To mark the launch of the Everybody Up Second Edition, author Patrick Jackson shares some practical ideas about Linked Language Learning, the concept at the heart of Everybody Up, and the reason for its success.
These days, I live and work in Ireland. Near my home, is Newgrange – a huge mound of rock and earth that’s over 5,000 years old. At dawn, on the shortest day of the year, everyone gathers to see the sun’s first light shine along a passage and light up a chamber in the mound.
This special moment reminds me of how our classrooms should be. We should connect them to the wider world beyond their walls. We should allow light to shine in from outside. And, in turn, our classrooms will become places from where light shines. They will become memorable, happy places that encourage and empower the children who are lucky to come there. That is what we hope anyway!
Young children spend rather too much time in classrooms these days, often sitting unnaturally still for hours every day. Many of them spend a lot of time after school in other classrooms before they go home. A lot of them are expected to study at home as well. They can easily become bored and lose motivation. They can become unengaged. They can become tired of the whole learning process and switch off. Our greatest challenge as educators of children in this competitive and systemised environment is to find ways of stopping them becoming burnt out and simply giving up. It’s a sad but true reality.
How are we going to create lessons that stand out and that our students look forward to and become excited by? How are we going to motivate and inspire? I believe that the best way to reboot our students is to think of ways that the classroom can be linked to the wider world. This is the thinking behind everything we did when we created Everybody Up.
Here are some ideas:
1 Teacher Show and Tell
It’s really interesting for students to see their teacher bring something curious into the classroom. This could be anything really so long as it’s something the teacher is enthusiastic about. This enthusiasm leads to students sharing their own interests and passions in turn.
2 Snail Mail
Of course, nowadays we can communicate with people all over the world so easily using the Internet. Much more exciting than an email though is an old-fashioned parcel containing snacks and stickers from a classroom in another country. Picture postcards from around the world are also really exciting for students to get. It’s very easy to arrange this sort of exchange and your students will be really motivated by it. Check out epals.com to find a classroom to twin with and get started. I have used it successfully over the years as a way of making connections with like-minded teachers around the world.
3 Decorate your Classroom
Set the scene by making your classroom a Global HQ for Linking. A notice board in the classroom is a good place to display students’ projects and you can put posters up on the walls from different parts of the world. A good way to get these is to write to foreign embassies and tourist offices in your country. They are always happy to send their publications to educators.
4 Hold an International Day
Plan and hold an International Day for your class. Students work individually or in pairs and research a country to tell their classmates about. If you can get the parents involved, it may even be possible to arrange some foods from those countries. Students can draw flags and learn a few phrases of their countries’ languages. It’s great fun and helps create an international mindset.
5 Our Town Video or Powerpoint
Students will enjoy making a video about your city, town or village in English and sharing it with other classrooms via the Internet. You can also use PowerPoint very effectively for this sort of project. This can be as simple as a series of photos of local attractions with captions in English or it could be a more sophisticated with students acting as anchors. It’s a great way to ‘Englishify’ your local surroundings.
6 English Hunting
Ask your students to find a number of examples of English in their surroundings outside the classroom. Simply by doing this they will identify the fact that English is happening all around them and is not just something that takes place in lessons. If your students are old enough to have their own mobile technology they can “hunt” English and bring it to their next lesson.
These are just a few of the many ways that you can start to connect your classroom to the wider world. As a teacher, it’s a state of mind that you get into and ideas will keep coming to you. In fact, once you become a Linked Language Learning Teacher, there’s no going back! These projects also build from year to year and become part of your classroom’s culture. It’s fun showing your new students the work of the previous year’s class. These sorts of activities are certainly the best way to get your students engaged and developing a strong sense of the purpose of learning English. They are also the best way to create memorable learning moments and experiences for our students. And of course, most importantly, they are all really fun.
Really nice article and I appreciate the notion of “linking” what our students are learning to what they encounter every day and to help them feel that they can be as effective and creative in English, or in any other language they might want to learn, as in their mother tongue. 🙂