I started blogging because I was asked to do it. I was working online and doing some Moocs with Coursera some years ago and we shared our ideas online. I started my first two blogs and I am still writing online.
While learning online I realized that I could blog with my students of English. Blogging is a good way for enabling them to use the language in a meaningful way.
I hope I will use a blog with my students next year. The idea is not new but I do need to rely on students who are willing to read and to work also online. I need to work hard on the content and to find activities that help them reflect online.
You can find some tips here in this interesting interview which was shared online ; the teacher is more engaged and her students too. It must be great to work in a school with such young learners.!
Teaching Shakespare The Play " Romeo and Juliet"
This term I have been teaching Shakespeare's plays and I have done some work on Romeo and Juliet with my third-year students in a secondary school in Italy.
When teaching adolescents I am used to teaching about literature and language. We have seen the film in class, we have learnt about the plot and we have worked on the play.
We have analyzed the balcony scene and the first kiss between Romeo and Juliet. The choice of the writers of the book we have been using is about the sonnet:
We have compared the Italian sonnet with the English one and we have focussed on the themes which are love and also the tragedy of love as the two lovers will never know why they will not meet again.
With the younger students we will work on lexis and idioms related to love; some help can be found online- the focus is on idioms but also on teaching :
Activities and tips from educators about teaching Valentine's Day
Thanks to Shelly Terrell and other educators we have many resources: in most cases the activities are interactive and engaging. New technologies can enhance our teaching. It is a pity I do not have many interactive whiteboards in class and my students have only smartphones to use in class. If we had tablets and they had been trained how to use some tools we might create interesting projects about Shakespeare and also love in his famous tragedy.
These are Shelly Terrell's useful slides with lots of tips and information about which tools we might use:
Recently I have discovered a new website for students where they can read and watch videos and this is free!
They have just released this reading about this topic- spotlightenglish.com is the website:
