U. S. Embassy school visit

Yesterday our school had a visit from the U. S. Embassy in Ljubljana. Their first visit to our school was made by Bilateral Affairs Officer Major Perry Read. After the Principal's welcoming reception, Mr Perry visited a classroom with about 90 students to talk about different topics upon their request. The students were interested in racism, gun control, genetically modified food, and asked hundreds of questions on the topics. BAO Perry Read received a very loud and long applause at the end of more than an hour long conversation with the students. This was a second U. S. Embassy visit for me as a teacher and I found them both very engaging and beneficial for the students. If you have a chance to invite a representative from an English speeking Embassy in your country, I definitely recommend it!

Sources: U. S. Embassy Ljubljana

Puppets, part 1

In my last post I told you about the study programme I'm attending and I'm back with my first subject review. 

WORKING WITH PUPPETS
a. k. a. the part of the study programme that actually proved to be useful for teaching English to young learners. Not only did we learn to make different types of puppets for different purposes ourselves, we also learned how to use them properly. Even though I had been working with puppets before as puppets are often YLE course components, I can truly say I learned a lot in this course.

There are many types of puppets: hand or glove puppets, finger puppets, rod puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes (string puppets) and others. Puppets can assume different roles in a classroom. You can use a puppet as a host puppet (for motivation, discipline, special occasions such as celebrations etc.) or as a part of a puppet show (to act out stories). Regardless of what role your puppet assumes, here are some basic guidelines:

• Your puppet should face its audience (your students) at all times.
• Keep the puppet’s head down as it needs to make eye contact.
• Puppets don’t need a special voice or a distinctive accent, but it might add to the puppet's "character".
• Think about your puppet’s character - how it will act and what it will say. It’s better when they have emotions and act in character.
• If you're visible while using the puppet, try to look at the puppet when it's speaking. Don't make eye contact with students (easier said then done, trust me).
• You might consider giving your puppets a steady "home" somewhere in the classroom.
• If you're using your puppet as a host puppet, give it a name, a personality, a language (even if you don't always use English in your classroom, your puppet definitely should!), a voice and a home. Also, the puppet does not need to be present the whole time. Use it for specific purposes only: greeting, singing, asking questions, error correction etc. 
• When your classroom gets too loud, hide the puppet or put it back in its home, as "it doesn't like noise/is scared". This way a puppet can also help you maintain order in your classroom.

If you're interested in using puppets in your classroom and you want to explore the topic further, there is a lot of material available online. Here's a page I found useful: CLICK

And here are some photos of me in my classroom, using a puppet I made myself. More on making puppets in my next ZGUČAN blog post!

  

  

  

ZGUČAN

I am currently attending a study programme called Zgodnje učenje angleščine  (ZGUČAN) at University of Maribor. It is a study programme "for continuing education, meant for widening knowledge for the obtaining of an education and is legally determined as precondition for teaching a certain subject or subject field," in my case teaching English to young learners.

Those of you who know me know that I have mixed feelings about the programme. A month ago I even wrote a complaint email which you might have read as it's been circling among Slovenian English teachers. However, the aim of this blog post is not to complain further, but to focus on what I've learned and/or found useful. Yes, I have actually learned new things, and I'm still learning, be it from my teachers or my fellow students. There will be a series of blog posts focusing on different subject of the programme. The first one will be on puppets, and you may expect it soon. :)