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Self Evaluation For European Schools (SEFES)
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Rzeszow
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31.3.2004 | 07:38
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Poland
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Mary's Merry Angels Gallery
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Maria
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30.3.2004 | 21:13
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Poland
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Teaching & learning around the clock- adventure in the net (part 1)
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Is it possible to make your life easier when it goes to teaching & correcting your students' assignments? How can you use effectively numerous possibilities that the net opens up before you & your students? Can you encourage your students to use the English language outside the class without even saying that out loud?
Believe me, it's all possible, though it does require time & involvement on both sides! But it's really worth the effort!:)
It all started already in the 1st form. I asked my students to write some essay or prepare a project & told them that if they had an access to the Internet, they could send it to me by
an e-mail. The idea took off immediately:) Since we didn't know one another well then, they really felt favoured & distinguished that they had been given the address. It was a sign of trust, which they had never betrayed. At that time, this idea may have seemed quite extraordinary but now it appears to win more followers also among other teachers. Of course, not everyone had an access to the Internet but as time went by, more and more assignments were sent to me this way. When I was replying to them, I was always writing in English but I did not expect that they would do the same:)!
After some time, I was not only getting their assignments but also letters, in which they were telling me how they had spent their weekend, holidays or what problems they were struggling with. As it soon turned out, getting these letters became even more interesting than writing or correcting essays. Of course, there were some mistakes but I decided not to correct each of them, unless it was really serious. I simply didn't want to discourage them from writing. Getting all the letters was very sweet and it greatly contributed to strengthening our relationship. (end of part 1)
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Maria
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20.3.2004 | 22:43
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Poland
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Discipline- good and bad days.
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New school, new teacher, new students- this is simply a challenge for both sides. How to face it successfully? I guess, it's much easier to keep discipline and put your words into practice, when you teach students from the very start. I also used to teach groups, previously taught by other teachers and it took us quite some time before we got used to each other, and before they adjusted to the new requirements. As they say:'what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.' It's common knowledge, that students put their new teacher to the test, to see if he is strict and persistent in pursuing his goals or rather lenient.
The teacher has to be aware of all the tricks that students can play on him. He always has to be on guard! My experience shows that maintainig discipline is to a great extend connected with the relationship between you and your students. If you enjoy your work and give your heart to it, sooner or later your perceptive students will notice it and maybe even those who are not in favour of the subject will appreciate your effort.
I remember how surprised my students were that I was correcting their tests already for the next lesson or that I was spending 3 long hours writing 100 sentences for them to translate from Polish into English. Seeing my devotion they could not stay indifferent. They knew that I was doing all that to teach them as much as possible.
It sometimes happens that we get up on the wrong side of bed but this doesn't change the fact that we still have to go to school. It's important, however, not to bring our worries and bad mood to the class. Being on good terms with your students can greatly facilitate the teaching process. Sometimes however, you are 'driven up the wall' by you 'angels' and you feel like a ticking bomb. So how to handle this feeling? How to keep discipline??? There are different methods to do it. Some teachers give the student, who is naughty a failing grade, or a note of bad conduct, some raise their voices. I do it differently. I try to keep smiling when I'm with my students, however, when they exceed the bounds, disturbing me or others, I keep a straight face, the smile disappears from my face and I stay completely silent for some time. I never shout at them because I think that silence is far more meaningful. As they say: 'speech is silver but silence is golden.' This is always a sign for them that they are in big trouble. I remember that when they were in the 1st form, we had such a silent lesson but it didn't last long! I don't remember exactly what they were up to but my reaction was a complete silence and a grave face. They were terrified. I was writing sth. on the blackbord, trying to keep a straight face when suddenly Simon said: 'Wow, what a silence! If it's going to be like that we'll hear the fly buzz.' And that was it, the silence was over because everybody including me burst out laughing:)
Sometimes when students are asked to do some exercises or prepare some dialogue, etc. I hear them speak Polish. This almost makes me 'hit the ceiling.' It's my students' opinion, that I have a very good sense of hearing and divisibility of attention and therefore almost nothing can slip my attention. It happened many times that I heard what they were whispering in Polish to each other in the last row, instead of doing the exercises. Then, as if nothing had happened I was saying it a loud in English. This often resulted in amusement and bewilderment. I was trying to prove them that they were able to speak English almost all the time. If they want to talk about sth else than the lesson, it's quite ok with me but on one condition: they have to switch from Polish into English.
I have always disliked giving students the failing grade for not writing an essay, etc. I preferred to change the deadline rather than fail them. Why? I'm of the opinion, that giving a student a failing grade, brings no benefits for anyone- the student makes no progress and the teacher sees no results of his work. Giving student 'the second chance', means that you care about him and want to teach him as much as possible rather than fail him when the opportunity comes up. Sometimes however, you may fear that students will take the advantage of your patience and good-heartedness. I think, it's a matter of trust. I know that this approach is not applicable to all groups that I'm teaching but in the group descibed it really does miracles and my patience is rewarded. This also teaches students not to give their word in vain!
