New year 2017

Ending the old Year and Beginning  a New one 

Yesterday night I was online and I was watching the fabulous webinar presented by  Shelly Terrell: I am a regular viewer of her Friday webinars and I would suggest watching them as they are uploaded on Youtube. She made a great presentation and provided a lot of ideas for the coming new year and our teaching activities.

We have reached the end of the old Year and in a few hours, we will be starting a new one.
As educators, we are required to work on our goals and on the goals of our learners. The presentation which she made was a good one: reminding us that the learners need to be supported and helped to develop their learning.
Here is the slide which she shared with us: plenty of tips which will help me in the new year.

Goal Setting with Learners from Shelly Sanchez Terrell


Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. (Kofi Annan) 

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_education.html

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. Kofi Annan
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_education.html

When I think about the old year I must admit that I am proud of myself as I have strongly believed in what I was doing and in spite of the many difficulties  I have tried to be a supportive teacher. I have faced difficulties due to the social conditions of many teenagers I have taught and who are not willing to learn, which is a pity.

I have now moved to a new school and I am working on my self-development and on the students' language skills. I have begun a new life and in spite of the low levels of some of my students I am trying to be a teacher who cares.

Working in today's schools is an adventure: every year we meet new students and we need to care as each student is different from the others. Sometimes it is hard and when you finish your day at school you need to relax as we teach in old schools-  we do need new learning environments which can support us while working on projects and more interesting activities.
The Internet can help us but we need to rely on the students' smartphones sometimes, the connection can be very poor at school.

Thinking about  a different Way of Working

Today we can rely on new technologies for enhancing learning and language teaching: therefore I  will  try to work on new approaches and work on the  Flipped Classroom  Model.

I will guide my students to work from home and watch some videos or read some documents and we will later discuss the issue in class.


Professional Development on Line in January

As a teacher of English I will also do some  CPD  activities online like  EVO 2017  starting in  January: http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/113559169/Call_for_Participation_2017

Last year it was an engaging experience for me as I could rely on the support of the best tutors who worked online and for free.

I will enroll in the next days- I will work on the listening skills while teaching  English and on new technologies. I am happy I did four courses last year as some are not available this year.

I wish every Italian teacher could do one of the courses in  EVO (Electronic Village Online) as some of the best educators are sharing their ideas and providing support and feedback.



Happy New Year!!

Integrating Newly Arrived Migrant Students in Schools Week 1-2

The third  MOOC bout educators and  newly arrived students began in November on  28th  November and it is going to end by 18th December.
As usual, it has been an interesting MOOC with lots of ideas and interesting  resources which have been shared by the tutors.
This MOOC was a sort of follow-up as we had already done the previous ones but it was also interesting as we were asked to think about what we would do in order to face the newly arrived students in our schools.
It was more about the refugees and how to deal with them at school.  Hopefully,. I have not had to face this problem with my students in class but I know that in some areas of Italy  schools have children and young students who have just arrived and need to forget their past life and the atrocities they left behind.  Most of  my students who are not Italian  were born abroad but they  have been studying in Italy for some years.  I think that with refugees schools need to act and do their best but a good team of  educators and  also financial help is needed.  Living in a land where you do not speak the language is  a stressful situation, sometimes  other  people are not ready to help you. In addition, you want to forget and need to start a new life. Families and children need to enter the new society but it is hard.
I have devised a short  Action Plan  as a final task- I am asked to  present it and to share it and some peers will have to provide feedback.  I will also have to provide feedback to two more teachers in the Mooc.

Here is my learning diary with the final task:

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The resources which we were given   underlined the importance of welcoming the new students and presented  the activities which can help  them socialize.  P.E. activities and  language input were important to make the  young learners start a new living.

I would like to underline that although we have  a lot of economic problems in our region- EMILIA-ROMAGNA  we have been  working with a lot of immigrants  and there was  special conference in December.
Here is the link to the materials which have been shared by educators:

  http://istruzioneer.it/2016/12/07/materiali-15-novembre-giornate-di-studio-integrazioni/


Twitter has provided interesting documents and more  ideas about the best ways we can face  our students and their needs:

It is important to remember that every child ,  every teenager, every man  has a right to education. We do need to support them and  think about how we can enhance their living and studying in the new land.