Dear Reader,
Would it be horrible of me to ask how you're doing, considering it's almost the end of August? I hope it's not, because I do care about your wellbeing. I hope you've had a lovely August and that you are psychologically ready for the month to end¹. If you're not, here's a little end-of-summer poem to (possibly) cheer you up:
On this hopefully not too gloomy day, you might be wondering: what's today's newsletter got in store for me?
I'm glad you asked: today is all about... a feeling. That feeling of:
- finding a pair of trousers you hadn't worn for ages, going through the pockets and learning that there's a crisp little banknote in the pockets
- going on a trip, realising you forgot your medication and then finding a little bit of it tucked away in your wallet
- getting home knackered after a seemingly endless session of teaching/meetings/talking to parents/[insert impossibly tiring task], only to find that there's nothing in the fridge, but you'd left a portion of your 🌈favourite food🌈 in the freezer.
Sound familiar? It's that feeling of thanking your past self.
Now, as someone whose brain is more often scattered than not, planning ahead so that I can be thankful to my past self doesn't quite come naturally. However, because I have enjoyed this feeling a lot, I have been thinking about things to do at the start of the school year that I will thank myself later for. Do they bug me? Yes. But will they save me (and hopefully you) time and headaches down the line? Equally, yes.
So, if you're (almost) in the mood to start thinking about the new school year, take a little ride with me into 4 things to prepare at the start of the year so you can thank yourself later on.
Drink in hand? Let's get going ⭐
1. Organising materials... and exploring
Are you the kind of teacher that has the perfectly organised Google Drive folders with all the resources neatly divided by CEFR level? Or do you download, upload, create and save things in so many places, physical and online, that you'd need a SWAT team to retrieve them all?
Wherever you sit on this continuum, now is a brilliant time to go over your existing resources - and, why not, explore some more! I don't know about you, but when I'm teaching full time, the last thing I want is to explore new resources and see if I trust them. But now, with a couple of weeks to spare, could be a really good time to do this.
Some of my go-tos for lesson planning (beyond your usual British Council and co):
Disclaimer: yes, some of the resources on some (not all) these websites are behind a paywall. I don't have a subscription for any of them, so I recommend sticking to the free resources.
2. Getting the Quizlet(s) ready
I've talked a few times about the importance of storing and recycling vocabulary regularly: repeated practice will lead to retention. In order for that to happen, that vocab needs to be somewhere that's easy to access: for me, that's normally a Quizlet. Each class has a Quizlet they continuously update with new vocabulary: this fosters learner autonomy, because students take turns to do this independently, and we can use the Quizlet routinely to review the vocabulary and play games. You can also create different sets for different lexical sets².
Do you also use Quizlet or another tool? Whatever you do, start setting them up for your classes now and you will thank yourself later!
3. Take stock of what worked (and what didn't)
You know how sometimes we surprise ourselves positively, with something that works wonderfully in the classroom and we never expected it to? But also negatively, because perhaps we put lots of work into a lesson and then it kind of, well... fell flat? Now is a good time to take stock of all this. Think back to lasy year and look through your materials: what worked? What didn't? Create a simple document with two columns, make your notes and add any links to materials you want to remember to use (or not re-use).
4. Make a database of reusable feedback comments
I always thank myself for this one: reusable feedback comments for writing assignments, tests, report cards and so on. Obviously I personalise them for each learner, I'm not a monster, but phrasing different comments in an articulate, precise and, if needed, diplomatic manner each time I write feedback is extremely time-consuming. Having a database to draw on for different kinds of tasks helps me immensely!
And that brings me to the end of today's newsletter. Which tasks are you going to do in the next couple of weeks that you will thank yourself for later on? I'm all ears.
Wishing you a lovely Sunday.
Take care, dear teacher ✨
¹ For the most part, I am, because although September means a mountain of dissertation marking for me, it also means that schools start again, and that is the average parent's dream.
² Although a good amount of research shows that teaching vocabulary using semantically related lexical sets (e.g. vocabulary to do with "the house", "travelling", "the beach", etc) isn't especially effective. As Philip Kerr explains here if you're interested in learning more, "introducing new words together that are similar in meaning (synonyms), such as scared and frightened, or forms (synforms), like contain and maintain, can be confusing, and students are less likely to remember them. This problem is known as ‘interference’. One way to avoid this is to choose words that are around the same theme, but which include a mix of different parts of speech. For example, if you want to focus on vocabulary to talk about feelings, instead of picking lots of adjectives (happy, sad, angry, scared, frightened, nervous, etc.) include some verbs (feel, enjoy, complain) and some nouns (fun, feelings, nerves). This also encourages students to use a variety of structures with the vocabulary.’ (Hughes, et al., 2015: 25)"
P.S.: My weekly suggestion for things to listen to/watch/read to improve your English while relaxing: I'm sure you know that Dolly Parton passed away this week. I would be remiss if I didn't share this fairly hilarious interview she did with Wired, in which she responded to the web's most searched questions about her:
✨Cool things I heard this week
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