Cultural Background

Ask any Filipinos about Pukpuk Palayok or Hampas Palayok, and chances are they played it or saw it played at least once during their childhoods. The game is so immensely popular that any celebration or town fiesta is not complete without children (oh yes, sometimes adults) playing it. Having been colonized by the Spaniards for three hundred and thirty three years, Pukpuk Palayok is the Filipino version of Piñata, and just like the fiesta, Spaniards used the game to attract natives to their ceremonies and convert them to their religion. The Filipinos, known for reinventing things to suit their needs out of limited resources, adapted it by using a clay pot instead of the Mexican painted paper Piñata. In those times paper and paints were scarce and expensive, whereas clay pots were plentiful and cheap.

In the Philippines, pupok means to hit, and palayok is a clay pot, so the game literally means to hit a pot. Traditionally, the game is played with the decorated clay pot filled with goodies (candies, sweets, coins, and sometimes peso bills), suspended by string in the air, high enough for players to reach it. A long bamboo stick is used to hit and break the pot, so that players as well as by-standers can grab as many goodies as they can. The player who breaks the pot wins a prize, usually in currency.

Pukpok Palayok: Reinvented for EFL classrooms

For EFL classrooms, Pukpok Palayok uses no clay pot, nor a bamboo stick. Instead, the game makes use of the white board, picture cards (with magnets attached at the back), and an oversize hat (my children hate to be blindfolded with a handkerchief). In this adaptation, hitting is not permitted; children make use of their sense of directions, understanding of the commands given, and using their hands to feel for the targets. In my experience, the game works wonderfully for preschoolers, for teaching the alphabet, colors, shapes, fruits and vegetables. While, for elementary graders, it works very well for foods, practicing specific target language (“I’m hungry! What do you want? I want a hamburger. Go find it!” or “Where are you going? I’m going to the supermarket. Go find it”).  In addition to the target language, this is a great way to reinforce language for giving directions like; go straight, to your left, to your right, stop, that’s it, etc.

Target Language Examples

S1: I’m hungry!

Class : What do you want?

S1 : I want (hamburgers).

Class: Go find it!

***

Class: What’s for (lunch)?

S2: (Spaghetti) is for lunch.

***

Class : Where are you going?

S3 : I’m going to the (park).

***

Class: How are you going there?

S3 : I’m (riding a bicycle).

Class: Have fun!

Players

Two (2) or more (the more the merrier!)

Materials

picture cards

board

some magnets

a party hat (oversize) or blindfold

How to play

1. Determine the order of play.
2. In random, attach all the picture cards on the board.
3. Instruct the players to remember the placement of each card.
4. The first player takes his turn. He stands 12 steps (more is better) away from the board. The other players ask the question; for example, “What do you want? The first player answers “I want (a hamburger).” The other players answer back “Go, find it!”
5. The first player puts on the over size hat (covering his or her face), and turns around three times.
6. The other players give directions, starting with “Go straight!” “To your right!” “To your left!” etc. The aim is for the player to find the target by following directions given by other players.

Note : For large number of players, for example twenty (20) , it is best to group them into four (4) teams of five members each. One player will have to be blindfolded, while the other four members give the directions to find the target picture card.

Marco Brazil has been training teachers and teaching children English for over fifteen years. He maintains strong a strong commitment to making English fun and easy for both teachers and learners. He occasionally writes articles and gives teaching presentations for Oxford Kid’s Club Teaching Tour mostly, on games (You can see handouts from his workshops here and here).  Marco is the director/owner of SmartKids Circle. You can find Marco on Facebook or follow him on his blog, Mabuhay Classroom.

Now, I would do just about anything for Anne, so here’s a special edition of my PLN Quizzes, especially for Tech Tools Day participants. (Of course, you can take the quiz whether or not you are at Tech Tools Day!)

The quiz has five questions, based on five blog posts. Each has something useful to teach about technology and education.

