)

[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 1 | January 4, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]

The New Year is a wonderful time to start trying some new things. You’ve spent a good amount of time with your students and feel more comfortable exploring new strategies and practices that are more tailored to their learning needs. I want to share some great ideas that you can use to change things up for the second part of the year — and that can also help beat the winter blues.

Student Interest Project

A great way to bring energy back into a classroom is to let students have more say in what’s going on in the class. One way to do that is by giving them an opportunity to research a topic that interests them. This doesn’t have to be a very long process, but it could turn into something much larger if you want. Just giving students the time to look up things of interest and share out with the class is a great way to develop their research and speaking skills. If you want to go the extra yard, (more…)