21/02/2017
MM Publications Seminar on Speaking Skills Development and Playing Games Effectively
Today was the day of much experience since I took part in the MM Publications seminar in Lutsk. It was about playing games effectively in the classroom and speaking development skills. Honestly, I missed this atmosphere of workshop so much. I keep reminiscing about the days we had workshops two times a month for the British Council Change Agents. It is really inspiring. At the end of the seminar we were also given certificates.
13/02/2017
The World of Nature
Today I have finally conducted my lesson for attestation. I would like to thank my colleagues who supported me and came to my lesson. A great thanks is also devoted to Olena Oleksandrivna, who took these wonderful pictures. And, of course, the biggest thanks is for my dearest students who did their best and made my day today! 
Christmas fair
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. A small miracle happened on December 23rd 2016 as we all gathered to celebrate this holiday, went caroling and had some special Christmas food.
12/02/2017
Animal Idioms
Dear subscribers,
Today I would like to share some of the idioms connected with animals and animal world. I hope they would be interesting to use at the lessons and your students would become "eager beavers" in learning English and they would "feel like the fish in the water" at your English lessons.
Today I would like to share some of the idioms connected with animals and animal world. I hope they would be interesting to use at the lessons and your students would become "eager beavers" in learning English and they would "feel like the fish in the water" at your English lessons.
10/02/2017
Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA)
The Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA) is a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. It will provide nearly 100 secondary school teachers from Eurasia, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Western Hemisphere with unique opportunities to develop expertise in their subject areas, enhance their teaching skills, and increase their knowledge about the United States. The international participants will travel to the United States in Spring or Fall 2018 to participate in a six-week professional development program at a U.S. university.
The TEA Program is a six-week non-degree, non-credit, customized academic program; the program includes seminars on new teaching methodologies, curriculum development, lesson planning, instructional technology and a practicum in a U.S. secondary school.
The fellowship provides J-1 visa support, round-trip airfare to the United States, a welcome orientation in Washington, D.C., university training program, accident and sickness coverage, housing (generally shared with other program participants), meals, book allowance and the opportunity to apply for follow-on grants.
Applications are available on-line at: https://oas.irex.org/tea. The application deadline is April 15, 2017. See information for eligibility requirements and more details. For questions regarding the TEA program, please, contact: TEAKyiv@state.gov.
Retrieved from: https://ua.usembassy.gov/education-culture/current-programs-grants//
05/02/2017
Providing Partial Language Immersion within Integrated English Lessons
Nowadays learning English in the classroom requires the development of new strategies and approaches due to the evolving technologies and society needs. The communicative approach in learning English gives the unlimited opportunities for English teachers to develop different learning skills and creativity in their students. However, this learning approach also causes some limitations. It is the general idea that one of the best ways of learning a language is full immersion into the language environment. Through this method learners study school subjects, such as Maths, Science, Geography, and many others in their second language. The main purpose of this method is to foster bilingualism, or in other words, to develop learners' communicative competence or language proficiency in their second language in addition to their first or native language. This method is proved to give the best results in quite a short period of time. For example, FLEX participants, who become totally immersed into the English-speaking community are able to significantly improve their language skills during only a year of the program. Unfortunately, English teachers are not always able to provide total language immersion within their classroom as some of them lack qualification or language skills. Consequently, sometimes even after ten years of secondary education students are not able to speak fluent English. Therefore, on of the main purposes of English teaching is to create at least partial language immersion during the lesson. One of the best ways to provide it is conducting integrated lessons with other school subjects. Thus, the practice of incorporating such lessons into the school curriculum is extremely important.
Learning a foreign language has its assets, and studies suggest that immersion is an effective way to learn foreign languages. Many immersion programs start in elementary schools, with classroom time being dedicated to the foreign language anywhere between 50% and 90% of the day. Learning a second language not only helps an individual's personal mental skills, but also aids their future job skills. Jean Piaget, a development psychologist, had a theory that stated that when a child faces an idea that does not fit their understanding it "become a catalyst for new thinking".
The first modern language immersion programs appeared in Canada in the 1960s. Middle-income Anglophone (English-speaking) parent there convinced educators to establish an experimental French immersion program enabling their children "to appreciate the traditions and culture of French-speaking Canadians as well as English-speaking Canadians".
Baker found that more than 1,000 studies have been completed on immersion programs and immersion language learners in Canada. These studies have given us a wealth of information. Across these studies, a number of important observations can be made. First of all, early immersion students "lag behind" their monolingual peers in literacy (reading, spelling, and punctuation) for the first few years only. However, after the first few years, the immersion programs have no negative effects on the cognitive development of the students.
Therefore, immersion principles of learning a foreign language were proved to be successful in many ways. First and foremost, the students better understand the importance of learning a foreign language. They begin to understand that language is only a tool to learning and communication and not the actual science. Moreover, students realise more how important is to study the foreign language and its is the key to their future success.
