Intriguing Start!

 First 5 minutes of the lesson is really important. Teachers need to get students attention and make a intriguing start. Reflect all your energy to students!! This video is from my lesson. I tried to relax students and get their attention at the beginning of the lesson...

SuperImprovers ( Scoreboard )

At the beginning of the year, teachers should decide classroom rules according to to the students' ages and levels. Eveything should be clear. Students should know what is acceptable and not acceptable. Rules should be short and  inclusive, comprehensive. For example; one of my rule is " Make smart choices" which includes so many behaviours in it. After that, you should decide punishments and awards in the class. They should keep in their mind if they obey the rules, they are going to get awards and if not, they will get punished. 

I decided to use SuperImproviser( Scoreboard) which is from WholeBrainTeaching. 

First two weeks, you suffer to teach the rules but, after two weeks, everything runs well in the classroom. Students take pleasure of it also teachers as well.

Decide your criterions and give them stars according to them. Every ten stars, they level up. Every level up give them some awards.

I started using that scoreboard this year. Off task students are getting less day by day.

If you want, I can send you whole pack of this scoreboard with colored worksheets. 

Send me a mail!

CEFR : Common European Framework of Reference

Since its publication in 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEF) has had a wide-ranging impact on the teaching and learning of languages around the world.

People have been learning, teaching, and assessing language for centuries. There have been ways of describing levels of language learning and assessment.What may be an intermediate level in one country may be an upper-intermediate level in another. Levels may vary even among institutions in the same area.In order to facilitate both teaching and learning, we need a way to specify what our learners are able to do at certain levels. In short, we need a common language by which we can describe language learning, teaching, and assessment.

For detailed information, click here

Rubrics For Writing

The main purpose of rubrics is to assess performances.

Good writing is a complex accomplishment involving the organization of ideas, the select use of vocabulary, attention to readers and purpose, and the "mechanics" of grammar, spelling, punctuation and handwriting. 

Rubrics provide information about the qualities and dimensions of good writing and feedback about their progress. The genius of rubrics is that they are descriptive and not evaluative.

I'm going to share a couple of rubrics for you. You can choose one according to your purpose.

6 + 1 Traits Essay Rubrics

Autobiography Rubric
Compare/Contrast Rubric
Complaint Letter Writing Rubric
Email and Letter Writing Rubric
Essay Self-Assessment Rubric
Journal Response Rubric
Reflective Writing Rubric
Writing to Express Rubric
Writing to Inform
Writing to Persuade

Below, there are three more rubrics I use

8 Page Mini-Book From One Piece of Paper

If you have internet access in the classroom, show your students this video in which they can see how to make a simple 8-page book from a single piece of paper. It is very fun for beginning writers and readers to make their own little book.Your students can make their picture books using that

Tips for Flashcards

Flashcards are important assets for EFL classrooms. Course books come with flashcards and nowadays one can easily find cards in the internet. In my practicum school before I go into the classroom, I always search some cards about the topics.  Most of teachers use flashcards to teach vocabulary, but we as teachers are not creative about using cards. Here there are some ideas about it

Undergraduate ELT Conference

Yesterday, I was in the 1st Undergraduate ELT Conference which was organized by Elt Student Council in Marmara University. I am also in the Marmara University as a pre-service teacher. This conference was completely arranged by pre-service teachers. Volunteer students made presentations in some topics such as differentiated instruction, motivation, student autonomy. There were also some teacher trainers and instructors as a presenter, which give us a chance to see different points, views, methods. Especially, the presentation "21st Century Teachers" affected me deeply since the world is changing and the technology is improving so fast. We've to catch up innovations. To sum up, everybody is complaining about something in education.We should just leave talking and complaining and do something useful. This conference was the good example for us. If we want to change something and live up to 21st century's expectations, we need these activities in every university. I believe the students in this conference will be the best teachers in Turkey. I want to thank my friends for this organization.

Undergraduate ELT Conference #MarUndergraduate2015 http://t.co/xXcHgLv66F

— Nazmi Dincer (@ndincer94) 22 Mayıs 2015