Your students can't sit still? They despise reading from the bottom of their little black hearts?

There's one little thing that can become akin to a drop of luck potion - off-the-wall reading.

☝️Procedure: the students are given a task to complete a table. They go to different texts on the wall, note down the required information. The activity is timed, so as soon as the timer runs out, the students are supposed to go to the next little text or part of a text (jigsaw reading 2.0).

👍 Benefits
➕ students don't just sit and read (good for 5-8 grades mostly)
➕ they have a time limit, so they don't diddle-dawdle
➕ it helps them learn to scan the text for required information (a very useful skill!)
➕ they do not cheat off each other (no time!)

👎 Disadvantages Disadvantage
❌ prep time (But frankly, it is a negative side to most additional activities. However, with the advance of AI, it's much easier to manage)

🆘 Anticipated problems and solutions:
1⃣ some students might not want to stand up (and it's ok! - just let them read quietly)
2⃣ some might complain that they are not fast enough (pair them up for peer check to aleviate stress)

#work #work_at_school #activities_ideas

What makes a good day for you?
For me a good Sunday is a whole list of stuff.

💜 Have yesterday’s home-made sushi for breakfast
💙 Have a lesson with an amazing student
🤍 Be outrageously late to my singing class and sing so badly that the teacher claimed he felt like he was poking a couple of corpses with a stick
❤️ Eat
💚 Eat some more
🧡 On the way to the next location buy a cap in a random pedestrian underpass
💛 Have your lashes extensions done and have a nice nap at the same time
🤍 Get a scooter to go meet a friend and take a picture of almost everything nice (debatable and extremely subjective) that you see
💜 And smell everything that resembles flowers
💙 Get some food with a friend and go eat it in a lilac garden
💚 Go get the book you ordered quite a while ago
❤️ Stumble upon a sale in a leather goods shop
🧡 Get my husband a gift (and don’t forget about myself, of course)
🤍 Arrive home to a clean flat

Do any activities above seem fun to you? Do you do any of them?

#life #burnout_resistance 💗💗💗The sponsor of this amazing day is my husband, of course. Love him. 💗💗💗

A good successful Monday - being on time to catch the school bus + having time to grab a coffee. This is what I call successful success that successes 😌

Wednesday is my CPD day as my schedule is freest, so today I shall continue prattling about Critically Predictable Dolphins. Reading up on methodology or even developing your teaching skills in class is not a recipe for success (though a HUGE part of it).

There is no such recipe, as everybody with half a brain knows. But we are trying, right? And that’s what matters.

CPD is different for everyone, but for me it also includes developing your own language skills.

#CPD #teachers_language #random_musings

I remember when I just started teaching, I was absolutely sure my language could not deteriorate. But it (surprise! surprise!) did! I was frankly appalled.

Then I decided to try my hand at managing people and lucked out. I got a job as an academic manager and one of my main responsibilities was to arrange classes for our native teachers. Two years in, and a methodologist, I took CAE and with almost no prep (I did practice writing, though) got an A. I was dumbfounded, but ecstatic.

Since then, I have been trying to keep my level up. For a while, with just books and fanfiction. In the last several years, it’s been book and speaking clubs.

This year I got to know a lot of amazing people through Natalia Egorova’s Elegant English Club (https://vk.com/natalia_egorova_eeclub). It’s astonishingly affordable given how good it is.

For the summer, I’ve already signed up for two book clubs: Atomic Habits and It by Stephen King (https://vk.com/mybookclubeng or https://t.iss.one/uptoenglish1)

The question on the agenda will probably forever be: When will I sleep? But there is no rest for the wicked.

How much time a month do you dedicate to CPD in whatever definition you are inclined to use?

#CPD #teachers_language #random_musings

What do you think, guys? Are you willing to listen to teaching ideas in this format, or should I stick to writing?

Sorry for any possible slips, this was like the tenth take and I was nauseatingly anxious 😅

#activities_ideas #listening #methodology

Me, myself and I - Part 1

As now I have some people who don’t know me IRL (a real shocker!), it’s time to write a post about myself.

But it’s tough… What should I start with? Certificates? Maybe… My motto in life? Well…

Probably, I should start off with my name. My name is Yulia and I am a…

It’s even more challenging, labelling oneself. When I was asked to do so in a psychological course, the question stumped me. We are kinda supposed to unravel our identity when we are young adults. But identity is as prone to change as weather at sea is liable to.

So, I guess it’s better to contemplate it for a while and decide for yourself. And at the moment, I am a woman, a wife and a mother, and a teacher. In that order.

Who are you? Why not ponder this question a little bit?

#life #random_musings

😅 #memes #funsies