I remember that during some methodological coure, somebody told us the story about a very patient and persistent teacher. He was teaching Russian. One day he asked his students to memorise a poem. One of them didn't do it and got a failing grade as a result. On the one hand, he wasn't happy about getting 1, but on the other hand, he was sure he wouldn't be troubled again. The next day' however' the teacher asked him for the second time. The student was very surprised an of course unprepared, so he got another failing grade. He thought it was strange but he felt sure that he wouldn't be asked again. During the next lesson, the situation was the same, the teacher didn't give up! The student already had 3 failing grades for not learning one poem. It made him think: 'If I was asked three times, I may as well be asked the 4th time, so I'd better learn it.' He was right! The taecher asked him. The student recited the poem and got 5. What did the teacher do? He crossed out all the failing grades, leaving only 5! So what's the conclusion? The teacher should be patient because the final result is most important!!! It doesn't mean however, that we should praise laziness, on the contrary, we should show the students that it doesn't pay off to be lazy!
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Maria
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27.2.2004 | 10:12
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Poland
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Books.
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What can better develop imagination, improve writing skills and spelling than reading books in a foreign language?
This idea also goes back to my school years. To get the highest grade- 6, one not only had to be very good but he/she had to do something extra, to prove that he really deserved it. This meant reading some book in English and telling the teacher what it was about. However, at that time English books in simplified versions were not as widely available for an average student as they are today. Now it's enough to order them from the catalogue.
I introduced this idea already when my students were in the first form. They knew that if they wanted to get a higher grade not only 6 and their situation was unclear, the best solution was to read 2 books and tell me about them. At first, I didn't pay attention to the level of books they were reading, even if it was lower than it should be. The most important for me was to encourage them to read, make them like it and do it out of their own will not because of some must. I guess, I achieved my goal. When they 'swallowed the bait', I could not keep them away. It was like 'an avalanche', especially before the end of semester:) We had to do it after lessons because it was very time-consuming. It usually took up to 20 min. for one book and they sometimes wanted to tell me about two books at one go. So, I had queues of students, waiting impatiently for their turn. One could see that they were proud of themselves. They read the book in the foreign language and could talk about it. All I had to do, was to order more books from the catalogue. Students were choosing more advanced books, sometimes even full versions. It's my job to keep this small English library going and after four years we have over one hundred titles to choose from. Boys most often choose detective stories by John Grisham or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, while girs prefer Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Charlotte Bronte or Henry James, etc. What used to be voluntary however, has become obligatory but only for those who want to take their final written exam in English or who wish to study English Philology. All the others still read the books voluntarily. Reading books also enables them to get to know something about English or American literature.
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Maria
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27.2.2004 | 09:38
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Poland
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Monday news.
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The idea of 'Monday news' was the result of the tragic events that took place in
New York
on 11th Sept. 2001. On the one hand, people were silent and deep in grief, but on the other hand, they wanted to talk about it. Why and how it happened, could it have been prevented? I guess everyone remembers what he was doing on that fateful day. The next day when we came to school, everybody was talking about it. Students spent the night watching the BBC or CNN news and they wanted to speak their mind. It was then, that I realised that they were advanced enough to talk about different matters, including politics. They really liked the idea, one can even risk saying that it was their dream come true. At last, they could have one lesson a week only for speaking. They could talk about everything and anything that they found interesting, as long as it was done in English. I must say that these lessons really broadened our mind. I used to ask one person to present five news items from the world, our country and our region. Then all the others added their news and joined the heated discussions. They became more talkative and open-minded. It must have been difficult for them at the beginning to prepare the news. Some were watching the satellite TV, others downloaded the news from the Internet. Those who didn't have access to the world wide web were translating the news from Polish TV, radio or newspapers.
At first, most students were reading the news out loud, only few 'brave' decided to present it without looking at their notes. But as time went by, 'Monday news' became for most of them
'a piece of cake.' One could ask why? Sometimes when they didn't manage to prepare the news at home, they were buying several newspapers and reading them before the lesson, then they quickly drew conclusions and summarized it in English. They did it with so much ease, as if they were professionals.
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Maria
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26.2.2004 | 22:09
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Poland
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Testing students' progress. (part 2)
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What were my students' reactions to this 'translation method'?
It was certainly something new to them but because it was done step by step, it didn't seem to horrify them at least not until we reached one hundred! They had to spend many hours at home to do it right but their effort was soon rewarded. Later on, we were checking all the sentences together, (reading them outloud) we also sorted out all grammatical problems. It usually took us five lessons to do it!