Designing, implementing, and providing ongoing support for language immersion education is no easy task. Pressing challenges include staffing, curriculum development, and program articulation. Program administrators struggle to find high-quality, licensed teachers who can demonstrate advanced levels of oral and writing proficiency in the chosen language. Once teachers are hired, the search begins for developmentally appropriate curriculum, materials, and resources that meet local districts and state standards. Elementary-level challenges are met with additional secondary-level issues such as scheduling and balancing students' educational priorities as the program moves up through the middle and high school years.
Inadequate teacher preparation for immersion programs remains a challenge in this field. Teachers need specialised professional development support to meet the complex task of concurrently addressing content, language, and literacy development in an integrated, subject-matter-driven language program. However, teacher educators and immersion specialists who can provide useful and relevant professional learning experiences for the immersion staff and in short supply. In addition to professional development related to curriculum design and pedagogical techniques, both native and non-native teachers report the need for ongoing support for their own proficiency in the immersion language.
Immersion teachers face significant hurdles in the sheer range of learner differences. The impact of students' variations in language proficiency, literacy development, learning support available at home, achievement abilities, learning styles, and special needs grows exponentially when teaching and leading occur in two languages. Educators and parents struggle to identify and implement research based policies and practices for learners who have language, literacy, and learning difficulties. Many immersion programs lack the necessary resources and bilingual specialists to provide appropriate instructional support, assessment, and interventions.
Language immersion in Ukrainian schools is quite a new phenomenon. There are few schools which use the immersion programs and teach all subjects in English from primary to high school. However, these are mostly private schools for the students whose parents are wealthy enough to pay for their studies. In public schools teachers have fewer opportunities. First all, there are no special resources provided by authorities. Second of all, for the immersion classes to be effective, the instructors should be decent specialists not only in English teaching, but also in other subjects. Unfortunately, very few teachers in Ukraine obtain two or more diplomas.
Therefore, the question remains: how to provide language immersion at the English lessons in such cases. Integrated lessons can provide partial immersion and they impose fewer requirements on a teacher. Certainly, the teacher should be always flexible and ready to learn something new. Lesson planning and preparation to such lessons would take a lot more time than preparation to regular lessons, but the integrated lessons prove to be more interesting and fruitful as the students are able to gain actual knowledge from them.
Given the unlimited number of Internet resources, English teachers today have a wide range of opportunities in lesson planning. Therefore, incorporating integrated lessons should become an integral part of every school practice and curriculum to achieve better results in a shorter period of time. In the end, there are numerous examples of ho immersion helps students learn foreign languages. Flex participation and native speaker implications into the English classrooms are also good ways of immersion. Therefore, English teachers should do their best to recreate the same atmosphere during the English class as if the students were in the USA or the UK, facing the same challenges.
References:
Learning a foreign language has its assets, and studies suggest that immersion is an effective way to learn foreign languages. Many immersion programs start in elementary schools, with classroom time being dedicated to the foreign language anywhere between 50% and 90% of the day. Learning a second language not only helps an individual's personal mental skills, but also aids their future job skills. Jean Piaget, a development psychologist, had a theory that stated that when a child faces an idea that does not fit their understanding it "become a catalyst for new thinking".
The first modern language immersion programs appeared in Canada in the 1960s. Middle-income Anglophone (English-speaking) parent there convinced educators to establish an experimental French immersion program enabling their children "to appreciate the traditions and culture of French-speaking Canadians as well as English-speaking Canadians".
Baker found that more than 1,000 studies have been completed on immersion programs and immersion language learners in Canada. These studies have given us a wealth of information. Across these studies, a number of important observations can be made. First of all, early immersion students "lag behind" their monolingual peers in literacy (reading, spelling, and punctuation) for the first few years only. However, after the first few years, the immersion programs have no negative effects on the cognitive development of the students.
Therefore, immersion principles of learning a foreign language were proved to be successful in many ways. First and foremost, the students better understand the importance of learning a foreign language. They begin to understand that language is only a tool to learning and communication and not the actual science. Moreover, students realise more how important is to study the foreign language and its is the key to their future success.
Designing, implementing, and providing ongoing support for language immersion education is no easy task. Pressing challenges include staffing, curriculum development, and program articulation. Program administrators struggle to find high-quality, licensed teachers who can demonstrate advanced levels of oral and writing proficiency in the chosen language. Once teachers are hired, the search begins for developmentally appropriate curriculum, materials, and resources that meet local districts and state standards. Elementary-level challenges are met with additional secondary-level issues such as scheduling and balancing students' educational priorities as the program moves up through the middle and high school years.
Inadequate teacher preparation for immersion programs remains a challenge in this field. Teachers need specialised professional development support to meet the complex task of concurrently addressing content, language, and literacy development in an integrated, subject-matter-driven language program. However, teacher educators and immersion specialists who can provide useful and relevant professional learning experiences for the immersion staff and in short supply. In addition to professional development related to curriculum design and pedagogical techniques, both native and non-native teachers report the need for ongoing support for their own proficiency in the immersion language.
