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https://www.dropbox.com/s/naz9czn6yo9cghz/my%20rubric_pblcourse1.xlsx?dl=0

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I discovered Peer Assessment to be a very useful instrument to improve my teaching methods. It’s like when you ask a friend to give an opinion on your work. There is no competition. It is only a way to learn to do things differently and maybe getting to the same results through an easier path. In classroom I always let students work together, make them work in couples or in groups so that they can exchange their opinions, but above all they can support their mates using their own language and get to the final result better than I can do when I use my teaching methods.

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I teach English in an Italian School. I need to give notes through oral and written texts. My students are tested daily. We do conversation, grammar exercises, role plays and written texts about the same topics we do orally. I do a test at the end of each unit. Due to the new Invalsi texts in English I am trying to submit more oral texts,youtube videos or audio exercises form the text books. My notes try to consider my students’ abilities in foreign language according to Common European Framework of Reference.

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Following you find the link to my PBL Learning Designer https://v.gd/WXrwmj

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As teachers we can weaken our students’ motivation by telling them they are not capable, telling them that they won’t ever get better, shouting at them in front of the class. On the contrary, in order to stenghten their motivation they need to be told that even if today they haven’t reached their goal, tomorrow they will do better; we can tell them ‘ Good job’, ‘Great work’ even for very little steps they make; we have to tell them that our role is to guide them, to show them the way to reach their goal and to do this, they can rely on us or on other students in the class because there isn’t only one right way to learn.

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3. Developing student-driven activities for PBL

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3. Developing student-driven activities for PBL

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Five years ago I taught in a school in lower grade secondary school. My pupils had 11 years old. They were not interested in school and they were not very keen on studying. It was completely useless to teach English as it was generally done: grammar, exercises, reading. They had very big problems with their mothertongue because they were accustomed to their dialect. So English was even farther from their world, their reality. In their opinion studying English was useless. The first four months were a failure. Then I changed my method. My lessons were easy word games, such ad crosswords, videos from youtube. But the most successful method was through songs. They didn’t get much about proper English but at least they were able to get the right pronunciation and meaning of some words. Having fun is always the right method!!

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In September I started using Scratch once a week. I like it because it matches two learning paths: ITC and English. Pupils have to invent a dialogue, simple messages, brief stories using simple English expressions while using a programming language which is fun. They are involved and do their work collaborating and enjoying their learning time.

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Collaboration partners outside the school

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Collaboration partners outside the school

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The most successful organizations that can collaborate with the students in my area are sports organizations. Nearly all of my male students practice football while female ones prefer dancing or rhythmic gymnastic. I think it is a good idea to practice sport at least twice a week and in our school there are projects about football, volleyball, roller skating. The last one supported by our school is a project for girls about cheerleaders. It goes without saying that it is a success!!!!

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The nature of collaboration happening in your classroom

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The nature of collaboration happening in your classroom

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My rubric about collaboration shows that my students are not asked to work in pairs or in group frequently, but they share responsibility about what to be done, they make substantive decisions together. Most of them are not so competitive and even if they have good ideas, they cannot convince the others to work a little bit harder. They generally agree on the easiest work to do, even if it is not required. Their work is interdependent because the steps of the final work depends on the job they have organized step by step. For example, look for images and texts on books, websites and later reorganize the text according to their knowledge.

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I think that this method encourages collaboration among students, above all, a great deal of time should be spent to make pupils aware that studying in group is not a waste of time, but a way to learn from others what has not been acquired yet. Teaching a foreign language, either Spanish or English in my case, could be boring sometimes, especially when Grammar explanations are on. If I gave them material on a specific topic, would it be sufficient to ask them to prepare written or online demonstrations suggesting to use it in proper situations paying attention to pronunciation and effective questions/replies? I need to overcome the bad results of 'forgetting' what has been already done.

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1.

“What does it mean to be a healthy eater?” Turn the question into a non-Googleable question.

Answer:

If you went to the supermarket with your mum, what would you buy in order to eat healthy food?

2.

Question 2: “How are airplane wings constructed?” Turn the question into a non-Googleable question

Answer:
If you wore Xray glasses and look at a plane wing, what would you see inside it?

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I believe that all the five steps are challenging, but ‘Students Driven’ is hard. In my class pupils are 12 years old. They want to be driven, that is the only way to study is to tell them what to study. They are not capable of think by themselves. Moreover, they want to be driven as far as what I ask matches their ideas, and above all, their times of studying. I think taht new methodologies should start from Primary school. When they get accustomed to a method, I find it really difficult to make them realize that you are suggesting something new which might help them to retain the subjects studied.

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My students are 12 years old. They like English because they like the teacher (ME!!), they don’t like English because they don’t like me L My lessons have to overcome the problem that in my class the majority of the students do not remember what they did the previous day, for example. A very little time has been devoted so far to listening activities because we have very little time in class and students do not try to reinforce what they studied at home. Not all of them have got computers or CD players but they do not even look for a solution if they are asked to do listening activities on their own. I think that there is a lack of interest in learning because English is not fun, it is not as playful as a football match! At the beginning of the year I organized small groups of four and asked them to meet in the afternoon and to work as teachers do, that is, to create a lesson (about grammar topics) to explain to the class. The result has not been very encouraging. My intention was to give them enough time to repeat or to learn what they had forgotten or even never studied in the previous year. Whatever we write or think, grammar is necessary! I feel as if they do not care whether they learn or not, they want to get a sufficient mark to pass and their work is done.

I taught them the basic elements of coding activities, applied it to English language, entered them to eTwinning events and projects but only a few took part to it showing a real interest, basically because they do not manage to use the necessary tools at home. I will make a furthe experiment using PBL in the next days: I will make them start from vocabulary, get the right phonetics and then apply their knowledge to real life situation they can think of.

I think I will keep on using new methodologies, new ICT activities because showing my students that things could be done in a different way from what they find in books is my priority.

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Teacher’s books and student’s book get both accustomed to a way ot teaching and learning which was good once. I think that the majority of us learnt English or other foreign languages using old methods which in my opinion are good. Of course they lacked the communication part which was taken into consideration in very little portions. Even in this course we are encouraged to change our method but i think that a lot of things should change on behalf of our students, such as school is not a place to come only because you are obliged by law or because you cannot stay alone while parents are at work. School should be felt as necessary/funny/interesting as the football/dancing/gymnastics activities they generally do in the afternoon and PBL might be of some help. Evaluation should be the least important moment of a learning moment and listening / speaking activities should be incremented, both at school and home. Who learnt a language only in classroom lessons? I didn’t.