Read the posts before you take the quiz. The main point here is to direct you to some excellent reading. You’ll also do better on the quiz. If you don’t like your initial score, you can take the quiz again. Again, the main point is learning, not grading. However, you will get a lovely certificate at the end of the quiz to display proudly on your own blog or web page

If you want to read about the motivation behind these PLN quizzes, go here. (If you’re unfamiliar with the acronym PLN–Personal Learning Network–read “What is a PLN, anyway?”)

This quiz is based on the following five blog posts:

The Best Kept Secrets of Highly Successful Edu-Bloggers Part 1 by Karenne Sylvester

Microblogging for EFL with Plurk by Nik Peachey

Wikis by Lucy Mellarsh

Creating your Digital Self Part 1 by Ozge Karaoglu

Commercials in the EFL Classroom by David Deubelbeiss

Click here to take the quiz –> What you can learn from my PLN quiz #6

If you missed the first part of this article, start here

Previously, I outlined how much I’d been changed as a teacher by the realization that language students would benefit from a lot of the instructional practices of “special” needs teachers. Accommodations and modifications of content, behavior, use of models, explicit teaching of learning strategies, small class size, differentiation and what I’d like to talk about today – “repetition”.

To begin, see an example HERE. I’ve been cheerleading Gary Bishop’s amazing Tarheel Reader for a long time. Developed for students with learning disabilities, it is outstanding for ELLs. Why? Because of the intense use of repetition.

Repetition is needed to learn a language and it is a basic remedial technique. Language is NOT a knowledge laden subject but is performance based. We have to do things over and over, listen over and over to achieve mastery. Just like driving a car or learning to pack a parachute. As a child, that’s how we learn too. Here’s a photo of the math notebook of the amazing mathematician, Kurt Godel. Look familiar? Even Godel had to master the basics and we should be doing this with our students. [as an aside, I really do hope one day to write about the implications of his incompleteness theorem to language - it is fascinating ] I’m sure you remember lots of this in your younger days, lots of copying and “mastering”.

But I’m not advocating that teachers set up classrooms like this infamous Chinese way…. full of parroting and useless repetition. No. There are better ways to do this and here are a few of my ideas on how you can best make “repetition” part of your instructional toolkit.

On the Lesson Level

1. Chants and Drills. Yes, don’t do them a lot but do them! The key is to make them so the students have some freedom and personal input. Always allow for students to change the words or omit words (substitution).

2. Controlled Practice. This is a standard lesson component and should allow students to repeat basic grammatical structures yet “push in” new content. Make sure the structure is always on the board for reference and get students used to repeating it (by rewarding them, ringing a bell etc..). Example. “Yesterday, I went to the ………. and ……….. ” – that’s the target language for use with a set of flashcards of places and things.

3. Repeat student’s phrases often in class. We call this echoing. It allows other students to hear the language again but also gives students a chance to process the language and repeat inside their own heads.

Teacher: “What did you do yesterday Mirka?”
Students: “I went to the mall”.
Teacher: “Oh, you went to the mall!”

Even better if the teacher doesn’t repeat but another student does. Recycle the language during the lesson. For example, in the above exchange, the teacher could ask other students – “What did Mirka do?”
Disappearing dialogs are also a great way to repeat language!

4. Review! Every lesson should at least end with the question – “What did we learn today?” Then, list the vocabulary, structures, ideas covered. Even better if you have time to end in a game, quiz. Even better if the students make the review questions! You could also make it standard to review the previous lesson at the beginning of the next.

5. Lesson Sequencing. Students really, really need to know what will happen each class. Make an agenda and stick to it! Meaning, every class, the students know what will happen the first 5 min. / the next 10 min. etc…. You do the same things EVERY class but with different content. I really, truly think there is too much variety and too much “different” coming at students in our English language classrooms. A predictable lesson sequence is vital and students need this kind of “repetition”. An example lesson sequencing might go like this.

0-5 min: Chit – chat, check student attendance, problems…
5-15 min. Review of the previous lesson.
15-25 min. Elicit background knowledge: Song and brainstorm
25-40 min. Controlled practice activity: Flashcards
40-60 min. Performance, presentation using target language.

