Assessment in The Class

The most important thing from activities in the class is assessment. This post I will share basic about assessment in the class. First we have to know essential of assessment. I will explain it with different way, I will provide questions and answers that will explain about assessment.

Why we do assessment?

- to measure students knowledge

- to know the skill that students have mastered it, and master it yet.

- to know how students to do the assignment, the processes to do it.

- to know their motivation ( we can do personal approach ).

Now you know why we have to do assessment because it is important to us to know better about our students, and we can give good feedback to develop students' ability.

What should we assess ?

- Students progress in learning.

- Students' work step by step ( final assessment at the end ).

What kind of assessment ?

- Day to day observation, it something like personal observation. We can observe not only in the class but also outside the class.

- Pencil and paper test/quiz, traditional assessment, bu sometime it works well.

- Rubrics, this is the most fair assessment, because students can develop their work based on the rubrics and teacher assess objectively.

- Project work, this belong to product assessment, students have to make a product.

- Portofolio, teacher know it better.

Assessment not only for teacher but also for students (peer assessment) better if we provide the rubric, so the students can assess objectively.

 The last, what will we do after we did assessment?

- Use it to make future lesson plan.

- Improve our teaching skills.

- Focus to the students' strength and weakness.

- Report to the parent and the school.

Just it, add some information to complete this blog if you have good information. Hopefully, it is useful for you all. Thank You !!!

Jigsaw Activity

Hello world, in the 21th December I went to Gede mountain with my friends. we do the journey to the top of Gede Mountain. It was amazing, in the top, I shouted hardly " I am the king of the world " like Leonardo DiCaprio. Just wanna share it :).

In this time I want to share jigsaw activity. this is my favorite activities,why? because this activity push the students to think critically and creatively. Students have to learn the material in group by themselves and have to present it to the other group. And the most important thing, this activity will boost your confident, because we have to present it to our friends, it is not problem, we know them, we know our friends. Check it out!

This is the jigsaw for teaching type text ( narrative, recount, procedure, and explanation )

Tools:

- Markers

- Flip charts (to make presentation)

- Material papers

Preparation:

- Move the chair and the tables to outside, make a big space in the class.

Steps:

- Divide the class into four group.

- Each group is given one material about one text type, example narrative for group A. etc.

- Each group has to discuss about the material, each member has to master it.

- Teacher has to move around to help the students if the have problem.

- Each group has to make presentation in the flipchart.

- Then in the group decide who will be go around (find information about others material) and who will be stay (to explain about the material to other friends).

-  Do this activity

- After that back to each group, students who go around have to explain the other material to their friends member of team.

- Give the brief explanation as a review.

*note: this activity will takes a lot of time.

Enjoy it, it will be useful hopefully.

Eliciting: Listening

Hi guys, how are you? This time I will share eliciting for listening skill. Check this out.

What is this picture?

1. Draw one big triangle.

2. Draw again one big triangle beside the previous triangle.

3. The right corner of left triangle meet the left corner of right triangle.

4. Draw a half of circle between the both of triangle.

5. Draw two vertical line between two triangle in the parallel form.

6. What is that picture?

Read this instruction to your students, read it carefully, let the students hear your voice carefully so they can draw  the picture appropriate with the instruction. Then see what is the picture that they have done, is it right?

*note: this is the picture of mountain panorama

Reviewing the Lesson

Welcome, welcome, welcome ...

As usual my posting is about activities in the class, and also with this posting. and now i am talking about reviewing the lesson.

Usually, teachers use pencil test and quiz to measure students' understanding. Or maybe teacher would ask the students one by one about the lesson to review it. In my opinion that are old way. Students bored with that situation. we can try something CREATIVELY. I will share a fun way to review the lesson based on my experience in the class.

Tell It !!!

Tools and preparations:

- Marker

- Provide some important terms from the lesson, or some information key.

Steps:

- Divide the class into 3 groups, just three.

