INTERACTION WITH DISCIPLINE

Have you heard teachers complaining about the lack of interaction and discipline in the classroom??  Your class has to make the difference!

As in the "business'' of teaching, one has to be innovative, I have invented a technique for primary classes that helps to mix discipline and interaction in class. 
This technique consists of writing on the blackboard the names of the students who are distracted or talkative while you're teaching. The students whose names remain written on the blackboard until the end of the class will be punished with a note on their agendas.

But how to engage interaction with a warning like this??

If they don't want their teachers to write on their agendas, they should participate reading or answering teachers' questions. By every line a student reads or question that he answers, the teacher will erase a letter of his/ her name.  That's the way how you will promote interaction :D


You will  be surprised with the results!!!


I already tried. It's your turn to avoid a situation like the one below:

Is it too difficult for your students to learn the new vocabulary words??? Have you tried new strategies? I will share with you some activities which are simple, but pretty useful. Besides that, they make children interact in the class, reinforcing their short memory and get related to the new vocabulary words. In some of them, you will have to motivate them with points. If they know that they are going to receive points by participating, they are going to work a lot, aren't they? Here they are:

Word Wall Relay

Word walls help students practice vocabulary. These are useful for visual learners and must be kept current with words that are studied within the lesson. To practice vocabulary and learn new words, divide the class into two or more teams. One person from each team goes to the word wall. The teacher reads a definition and the students have to touch the matching word. The interaction creates excitement while students learn new words and meanings.

Spelling Boards

Give students a list of words to practice. These should be high frequency words or words from the text you are reading in class. Divide the class into groups, giving each group a small white board, marker and eraser. Announce the word. Within the group, members have to take turns spelling the word correctly. The teacher tells everyone to hold up the boards. The teams with correctly spelled words receive points.
Student Interview

Students practice oral English when conducting student interviews. Before beginning the interviews, model the interview process for the class or show a video clip of an interview for a reference point. Pair two students together. One student asks the other questions he or the teacher has prepared. The student should answer the interview questions in complete sentences. When finished, the students should switch roles to practice answering the questions.

Parts of Speech Concentration

Divide a stack of index cards in half. On one half, write short sentences. Underline a word in the sentence. On the other half, write the part of speech that matches the underlined word. Mix the two sets of cards and place face down on a table. Students work in teams or one against another to flip the cards to locate the sentence and correct part of speech. When a match is incorrect, the student has to concentrate to locate the correct match. This is a review game to reinforce grammar skills.

<http://www.ehow.com/info_7928558_activities-teach-english.html>

Writing is not interesting for students! This is a thought shared by many teachers and students as well, but is it true? I think that we should take off all the bad labels that we have put on some activities and look for the ways to make them interesting and desirable. You might say, "Does it mean that writing can be interesting?". My answer is "OF COURSE". I've just found a pair of activities that encourage learners to write by using their creativity. The first activity also makes them use their critical thinking. Here they are:

A Message in a Bottle

In this activity, each student will create an imaginary tale of travel and adventure.

What You Need

• maps of the world, atlases
• plastic bottles with caps (one for each child writing a tale)
• water table, fish tank, or large basin (optional)

What to Do

1. Tell children that each of them is going to write a tale about an imaginary adventure or trip that has left him or her stranded on a desert island. Explain that the only chance for rescue is to write a message, put it in a bottle, and put the bottle in the water, with the hope that someone will find it.
2. Brainstorm with children the kind of information they should include in their tales. For example, they might want to explain who they are, where they were going when they got stranded, where they came from, and how they were travelling. They should also include information about where they are, such as the climate, what the island is like, what plants and animals they have seen, and how they are surviving. Record their suggestions on the board or on chart paper.
3. When children are ready to begin writing, make maps and/or atlases available to them. They can refer to the maps if they need help planning their trips or spelling the names of places they might want to include in their tales.
4. When students have finished, have them place the tales in the bottles and set the bottles afloat in a water table (or whatever container of water you have available).
5. Then have each student fish a bottle (not his or her own) out of the water and read aloud the tale within. After each tale is read, students can “rescue” the author by using maps and story details to find approximately where he or she is stranded.

Teaching Options

• If your class is studying a certain area of the world in social studies, you may want to have the students write about being stranded on desert islands off the coasts of countries within that region.
• You may want to make arrangements to have your tales sent there. Then the students in that class can try to locate the writer of each tale. Your class could do the same with tales from the students in the other class.

Be an Incredible Songwriter!

 

Each student will write a song about something incredible and then perform the song for the class.

What You Need

• Writing paper and pencils
• A pretend microphone (perhaps a chalkboard eraser)
• Small, portable musical instruments of the students’ choice (optional)

What to Do

1. Tell students that you would like them to become songwriters and stage singers for a day. First, have them think of something incredible that they have experienced or know about. This might be an event, a feeling, an idea, a dream, or an amazing animal.
2. Next, ask the students to write the lyrics, or words, to a song about their chosen incredible subjects. Give them the option of writing the words to fit a familiar tune or mentally composing a new tune. Encourage students who have small musical instruments (e.g., flutes, maracas, harmonicas) to plan to play those instruments during their performances.
3. Finally, have students take turns performing their songs for the class. Prompt them to make their singing performances as exciting as possible by including dance steps, arm gestures, and exaggerated facial expressions.


I took these activities from the following link: http://www.teachers-corner.co.uk/creative-writing-with-children-3/

Who get better results from their students? The experienced professors or the ones with little teaching experience?

"How someone teaches may be more important than who does the teaching".

According to our personal experience as students and teachers and to what we listen from this video, let's draw our own conclusions.

It is important to remark that not only the resources or ideas you bring to class make it interactive, but also your attitude. You may have great worksheets and activities, but if you reflect a bad attitude towards students, you will transmit that to your class and the atmosphere will become negative. As a result, your class will not be meaningful at all despite all the material you've got. So, when you get to the classroom, show your students a smile, be warm with them,  and put all your energy in the class to make students feel related to you and the language. If you want to achieve great results, there should exist a very good rapport between your students and you. Soooo, give your best!