On the Curriculum Level.

1. Recycling. Recycling of content or “spiraling”  is done by textbook writers but it isn’t always done well. Teachers need to be aware of the need to recycle into new units, the grammar, vocabulary and functions previously covered. Students need to encounter them in new situations, in order to master them.  Jerome Bruner first outlined these curriculum and constructivist principles and his thoughts are very pertinent to ELT.

So for example if the previous unit was about “Telling the time”. In the next unit, “Shopping”, the teacher should make sure to use a lot of “time” references and prepare lessons which insert this. Thus, the dialogue from the textbook could be changed to include times about meeting/opening/closing of shops.
____________________________________

I know I’ve just touched on a few of the ways you can “repeat” and get your students learning more effectively. I think it an important thing for every teacher to think about and this summer might just be the time for such reflection.

David Deubelbeiss is an EFL teacher and teacher trainer living in Seoul, Korea. He runs a social network for teachers called EFL Classroom 2.0 and a website of teacher-submitted teaching ideas called Teaching Recipes. You can also follow David on his blog, Teacher Talk and on Twitter.

Over the length of my teaching career, I’ve changed in many ways. I think my journey mimics that of a lot of other ELT teachers.

1. I have slowed down my delivery and instruction considerably. I used to just screech and scream through content. Now, I relax and pause a lot. I take time to enjoy the spaces together. I’ve realized students need things “a lot” slower and this leads to much more effective learning in the classroom.

2. I risk more, I try different things more. Yes, that would seem against the grain of time and tradition. Aren’t old teachers supposed to be “old dogs” without “new tricks”? Not teachers that have really kept developing and learning on the job. I now understand more deeply, how each student needs to learn in their own fashion and way. That’s why I have to deliver content in different ways and modify content much more thoroughly. In my beginning years, the whole class was a “glob” and I taught that “glob” in one way – my way. Now, I use a multi-modal approach and am much more conscious of hitting all the skills and allowing students to reach the objectives in their own way.

3. I repeat content more often. Even explicitly (there is usually a groan!). I’ve realized the value of this and where I used to just assume students had mastered something, now I assess and if they haven’t “learned”, we repeat, in a different manner.

If there are any “old dogs” out there – I’d like to know if your growth curve has been a long the same lines?

But my development as a teacher isn’t the only thing I’d like to write about today. Rather, it is the shadow cast by my own realization that my development is based upon some sound principles. Throughout my years, I’ve become very interested in special needs and how special educators teach. Mostly because I truly and deeply believe that other than with very young children, we are working with “disabled” students when we teach a language. And we can learn a lot by listening to special needs teachers and the instructional techniques and approaches they use.

One of the epiphanies for me came upon reading Kenneth Dinklage, who as a counselor at Harvard, was stunned how many high performing students were atrocious at learning language. He wondered why these brillant A+ students and “brains”, just squeezed by with Ds in their compulsory foreign language courses. So he set out to get to the root of the problem. It wasn’t anxiety or lack of motivation or even study skills. It was the instruction! The students had a deficit in their L1 which caused problems learning a second language. Once Dinklage applied some of the techniques used by special educators – their language learning blossomed.

Ganschow and Sparks extended Dinklage’s research and identified the Linguistic Coding Deficit Hypothesis (LCDH) stating “that difficulties with foreign language acquisition stem from deficiencies in one or more of these linguistic codes in the student’s native language system.” Brown has since labeled it the somewhat generic, SLAAP (Second Language Acquisition Associated Phenomena). I’ve written about this in detail with some practical advice,  HERE.

To me, what it all meant was that I began to see many of the difficulties my students (and I!) experienced in learning a language, as something that could be overcome if I borrowed many of the “ways”  of  special educators. In part II, I’ll be discussing one such technique – the use of repetition. Stay tuned!

References:

Dinklage, Kenneth T. “The Inability to Learn a Foreign Language.” Emotional Problems of the Student . Ed. G. Blaine and C. McArthur. New York: Appleton, 1971.