- Each group has to choose one student as representative group.

- that student stand up in front of the class, and back the board, so there are 3 students who stand in front of the class, and they can see anything on the board because they back the board.

- The member of the group sit down in front of their representative student.

- Teacher write one information or term on the board.

- The member of group have to tell the explanation about that term (in English)

- The representative students have to guess the term based on their member group explanation.

- The group who can guess the term first get the point.

- Repeat it again with other term.

How was that? Try it and maybe you can develop it by yourself. I hope that it will be useful for you all.

Empowering Social Networking in the Classroom

Hello world, is it getting hot right? Global warming of course, but we will not talk about global warming. This is not blog that talk something like that, I just can say, please save this world, not for earth, not for us, but for our children and our grandchildren.

I will talk something bis as global warming issue, social networking. Now social networking more popular than Justin Bieber or ST12 band. Everyone has an account in social networking, who does not have account in Facebook or twitter? Based on data, there 5 billion people who have account in Facebook. Wow fantastic right? Especially teenagers, a lot of teenagers like to spend their time to access social networking, then what is connection between social networking and and activities in the classroom?

Social networking very attract the students, it will be interesting way to students to learn in the classroom. Learning become fun because students is close with social networking, but how we can integrate social networking in the class. One more time, in this situation have to think creatively.

Facebook

We can make one special account for our class. In that account we can make forum to talk about some lesson outside the class, students can give their opinion or comment. I this account  maybe we can share something that will support our leaning in the class, like educational link, video, or anything. This account can also use to spread information about the class.

For real example, if there are group drama presentation, the teacher can record it. Then teacher put all video on the facebook. And each group have to assess the other group performance by watching the video on facebook. Make the report in Ms word and sent it to email. That is the simple way to empowering Facebook to support classroom. 

Actually, we can develop the social networking better, all we need just creativity. So don't forget to be a creative teacher. I hope this blog can motivate you to be a creative teacher.

  

Eliciting: Writing

Hi guys, how's your life ? How about the game last post. I hope you can apply it in your class.

Oke, I have shared you about eliciting for speaking. Now I will share eliciting for writing. I narrow the topic: procedure text. Check this out.

Tools and Preparation:

- Provide one procedure text. ( how to make fried rice )

- Cut the steps of that procedure text. 

- Glue each part of procedure text on the wall of the class.

Steps:

- Divide the class into several group,  each group has to consist of 2 people, one become "the runner" and the other become "the writer", you you can named it as you like.

- Ask the students to take one paper each group, or you can provide it.

- Tell the students about the rules, "the runner" has to go around to look the part of steps ' how to make fried rice' remember each steps and tell the writer. Maybe the runner can read one step, remember it and tell the writer or read some steps remember it and tell the writer.

- The writer has to write the steps that the runner have told to them, and the writer has to arrange it become the right steps.

- The fastest group and the steps is correct win the game.

*note: for small class number

Happy gaming, hopefully useful or you all.

bye next post.

Eliciting in Web

This post based on my experience, when I surfed to the internet I find something really interesting. That were a web for English Game practice. I try some of that game, it was really nice. This is the web.

http://www.mrshurleysesl.com/englishpractice.html

These are some game that i have tried:

A. Wacky Web Tales: Reading

In this we the game were classified by grade or difficulty. there are so many game, for English activities, include reading skill, writing skill, listening skill,but I am not sure about speaking. I have explore most of them but, i did not find for speaking, maybe you can explore by yourself. and tell me if you find something great. This game can be eliciting in the class, we can use it for the opening the class, before we start the lesson. All game in this web also related with English lesson, for example, there are games for type of text, tenses, ect. I think that it is really useful. The good news is, there are games for math, so you can share it to your friends, math teacher. I will explain some games for writing and reading.

