Tag: Creative

Literature

Literature: Character poster

Astrid van Houwelingen

We all know characters in literature that feel like real people. It seems as if they existed before you started reading the novel and continue on existing and living their lives when you finish the story. For students it is important to be aware of what tools and techniques there are for an author to create a character so vivid that we wonder what will happen to them after the story ends. When students are able to gain a deeper understanding for character building, their appreciation for literature will increase and their pleasure in reading will too.

Of course it is possible to deconstruct the complexity of a character with a question-answer series. But there are more fun ways of doing so. I like to make use of student’s creativity by asking them to create a poster, in which they display everything they have learned about a character throughout the novel. They then share their knowledge by presenting their poster to the class, practising their speaking and presentation skills and allowing the other students the benefit of their work. How is that for a win-win-win?

The Basics

Level: B1-C1 (Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, Advanced)
Focus: Reading, speaking, presenting, listening, co-operating, literature
Time: 60 minutes
Materials: Poster sized sheet of paper, markers, literary work

Aim

Students learn how characters in literature are created and how they can be analyzed. They give a short presentation.

The task

Before starting to analyse, students are introduced to the basics of character creation and the different functions they can serve in the story (see slideshow). Once the basics have been covered they are given a poster sized piece of paper, some markers and a character to investigate.

Step by step:
1. They title the poster with the character’s name and draw a simple stick figure.
2. They dig through their literary work to find physical descriptions, character’s thoughts and examples of dialogue revealing the character’s demeanour.
3. They note down these quotes and explain in their own words what these quotes say about the character.
4. They might want to ‘dress up’ their characters by drawing the described clothes, hair and other physical features as well as typical attributes. This makes the text visual to all students (Students will need about 25 minutes to finish the poster).
5. When finished, students present their poster to the rest of the class. They describe both the function of the character and how the author has brought the character to life.

Additional ideas

This character poster discusses the characters in isolation. If you want students to also be aware of the connection between different characters you could do a follow up activity where you let students make a sociogram or family tree with the posters. This will help students to see the connection between the different characters. Who is family, who likes whom and who are archenemies?

Over to you: Do you have interesting lessons that teach students to look more critically at literature?

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid

Grammar, Listening, speaking, vocabulary, writing

Creative writing: The holidays

Astrid van Houwelingen

The holidays are always exciting moments for students. Whether it is Halloween, Christmas or some other local holiday, they are sure to get your students wriggling in their seats with anticipation. Why not make use of this time of year and ask your students to channel their excitement into some creative writing and story telling? And while we’re at it, throw in some revision too. Two birds one stone anyone?

The Basics

Level: B1-C2 (Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, Advanced)
Focus: Listening, revising vocabulary and grammar, creative writing, speaking
Time: 120 minutes divided over two lessons
Materials: Computer with audio, vocabulary list, grammar overview, writing materials

Aim

Students revise their vocabulary and grammar. This can be done either before a test or after you have set some revision homework. They also do some creative writing and storytelling.

The task

We all love to hear a good story. Writing one can be a challenge but it does provide for a great deal of language output and therefore a chance to revise what students have learned. In the slides below you will find a two-hour lesson. Students will write their own holiday related story in the first lesson (in this case a Halloween story). In the second lesson students will read their stories to each other, battling it out in a story battle. To motivate students to include their revision work the story battle works with a point system. The more vocabulary and grammar they include the more points their story has to begin with. The winner can be awarded a prize of some sort (some students work harder with chocolate in sight) or dish out some ‘eternal fame’ (or ‘lame’, as one of my students called it).

Additional ideas

Although the lesson in the slides is Halloween themed, it is easy enough to transform this into a Chrismas themed lesson. It could also be used more broadly as a lesson to be done before students are off on their spring or summer holidays. In that case you could ask your students to write about their best, most amazing, imagined holiday. You do not actually have to leave your chair to imagine where you could go or what you could do with your free time, do you?

Over to you: Do you feel like your students could write a longer piece of text like this? And how do you address the holidays in your lessons? I would love to hear your ideas in the comments.

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid

Teaching Reflections

This is us

Astrid van Houwelingen

Hi! We are Astrid and Erik from The Netherlands and we are excited about teaching teenagers English as a Second Language (ESL) and having fun while doing it. Because life is too short to have a boring day in the classroom.

Learning and teaching any second language is easiest when lessons are enjoyable and students want to come to your classroom and actively participate. However, we often find ourselves working with what we have, rather than what we would like to be doing.

Why?

There are many good reasons to trudge through your teaching days uninspired. We as teachers are overwhelmed as it is. We are scared to let go of our feeling of control in the classroom (there is probably a curtain climber or two in every class, even if you have no curtains to climb within a two-mile radius). You might have no idea how to make this bog standard grammar activity fun. And besides, we have to follow a fixed plan and do what our colleagues are doing because there is a standardised test at the end of this unit of study and we really must all do the same thing. Right?!

Whatever your reasons might be for feeling stuck in a rut and not having fun with your students, spending your days doing something you do not love is exhausting for anyone.

Let’s have some fun!

We believe that teaching can be fun and students can have a blast while also learning a thing or two about English, or French, or German, or Spanish or any other second language they are learning. With this blog we would like to inspire you and invite you to go off the beaten track and introduce a little playfulness into your classroom. Get students working on creative assignments which gets them excited while also learning a new language.

We would like to show you how you can make minor changes to your lesson plans to get students excited about reading, writing, listening, speaking and revising grammar and vocabulary. We would also like to show you how you can incorporate these skills into a larger piece of study which involves a task based approach. Some activities will be very easy to incorporate into your everyday lessons while others take a little more work to organize. It’s up to you to decide what you are comfortable with.

Start small

Whether you are new to teaching a language or you are the been-there-done-that type, we hope to give you some teaching inspiration and invite you to try out some of our ideas. Start small. Try it with your nicest kids first. Get their feedback and reflect on what went well and what needs work. Try another activity and see how that works out. Slowly, you will see your confidence growing and your students will walk into your classroom excited to find out what is next.

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid and Erik

Astrid has an MA in teaching English and Bilingual and International education from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Her passion for English was sparked when she became a bilingal student at a Dutch secondary school, attending most of her classes in English. As a student, she thoroughly enjoyed the IB English A: Language and Literature programme and set out to become a teacher in that same programme. She has been teaching the IB programme and the non-bilingual programme since 2012. Currently, she teaches ESL to Dutch students between the ages of 15 and 18 years old at a secondary school in Gorinchem, The Netherlands.

Erik has a BA in English Language & Culture from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. His passion for English and eventually getting a knack for the language came from video games and comics. The idea for teaching the language he loves came later, at university. He has been teaching ESL to Dutch students between the ages of 11 and 16 years old at a secondary school in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands.