Back to School: the ice-breaking, rule-

making, goal-setting blog post

 Getting to know you activities
General considerations: It’s all very well asking our students to share personal info
about themselves, but we can take the lead and go first ourselves. And we can try to
remember what we learn about our students and bring it up again in future lessons to
show that we’ve listened to them.

1.Write your students a letter

introducing yourself
…but include five details that aren’t true. Students read the letter individually then
discuss in pairs or groups which five details they think aren’t true. Once they’ve agreed,
they ask the teacher questions to find out the truth ‘Are you really allergic to
strawberries?’ (I’m not, I love them). ‘Have you really lived in four countries?’ (I have.)

As a follow-up, students can pick out useful structures from their teacher’s model
letter and use them to write their own letters which they then read in groups and make
guesses about each other’s lies. These can be written under the letter by classmates and
then handed in to the teacher – this way we can learn something about our students
and get an idea of their level of written English.

For five more variations on the ‘Guess the lie’ theme, click here

1. Guess the lie

Very simple. On the first day of term the teacher writes up a number of sentences about
themselves on the board, with one being a lie. The students are invited to speak in pairs
to decide which one is a lie, then the class can vote – the teacher can ask students for
justifications when they vote. Or, they can allow students to ask questions about each
of the sentences – forcing you to come up with more convincing lies to back up your
lie!

Here’s my example:

I like racing my bike in the mountains

I don’t eat meat
I got married in Ávila

One option for the teacher is to reveal the answer to each of these with pictures (mine
are at the bottom of the blog post). An advantage here is that these pictures will
probably prompt more questions on the part of the students.
Then, of course, students can repeat this exercise in pairs. Bringing in pictures
involves a bit of extra prep, but I wouldn’t rule it out: these pictures can be used for
other things.

Bear in mind you might have all sentences following a particular grammar structure,
or each sentence following a different grammar structure. Or grammar might not be
your focus.

2. Guess the lie: competitive mingle

Instead of working in pairs, students get up and move round the class, speaking to as
many students as they can. They read out their sentences and the partner guesses which
one is true (by formulating a question – ‘Do you eat meat?’). If they guess right first
time, it’s three points, second, it’s two points and third, it’s one point (if you only have
three sentences you only need to ask two questions of course – a reason for adding more
sentences). Then swap roles, make a note of points and find someone else to talk to.
You get more points by guessing right first time, but also by talking to more people –
a reason to speak. The teacher should also play, mingling with the students.

Once again, you might build in the rule that students can ask a question (or two) about
each statement before deciding which one is a lie.

3.Guess the lie: teams.

Split the class into two teams. Each student writes a couple of true sentences about
themselves and a couple of lies too (more for the game to last longer). The teams line
up facing one another. Each student from team A reads out a true sentence, except
one student who reads out a lie (assigned by the teacher or decided in the group
(without the other group seeing!) ). The other group guesses which one was lying, and if
they guess right, they get a point. Then swap teams. [credit – Alyssa Alexander]

4. Whose story is it?

Get students into groups of three. Give them a question to take turns to answer (give
them a couple of minutes to prepare) like ‘What did you do last summer?’ or ‘Tell us
about a time something embarrassing happened to you’ or similar. They then decide on
the story they like best and the two students who the story doesn’t belong to learn it.
All three students tell the story to the class. The other students guess who the story
really belongs to and can ask questions to help them work it out.

5. Back to back with a twist

‘Back to back’ is a classic video activity, whereby one student watches a video clip and
narrates the action to a student who can’t see the screen. But maybe this needs
something more. Let’s add the condition that the student narrating must tell a lie, then
the student listening watches the clip and tries to spot it. Then they swap.

Some considerations:
*Students need to know how long they are going to narrate for to be sure they fit the
lie in (30 seconds works well, but this depends on student level / the video).

*Narrating in real time is hard! To make the task more accessible for learners, try:

 Choose a video where the action changes slowly, or slow the video down.
 Allow learners to see the clip before having to narrate it.
 Rather than narrating, learners say three things about the video after they’ve
watched it: one is true.

