Teaching: staying creative

It's easy enough for new teachers to let their enthusiasm create creative and fun lessons. However, more seasoned teachers usually struggle to deliver a certain level of creativity in their lessons. Enthusiasm may start running dry after some years, particularly if you are being given students who just don't seem to appreciate your efforts.

None-the-less, there is no excuse for delivering boring lessons. Here's a list of things to do to give that little extra-something in your classroom:

• Care about your students: Knowing your students as individuals and understanding their needs, will give you a big motivational boost.
• Games: the internet is the best way to get great ideas for games to be included in your lessons. Games don't need to be fancy. Simple crosswords, word puzzles can be easily included in exercises and they make such a big difference.
• Re-use old materials: there is nothing wrong with re-using lesson plans, games, activities, etc, from previous years. Just make sure that you deliver the lesson with the same enthusiasm as the first time.
• Be modern: stay up to date with what's going on in the world. You might never know when you'll be able to use the latest cartoon character or movie star in your lessons. You need to understand what students are interested in and then incorporate that in your lesson. All it takes is to ask some direct questions...you don't need to be a detective :)

That's it for today. I'll keep you posted.

Teaching: Using Videos in lessons

Videos can be extremely effective educational tools when used properly. They're a great way of breaking the usual monotony of ordinary lessons (although lessons should never be monotonous) and offers students a new and more exciting way of learning. Let's take History an an example: is there a better way for students to learn than showing them actual footage of real places? It's like a field trip without the included hassle. However you cannot simply rely on a video to do the lesson for you. You need to make sure that the lessons is geared towards the right direction and that the students understand the main points of that particular lesson.


The following list will hopefully help you understand how to incorporate the use of videos in your lessons:

1. Make a brainstorming session on the main subject and, on the white-board/chalk-board, write all the important points.
2. Instruct students to write down the points in more detail while watching the video. For example, if the video is about the effect of heat on objects, and one of the points is 'effects of heat on metal', then students should be able to write down more information while watching the video, such as: "heat forces the molecules of the metal to vibrate, this vibration allows the metal to expand..."
3. Allow yourself to pause the video when it reaches a specific point, and take the time to reinforce what the students have just heard. This will help students to easily understand which points are important.
4. After watching the video, the students should be more knowledgeable about the main subject. Go back to the points on the white-board/chalk-board and help students use the notes they took during the video, to give detailed explanations.
5. Tell students to write down a report on the subject. This is a great reinforcement exercise.

I hope that this article will help you deliver more interesting and entertaining lessons. As always, don't hesitate to leave comments.