Ganschow, Lenore, and Richard Sparks. “Profile of the Learning-Disabled Student Who Experiences Foreign Language Learning Difficulties: Curricular Modifications and Alternatives.” (Revised title: “Impact of the Foreign Language Dilemma on College Bound Students with Specific Learning Disabilities.”) MLA Convention. Chicago, 28 Dec. 1985.

Congratulations!

Anne Hodgson

Janet Bianchini

Sue Lyon-Jones

Michelle Worgan

Catherine Dorgan

Sabrina

These teachers answered all of the questions correctly on PLN quiz #4, and will soon be receiving their Horn and Kit Kat care packages

Now, for quiz #5. This is the final installment of the five quizzes I promised.  If you want to read about the motivation behind these PLN quizzes, go here. (PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, read “What is a PLN, anyway?”)

Tips: Read the posts before you take the quiz. The main point here is to direct you to some excellent reading. You’ll also do better on the quiz. If you don’t like your initial score, you can take the quiz again. The goal is learning, not grading (although you do get a very cool certificate at the end of the quiz!).

Since this is the final quiz for awhile, I’m going to send “prizes” to everyone who takes the quiz and gets a perfect score. If you are one of the first five to do so, you’ll get a package of Royal Milk Tea Kit Kats, plus something else from the previous quizzes. After that, you’ll get a mixed and matched assortment from the goodies left over from earlier quizzes, or what I pick up at the store.  Of course, if you’re in Japan I’ll be happy to substitute an “American” prize, and if you don’t care for sweets at all, I’ll substitute a non-food prize

Good luck and have fun!

The deadline to be eligible for the drawing is 11 pm on Wednesday , July 14th, in Japan. That’s 2 pm GMT time. For other times, check here.

This 5-5-5 quiz is based on the following five posts:

Criteria for a Good Cultural Training Lesson by Alex Case

Individual Differences Count by Mike Harrison

Video Fun for Everyone by Nick Jaworski

Love and Respect by Melania Paduraru

I Don’t Want to Say It, Sir! by Vicky Loras

Click here to take the quiz–>What You Can Learn from My PLN Quiz #5

July 7th is Tanabata, or the Star Festival, in Japan. Legend says that Orihime (a weaver, represented by the  star Vega) and Hikoboshi (a cowherd, represented by the star Altair)  are allowed to cross the Milky Way to meet each year on the seventh evening of the seventh month each year. Children often decorate bamboo branches with colorful origami decorations, and their wishes.

The Star Festival is an easy celebration to adapt in order to include Japanese culture in your English classes. You can pick and choose from among typical Tanabata activities to suit your own goals and the English level of your students. Tanabata includes a story about Vega and Altair, a song about the decorated bamboo branches, and (most importantly) the branches with children’s wishes!

The story

The story of the star-crossed weaver and cowherd can be as simple or complex as you wish. Basically, after Orihime and Hikoboshi fall in love, they’re no longer interested in weaving cloth or herding cows. They’re sent to opposite sides of the Milky Way so that they’ll get back to work. Once a year, however, they’re allowed to cross the Milky Way river to see each other. If it’s raining, the river is too high and they can’t get across. So, many of the wishes tied to the bamboo branches are wishes for clear skies on the night of the 7th.

The Japan Foundation London Language Center has a version of the story suitable for young learner classes. Children can dramatize the story, or draw their own illustrations.

The song

Mama Lisa’s World Blog includes a nice translation of the Japanese song, which I’ve reprinted here:

In Japanese Romaji:

Sasa no ha sara-sara
Nokiba ni yureru
Ohoshi-sama kira-kira
Kingin sunago

In Japanese Text:

笹の葉　さらさら
軒端にゆれる
お星様　キラキラ
金銀砂子

In English:

Bamboo leaves are rustling, rustling,
Swaying close to the roof’s edge,
Oh, how the stars are twinkling, twinkling,
Gold and silver grains of sand.

Students can also write their own lyrics to the song, using vocabulary they know.

The bamboo decorations

Decorating the bamboo branches is always my students’ favorite Tanabata activity.  If bamboo isn’t easy to come by in your country, any type of branch will work as well.

