10 IDEAS TO SHAKE UP YOUR CLASSROOM IN 2017

The beginning of the school year is usually the time teachers start searching for new ways to twist up their classes and to foster motivation amongst their students. After all, who doesn't love a new game, a different activity to start a lesson or unit, an alternative way to evaluate students' progress? We have selected a few simple and easy ideas that can get your started fresh and new.

 
USE DIFFERENT TOOLS
Set yourself a target of introducing at least three online tools this semester. Use them in different contexts. We suggest PADLET, WORDLE and STORYBIRD.

ENGAGE IN PEER OBSERVATION
We know we all learn by observing others as well as hands on activities. For teachers, peer observation is an excellent tool for professional development. Invite another teacher to take part of the yearly project and exchange class plans and arrange peer observations with clear objectives. Your classes will improve tremendously. Read more about it here: http://teach-ineducation.com/site/conteudo.php?p=what-are-you-doing-inside-my-classroom

TAKE A VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP
Students love field trips, however, sometimes it is impossible to make that so dreamed trip with your group. How about a virtual field trip? With so much available on the web, students can tune into museums, countries etc.,.. or arrange their own virtual field trip.

USE GRADED READERS
Help your students take a step towards extensive reading. Choose at least one title per semester and develop a project regarding the reader. Check out a little more clicking here: http://teach-ineducation.com/site/conteudo.php?p=graded-readers-in-the-language-classroom

DIFFERENTIATE YOUR INSTRUCTION
Students come to us from different cultural backgrounds, possess diverse learning abilities, acquire and understand concepts at different paces and enjoy distinct activities. How can we teach them the same way? How can we expect them to learn at the same pace? Differentiating your instruction is the only way out. Read more here: http://teach-ineducation.com/site/conteudo.php?p=classroom-management-multileveled-classrooms-differentiated-instruction-and-the-whole-lot

GO BEYOND THE COURSE BOOK
Just because course books are mandatory does not mean they have to be the only resource, nor the protagonists in your classroom. There are so many different ways to diversify course book instruction that your students won’t even realize you’re actually working with them! Read more here: http://teach-ineducation.com/site/curso.php?p=inscricao-online-course-beyond-the-course-book

USE PBL
Project-based learning is here to stay because it engages students in truly meaningful learning and it works! Learn more about PBL in the language classroom with our online course: http://teach-ineducation.com/site/curso.php?p=inscricao-online-course-beyond-the-course-book

CONNECT WITH TEACHERS OF OTHER SUBJECTS
Learning from your peers: this is what we want from our students, but we forget how much our fellow teachers can teach us too. Break the boundaries between subjects and work on a project with Science, History, and even Math!

GO ON AN ADVENTURE IN CLASSROOM RESEARCH
Take notes, ask yourself questions, and record your results: show people with clear data where you were and what you were able to accomplish with your work.

FLIP YOUR CLASSROOM
Use classroom time to let students apply their knowledge and get their hands on the content. Leave long readings and lectures for homework. Learn more here: http://teach-ineducation.com/site/conteudo.php?p=reasons-why-you-should-flip-your-classroom

Classroom management, multileveled classrooms, differentiated instruction and the whole lot!

(Louise Emma Potter)

Teaching strategies, background knowledge related to neuroscience and psychology, language knowledge and awareness, and child development are just a few of the many contexts language teachers must know how to deal with on a daily basis in their classrooms. The norm for a public or private school is to have 50 minutes, twice a week together with a classroom of 30 multileveled students. To have multileveled students in your classroom does not necessarily mean that students are only at different stages in their foreign language acquisition, but they are also multileveled due to their educational background in their mother tongue, due to their cultural background, their different expectations as students, their goals as language learners, their learning styles, their access to the target language outside the classroom and many other factors.

For this reason, teacher development is a never-ending story. In order to be in the classroom, we must be passionate about it! There is so much going on inside and outside the classroom that to ignore the many other contents beyond the language itself is to fail as a language teacher. As Prabhu (The dynamics of a classroom-1992) states “The classroom lesson is an event of several different kinds: It is a unit in a planned curricular sequence, an instance of a teaching method in operation, a patterned social activity, and an encounter between human personalities. Much of what happens in any given classroom represents a stable routine which best reconciles the varied demands of these different dimensions for the particular teacher and learners in question.” So, where do we start? How can we accomplish our goal of teaching in this multileveled environment?

Due to the scenario above, I believe that having the whole class do exactly the same activity does not work. Some students are what we may call Below-level, some are At-level and some are Above-level. How can they possibly accomplish the same objective by the end of the class, doing the same activities if they were not at the same level at the beginning of the class? Differentiating our instruction is a must in the language classroom. The aim of differentiating the instruction is that, no matter where the student started off at the beginning of the class, by the end of the class, all the students should have taken at least a step ahead, in their own level. Students who are below the expected level do not go beyond tasks that perform thinking on the lower levels: remembering and understanding. Students who are at the at-level will be asked to apply and analyse the content, and students who are above level should be asked to complete tasks in the areas of evaluating and creating. 
There are obviously many challenges at first:

• Determining where each of your students are and what they need.
• Organizing appropriate groupings within the class.
• Ensuring that all students are challenged and engaged.
• Organizing the same material for different levels.
• At the beginning, it can be time consuming for the teacher.

But the benefits are amazing:

• Students are able to learn at their own pace.
• We teach students to work collaboratively.
• Students become autonomous learners, which is our ultimate goal.
• Students develop strong relationships with their peers.
• All students are engaged and on task.

As we can see, classroom management skills are extremely necessary if you want to put differentiated instruction into practice.

Here are some simple examples of how you can incorporate differentiated instruction into your classroom within the different skills and activities and that do not take up too much time:

Reading and listening

You can use the idea of a flipped classroom: give the students who are below level the opportunity to listen to the recording or read the text which you are planning to use in the upcoming lesson at home. This gives them the opportunity to read or listen to as much as they like.

When working on the text inside the classroom, you may use the technique of jigsaw reading: divide the reading text into unequal lengths and difficulty and hand them out to students according to their level. In multileveled classes, grouping must be very accurate. Student below level can just answer straight questions, at-level students can analyse the content and make up questions and the students above level can evaluate the reading and create a similar one.

Writing
Vary the length of the writing (amount of word – 50 / 100/ 150) and make sure the weaker students have a model to follow. Below level students should write a paragraph, at-level students maybe 100 words and above level should write 150 words.

Speaking
During pair work, after modelling an activity, below level students are expected to work with only the first part of a conversation whereas the others should work with the whole conversation. Another idea for a differentiated speaking activity is having students work in pairs. Hand out flashcards to the students. The above level student needs to make up questions (which is generally more difficult than answering) and the below level student should answer the questions.

Using learning stations
Learning stations aid teachers when you have multileveled students. Students are on task and working at all times, with different objectives and outcomes. Read more here.

Project work
Students at various levels can contribute to collaborative projects. The final products can differentiate according to their language level.

I only pinpointed some activities but I strongly encourage you to read more about differentiating your instruction. There is much more to it and you will definitely excel in your classroom. I know there is no right answer and no best method for learning. We each have our own special way of teaching and learning. That is why we can never stop studying. Never stop looking out for what others are doing and reflect upon what we are doing all the time!