Online schooling and ninth graders

As a part of our online Technology lesson in grade 9, I've included a survey on Online schooling. I designed a survey with three simple questions which were originally meant as a way to personalize learning and teach new vocabulary in context, but the results I got are interesting in terms of feedback as well.

I asked the following questions:

• What electronic devices do you usually use to access our digital classrooms?
• How do you usually communicate with your schoolmates?
• Do you prefer traditional or online schooling so far?

40 out of 46 students completed the survey in 10 days. While I don't know which students failed to complete the survey as it was anonymous, and why, here are the answers I got. 

Of course the data I gathered is hardly statistically relevant, but I think it's interesting nevertheless. I'll leave the interpretation to you. My only comment at this point is - while this online schooling experience is a new challenge and it has taught me a lot, I agree with my ninth graders. So far, I prefer traditional schooling as well. 

Reading badge projects

Different students have different abilities. While this has always been the case, it is even more apparent during this period of online learning. It's a challenging period for all of us, but while some students are struggling with the basic tasks we give them and require extra assistance, there may be others who would appreciate other (and different) challenges. This is why I've created a voluntary reading badge project. Reading is an engaging activity they can easily do on their own, and it has a high educational value. What is more, it is a form of personalized and differentiated learning since the students can choose their own titles with different language levels. But where to find books in the time of quarantine, and what to do with them once they've been read? I've prepared a list of suggestions.

YOUNGER STUDENTS

Younger students are supposed to read (or listen to) a book and then make a mind-map including the title of the book, the author, the main characters, five new vocabulary items and a drawing of their favourite scene. They are also supposed to write a short summary in their mother tongue and then send it all to me via email.

There are a lot of stories online that students can access for free. Here are some suggestions:

• https://worldbook.kitaboo.com/reader/worldbook/index.html#!/
• https://www.storylineonline.net/?fbclid=IwAR1zABRx6qpJhzMdM8j7Zdb-_Y8gQfrWLEQMuo9eyDnqc0VofmQhg6Cuniw
• http://www.kizclub.com/reading3.htm

TEENAGERS

Older students are supposed to read a book, write a summary in about 200 – 300 words and send it to me via email. Again, there are a lot of stories online that students can access for free. Here are some suggestions:

https://english-e-reader.net/

http://aj3000.com/wp/free-graded-readers/

https://www.gutenberg.org/

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs?_encoding=UTF8&tf=1

https://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1/newest/0/free/any

Obviously, there are so many different activities students could do with the books they've read, but during this period I've decided to keep it simple. The generel guideline right now is "less is more".

All students get extra credit for every book they read and present. However, let's hope some do it for the sake of fun and learning as well. :)

Brezplačen dostop do e-gradiv

Nekatere založbe so zaradi zaprtja šol omogočile brezplačen dostop do elektronskih in interaktivnih gradiv, ki vključujejo tudi učbenike, delovne zvezke, samostojne delovne zvezke in vadnice, ki jih učenci uporabljajo pri pouku. Ker so učenci pustili nekatera gradiva v šoli, smo s sodelavci zbrali nekaj povezav do gradiv posameznih slovenskih založb. Po navedbah založb naj bi bila učencem ta interaktivna podpora na voljo ne glede na to, katera tiskana učna gradiva uporabljajo pri pouku.

1. Rokus Klett

Gradiva so brezplačno dostopna na spletnih straneh: OSNOVNA ŠOLA www.Lilibi.si (1.–3. razred) www.Radovednih-pet.si (4.–5. razred) www.iRokus.si in www.iRokusPlus.si (6.–9. razred) www.znamzavec.si (interaktivne osnovnošolske vadnice za SLO, MAT, ANG, KEM) SREDNJA ŠOLA www.iRokus.si

Postopek prijave/registracije: Na izbranem portalu kliknite na gumb Prijava. Če ste že uporabnik portala, vnesite svoj e-naslov in geslo ter sledite navodilom. Če na portal dostopate prvič, kliknite na polje Nimam še uporabniškega računa in vnesite zahtevane podatke. Tako se boste registrirali in ustvarili uporabniški račun. a.    Na portalu iRokus.si gradiva v svojo iZbirko dodate s klikom na gumb Dodaj brezplačna gradiva. b.    Na portalih Lilibi.si, Radovednih-pet.si in iRokusPlus.si pa vas bodo vsa gradiva že čakala v vaši iZbirki. Priporočamo uporabo brskalnika Mozilla Firefox.

