CELTA Classroom Management - Setting up activities

Summary

In this enlightening video from Jo Gakonga of ELT Training, viewers are treated to invaluable tips on how to effectively set up classroom activities, both in physical settings and online. With over 30 years of experience, Jo guides teachers through essential steps to engage learners from the start to the end of an activity. The video emphasizes the importance of enthusiasm, the use of visuals, crafting interesting questions, anticipating student problems, and demonstrating tasks. Each tip is designed to foster a lively and engaging learning environment, ensuring lessons run smoothly and learners remain captivated. A must-see for educators aiming to enhance their classroom management skills!

Highlights

• Kickstart your activities with enthusiasm to hook your learners right from the start! 🎉
• Use captivating visuals to make your classroom activities more exciting and immersive 🖼️.
• Ask engaging questions to stimulate student interest and encourage participation 🤔.
• Plan ahead for potential language barriers and skill issues in activity setups 🛠️.
• Show, don’t tell! Demonstrate activities to make instructions crystal clear 💡.

Key Takeaways

• Begin activities with enthusiasm to set the tone and motivate learners to engage 🚀.
• Incorporate visuals to make activities more appealing and intriguing 📸.
• Craft interesting questions that spark discussion and interest among students 💬.
• Anticipate language and skill problems to better prepare activities and ensure smooth execution 🔍.
• Demonstrate tasks clearly to provide students with a visual understanding and avoid confusion 👩‍🏫.

Overview

Jo Gakonga from ELT Training brings her extensive experience to the forefront in this video, highlighting the critical role of setting up classroom activities effectively. With tips focusing on both in-person and online settings, Jo emphasizes that the beginning of an activity is crucial in engaging learners and ensuring the session runs smoothly. Her advice is a blend of practical steps and enthusiasm that makes learning contagious.

Visuals take center stage as an essential tool in the toolbox of enabling a captivating learning experience. Jo points out that using appealing images can transform mundane questions into intriguing conversations. She advocates for educators to leverage resources from sites like Pixel Bay and Canva to access copyright-free visuals that enhance lesson setups.

The video also highlights the importance of anticipating student needs and potential hurdles. Jo shares anecdotes from her teaching journey to underline the necessity of preparing for language gaps and using demonstrations instead of lengthy explanations to guide learners. Her friendly and knowledgeable approach not only provides helpful strategies but also inspires teachers to foster a more engaging classroom environment.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Effective Activity Setup The chapter "Introduction to Effective Activity Setup" discusses the importance of properly setting up activities in both physical and online classrooms. Effective activity setup is emphasized as crucial for ensuring activities go smoothly. The chapter introduces the idea that activities, like many aspects of life, have a beginning, middle, and end. Additionally, it promises to provide five valuable tips to start activities successfully.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Engage Learners with Enthusiasm Joacon from elttraining.com invites viewers to like the video and explore the free Selter toolkit videos. He introduces himself as someone with over 30 years of experience in teaching and shares that he has helped hundreds of teachers improve classroom engagement. The first tip on engaging learners is introduced.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Using Visuals Effectively Beginnings are crucial as they set the scene for learning. It's important to motivate learners and generate interest. Teachers should bring enthusiasm and energy to class, choosing activities that they are passionate about to engage students effectively.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Crafting Interesting Questions The chapter 'Crafting Interesting Questions' emphasizes the importance of engaging learners by making activities more intriguing. It suggests using visuals as a tool to spark interest, such as by transforming mundane questions into more exciting ones. For instance, instead of asking students plainly about their journey to school, you could use visual prompts to ask, 'Who are they? Where are they going?' This approach is likely to be more engaging and enliven the learning experience.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Anticipating Problems The chapter "Anticipating Problems" focuses on engaging methods for starting lessons. It suggests using copyright-free images from sources like Pixel Bay, Morg File, Canva, and Unsplash to capture interest. Additionally, it highlights the importance of posing interesting questions beyond typical ones to stimulate discussion, such as preferring unique or thought-provoking inquiries related to the lesson topic.
• 05:00 - 05:30: The Importance of Demonstrations The chapter emphasizes the importance of creating engaging and thought-provoking questions to foster discussion and interest. It suggests that questions related to strong feelings or personal experiences often generate more talk, such as asking about the best meal someone has eaten or food they dislike. The chapter encourages tweaking questions to make them more interesting and engaging.

CELTA Classroom Management - Setting up activities Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 a big part of teaching is getting Learners to do things and if you set up activities well whether that's in the physical classroom or online they're much more likely to go well like many things in life activities have a beginning and a middle and an end and in this video I'm going to give you five great tips for starting off your activities brilliantly if you you like
• 00:30 - 01:00 this please give it a thumbs up and check out my Selter toolkit videos too they're free and the links just below there I'm joa cona from elt training.com I've got over 30 years experience in the classroom and I've taught hundreds of teachers how to make their lessons run more smoothly to keep their Learners more engaged tip number one
• 01:00 - 01:30 enthusiasm Beginnings are important they set the scene so you want to make sure that you sell your activity to your learners you want to motivate them you want to generate some interest so make sure that you have a good energy about what you're doing you don't have to be all singing all dancing but you're the teacher you can choose what you take into class so make sure that you're doing something that you're interested
• 01:30 - 02:00 in that feeling will definitely be contagious tip number two visuals visuals are a great way to start activities for example if you're lessons about Journeys you could easily say tell me about your journey to school but that's a bit dull so something like this who are they where are they going
• 02:00 - 02:30 what are they doing that's interesting and it's very easy to find good copyright free pictures on Pixel Bay morg file canva unsplash plenty of plenty of opportunity for that tip number three ask interesting questions so as well as pictures interesting questions are a great way to start a lesson let's say we're talking about food what did you eat last night that's okay as a question but a more
• 02:30 - 03:00 interesting question would be what's the best meal you've ever eaten or even better what's a food that you hate in my experience things that people have strong feelings about often generate more interest and more talk so think about how you could tweak things to make your questions a bit more interesting
• 03:00 - 03:30 tip number four anticipate problems if you give people an activity and they don't have the language to do that activity it's not going to go well so your job as a teacher is to anticipate those problems anticipate what they will need with the example we looked at before with food the language they need is that of describing food one of the first class I ever
• 03:30 - 04:00 taught I went in and I asked what's your favorite food and they said cabbage and I asked somebody else and they said cabbage and I thought well you know cabbage isn't that interesting and so I asked them well what words do you know for food and they said cabbage so these are the things you need to anticipate especially at lower levels a good way to do this is to do the task yourself and see what what
• 04:00 - 04:30 language you need do it out loud works well tip number five is do a demonstration clear instructions are vital to activities and I've made another video about this here but just to recap instructions need to be clear they need to be concise and remember that a demonstration is worth a lot of explanation just show them what to do
• 04:30 - 05:00 so I hope that these tips will help you to set your activities up really well and do have a look on my site for other useful things about classroom management bye-bye