Immersion teachers face significant hurdles in the sheer range of learner differences. The impact of students' variations in language proficiency, literacy development, learning support available at home, achievement abilities, learning styles, and special needs grows exponentially when teaching and leading occur in two languages. Educators and parents struggle to identify and implement research based policies and practices for learners who have language, literacy, and learning difficulties. Many immersion programs lack the necessary resources and bilingual specialists to provide appropriate instructional support, assessment, and interventions.
Language immersion in Ukrainian schools is quite a new phenomenon. There are few schools which use the immersion programs and teach all subjects in English from primary to high school. However, these are mostly private schools for the students whose parents are wealthy enough to pay for their studies. In public schools teachers have fewer opportunities. First all, there are no special resources provided by authorities. Second of all, for the immersion classes to be effective, the instructors should be decent specialists not only in English teaching, but also in other subjects. Unfortunately, very few teachers in Ukraine obtain two or more diplomas.
Therefore, the question remains: how to provide language immersion at the English lessons in such cases. Integrated lessons can provide partial immersion and they impose fewer requirements on a teacher. Certainly, the teacher should be always flexible and ready to learn something new. Lesson planning and preparation to such lessons would take a lot more time than preparation to regular lessons, but the integrated lessons prove to be more interesting and fruitful as the students are able to gain actual knowledge from them.
Given the unlimited number of Internet resources, English teachers today have a wide range of opportunities in lesson planning. Therefore, incorporating integrated lessons should become an integral part of every school practice and curriculum to achieve better results in a shorter period of time. In the end, there are numerous examples of ho immersion helps students learn foreign languages. Flex participation and native speaker implications into the English classrooms are also good ways of immersion. Therefore, English teachers should do their best to recreate the same atmosphere during the English class as if the students were in the USA or the UK, facing the same challenges.
References:
1.Fortune T.W. What Research Tells Us About Immersion. – Retrieved from: http://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/what-research-tells-us-about-immersion
2.Methodologies in Foreign Language Teaching. – Retrieved from: http://www.linguatics.com/methods.htm
04/02/2017
British vs American English visual vocabulary examples
We all know pretty well that British and American English differ in many ways. This time I'm gonna share some of the visual vocabulary examples, which are often used in everyday English.
30/01/2017
Healthy Food Lesson Plan (інтегрований урок з основами здоров'я)
LESSON PLAN
Topic: Healthy Food
Teacher: Elena Lakodei
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Class: 3 v
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Level: beginner (A2)
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School no. 3
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Rayon and oblast: Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Volyn oblast
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Date: March 23, 2016
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Age group: primary
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Time: 40-45 min
Class profile (brief description of learners; how many, age, level, etc.):
The subgroup of the class consists of 15 young learners, whose age varies from 9 to 10.
Their level of English is beginner. These students are quite active and they easily
memorise new words and sentences. They are very easy to work with. The learners
are particularly interested in learning English songs and poems, watching videos, and
they are active participants and little young learners. Most of the learners have auditory
and visual learning styles.
Timetable fit/Topic (why are you giving this content at this point of the course):
According to the syllabus, the students learn the names of different food, fruit, vegetables,
and meat products. Also, the children are suggested to group these products into four food
types: dairy products, meat products, grains, and fruit and vegetable group. In order to
provide better understanding of the topic and healthcare studies, this topic is suggested
as a follow-up lesson.
Lesson aims:
lrevising the names of different types of food, fruit, vegetables, grains, and dairy
products;
lteaching children to differentiate types of food;
ldeveloping listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills;
lrevising countable and uncountable nouns, plurals;
upbringing the healthy way of life and healthy eating habits.
Materials/resources used:
Flashcards with different food, pictures of food (big and small), three plates
(preferably not made of plastic), TV, computer, presentations
References:
1) Карп’юк О.Д. Англійська мова: підручник для 3 класу загальноосвітніх
навчальних закладів. - Тернопіль: Астон, 2013. - 176 с.
2) Debbie doo songs for kids. Healthy food will make you smile.
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ60zhvMlGk
Introduction
Developing healthy eating habits is one of the most important tasks for the young kids,
who have access to a wide range of unhealthy products. Therefore, it is important to
inform children about what they should eat and what food they should avoid. These
activities are suitable for beginner students, who want to know more about eating
and food, and for those who are interested in having a healthy lifestyle.
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29/01/2017
Hogwarts Quest on Halloween Lesson Plan
LESSON PLAN
Topic: Hogwarts quest on Halloween.
Teacher: Elena Lakodei
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Class: 5, 6
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Level: A2
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School no. 3
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Rayon and oblast: Volodymyr-Volynynskyi, Volyn
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Date: October 25, 2015
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