2. Share a holiday snap: how many questions?

We can take turns to tell the class what we’ve been up to in the summer, but another
way is to share a picture and put our students in groups to come up with questions to
ask us (we can monitor and support with language). Which group can come up with the
most questions? Students then take turns to read out their questions and we answer
them.

Here’s one of mine from the summer. What could you ask?

Ideas: Where is the beach? What are you looking at? Why are you alone? Are you sad
or angry? Are you meditating? Where did you buy your hat? Did you get wet? Do you
enjoy building sandcastles? How hot was it? Etc.
Students can do the same by showing a photo on their phones if they are allowed to,
or uploading a photo to a shared space (drive, padlet) with the teacher either
projecting them on the board or printing them out. We can also display the photos
round the room with students moving around and writing questions under them.
Students then get their photos back and read out their answers. (If it’s a big class, we
can do this in groups).

PS: Although it might count as one of the not-to-be-mentioned PARSNIPS and I

certainly do respect all positions on the issue, my wife turned the photo into what I
thought was quite an amusing meme.

3. Speed dating

Students sit in two (socially distanced) lines facing each other, speak to their partner for
(eg.) two minutes and then one one row of students stands up and moves one space
along for a new partner. What do they talk about? You can prescribe questions of the
‘Getting to know you’ / ‘Tell me about summer’ kind, or you can spend a few minutes
brainstorming questions with the students beforehand: with ownership comes
motivation. Students can feed back afterwards what they learned about their peers or
even do a piece of writing which can include graphs.

 Rules and expectations

Students like to know where they stand and appreciate teachers who are consistent.
To that end, outlining your expectations at the start of the year makes sense. ‘The
why’ is important with students, so it makes sense to give a compelling reason for any
rule in place. As we outlined above, giving students ownership can be beneficial,
though guidance is required on our part when it comes to student-created rules. Let’s
look at a couple of different ways of involving our students in the process of drawing up
and explaining rules.

1.Provide the rules and have the students suggest why they’re necessary

Eg. Rule – Don’t interrupt the teacher or a fellow student when they’re explaining
something
Possible reasons – If someone else is talking, people can’t hear what’s being said and
won’t understand or know what to do. We want other people to listen to us, so we do
the same.

2. Give students a list of ‘Class outcomes’ – some positive, some negative. With the
students we categorise them giving reasons and then add to them. Then we draw
up rules to ensure we meet the desired outcomes and avoid the negative ones.

Example outcomes

1. We feel small because someone has laughed at us or insulted us

2. Everyone gets a chance to express their opinion
3. There’s not enough time to practice English in the classroom
4. We all feel safe and included
5. Our English doesn’t improve much this year

Possible rules that follow

1. Talk to your classmates as you’d like them to talk to you: help each other with
mistakes as they are part of learning.
2. Don’t interrupt each other and ask others what they think
3. Be on time and have your material out and be ready to go in 30 seconds! Change
tasks quickly to avoid wasting time
4. Tell someone if you’ve got a problem. If you see someone excluded, include
them.
5. Try your hardest at all times, look for ways to improve, learn from your
mistakes

A note on the expectations: refer back to them regularly, with praising students who
follow them just as important as pulling up students who don’t.

 Course content and goals

Having a destination and a plan to get there is a big part of learning. Telling students
some of the things they’ll be able to do at the end of the year or a certificate they can
gain at the end of the year (and why it’s useful) can be a big source of motivation.

Students are also interested in how they are going to be assessed, how their grades are
going to be broken down. Components and weightings can vary widely depending on
your context, but most of the ongoing evaluation in the schools I have worked in largely
teaching teens has centred around areas such as:

Effort and participation in class

Written homework assignments
Speaking presentations
Group projects
Unit achievement tests
End of term achievement tests
Proficiency tests (four skills)
I think it’s important to include both achievement tests (specific content covered) and
proficiency tests (overall language level, think CEFR). If you only include the former
you can work hard on class content but not get a realistic picture of your true level, but
if it’s only the latter then students with a higher overall level but a lazy outlook can get
top marks and we want everyone working hard to improve!

