Άρθρα ανά μήνα: Φεβρουάριος 2018

Happy St. David’s Day! Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant! – 10 ways to celebrate in class

Today is the 1st of March already, the first day of the first month of spring. And I would like to take some time to talk about something cultural: The feast of St. David, patron Saint of Wales.

There are so many things a teacher can prepare and bring to class for this day. Here are some ideas:

  1. Read and discuss Wordsworth’s poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, commonly known as “Daffodils”. Daffodils are the national flower of Wales, and indeed one of spring’s great ways of making its way through and over winter! Here is where you can find it in the Poetry Foundation website, also including an analysis and an audio, really useful for teachers.
  2. Find a nice and easy recipe for Welsh cakes, like this one here. Why not try and prepare a Welsh breakfast in school?
  3. Make bookmarks from a green cardboard base and a daffodil petals/crown combination OR keep the green cardboard base but put a sheep on top! Wales is a sheep-farming place, with a tradition in the woollen industry.
  4. Knit an easy snood scarf with your students. Any wool yarn will do, it doesn’t have to actually be from Wales! Find a pattern for beginners here.
  5. Read about the life of St. David, an important Saint of the Christian Church before the East-West Schism. This is a good start. More info here.
  6. Make a castle craft from paper rolls! Wales is the castle capital of the world, with 600 castles! You can get ideas here.
  7. Read about the Red Dragon! If you like mythology, you could even get as far as King Arthur. This should give you a deeper understanding of the name “Pendragon” in the Game of Thrones. Or not. Who knows?
  8. Find a recipe for Welsh leek and potato soup, and prompt your students to try it at home and make a healthy meal! Leeks are another emblem of Wales, for some reason.
  9. Wales is traditionally referred to as “the land of song”. Its music festivals attract lots and lots of thousands of visitors each year. Find out here.
  10. Make a love spoon out of clay! Love spoons are only decorative nowadays, but you can find out about them here.

Happy St. David’s Day, and be sure to share your ideas in a comment!

“Party with Mr. Men and Little Miss” – Mr. Quiet and Little Miss Sunshine

It was so enjoyable to see how the young students of 2nd grade reacted to the stories, they really liked them a lot. There was colouring of letters and figures, playing and letter making with play-doh, the kids loved it. They are also beginning to understand and accept the different characteristics of different personalities, portrayed in the series, which is good. Here are some pictures:

Can’t wait to see what’s next! Have a happy Clean Monday!

Teaching English to Dyslexic Students

This New Year’s Day I celebrated with my family. The next day I received a message from Ms Marianthi Kotadaki, our School Advisor, that the Teaching English to Dyslexic Students course I had signed up for was starting.

It was a “short and intensive 4-week professional development course, addressed to teachers of English who wished to acquire the basic theoretical background, as well as methodological insights to the teaching of English to students with dyslexia. The course content was drawn from material developed in the framework of the European Erasmus+ DysTEFL2 project and the related e-learning course delivered by the university of Lancaster, Britain, and contained articles, websites, videos, scheencasts, weblinks, worksheets and other originally designed documents”, to quote Ms Kotadaki.

We began with the definition of Dyslexia, its identification and the challenges it presents to the EFL teacher. We moved on to teaching phonological awareness, vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing to dyslexic learners of English. The next stage was listening and speaking. We finished with ways to accommodate dyslexic learners of English during assessment, a very sensitive subject.

This course was quite realistic and hands-on. I deeply appreciated the chances we got to approach dyslexia more and to design activities that we can actually use in the classroom. I used to have fear regarding this subject, and now I definitely feel more into it. Knowing it is a difficult matter anyway, I feel more equipped with tested knowledge, and therefore more relaxed, to do something to help.

I can’t thank Ms Kotadaki enough. Teachers really need such a School Advisor.