Coursebooks, legos and games

Dear Reader,

Happy (belated) ferragosto! I hope you enjoyed your day and that your surroundings were not overly crowded. I'm not misanthropic by any stretch of the imagination, but to this day, almost 100% of my ferragosti on this earth have included far too many people, far too many decibels in far too little space. I still treasure the memory of the one year I spent it in a semi-uninhabited village in the mountains.

*Me in my slightly embellished recollection of that blessed ferragosto*

If you have successfully survived the heat, the people and the food, you're ready for today's newsletter: the finale to the photo diary of my teacher training course. If you enjoyed coming into my classroom last week, you'll likely enjoy a thing or two this week, too.

So, on this Sunday, instead of a cold drink (or perhaps on top of a cold drink), how about a bit of music to accompany your reading? Here is a playlist of brass covers of popular songs, which I have often used to lighten the mood in class while students work on their own long-ish tasks:

Now that we have background music in place for your reading, let me tell you more about today's newsletter, which will cover some more aspects of my teacher training:

working with coursebooks (and figuring out why)
playing Lego (it's all good, I promise)
using games for the classroom

But also, if you're eager to hear all about a man with a bin on his head revolutionising British politics (ish...), read until the very end.

Ready? Let's get started 🚀

Working with coursebooks (and understanding why)

To begin with, lemme tell you something about the young 'uns: boy, do they hate coursebooks. My trainees, all in their early 20s, swore they wouldn't touch a coursebook with a ten-foot-pole if they could help it (which they won't, because schools in their country use them)¹.

What's your take on coursebooks? Personally, mine has changed a few times since I became a teacher. At the moment, though, as a teacher trainer, I can absolutely see the value of (well-designed) coursebooks in training inexperienced teachers in one fundamental thing: understanding why we do the things we do in the classroom.

Yes, it's true that the tidy, sparkling formal lesson plans we design for the concorsi, with the neat aims and sub-aims, are very different from what actually happens in our lessons, which tends to be a slimmed down version; however, there still needs to be one key aim in all our lessons, and our activities should contribute to that aim. This helps us:

choose activities that make sense together
build our learners' knowledge gradually
when faced with the ticking clock, choose which activities to skip and which ones remain important
decide how much time to allocate to each activity

For example, let's consider this coursebook page, taken from an intermediate level coursebook for English for tourism: what is the overall aim? And what are the aims of each activity?

Because my trainees were required to produce lesson plans and write rationales for each of their activities, I encouraged them to analyse some coursebooks and identify the rationales for each activity.

By the way, If you'd like the answers², you will find them in this file, courtesy of the always-generous ELT Councourse website: Mock 1 Paper 2 Key.pdf

Playing with Lego ("but seriously")

At one point in the course, my trainees had a session with a facilitator of the so-called Lego serious play. Don't believe me? I have proof:

Now, before you start thinking I've finally lost my marbles: what is this Lego serious play? It's a method used in workshops in which people use Lego bricks to create models that answer a question or solve a problem. For example, my trainees had to create a model that symbolised "an education tower", and then "the ideal classroom" - all topics related to their field of study. After creating it, they had to explain it to their peers in their groups and ask others questions.

The method is based on constructionism (remember that learning theory about creating something as a way of learning?) and it aims to foster problem-solving, critical thinking and communication skills. Unsurprisingly, it's often used as a team-building exercise in businesses. And although I think of team-building exercises in the same way as I do Dante's circles of hell, I can see the potential of constructionism in the classroom, particularly in an age where AI is taking over and sometimes replacing students' thinking altogether.

However, my favourite part as ~~an abominable cynic~~ a believer in critical thinking was the reflection lesson we did after the Lego workshop. Again, I encouraged my learners to be honest, and by that point, they knew that they actually could be honest with me and it wasn't a ruse, so they shared their reservations about the Lego serious play workshop. Although they enjoyed the workshop overall, some of their criticisms included:

the roles they were meant to have in their groups were not clear
they had too few bricks so they ended up repeating designs
the purpose of the activity wasn't 100% clear
they couldn't hear their classmates well from the other side of the room

And I absolutely loved this. Sharing criticisms, or critiques if you will, is one of the best communicative purposes to give students: deep down, who doesn't love complaining? This genuine communicative purpose pushes them to produce more language and be persuasive, plus they have to show some criticality in their thinking to support their views. Highly recommended!