Later on of course each component part (eg, ‘Writing assignments’ or ‘Effort and
participation’) will need success criteria outlined so students know what they’re
aiming for, so that grades are transparent and, of course, so they know how to
improve.

What about goals? We can set goals for the year and lesson objectives, but do the
students have any learning goals they’d like to set? These could be an area of English
they want to feel more confident in, a qualification they want to gain or perhaps
something that went poorly last year they want to improve. The best goals are SMART
– specific, measurable, relevant and time-based. And of course, if we provide
opportunities to ‘check in’ with students on goals, they’re more likely to be taken
seriously.

raquel_teaching.ideas

⁣🤫𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬: prepara un mensaje secreto de bienvenida que tengan que

descifrar al llegar a clase (ejemplo: "This school year is going to be awesome"). Para
averiguar cada letra tienen que mirar la imagen correspondiente y escribir la inicial.
⁣
⁣⛱𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫: los alumnos hablarán o escribirán sobre sus vacaciones
de verano. También se puede hacer el típico 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐞.
⁣
⁣🔢𝐍𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞: cada niño escribe varios números y los demás tienen que
formular preguntas para adivinar qué significado tienen en la vida de ese compañero
(edad de su hermano, cumpleaños, nota más alta que ha sacado en un examen,
número de hermanos...).
⁣
⁣🎶𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: la idea de crear una lista de reproducción conjunta en Spotify
me la dieron @bertagei y @missmorality_ . Sé que a mis niños les va a gustar porque
les encantaba cuando les daba la recompensa de Class Dojo de ser DJ por un día.
⁣
⁣👩🏫𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫?: esta actividad es ideal para aquellos
que continuen con los mismos alumnos que el curso anterior. Los niños deben hacer
afirmaciones sobre el profesor (you are 30 years old, you love dancing...) y el profesor
debe confirmar o desmentir dichas afirmaciones.
Hoy no traigo nada del otro mundo pero es que es tan importante establecer un plan
de gestión de aula los primeros días que creo que merecía un mini post.
⁣A mí me gusta seguir las cinco normas de 𝐖𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐖𝐁𝐓) , [Follow
directions quickly, raise your hand for permission to speak, raise your hand for
permission to leave your seat, make smart choices and keep your teacher happy. Cada
una tiene un gesto concreto] pero el primer día de clase también establecemos alguna
otra "class rule" conjuntamente y con ellas creamos nuestro "class contract" que,
como todo contrato, debe estar firmado por todas las partes. 🖋 También pueden
crear ellos mismos los pósters con las normas para decorar la clase.

⁣Además, hay que dejar muy claro desde el principio cuáles son las rutinas y
procedimientos que seguiremos: qué hacemos al entrar en clase, cómo hacemos la fila,
cómo trabajamos en grupo, cuándo podemos ir al baño, dónde guardamos el material,
quiénes son los encargados, qué hago cuando termino mi tarea, etc. Seating, group
work, arrival, dismissal, finishing work early…

Hoy os traigo la segunda parte del #backtoschool. Esta vez trata sobre la gestión de
aula, la cual considero muy importante especialmente estos primeros días de clase.
Para ello he hecho esta pequeña lista con las cosas que más útiles me están resultando
por ahora.⁣

✅ CLASS RULES (Whole Brain Teaching): son solo 5 reglas pero es muy importante
cumplirlas. Utilizo los carteles de Iris @classclassyesyes , aunque también me he
descargado unos muy guays de @teachercrina con la temática de superhéroes.⁣

✅ COVID RULES: ver post de mis pósters con las normas especiales para este curso. ⁣