2. Modrijan 

Gradiva so brezplačno dostopna na spletni strani www.iRokus.si.

Postopek prijave/registracije:

1. Na portalu iRokus.si kliknite na gumb Prijava.
2. Če ste že uporabnik portala, vnesite svoj e-naslov in geslo ter sledite navodilom. Če na portal dostopate prvič, kliknite na polje Nimam še uporabniškega računa in vnesite zahtevane podatke. Tako se boste registrirali in ustvarili uporabniški račun.
3. Gradiva v svojo iZbirko dodate s klikom na gumb Dodaj brezplačna gradiva.

Če imate več otrok, morate za vsakega otroka ustvariti lastni uporabniški račun, da bo lahko vsak dostopal do gradiv za svoj razred.

3. Mladinska knjiga

• Od ponedeljka, 16. marca 2020, naprej bodo imeli tudi vsi učenci brezplačen dostop do interaktivnih gradiv na portalu www.ucimte.com. Za uporabo ne bo potrebna registracija, dostop jim omogoča delo z interaktivnimi samostojnimi delovnimi zvezki, ki omogočajo preverjanje rešitev.

• Brezplačen dostop do interaktivnih nalog za učence in učitelje na www.ucimse.com za utrjevanje znanja.

4. DZS

Za brezplačen dostop do vsebin na portalu https://www.evedez.si/ jim pišete na promocije@dzs.si in sporočite, za kateri razred in predmet bi želeli prejeti brezplačne elektronske in interaktivne vsebine.

5. E-učbeniki Touchstone

• http://e-gradiva.com/dokumenti/T6/eT6/index.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_105&utm_campaign=touchstone-6-new
  (učbenik Touchstone 6 s posnetki za ANG, Založba Obzorja)
• https://touchstone.si/eucbenik (učbeniki Touchstone 7, 8, 9 s posnetki za ANG, Založba Tangram)

6. MY SAILS 1 (Založba Obzorja): http://e-gradiva.com/dokumenti/MS1/eMS1/index.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_110&utm_campaign=my-sails-1-new

7. Knjižnici

V času, ko ukrepi zaradi preprečevanja širjenja koronavirusa predvidevajo delovanje v domačem okolju in izključujejo javno življenje, knjižnice pa so zaprte, tudi Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica (Nuk) dostop do nekaterih gradiv in knjig omogoča na daljavo. "V zadnjem času dobivamo veliko sporočil od staršev, da iščejo knjige za domače branje, ki pa niso dostopne, tako da smo poslali priporočilo, da tudi učitelji uporabljajo našo digitalno knjižnico in gradiva, ki so javno dostopna vsem, kljub temu, da so javne ustanove zdaj zaprte," je povedal Žiga Cerkvenik iz službe za prireditve in odnose z javnostjo. Dostop do knjig na daljavo omogoča tudi spletna knjigarna in knjižnica Biblos. Omogoča izposojo ali nakup e-knjige, odprt je 24 ur na dan vse dni v tednu, kako in na katerih napravah deluje, pa je mogoče izvedeti na samem portalu.

Hello again!

A wave to my fellow teachers and everybody else! I hope everyone is feeling okay. 

Due to other obligations, this page has been on hold for a while. As of Monday, March 16, the coronavirus pandemic has forced Slovenia to close our schools and resort to the means of online learning, a phenomenom that has happened to a number of countries worldwide. With the world staying home and moving online, what better timing to jump-start My Slo English Classroom. I'll do my best with posting and sharing relevant content, but the most important message I want to share is #stayhome and #staysafe.

This too shall pass.

Take care,

Katarina

My first graders and our final show

Every year, after we finish with our classes, I do a final show with my first graders and we invite their whole families. It's not something a teacher is obligated to do, but I feel it's a nice way of summing the whole year up. The students introduce themselves in English, do a couple of skits and sing a few song, nothing complicated, but the parents love it. Here are some pictures from this year's show: CLICK

My classroom in a newspaper!

