Whether it's a new year, a new term, a new week or a new class, we can always refresh our teaching screen and press reset on our classes. In this edition of The TEFLer we'll look at how to refresh and reset wherever we are in the year.
The TEFLer is by Simon Pearlman and brought to you by Active Language Teacher Training Trinity CertTESOL, DipTESOL and Teaching Younger Learners course providers. See www.activelanguage.net for more information.
First of all a massive, if somewhat late, happy new year to you all. Wishing everybody a great 2025 and let's keep our lights burning bright.
Wherever we are in the year, we often looking for ways to reset our trickier classes as well as ways to refresh the good ones. And this can happen at any time.
Where do you go to for ideas and inspiration? Do you have specific people or apps or sites that you find yourself going to a lot? Please do share these in the comments.
In many parts of the world this term is a long one, as Easter falls late this year, and we can really roll up our sleeves and get some good, solid work done. A good chunk of the first term is about getting into the swing of things and often the last term is full of evaluation and exam preparation. Like most of us, you probably have classes that could use some extra attention and students that might be struggling to keep up. Even if we didn't act decisively in the first term, we can do so now.
Which students and which classes need a little extra? Who's on your radar? Are there groups that need a bit more?
Let's look for inspiration. We can think of this new term as a chance to reset, but let's not too much pressure on, it's not now or never, each class can be a new start, or maybe we can even reset mid class.
Termly reset
https://www.edutopia.org/article/classroom-norms-spring
This article from the fantastic Edutopia is full of great ideas to reset moving into the second term. We can, of course, use these ideas at any point in the year and perhaps especially now, so that, as Tanner Jones, the author, says “When spring comes around and students begin brimming with energy, teachers will have a solid base of norms and expectations that will help maintain the safe, positive, and productive learning environment”. They talk about resetting students norms and our our own norms, about expectations and engaging students through feedback, thinking and talking about what what worked well and what could be changed. With our older, higher level students, we could do this entirely in English, of course but how far is it ok to use the students’ first language with lower levels? Usually we try to keep it “English Only”, perhaps this is a time to step out of that, maybe.
Start the class reset
Arguably we have most control over a class at the start of the hour and it's often a place we use for the essential recycling and reusing routines. We can assign seating to help improve the classroom dynamics. We can have moments of connection with individual students as they come in. We can also use it to introduce new norms. For example, “In the last class, there was lots of (add learner's first language), we're here to practice English. Let's see if you can do the next activity only in English. Are you ready for the challenge?” There are lots of variations here, 2 minutes of English only, then 4 or 6, then hopefully we can keep extending it. We can always just reset again mid class.
Mid-class reset
The idea that every new class is a new opportunity to reset can give us great hope. What about during a class too? Sometimes classes don't go well, teaching children and teenagers can be a messy business, instead of getting cross, why not hit the reset button instead? A colleague from several years ago, Tom, introduced me to the idea and it can make a big difference. Maybe we use a classroom management system perhaps on the board or something virtual (and of course, there is room for significant debate here, we'll save that though). Half way through a class, some students are steaming on ahead collecting points while others are languishing and losing points left, right and centre. The ones who are struggling are the ones who need our help more, they're often the ones losing points and they've often got nothing to play for, they're out of the game. By wiping the points and resetting, everyone is back in play again. We can show students we're noting the previous high-achievers too to show that their efforts were not in vain.
A new year, new term, new class or new point in the class, we can always reach for the reset button and set refresh on our teaching.
If you'd like new ideas for teaching young learners, at Active Language Teacher Training we run a 3 week, online Teaching Younger Learners course which includes plenty of live seminars and tutorials too.
At Active Language we also run Trinity CertTESOL and DipTESOL courses throughout the year. Maybe this is the year to step up your qualification, invest in your professional development and become an even better teacher.
For more information on all our courses please do visit www.activelanguage.net for more information or email us at training@activelanguage.net
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Happy TEFLing! And wishing you all a fabulous 2025.