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Dr. Liam Printer - 'The Motivated Classroom' Educational Consultant, Author, Researcher
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Presenting at FEILTE 2014 in Dublin

26/10/2014

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PictureOur stand at FEILTE 2014
Every year the Irish Teaching Council organize 'FEILTE' - the Festival of Education In Learning and Teaching Excellence where a mix of showcases and workshops spanning projects from across the education sector, demonstrate the innovation happening in teaching and learning at the moment.

This year the event took place on October 4th and I was lucky enough to be selected to present on my use of on-going feedback and specifically "How student feedback changed my classroom". The official title was "The Irish Abroad: A look at the action research projects undertaken by Irish teachers in a Swiss International School". My colleague, Dublin born Ronan Lynch, joined me and he started our workshop with an overall presentation on the professional learning programme here in our school. I then went on to explain how I use feedback in my class to increase motivation and student ownership of their learning by modeling various methods of feedback collection I use in my class.

PictureFeedback workshop
Some of the most popular ones with the group were the really simple ones like "close your eyes and show me with your hands your understanding of how to give feedback. 1 finger being no understanding at all and 5 being that you consider yourself an expert". This is such a simple method that can be used at any time in the class to get into the heads of your students and find out what they really know or understand about a concept. It is also a very safe method for the students as they can safely say they have no idea without the fear of being ridiculed or feeling silly in front of their peers.

PictureOne minute summaries
Another very simple method that the participants really liked was the 'one minute summary'. We actually did this with them at the end of our workshop where we asked those in attendance to write down two things they liked from the session and one burning question they had. The idea is they first see if the person next to them can answer their question and if not then the teacher can answer it in the next class. This can be adapted in lots of different ways but essentially you use the 'power of the post-it' to get some quick feedback from the class as to what methods are helping them and what they still need help with.

Please feel free to contact me directly for any further information on the use of feedback in the classroom. You can also check out the full Prezi by clicking here.

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"You will enjoy this class" - Using fortune tellers and palm readers to teach the future tense!

6/10/2014

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Picture
So after a week of various activities designed to teach and practice the future tense ('will do' etc) such as TPRS, making up stories, worksheets and reading, I needed to come up with a fun way to assess the students learning. The previous week the class had voted to be assessed orally this time. Where do you always hear lots of the future tense in life? A fortune teller of course! The off the cuff plan was hatched!

How was the room arranged?
We arranged the chairs so the fortune tellers were seated around the room by the walls facing two chairs. The two chairs would be filled by pairs of students who were to be two newlyweds desperate to know what the future holds for them. My highly skilled psychic fortune tellers were hand selected by me as I wanted to use those with the best level of Spanish so they had a chance to show off what they know whilst also subconsciously teaching the pair of newlyweds. They were instructed to come up with the wildest, craziest, weirdest futures they possibly could.

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Teach skills as well as content
My 'newlyweds' all composed of at least one person who was a 'mega rich billionaire' who had paid over $350,000 (figure the kids came up with!) for 15 minutes with this world renowned fortune teller. At these extortionate rates it was vital the fortune teller gave lots of information and spoke continuously for the 15 minutes. If he or she didn't do this then it was the role of my 'billionaires' to give out and say 'I am paying you a lot of money. Give me more information'. Some of my recently married couples were also in very modern relationships containing two men, two women or in some cases even 3 people. (This is a lovely way to tackle head on those kids who laugh or complain when placed in a 'modern' couple... challenging and questioning openly their stigmas towards homosexuality if they had any).

Any specific language based instructions?
The only specific language instruction was that the future tense "you will" had to be used. In addition the couple were instructed that they must repeat in utter shock every detail they are told. So it sounded like this "aha... yes I see, you will both go to Jamaica next year" to which they had to respond "What?? We will both go to Jamaica next year". I modeled this with a student at the front of the class before the activity and it served to ensure the entire class was laughing, smiling, enjoying class and most importantly... speaking the target language.

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Decisions based on student feedback
I chose to set it up like this rather than 1 on 1 as in their feedback last week the students had stated that they felt comfortable with the singular forms of the future tense (I, you, he/she/it) but struggled and needed practice with the plural forms (we, you plural, they) etc. After about 5 minutes of laughing and repeating these shocking things that were going to happen I quietly went to each group and role played being their boss. I told them they had a phone call. The fortune teller came to me and I whispered "we have a problem, we have told them the wrong future. We mixed it all up. This couple will actually have a great life, it will be happy and filled with joy. You have to go back now and apologise and then tell them their real future".

Picture
The students (all aged 16-18) loved this part with me being involved. In addition it kept the activity going longer and made our eclectic psychics go through a whole new 'future' with the couple and repeat the process all over again. After another 5-7 minutes the happy couples were instructed to leave without paying and say they will never be back again. At this stage all the couples rotated and went to the next fortune teller where they had to tell the new fortune teller what the last one had told them... "he told us we will have 5 children, then he told us we will go to Jamaica etc." = more practice. 

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Using TPRS circling technique to review
The final piece involved getting the fortune tellers to stand up at the end and say what their clients will do in their future. Here the class is now listening to and practicing the 'they' form. I would interrupt every so often at this stage using the TPRS technique of circling - repeating the phrase with a question that I know is false so the class then had to respond together and correct me: "What? They will go to France"... "No Sir, they will go to Jamaica"... "ahhhh, yes, that is right. They will go to Jamaica". Or asking an 'either/or' question like "Will they go to France or will they go to Jamaica?".... "Ahh, yes, I remember, they will go to Jamaica". Once again here this is all in order to increase the repetitions and the comprehensible input.

Picture
How did we review and solidify the learning? First step was an 'Exit Ticket' - students had to tell me one thing that will happen according to the fortune teller in order to be able to leave the room. Second step was homework - write out what the fortune teller told you or write out what you told the clients.

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Final thoughts and reflections:
The students absolutely loved this activity and some of them mentioned it directly in their class feedback at the end of the week, stating how much fun it was and how much it helped them to learn. In addition, I also loved my day at work that day. I laughed so much and had such a fun time with them listening to their crazy creative minds being let loose on someone else's future! So much so that I will definitely do it again... see what I did there huh huh? "Will" definitely do it again? Ahhh... never mind! Until next time! Please leave me your comments!

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    Author

    Dr. Liam Printer:
    Host of The Motivated Classroom podcast, keynote speaker, presenter, lecturer, language teacher, teacher trainer, educational consultant, published author and basketball coach. 14 years teaching experience in a variety of educational settings. Currently I am the Teaching & Learning Research Lead and Approaches to Learning Coordinator at the International School of Lausanne in Switzerland where I also teach language acquisition.

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