Making the decorations is a great opportunity to review colors and shapes, and to practice following directions (learning how to make the origami shapes). Students typically write their wishes on strips of paper, like I want to be a veterinarian or I hope I pass the entrance exam. This year, my students hadn’t yet learned this language, so we wrote about things they liked instead.

Origami Club has an amazing website with Tanabata decorations. Although the website is in Japanese, it’s very easy to use. Simply click on the picture of the decoration you want to make. On the next page, you’ll see one or two buttons. A yellow/orange button leads to illustrated steps for folding. A blue button leads to an animation of the folding process.

If you’re interested in learning more about Tanabata, Kids Web Japan is a great place to visit. It’s also a great place for children to learn more about Japan.

Happy Tanabata, and I hope all of your wishes come true.

P.S. You can also celebrate Tanabata on August 7th, like some areas in Japan. The August date is closer to the 7th day of the 7th month on the old lunar calendar

This past week, some readers let know know that one of the links was broken in my post for PLN Quiz #4, and others let me know that they couldn’t access the quiz website. I appreciated the time they took to 1) try and take the quiz, and 2) tell me that there was a problem.

Since people wanted to read the posts, and couldn’t, and wanted to take the quiz, and couldn’t, I’ve decided to extend the deadline for My PLN Quiz #4 for five more days instead of posting the next quiz.

The intent of these quizzes has been to introduce great blog posts from members of my personal learning network, not competition or evaluation (you can re-take quizzes until you get a perfect score). These posts are all worth reading, so I think it makes sense to give everyone more time to do so. Chocolate is simply a nice reward for taking the time to explore these articles.

Speaking of chocolate, to try to entice folks to try again (after dealing with broken links and troublesome websites), I’m going to send “prizes” to everyone who takes the quiz and gets a perfect score. If you are one of the first five to do so, you’ll get the reward chocolates I mentioned when I first posted Quiz #4. After that, you’ll get a mixed and matched assortment from the goodies left over from earlier quizzes, or what I pick up at the store. If you’ve already taken the quiz and gotten a perfect score, it still counts. You don’t have to take the quiz again. But, if you tried and couldn’t take the quiz, or didn’t have time, you have another chance.

Tips: Read the posts before you take the quiz. The main point here is to direct you to some excellent reading. You’ll also do better on the quiz. If you don’t like your initial score, you can take the quiz again. The main point is learning, not grading.

Good luck and have fun!

The deadline to be eligible for the drawing is 11 pm on Friday, July 9th, in Japan. That’s 2 pm GMT time. For other times, check here.

This 5-5-5 quiz is based on the following five posts:

Paired and Group Writing Activity by Sean Banville

Teaching English in Brazil by Henrick Oprea

Being an EFL Teacher by Eva Büyüksimkeşyan

The Art of Teaching by Aniya Adly (aka The English Teacher)

EFL Teacher Progress Check: adult language learners by Karenne Sylvester

Click here to take the quiz — > What you can learn from my PLN #4

While trying to have a quick nap on a hot Friday afternoon in Southern Spain, I started thinking of what to write about for this guest post. Two ideas came to me – the first being the use of puppets in the early learner classroom, and the other being how to successfully teach teenagers. I’ve decided to leave the puppet post for my own blog sometime soon, and to write here about teaching teenagers.

In most ELT situations, a teacher will more often than not end up having to teach teenagers at some point. In private institutions, children are the most lucrative students, starting when they are young and hopefully (from the teacher’s and owner’s point of view – even if their reasons are different) continuing at least until they go to university.

However, for many teachers this age group is the bane of their career. It can be incredibly difficult to create a positive learning environment in which adolescents feel happy, secure, valued and motivated to learn. The reasons for this are many: teenagers are going through many physical and emotional changes, including changes in their brains (see Naomi Moir’s post on the OUP blog; they would normally prefer to be somewhere else on a sunny afternoon; if they do want to come to class it may be because it is where the rest of their friends are, as a kind of social club; peer pressure is at its highest and this can have a very negative effect during a lesson; and they may even be suffering from stress and exhaustion due to their demanding school and after school commitments.  These are just a few of the reasons why it can be extremely difficult to provide successful lessons and courses with this age group.