This is a game for reading, lesson about narrative text. In this game, firstly, you are asked to fill in the blank for some words, 16 words that consists of many kind of word, it will ask, adjective,adjective, pet name, animal (singular), body part(plural), plural noun, foreign language, body part (singular), color etc. After you fill all of it, click the link below. Then surprisingly, there is a narrative text that made based on the word that you fill in the blank before. Ask students to read it carefully, because we can analyze from that text, structure, language feature, etc. Check this out.

http://www.eduplace.com/cgi-bin/template/tales/content/wwt_038.thtml

B. Digital Dialects: Listening

Purely listening skill practice, actually there is no something special. I think this game is appropriate with elementary students, because this game also to practice our vocabulary. There are many kind of type, like animal, food, number, color, verb infinitive etc. And the best thing is there are many of picture in there. When we click that, the sound appeared. That's why i recommend this game for elementary students, it will interest them. This is the link;

http://www.digitaldialects.com/English.htm

Bye, bye, next time I will another things that maybe useful for you, hopefully.

Activities for Speaking Skills

There a lot of speaking activities that we can do in the class. Actually, it needs our creativity to develop that activities, but remember if we teach speaking, it means that we do not only teach speaking way, we don't have to make the students just do speaking activity. It impossible if we just conduct speaking activities in the class, we have to combine with other activities. In this post I just share the activities generally. you can develop it, and tell me if it works in your class.

1. Jigsaw task: to teach tenses, simple present, past tense, continuous tense, and future tense.

Tools

- You need flip charts or card big, choose the biggest one.

- Markers, 5 until 6, depends on the group of class.

- Glue or Scotch tape, something to glue the flip charts.

Preparation

- Move the chairs and tables, make a space in the middle of class.

- Prepare the material, consist of that four tenses

Steps

- Divided the class into several group, at least 4 group.

- Give each group the material paper, each group get different material.

- Let them discuss about the material.

- Teacher still go around the class, and help students when they have a problem or something unclear.

- After that, students have to write the important things from material to the flip charts, make it like poster or presentation.

- Students have to decide, who will stay as expert that will explain the material to others friend, and who will go around to get the explanation about others material.

_ Then back to the group, and the member who go around have to share the information to the others.

- Give a brief lesson as a review, ask if they are still confused or not.

* need a lot of time

2. Role Play: Expression

Tools: -

Peparation:

- Make several condition or situation for the role play, connect it with the lesson.

Steps:

- Explain the brief of lesson, function, when we use it, etc.

- Divide the class into several groups, maybe 5 groups.

- Give each group the situation problem, students have to make role play based on the situation was given.

- The role play include the expression that was explained before.

- Each group have to perform their role play in front of the class.

- The other group have to assess their group friends performance.(peer assessment: optional).

- Give feedback ( important )

3. PBL: Teaching narrative text. ( need more technology )

Tools:

- AVI rooms, because we want to watch movie.

- Short narrative movie, cinderella or anything

- papers

Preparation:

- paper of material about past tense ( include all of feature )

Steps:

- divide into several group.

- Give them the material.

- Ask the to analyze the movie, find the structure, language feature, etc.

- Watch movie.

- Discussion time, let them discuss it, go around to observe the students.

- Ask them to present their result to the class.

Hufffttt, finally this post has finished. i hope this is useful, bye .

Eliciting: Speaking

Okay, Last time we have talked about "how opening the class". Now i will share about eliciting. Firstly i will tell you about eliciting (in my words) ;) . Eliciting is something like activities before we start the lesson. Usually eliciting consist of games or fun activities. But you have to consider that eliciting must has connection with the lesson. eliciting become part to introduce what is students learn today. Analogy, in sport eliciting is a warming up, in eating eliciting is a appetizer. See?