Playing some more games

We had an entire day dedicated to using games in the classroom. We played something like 20 games that day, and it was gloriously ✨fun✨. Of course, of course all the games had a pedagogical rationale and they fostered language learning. And since I know you have a beach/river/perfect airconditioned spot to get to today, I won't keep you here for the whole 20 games, but here is a selection of some of the best:

The one my trainees enjoyed the most: balloon debate

In this game, each student is given a character profile, such as:

You are a famous pop singer in your country. You have thousands of young fans who see you as a role model and copy everything you do, wear and say. You are extremely rich now but you still have time for ordinary people and also do a lot of work for charity.

You are a pioneering surgeon and inventor of the artificial heart valve. You still teach at a prestigious university and have mentored several of the world’s leading surgeons.

The class is told that they are all in a hot-air balloon which is going down. Someone must jump out in order to save the others in the balloon. Each student has to justify their reasons for not being the one to leave the balloon. Then a vote is taken. This process continues until only one person remains in the balloon: they are the winner.

My students loved debating, so it was an easy win, but it's still a cool game because it again gives students a genuine reason for speaking (and we know how hard it is to get some students to speak!)

The one I enjoyed the most: snakes and ladders

Maybe it's because my child recently got into this game massively, so my choice is between liking it or liking it, but I think snakes and ladders is a very versatile game for language learning. If you're not familiar, the original board game looks like this:

Each player takes a turn rolling the dice: if they land at the bottom of a ladder, they go up; if they land on a snake's head, they go down. Very simple game, particularly if you've played it 563076840 times in the past month.

But did you know you can use it for all sorts of language teaching purposes? Vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, speaking - you name it! Here are some of my favourite examples:

Snakes and ladders for grammar by Hancock and McDonald: students conjugate verbs appropriately in the present perfect simple or continuous.

Snakes and ladders for -ed endings: how are the words pronounced in the past tense?

Conversation-based snakes and ladders, courtesy of Teachit: lots of speaking, would likely require a timer to ensure learners speak for a minimum amount of time.

And if you want an empty snakes and ladder template to personalise, I've got you covered.

The super quick one that mixes things up: form a line

One final easy and quick technique: form a line. You know how students almost always end up sitting next to, hence working with, the same few people? It's often beneficial to mix it up a little to ensure they get input from more classmates. One quick and fun way to do this is to ask students to stand up and form a line according to, for example:

their birthday (January at the front, December at the back)
their height (tallest at the front, smallest at the back)
the alphabetical order of their name

Once I'd run out of these, I will admit asking each student to write down their favourite food and then form a line in the alphabetical order of their favourite foods, but anyway: once they're in a line, you can form new groups or pairs based on the new line.

And with that little winner, I bid you farewell for today! Which of the activities I described today resonated with you? Which ones will you file in the "might try in September" file we all have somewhere in our brain?

Speaking of brains, mine is a bit fried, so I'm taking a two-week break in preparation for the new school season. Many of you have asked me whether I'm going to be running new courses and classes: I'm working on something and hopefully I'll be able to tell you more about a small-scale programme for you to advance your English + teaching soon. Stay tuned!

In the meanwhile, let me wish you a fantastic Sunday.

Take care, dear teacher ✨

¹ Probably to my own detriment, I always encourage students to question things, including the things that I say in class. When I asked students about their experiences with coursebooks in the session dedicated to adapting the coursebook, I again encouraged them to be as honest as they wanted. Well. One of them told me as soon as he had finished secondary school, he had made a big pyre of all his coursebooks and burned them. He loved English, but that's how much he hated coursebooks. Big win for honesty in my class, maybe less of a win for publishers...

² If this task feels somewhat familiar, perhaps you've thought of taking the Cambridge DELTA exam?

P.S.: My weekly suggestion for things to listen to/watch/read to improve your English while relaxing: I drove *a lot* these past few months, so I inevitably discovered some new podcasts. One of these is IMO by Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson. Some really cool interviews in there, including one with Ketanji Brown Jackson (first black woman to be elected to the US Supreme Court, but who also went to uni with Matt Damon?!) and one with Quinta Brunson (creator of Abbott Elementary, which comfortably sits in the top 5 of my all-time favourite shows). Have a leisurely listen and let me know what you think!

✨Cool things I heard this week

I start as a tenured teacher in September and I'm so looking forward to having cake to celebrate my first day.

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