I have taught a fantastic group of teenagers over the past two years, and I think it will be useful to look at aspects of our teacher-student relationship to see why in this particular case, the course has been successful.

The First Day

The first few days are crucial to the way the course will run.  The students will make unconscious decisions during this time about what kind of teacher you are and it is essential to let them know that while you may be relaxed and friendly, you will not accept any nonsense. With an exam course like the one I have been teaching, I spend a large part of the first lesson explaining what will be expected of them during the next two years. I make sure they are conscious of the amount of work they will be doing both in and out of class and how important the pace of the course is, if they want to reach their objectives (in this case, passing the exam).

You may hear lots of moans when you make it clear that they are going to have to work hard, but generally I find that most teenagers expect to have to put in a bit of effort, and this usually motivates them. It is really important that they are motivated, especially if it is a two year course.

Good Cop Vs Bad Cop

I consider myself to be quite strict with teenage exam prep groups, and contrary to popular belief, research has shown that firm but fair teachers are preferred by this age group. Although you may be tempted to treat a group of sixteen year olds as adults, the fact is that emotionally they are not. Even though they may look like adults and demand to be treated like one, they don’t usually have the emotional balance and reason that an adult usually has. This means that if you do talk to them as if they were your friends or peers, they will often use this as an excuse not to study or do as you ask. At the end of the day, most teenagers don’t have the maturity to choose progress over fun and games, and you will find it much more difficult to get them to put in the required effort.

However, this doesn’t mean that you have to bear the stick constantly – give them a carrot when they have been working hard! The idea is you are seen to be in control of the class – something that teenagers consider a quality of a good teacher. Rewards such as games and other fun activities can be a great incentive to get the work done. Do make sure though, that you do give them the rewards you promise, otherwise they will just think that there is no point in doing the work.

Short-Term Goals

For you the school year may fly by and as soon as you know it, June is here again. For the average fifteen year old though, a year can be a very long time. In a two-year course such as the one I’ve been teaching, you need to provide students with plenty of goals to work towards during the course. Trying to get students to study for an exam that they will sit in two year’s time is almost impossible. Even if you constantly remind them of the exam, they will not see it as something realistic until about three months before. This means that you must set them regular goals that they can achieve in order to keep motivation as high as possible. You can discuss and negotiate these goals with your students, keeping them involved.

Motivation

One of the questions constantly posed by teachers of teenagers is “How can I motivate them? They aren’t interested in anything!” If you ask a group of teenagers what topics they would like to cover in class, they will come up with very few. Even if you do bring in some materials you have found about their interests, you will inevitably find that they show the same amount of enthusiasm as if they were the typical course book unit about the environment. The problem, I find is not the actual topic of the lesson, but the type of activities involved. Most course book pre-reading tasks for example, do not make you want to read! Trying to get a learner to read through a gapped text before attempting to fill in the gaps is a nightmare, usually because the text is about something not at all interesting and the student has no incentive to read. Imagine you have a text about someone who survived a shark bite. Instead of just asking your students to read, tell them the story from the survivor’s point of view from the beginning, but stopping before the end. Now ask what happened next, encouraging all kinds of funny or even gory answers, and then get them reading! The main thing is, unless you want to spend hours before every lesson trying to find interesting teenage material and planning lessons, to find fun ways to exploit the materials they already have in their course books.

Humour

One of the reasons why I have enjoyed teaching this particular group of teens is that we have had some brilliant moments of laughter. Sometimes I have been the instigator and sometimes they have. Although I have made the students work really hard and cover as much as possible every lesson, a good laugh now and again can motivate teenagers to want to come to class. I started this by making up stories, usually to introduce some grammar point, that they actually believed (like having sprained my ankle – lots of limping around the classroom), and then got a bit of a reputation as a fibber! However, this gave me and the students an opportunity to relax. When they saw that I was prepared to joke with them, they were much happier about working. They would themselves decide to work hard so that later they could have a bit of a laugh. I had the odd trick played on me (in a nice way) that had me crying with laughter.