Now, i will share eliciting for speaking skills. but I narrow the topic become Simple Past tense. Check it out:

Ball of Sentences

Tools and Preparation :
1. Mini plastic ball
2. Marker


Steps :
1. Ask each student to think one verb, any kind of verb.
2. Throw the ball to the students randomly, student who gets the ball has to tell their word in past verb.
3. Teacher write that verb in the board.
4. Repeat it again, throw the ball to the students randomly, and the ask the student who gets the ball to tell their own verb.
5. Limit the the verb word, 10 or 15 verbs.
6. After that, throw the ball again the the students, this time student who gets the ball has to make a sentence from the first word.
7. Repeat it again, but the second student has to make word that has connection with the previous sentence.
8. Do it until the last word, and we will have one story consist of 10 or 15 sentences.
9. Ask two students to go to in front of the class. one student read the story and the others act like artist appropriate with the sentence.




What are they doing?

Tools :

1. Papers
2. Old newspapers or magazines
3. Scissor
4. Glue

Preparation:
1. Find picture that show someone is doing something.
2. example; picture of someone is smoking, cut it and glue it in the papers.
3. make 15 or 20 picture.


Steps
1. Teacher divided the group become some group.
2. Teacher shows one picture to one group, and that group has to make one sentence use past tense with that picture example; smoking person picture; sentence my father smoked in my bedroom.
3. If that group can answers so they will get the score, if the group can not answers the question, it will be throw to the others group.
4. group that have the highest score will win the game.

Hope it useful !!!

Icebreaking: Jokes and Magic

Hi guys ...

Last posting, I promised that i would share about icebreaking, jokes and magic. Actually, joke is come from our self. I mean that not all people can make a funny jokes, even the people imitate jokes from someone expert, it is not sure that the jokes will be work. It depends on our personality, but i will share some jokes for you all guys.

Jokes

1. Ask this to the students ( after greeting )

Teacher : Okay class, now i ant to ask you, what are you doing here ?

Student 1: Study

Student 2: Learning something, etc

Teacher : Study ? Learning? So bored, Why we don't just go home, sleep and play,?

Students : Good idea, horay.

Teacher: Sorry kids, just kidding .

2. Or you can make statement like this .

Teacher : Okay class, there is announcement for you all. Today school will be off sooner.

Students : yes, what time we off school sooner?

Teacher : 2.59 pm, ( regular off time 3 pm )

*my original jokes

Magic

1. Stand up tie.

Of course you need a tie, say to the students that you can make that tie stand up. Your students will be confuse because it is impossible to make a tie stand up, law of gravitation make the tie down. Then you do the trick.

Hold the tie, and put down your hand so your hand in the up and the tie hang down. As simple as that right?

It will be useful for you all guys, hopefully, hhe ..

Starting With Something New

Hi Guys ..

Long time no see, hhe i miss you all ..

This post and for others past next time, I will share you information about activities in the class. Something like the activities in the class, begin the opening until the end of the class. not really complete activities, but i hope it will be useful for English teacher.

In first post I will share you about opening the class.

Opening the class is really important moment for the teacher, because it will effect to the whole class session. Does the teacher could encourage or interest the students to study or maybe it will make the students bored or ill feel to the teacher and do not have spirit to study? It depends to the teachers. they have to think and act creatively. and to courage the students there are several think that we have to consider to attract the students in opening the class.

1. Yourself

Prepare your self to teach, the biggest thing that attract the students in the first time is your appearance. You don't have to wear an expensive clothe or shoe. Just wear a nice and tidy clothe, make your students confidence and comfort when they are looking at you.

2. Let students tell about themselves

Usually, in the beginning class teacher will ask about the previous lesson, or will tell about the lesson on that day, even the teacher go straight to the lesson. Better if we avoid that things, because the students will not comfort with that things. Try to make students comfort, ask them about their holiday or their unique experience on previous days, and don't forget to involve all students.

3. Icebreaking

In this part, teachers have to think very creatively. try to attract students attention. We can use joke, but don't do "garing joke". Or maybe teachers can use simple magic, that make the students laugh. Actually the purpose of this part is students will feel comfort with us.

Well how's about that ? In the next post I will share you all some jokes and maybe some icebreaking magic. So wait for me. I will see you again