Happy 2018!

Happy 2018 from My Slo English Classroom! My it be filled with peace and love.

Photo taken in Planina pod Golico, December 2017

Have Yourself(ie) a Merry Little Christmas!

Photo taken in Dec 2017

Sharing is caring #4

As by popular demand, here is this year's MGM code: 

Teachers' code: p5b234
Student's code: jupiter5

May it come in handy!

A long weekend is a short holiday

This is why I take tourist brochures wherever I travel. "A long weekend is a short holiday" projects in my classroom:

Photo taken at Koseški bajer, Slovenia, August 2015

Teachers on summer break

Photo taken in Planina pod Golico, Slovenia, 2017

Jezikovnik

I'm participating in Jezikovnik's event Karierni dan za jezikoslovce this year. It takes place in Ljubljana on Apr 19 2017. More info on the link above. Welcome!

Some true stories from my classroom

First and foremost, a classroom is a place of learning. However, it can be so much more. It's a place of fun, laughter, love, disappointment, tears, or everything at once. And not only for the students! Here are some true stories from my classroom.


Teacher (holding a red piece of paper): "So, what colour is this again?"
Students (age 4): "Red!"
Teacher (holding a green piece of paper): "And this one?"
Students: "Green!"
Teacher (holding a purple piece of paper): "Right. And this one?"
One student: "Purple rain!!!"

Friday, 1 p. m., 8th grade

Teacher (in her  very first years of teaching): "Goodbye, I'll see you all on Monday!"

One student (quietly, but loud enough I could hear him): "How 'bout tonight?"

Student (age 5): "Katarina, what's that in your tongue?" 

Teacher: "It's called a piercing."

Student: "But why do you have it in your tongue?"

Teacher: "Well, I like it there. The same way you like yours in your ears."

Student: "That makes sense. And it's pretty."

Teacher: "Thank you."

... in a few days ...

Student: "Katarina, I've got some bad news. I asked my mom if I could have my tongue pierced like miss Katarina does but she said NO :( "

"My day" essay. It was an honest mistake but it made my day :)

9th grade

Students: "That miss Gostinčar doesn't show her age at all. Who could tell she's 40?"

(hint: my secret to not looking 40 is being 33)

A description of a sport I excel at, apparently:

9th grade, yet again

Teacher to a fidgety student: "What's wrong with you today? What's going on?"
Students (giggling): "Oh let him be, he's in love."
Fidgety student: "Oh shut up, all of you!"
Teacher: "There's nothing wrong with that. It's spring, after all. However, you should still try and pay attention in my classroom."
Students (giggling harder): "You don't get it. He's in love with YOU!"
Ummmmmm ... :|

My chair on April Fool's Day

Students (after a home economics lesson): "We know we can be cranky sometimes. Here, we hope this makes you feel better!" 💙

Happy Valentine's Day From My Slo English Classroom!

Some YL activities from my classroom

Hey there. It's been a while since I posted any updates from my classroom so here are some activities I've done with my young learners recently.

• The Little Train

The Little Train is a story from the Hello Robby Rabbit course. This is how we approached it: we began by listening to The Little Train story. Later the students also acted it out - but not without making the prompts first! Making the little train and the puppets was an effective group work activity while I was assessing individual students.

• Robots

This is a CLIL lesson and you can find the lesson plan here: Izdelajmo robota (Slovene only). I added The Robot Chant, a lovely TPR activity from Happy Street.

• Finger Family

I'm sure you're all familiar with the Finger Family song. It's great for learning the words for family members. What you can do to make it more fun when singing it is you take a felt-tip pen and draw little faces on each of your fingers. Now there's a real finger family living on your hand!

• Paper clowns

This was another group work activity. And our topic? Take a wild guess! Face and body parts, of course. The clowns were later given names and some of the braver students took their shot at describing the clowns (with a little help of their benevolent teacher). Mind you, this activity does take some preparation. Since our time in the classroom is limited and language goals are above content goals, I took the liberty to prepare and drew the body parts in advance. So basically what the students did was cut out the parts and paste them together which allowed us to spend more time on language goals. The students were proud of their work nonetheless and insisted I put their clowns on display.

• My school

We made origami schools from paper and filled them with different rooms. The one in the first photo is mine - the students used drawing, not writing - and the second one was a surprise for me from one of my students. As I only had an English origami school, she felt I could use a Slovene one, too. :)

That's it for now, I hope it comes in handy. Stay tuned for more updates from my classroom!

Upcoming workshops and seminars

Here are some upcoming workshops and seminars in Slovenia:

• Reach for the Stars! (Jan - Feb 2017)

• Rokus Klett: Teaching Tips Up For Grabs! (Kranj, Feb 4)

• Na poti od knjige do znanja (Laško, Feb 4)

• Angleščina na razredni stopnji (Feb - Mar 2017)