'No lesson plan survives contact with the class'. Prep and adaptivity are key.
My motto: 'You'll learn.' Italian teacher of humanities in Tuscany
Nov 9 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A small but hopefully useful addition to Turn&Talk. As of late, I've been using T&T extensively, but the idea of an imbalance between the talker and the listener, where the latter is less involved and may get distracted, has been bugging me. I might have found a workaround. A 🧵
It's actually quite simple -so simple that maybe I'm reinventing the wheel. I now ask the listener to take notes of what the talker says. All they have to do is to jot down the key words or phrases that summarize what the talker is saying in a bullet list. 1/n
Oct 17 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Turn&Talk, a defense. A few days ago @adamboxer1 claimed that T&T isn't as effective as we usually assume. His criticism stuck with me, although I replied with a sort of improvised defense. I've been focusing on my T&T in these days and I came up with these thoughts. A 🧵 1/n
Some of his remarks seemed sensible to me: T&T can really lead to distraction or sloppy work, as students don't always make a real effort or get away with muttering a few brief sentences and that's it. I wondered if I should find other ways to let them practice oracy 2/n
Oct 12 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
My personal way to cold calling, a short 🧵. I started using CC even before reading TLAC. Now I use it a bit less, and differently. In a more structured way, you could say. 1/n
In general, I use CC for answers too long to fit on a miniboard. But still, once you pick someone to answer (after a pause, of course), attention fades. Some students might even just hope they won't be called, in spite of your efforts to take everyone in. How to solve that? 2/n