Yay! I'm famous! They wrote a story about me and published it in a newspaper!

Well, not exactly. They did publish a piece about young learners of English is Slovenian schools in Nedelo (both in a newspaper and online) and I was one of the teachers giving their views on the matter. They also took some shots in my classroom and even borrowed some photos from my blog ... So, yeah, I was kinda famous for five minutes there, just as Mr Warhol had predicted. :)

I let my seventh graders correct my third graders' notebooks and here's what happened ...

So here I am, just your average exhausted teacher with endless piles of third grader notebooks to correct in front of her. My seventh graders all around, enjoying their snack break, oblivious to my sighs of resignation. Not that they are paying no attention to me - oh no! - they have their own requests for the teacher! I try to suppress any snarky comments but fail miserably: "Oh and in the meantime, I suppose you will be correcting all these notebooks?" 

And THEY, instead of rolling their eyes at me as any sane teacher would expect from any sane student, shout:

"YEEES!"
"Oh can we? For REAL?"
"Can I have my brother's notebook, please?"
"Oh Miss, can I have TWO?"

And they were not messing with me, oh no. Despite my initial scepticism, I  gave out every relatively good student's notebook to one of my seventh graders that day (I decided to keep the challenging ones for myself) and boy, did they take it seriously. They brought the notebooks back the next day and here are some of their comments:

"That was HARD. After a few pages of the same mistakes over and over again, even I wasn't sure anymore how to spell apple."

"That boy (the owner of the notebook) is amazing. There were practically no mistakes. I think I actually would have made more."

"How do you manage to understand that handwriting?"

"I decided to be a teacher one day!" (awwwwwww)

"I decided NEVER to become a teacher."

"Miss, can I have another one?"

and the inevitable: "Does this bring extra credit?" 


Of course, I had to correct all of those notebooks all over again. However, I do think that was a valuable experience for my seventh graders and I think I'll probably do it again in the future - this time on purpose.

Five Little Green Frogs

Five Little Green Frogs is a story from Hello Robby Rabbit YL course, loosely based on the Five Little Speckled Frogs nursery rhyme (story cards available for download HERE). The story and the song that goes with it are both among my YL's favourites. There's so much you can do with this topic and here are just some examples from my classroom:

Cup theatre

Our annual bean planting project

Every year I plant some beans with my first graders and I wrote about that extensively a few years ago, so I won't go into that any deeper. However, what was different this year was the result - our beans would make Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk jealous!

Shrove Tuesday

Mmm ... It's Shrove Tuesday again. Time to put on our costumes (yet again! Yay, the perks of being a teacher), eat some more delicious food (not that I need a special reason for that) and have some more fun and engaging lessons in my classroom. 

Here are some Shrove Tuesday activities from my classroom (grades 1 - 9).

Paper doll dress up

Playway to English 1 activities - my students don't have their own textbooks, so I project the materials on my smartboard.

Peppa Pig: Fancy Dress Party (Youtube video)

Mary Glasgow Plus: Pancake Day and Valentine's Day (Culture Crew video & activities)

British Council Teens: Pancake Day (reading comprehension & interactive exercises)

Aaaand a very hungry teacher with a doughnut at the end of the school day. I ate five. Yes, five. No wonder Shrove Tuesday is also called Fat Tuesday.

The many faces of a teacher

Teaching is certainly no monotonous job and it doesn't have to be Halloween or Mardi Grass for a teacher to look different than his normal self. Can't tell you how many times I've roamed the school halls wearing silly clothes and paint on my face - and I've managed to venture outside the school walls looking like this on more than one occasion as well! But if you're a true teacher, you learn to make do with curious glances, don't you?

Here are just some of the costumes I've had to put on recently - OK, the last photo isn't technically a costume, but it actually took more guts than roaming the streets of Ljubljana dressed as a witch. :)

Visiting the mines of Mežica, Oct 2018

The Roman Emona field trip, Nov 2018

The Ljubljana ZOO, Nov 2018

My class and our little Christmas party

Have Yourself(ie) a Merry Little Christmas!

Photo taken in Dec 2017

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

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!