Adjectives, adverts and a fresh look at Project Based Learning

Welcome to the TEFL Development Hub Coffee Break, this is not a webinar! It’s a space to meet, to share and to develop, it’s a bit like a staffroom vibe, sitting around between classes, round the photocopier… cup of tea in hand! Exclusively for Hub members.

It’s done through a Facebook room which can accommodate up to 50 people for unlimited time and is super easy to join. It does however have the drawbacks of no written chat (though as Lucy suggested during the first coffee break, we can comment on the ‘Room open’ thread on the mainpage) and no breakout rooms. It worked pretty well and of course, if you have suggestions about alternative ways of doing things, please do share them with Simon or T or just leave a comment on the Hub.

We started off by just asking how we are. A proper TEFLy start! “Bored”, “tired”, “grateful”, “excited”, “busy”, “webinared-out”, “proud”, “exhausted”… were some of the replies. We are all looking forward to a break.

  • Proud of the work we have done as teachers, schools and as the TEFL community when so many others have struggled. We should all be proud of our achievements this year as we’ve moved through the challenges. For some the shift from a paper-based teacher to an online teacher has been nothing more than miraculous.
  • Grateful for the upcoming holidays and not needing to plan anything, for having a job to do and to earn a living.
  • Bored of the restrictions.

We talked about our approaches to the last classes of the year…

  • the “party class” with our Very Young and Young Learners having a chance to sing, dance and play party games, albeit this year with appropriate social distance. There was again an interesting discussion about whether or not all activities need to have a language focus and possible parental objections to “wasting” time.
  • the need to connect with our students, to show our human side by sharing a bonding moment of fun. Now more than ever fun is important. A seasonal pandemic joke was shared:

Why couldn’t Mary and Joseph join the video-conference?

Because there wasn’t any Zoom in the Inn.

  • Word play like that can work for children too!
  • to recognize the huge efforts our students have made coming to class and continuing to work hard. We talked about personalizing the praise, “Jorge, thank you for always being happy!”
  • to acknowledge that this year things are not the same as usual, to share something of ourselves; photos of family far away… a bittersweet Christmas.
  • the holiday advert classes; several were mentioned. Supervalu, John Lewis and the World War I truce advert all received honourable mentions as did the All at C blog with really good, ready-to-go lessons. The “spikey hedgehog” can be a wonderful writing activity for teens and adults as they imagine what the hedgehogs are thinking.

Thoughts then turned to the coming year with people sharing a gamut of feelings from positive to fearful; positive about new possibilities and fearful of the sustainability of the current situation and that things could get worse again.

  • will we and our students be able to keep the enthusiasm going? Are the darker months of January and February going to be even tougher? Will there be subsequent waves? March 2020 was tough, of course, but it was spring
  • short-term goals to work towards which can maintain enthusiasm for us all! Learning a language is a long process, not like scoring a goal or winning a football match. Are people now into shorter-term thinking in general? We need to create a sense of achievement for ourselves and for our students.
  • Project based classes could become really helpful; creating a class/school magazine or maybe a new lockdown club. One wonderful example was shared by a teacher working in a pretty rural community. The students were complaining that there was nothing to do, they did small group projects to create a pandemic club, the local town hall took it on and are turning one of the clubs into a reality – it’s starting in January! Huge congratulations to all those involved. We can and do make a difference!
  • and what of New Year’s Resolutions? Is “resolution” the wrong word? Is it too big, too easy to fail, too unrealistic? Is it better to have short term objectives, to keep nudging things along? Maybe we should make “new day resolutions” or “new class resolutions”.

And with that our time together came to a close. The coffee break was over. Seasonal salutations and best wishes for a better new year were exchanged.

A few people stayed for the afterparty… we reflected on several of the discussion points and were particularly happy to note that several meaningful connections were made; some possible online work, an Oceania connection as well as all the connections made between us all.

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