✅ CLASS JOBS: asignar tareas especiales a diferentes alumnos e ir rotando. Podéis

encontrar este recurso en mi Gumroad y TPT (link en mi perfil).⁣

✅ CALL AND RESPONSE: este curso voy a utilizar el de "Class Class! Yes yes!" además
de los específicos del COVID que nos enseñó Sara @fun.teach .⁣

✅ CLASSROOM SCREEN: es una web que no necesita registro y es muy útil para la
gestión de aula. Hice un post sobre ello hace un año.⁣

✅ GO NOODLE: web para hacer brain breaks bailando y cantando. Si no la conoces

regístrate ya mismo. ¡A los niños les encanta!⁣

✅ CLASS DOJO: supongo que a estas alturas todos conocéis Class Dojo. Yo siempre
establezco los puntos con los alumnos y después les enseño un póster con las
recompensas (tenéis este póster gratuito en mi Gumroad y TPT. Link en mi perfil).
Después del #backtoschoolactivities y #classroommanagement vengo con algunas
apps y webs que me resultan muy útiles en el día a día y que pienso usar este curso
entre muchas otras.⁣

🔸️REMIND: app que usan en mi cole para comunicarse con las familias. Lo llaman "el
Whats App de padres". A ver qué tal funciona.⁣

🔸️GOOGLE CLASSROOM: puede venirnos muy bien este año para la entrega de tareas
(ya que en mi cole al menos serán siempre online) y en caso de confinamiento. 😨⁣

🔸️GOOGLE SLIDES: para hacer presentaciones e incluso materiales. ¡Y también para

crear mi Bitmoji Classroom!⁣

🔸️BLOGGER: este curso el blog de clase lo haré con Blogger.⁣

🔸️CLASS DOJO: sistema de puntos.⁣

🔸️GENIALLY: para hacer presentaciones, juegos e imágenes interactivas que son una
pasada.⁣

🔸️CANVA: para crear materiales. Si es posible, pondré en práctica con mis alumnos
algunas de las ideas que publiqué en otro post ("Ideas para usar Canva en clase").⁣

🔸️BITMOJI: no pueden faltar en mis presentaciones y materiales. Me gusta

personalizarlo todo un poquito 😃.⁣

🔸️LIVE WORKSHEETS: ¡¡¡worksheets que se corrigen solas!!! Por supuesto que lo

seguiré usando.⁣

🔸️PLICKERS, KAHOOT, QUIZIZZ, QUIZLET...: para repasar contenidos jugando.

alohomora_project

SNOWBALL FIGHT: Entrega un post-it o trozo de papel a cada alumno y pídeles que
escriban en él 5 datos curiosos sobre ellos (cumpleaños, deporte favorito, comida
favorita, estilo de música, aficiones, número de hermanos). Después lo arrugan y lo
tiran en cualquier dirección. A continuación, cada uno recoge un papel del suelo y lo
lee. El objetivo será adivinar a quién corresponde cada papel según los datos escritos
en él.
ACROSTIC GAME: Los alumnos escriben su nombre en vertical junto con un adjetivo o
nombre que empiece por esa letra y que les defina o esté relacionada con él. Primero
lo hago conmigo misma. Los alumnos explican por qué han elegido esas palabras.
2 TRUTHS AND A LIE: Escribo 3 frases en la pizarra, 2 verdaderas y 1 falsa. Dejo que los
SS me pregunten y justifico la razón por la que creen que son verdaderas o falsas. A
continuación, será su turno: escribirán las frases y entre todos adivinarán la falsa.
e.g. I’ve worked as an English teacher since 2018.
I studied in the University of Hull.

I have visited 20 different countries.

5 POINTED STAR: Escribo 5 datos curiosos sobre mí en cada una de las puntas de la
estrella (2018, Hull, Hatera, Joaquín, 28). Los alumnos me hacen preguntas para
adivinar qué significan esos datos. Una vez que lo hagan, puedo explicarlos para que
me conozcan mejor. Los SS hacen sus propias estrellas.