Affective Teaching

Discussion task #1: Choose one everyday object which was not presented in the session and create an activity with it. I created a fishing rod (using a stick, rope and a small magnet) which I used with vocabulary cards with has a paper clip each. I used it in the practice stage after presenting new vocabulary. I put all flashcards / word cards (ready or created by Students) in a box . Students fish a word/card and they have to say what it is or use the word in a sentence. In pairs, they can fish a couple of words and put them in one sentence. At the end of the term, when we have covered many words, we can ask some to fish words in a small group and create a story using the words they fished from the box. I believe it can be used with any language point as well and in different ways. The idea of fishing gets students excited and they feel the're taking ownership for their choice (though they can't really choose) , and thus feel relaxed practicing the language in a game-like and f...

Discussion task #2: Introducing puppets and engaging learners (I'm going to introduce my first puppet ever). It doesn't look charming, but I meant to have it look like this and with the glasses - maybe to use it as a wise character later on !! He's called Mody ( a very popular nick name for many Arabic names) T : Hello Mody, why are you sad? M : I can't finish my English project. T : Why don't you ask for help? M : I'm shy to ask anyone for help. T : Why? you can ask any of your friends. M : But they might think I'm not smart and just laugh at me ! T : Oh, what do you think kids? Can you help Mody? SS : Yes, we can (hopefully, or they might ask about the project) T : Ok, great , so go ahead Mody and ask your friends here. M : But they will laugh at me (whispering to T.) T : Will you ? (Whispering to sts, facial expressions !) SS : No. T : Good, so what do you want to ask about Mody? M : (Ask a question that relates to a previous lesson or a language point ss...

Discussion task #3 : Write ten questions you still have about affective language learning. The idea here is not for me to answer them, but to make you identify some areas you might want to engage in future research. That is really interesting and challenging to think about. I will try after all the inspiring ideas Juan shared with us to think of ten questions !! 1. Can affective learning help teachers involve new students joining the course late (after having built an affective kind of atmosphere in class) ? 2. How can affective learning help us get learners of different nationalities engaged in a course more? 3. How different can affective language learning be with adults ? 4. How can we use a Needs Analysis at the beginning of a course to decide what kind of affective learning we need to adopt? 5. Is affective learning an approach / method? I need to research when it started or where it came from? How much is it related to psychology? 6. How different / similar is it to building a go...

Discussion task #2 Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals? 1) I try to personalize writing as much as possible. I usually start talking about myself to get students at ease and more open to share their own feelings and ideas towards the writing topic. Then I adapt the task to allow students to express themselves in a comfortable and confident way. 2) Finding the right audience is definitely a key issue in all writing tasks but it's even more important with young learners as they need to feel their writing is authentic and will be read by real audience. That's why I try to do peer check/correction before I read it myself. Whenever possible, I try to have students write to each other and reply back. As a different version of it, we created at our center (A wise owl) which students write to and get personalized replies...

Task #1 : Getting ready for storytelling I believe that besides all the wonderful features shared this week (the routine, the place, being fun, tone and voice, ..etc.), we should plan for how we will extend and personalise the storytelling session to go beyond just telling a story. While planning, I usually start as usual with exploiting the language in the story and the morale. But as our students create their own visualization of the story and that imaginary world (that's the bit they enjoy most), we have to give them more time to live with the story and enjoy their world. I think carefully about how to create post storytelling activities such as; arts and crafts work (draw and create characters or items used in the story), role play, a letter to a character in the story, imagining they were one of the characters and sharing how they would react, creating a poster or a wall chart, or even creating their own version of the story (using comics). These kinds of activities are often ...

Discussion task #3 This is a photo of one of my classes a few years ago. I have always been proud of this photo. It was taken after one stage of a whole day project. It represents affective learning because all the students were so excited and eager to go through all stages of the lesson (as you can see in those enthusiastic, excited and happy faces). I started simply by asking sts to bring a camera to class (one for each group) which was an exciting start for all of them. They had to take photos of different items around the school starting with the alphabet letters, then create a story with these words. You can read more about that project in my blog post here http://ayat-pdiary.blogspot.com.eg/2013/04/the-alphabet-photographing-game.html

Task #2 My relationship with English started since I was a student. What? and when?  I fell in love with English since I was in Primary stage Once Mr. Khalid (My English teacher entered the class). I was so lucky that he taught me in Primary , preparatory and secondary stages (not all years, of course). Why? As a student, I was impressed by how knowledgeable he was. I liked the fact that he gave us lots of vocabulary, taught us good pronunciation, spoke English fluently all the time in class. He always praised me for my good performance and my behavior. He trusted me to do some teacher assistant duties. He even disregarded some of my unintended and small flaws (which I appreciated so much as a student). How I see it now as a teacher? - He was very confident using the language and teaching it. He gave us lots of extra work that was more helpful than just teaching the course book (this is not common here in many schools).  - Praising me for my performance and behavior gave me self confid...

Task#3 Circle Time : I liked the video and it was inspiring as I kept thinking about my classroom while watching it. Benefits of having a circle time: I believe it will make students feel relaxed in class and get ready for the learning part. While some students will be able to get out some of their energy so that they are more disciplined later in class, others who are usually shy and participating less in class will get a chance to communicate confidently and feel more active later. It's also a very good opportunity to practice speaking through a free communicative task which can also be fun. I like the sentence shared by a teacher in the video; "I listened to what they shared at the beginning, so they'll be ready to listen to what I will share now" . I remember when I used mats in my class one day, all my students were so excited and were ready to do anything to keep working on the mat. They saw it as a different kind of activity and having the teacher joining their...

Hi everyone, I'm Ayat Tawel, an EFL teacher from Cairo, Egypt. I have been teaching for about 15 years now in different language schools. I am currently teaching at the British council in Egypt (which is a different and exciting experience). I have taught young learners all my teaching life, and find it really challenging and inspiring. As using technology in ELT is one of my main interests, I have explored the potential of many online tools with young learners . I believe we keep learning every day we teach YLs. That's why I am very excited about joining this course esp. that Juan has been inspiring us with his ideas all the time. It's also great to be among the iTDi family again, and to have some of my online friends and even friends from Egypt here as well. Looking forward to learning with and from all of you :)