The author always has his own version in mind and so I had mine but I was frequently taken aback by my students' linguistic creativity. We were often laughing, while checking the sentences. They also acquired a very useful skill of looking up words in the dictionary, they became more perceptive and flexible. There were situations when they used the word which was let's say 'too simple' for them because they learnt it a long time ago. Then they heard: 'this is not exactly what I expected, this word is 'too simple' for you I want something new and sophisticated, the synonym of this word is in your book on page..., paragraph...:), e.g.: instead of saying: ' to laugh' - I wanted to hear ' to burst out laughing', or instead of 'admire sb' - 'look up to sb.', etc....
Translating the sentences was however, only the beginning!
The next step was learning them by heart because during
the test every group could expect to get 25 sentences to translate.
One could argue at this point, that maybe it was too easy (believe me it wasn't because the sentences were becoming more and more complicated), or that it was done thoughtlessly
(I bet it wasn't. Why? Because they had to learn the words first, they were frequently tested from this vocabulary, all grammatical problems were sorted out). As a result, they became more communicative. The words, expressions and even the whole sentences are so well-embedded in their minds that even now (4 years later since it all started) when I ask some word or begin the sentence in Polish, the whole group answers like a chorus, creating an amusing effect:) I guess they are also very surprised that this method turned out to be so effective and enjoyable. Sometimes when the sentences were funny, peculiar or very sophistcated, they made bets that these sentences would surely be on their test. Practising translation of so many varied sentences and grammatical constructions enabled them to speak more correctly and fluently. When I once did some survey among them, they wrote that they would like to have one lesson a week only for speaking. I knew then that it was too early but I told them that that day would soon come. Their word stock was still too poor and their grammar required great improvement. They were trying hard but it often sounded miserable. Today when we have discussions, they are able to speak for the whole lesson and it's like 'music to my ears':)!
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Maria
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26.2.2004 | 18:27
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Poland
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Testing students' progress. (part 1)
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I remember well my secondary-school teacher - Ms Halina Górska. She was very demanding, reliable and conscientious about what she was doing. She could even the level no matter how poor their students were. I've always wanted to look up to her. The two methods I described: 'two words' and 'longer answers' are hers and because I knew them well from my own experience I didn't hesitate to introduce them.
As I remember it from my school years, writing tests has never been easy. Our teacher was always giving us some sentences to translate, plus other grammatical exercises. It often happened that though someone knew all words, he/she wasn't able to make a grammatically correct sentence. Ms Górska knew that I wanted to become a teacher in the future, therefore she made a suggestion that I studied with my friend Kinga. And so we did. Kinga was coming to me before the test, we took the student's book and I was dictating her a hundred sentences in Polish (covering the material for the test), then she was tanslating the sentences at home and we were checking them together. I guess neither of us expected that it would be so beneficial for the two of us. She wrote tests better and better and I became more perceptive and aware of grammar. When my classmates got to know about my method, they asked me if I could write one hundred sentences for all of them and then chek if they were correct. And so I wrote the sentences in Polish but it was quite impossible to check all their answers. I was also making the key- I wrote my own translation of the sentences and they could compare it with theirs.
But why am I writing about all this? As you can expect, I applied this method as a teacher. I did it however, step by step. Thirty sentences first, then 50, 60 till we finally reached one hundred!
I have to admit that writing so many sentences, covering a particular part of material has always been for me a painstaking effort and a kind of linguistic challenge. When I found some new word or expression in the book, I was making a sentence with it, using the grammatical costruction my students were familiar with. It was also very time-consuming, sometimes it took me three hours to write all the sentences and as time went by they were becoming more and more sophisticated. What I find interesting about this method, is the fact that I became more flexible in the Polish language and despite the effort I found it very enjoyable!
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Maria
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26.2.2004 | 17:34
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Poland
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Requirements.
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I think it is important for the reader to find out about my requirements, as I'm going to refer to them later on and see how and why they were modified.
1. After every single unit, every student is asked to translate two words or expressions from Polish into English. If he doesn't know one of them, he gets a minus. When he has three minuses, he gets 1- which is the failing grade.
Conclusions:
Students were really afraid of this method and so they were learning all words by heart. They knew exactly when they would be asked and which part of material they had to cover. I'm aware that it was quite stressful for them and sometimes it happened as they claimed, that they knew all the words except those they had been asked:) They were impatiently awaiting their turn and one could hear a sigh of relief when they answered correctly. Stress is good if it lasts for a short period of time (it was just a few seconds) and if it motivates you to work (it really did motivate them, no one wanted to get 1!). Besides, this method made them study systematically, nobody could be exempt from being asked even if he wasn't prepared for the lesson. Eventually, they all knew all new words and this helped me even the level which is always varied when you are working with students from different schools. My students were then at
a pre-intermediate level but they were very ambitious and willing to learn more even if it meant cramming hundreds of words:).