I do believe that teenage groups can be the most rewarding. When you see how much progress they have made, when they have become more responsible for their own learning, how they have grown up and when you and they both feel sad on the last day of the year because you won’t see each other for three months, then it is really worth it.

I have been teaching English for over ten years, mostly in Spain. For the past eight years I have been living and teaching in Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz. I love teaching children and I have a blog mostly devoted to Young Learner related issues and activities called So This Is English and you can find me on Twitter as @michelleworgan.

Congratulations!

Colin Graham

Catherine Dorgan

Harini Dwi

Janet Bianchini

These teachers answered all of the questions correctly on the June 23rd PLN quiz, and will soon be receiving their Macademia Takenoko no Sato and White Chocoloate Kit Cat care packages

Now, for the next quiz. If you want to read about the motivation behind these PLN quizzes, go here. (PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, read “What is a PLN, anyway?”)

Tips: Read the posts before you take the quiz. The main point here is to direct you to some excellent reading. You’ll also do better on the quiz. If you don’t like your initial score, you can take the quiz again. Again, the main point is learning, not grading.

As with the previous quizzes, at the end of five days,  I will draw five names from the pool of quiz takers who answer all five questions correctly. This time, the five “winners” will receive a package consisting of limited edition dark chocolate and almond Kit Kats and Horn cookies (sugar cookies wrapped around chocolate).  Of course, if you’re in Japan I’ll be happy to substitute an “American” prize, and if you don’t care for sweets at all, I’ll substitute a non-food prize

Good luck and have fun!

The deadline to be eligible for the drawing is 11 pm on Saturday, July 3rd, in Japan. That’s 2 pm GMT time. For other times, check here.

This 5-5-5 quiz is based on the following five posts:

Paired and Group Writing Activity by Sean Banville

Teaching English in Brazil by Henrick Oprea

Being an EFL Teacher by Eva Büyüksimkeşyan

The Art of Teaching by Aniya Adly (aka The English Teacher)

EFL Teacher Progress Check: adult language learners by Karenne Sylvester

Click here to take the quiz — > What you can learn from my PLN #4

Congratulations!

Arjana Blazic

Catherine Dorgan

Jane Barden

Katerina Zempeki-Stamelou

Leahn Stanhope

Marisa Parvan

These teachers answered all of the questions correctly on the June 18th PLN quiz, and will soon be receiving their Frambroise Kit Kat and Tanabata Koala March cookies care packages

Now, for the next quiz. If you want to read about the motivation behind these PLN quizzes, go here. (PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, read “What is a PLN, anyway?”)

Tips: Read the posts before you take the quiz. The main point here is to direct you to some excellent reading. You’ll also do better on the quiz. If you don’t like your initial score, you can take the quiz again. Again, the main point is learning, not grading.

As with the previous quiz, at the end of five days,  I will draw five names from the pool of quiz takers who answer all five questions correctly. This time, the five “winners” will receive a package consisting of white chocolate Kit Kats and Macademia and chocolate Takenoko no Sato cookies (they’re shaped like young bamboo shoots). Both are limited release flavors. Of course, if you’re in Japan I’ll be happy to substitute an “American” prize, and if you don’t care for sweets at all, I’ll substitute a non-food prize

Good luck and have fun!

The deadline to be eligible for the drawing is 11 pm on Monday, June 28th, in Japan. That’s 2 pm GMT time. For other times, check here.

This 5-5-5 quiz is based on the following five posts:

Children are Always Cute by Esra Girgin Akiskali

Responsible Racism – A Guide for Teachers by Darren Elliott

I’ll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours by Steven Herder

TEFL Bingo – Eyes Down for a Full House by Sue Lyons-Jones

I Know That I Know Nothing by Anita Kwiatkowska

Click here to take the quiz — > What you can learn from my PLN #3