Revista simpozionului Eficienta si calitate in educatie 2018 Revista simpozionului | Page 41

8. Encourage them to ask questions. Instead of launching into long and tiring explanations and too abstract definitions, let your students ask questions and build on them. They may be/seem off the topic, but they are excellent conversation opportunities. I remember a class when I was preparing to discuss the topic of human qualities/moral values, when, right after having taken the attendance, a question popped up: “Teacher, did you see the match last night?” Truth is, I hadn’t, which I immediately confessed and asked for details. It took only a couple of minutes to lead the conversation towards the qualities of the student’s favourite team/player and from here, to proceed with the brainstorming I had intended, thus bringing the lesson back on tracks. 9. Encourage and stimulate your students’ creativity. Studies show that creatively working on a topic will not only bring more satisfaction to the learners, but also enable them to understand better and transfer that particular bit of information /concept into the long memory area. Therefore, any piece of “literary work”, any drawing or song lyrics your students might bring in the class should be appreciated and offered fair and supportive feedback. Giving the students a creative “supplementary”( but not compulsory) task, as homework or during a test will help in keeping the most advanced ones interested in the topic and prove their abilities and understanding. A round-up test on conditional clauses, which the best students may finish way ahead their less prodigy classmates, is usually followed by the supplementary task of writing a poem with the title “If..”. The poem will be checked and given feedback on multiple levels (grammar, vocabulary, literary significance and connotations, etc.) If the students’ level is too low for such complex tasks, ask them to draw something related to the topic and add “comment bubbles” I was surprised to discover that this rather childish approach really stirred their enthusiasm and interest and kept them busy and quiet, allowing their classmates to complete the task /test in their own pace. 10. Include multi-media activities. Of course, an ideal lesson will include some video-projection(s), some listening exercise(s), and so on. The more diverse the media we use in the class, the better we capture their attention. Change the media you use every 10-15 minutes or so, as the new type of learners get easily bored and distracted. When the school equipment doesn’t help (not all schools have a video projector, a computer in each classroom or a well-equipped English lab) use your own laptop, tablet or even smartphone. If asked beforehand, students can provide with their own photos or objects( a favourite piece of clothing for discussing fashion or the best/worst present they have ever received for expressing likes/dislikes or describing objects, for example).A procedure very appreciated by my students is the “pass-the marker-on” one, which will enable each student that comes to the whiteboard to choose the next student to come, thus increasing the dynamics of the lesson, the students’ willingness to actively participate and the chances to have, by the end of the class, more students actually participating in the ongoing activities. By changing the means of delivering the targeted information and adding variety to the lesson the students’ wandering attention can be recaptured and the level of their satisfaction and enjoyment significantly increased. Last, but not the least 41