What they didn't like about that method was the fact that one couldn't get a plus if he answered correctly or that the minus could not be substituted by a plus next time they were asked.
But I guess they got used to this method and it really did them good. What I myself didn't like about it, was the fact that it was sometimes very time-consuming but I also knew from my own experience that it was worth it! I always apply this method in new groups for about a year to help students become systematical. This year however, I'm making a ten-minute vocabulary tests. Students know when to expect the test and what part of material it will cover. This test is all about translating altogether 20 words or sentences. To my mind, this method is also very effective and the scope of material that is checked is far greater than when two words are asked. However, it doesn't check students' pronunciation, which is a pity but it does check their spelling, which is good. On the other hand, being asked only two words has never meant learnig only two, just the opposite, sometimes it meant learning even 50.
2. From time to time, every student has to be asked also from
a larger part of material. But 'larger' has never meant the last 3 or 5 lessons. It meant all the material since the last time the student was asked, e.g.: from Sept. till Dec., therefore one had to learn systematically to be ready when his turn came. They called it humorously 'an electric chair' because they were sitting on a chair next to my desk. When I was looking for 'a volunteer'
I used to say: 'next one to the dentist' or 'the winner is...' or '
the Oscar goes to...' A student was asked only when all the other students were busy doing some exercises or reading some text, so as not to waste our precious time! Sometimes it meant being asked for a few lessons in a run. Students called it 'a soap opera' but it was also a chance for 'the Oscar candidate' to study more after school. I guess they liked the method because they could see that it brought good effects. Learning a language cannot mean learning just the last few lessons and forgetting the words you were not asked. It's a long-term process and it requires systematization. When we started working together, their word stock was too small to speak freely, after just a few months they began to realize that the more words they crammed, the more they were able to say. I guess that this feeling of self-satisfaction pushed them further...
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Maria
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26.2.2004 | 15:57
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Poland
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First time face to face.
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I remember that day as if it happened yesterday.
It was 5th Sept. 2000 - my first day at work. Our lesson took place in what is now a school shop. At that time it was a gloomy basement with very little space and only a small beam of light getting inside and a small blackboard in the corner. Most sudents were sitting behind their desks but some had to sit on
the window sill. However, none of this really mattered then.
We were eager to get to know each other. All I could see was
a group of 20 boys and girls at the age of 15, smiling and looking at me with curiosity.
The first lesson is always an introduction and if it is done well it can awaken mutual interest. First, I told them about my hobbies (scuba diving, sailing, skiing and travelling), then they told me
a little bit about themselves. The moment however, I set out my requirements, I could see that some faces went pale with fear, while others where smiling in disbelief.
As I see it, students often doubt that the teacher is really going to put his words into practice, (especially when he/she is young -
I was only 7 years older than them) they hope they can discourage him/her but not this time, as they say: 'diamond cut diamond.'
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Maria
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19.2.2004 | 16:41
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Poland
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Introduction
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They say that 'the beginning is always a good place to start', so after doing a lot of thinking and recolleting the past four years, I finally got myself round to writing this diary. But before I actually put the pen to paper, I want to dedicate this diary to my beloved students from IVA whom I humorously call -
Mary's merry angels:)and who have been my inspiration for
the past four years!
This diary is going to be a little bit different. My primary concern will be a four-year process of teaching in the group of 20 students who are now in their final year of the secondary school. In May the are all taking their oral exam in English and
a group of 8 has also decided to sit the written exam in English.
One may ponder over the questions why I want to reflect upon such a long period of time and why I chose this particular group of students. I'll try to account for these questions right away so as not to keep the reader in suspense.
This project SEFES focuses on self evaluation of the teacher's work, therefore I thought that the period of four years would be a good moment to stop, look back and draw conclusions for my further work. Actually, I think that every single lesson can be
a great source of information for the teacher. His job can be an invaluable lesson for himself and his colleagues, if only he finds time and will to analyse it.
In my diary I want to reflect upon how my process of teaching evolved over the past four years, what teaching methods I applied, how and why they where changed, whether they proved to be successful or not, how important it is to establish a friendly relatioship between the teacher and the students and to what extent this relationship can facilitate mutual work.
Why did I choose these students?
September, 2000 was certainly a turning point in many people's lives. For me it was the first year of teaching, for my students it was the first year of the secondary chool. We both stepped onto an unkown ground with hopes and fears. We took to one another from the very start and as time went by this relationship grew in strength bringing benefits for both sides. Now that we have been studying together for almost four years (approximately 150 lessons a year, plus 100h of English faculty), it's hard to visualise the day we have to say goodbye. We already know that this parting won't destroy our relationship because bonds such as this are bound to be successful:)!
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Maria
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(RZESZOW)
(POLAND)