Hello, Goodbye!

March, 2011. My T1 performing "Hello, Goodbye" by the Beatles, one of the songs from Imagine 1. Learning English is always better with The Beatles, no matter the age!

Unforgettable

 I have a confession to make here: T6 is basically my favorite stage at Red Balloon.

 Not only because their knowledge lets me explore the language deep and beyond, but also because it's my last chance of being around these great kids. And believe me, they're ALL great! Each one with their own dreams, goals and little quirks that make them so special and unique.

 This cute note was left in my tool box a few weeks ago by my T6 student, Verônica. Little does she know that as life follows its course she probably WILL forget me, but hopefully some of the things I taught her will linger on, making me not unforgettable, but imortal in her heart...

Sad P.S.: Something odd happened to my blog and all my old pictures disappeared. And to make matters worse, I changed my computer and don't have the pictures anymore!!!

T4 Be a Chef

What is more fun than learning English? EASY! Learning English AND cooking yummy Sundaes! With teacher Tati's little twist, of course!! Crumbled cookies, caramelized bananas and hot caramel fudge. Yes, please!!

Sad P.S.: Something odd happened to my blog and all my old pictures disappeared. And to make matters worse, I changed my computer and don't have the pictures anymore!!!

Think Outside the Box

 I've never been the kind of person who has both feet on the ground, at least not at the same time. I'm always looking for new ways of living life, always in search of new exciting ideas to put into practice (don't ask me where I find the time!).
 And I try to transfer this "think outside the box" concept to my teaching life as often as possible. I just can't seem to be able to look at activities and not change them in some way. Of course it would be impossible to change or even "touch up" every single thing in a class and some are just perfect the way they are, but every once in a while it's good to make students move during a grammar exercise or have them find a "surprise activity" under their seats.
 That's why I was happy when teacher Drica came to me for help when preparing one of her classes. It was a T4 class I had taught before and for which I had created and hidden "fake airplane tickets" under students' desks. The aim was to create a dialogue between students so they could practice phrasal verbs related to travelling. I told my students they had won a trip somewhere and they should discuss their travel plans with the person next to them, using the language written on the board. The activity was a hit and students were very happy to take their tickets home with them!

My very own ticket to New York!!

Link to make fake airplane tickets here. Enjoy your trip!

T1 and their surprises

 Yay, it's break time!

 For most students this "magical sentence" means it's time to run out the door and into the Red's Lounge, find a spot to crash (yeah, teens don't sit, they crash!) and chat, play games and all things fun! 15 minutes to relax and socialize.

 Of corse my T1 students love to grab one of the lounge games and play until the bell rings again, but sometimes they have a different activity in mind: kick me out of the class, close the door and prepare me the sweetest surprises! And when they (finally!) let me in again, this is what I find:

Hearts! Can't ever get tired of hearts!  

Can I die now?

Some of my T1 students

 Need I say more? It's THEIR break, but I always end up having the most fun! Yay, break!!

Damn you, Past Participle!!

 Teaching Past Participle is usually a challenge, for teachers AND students. There's no way around the memorizing struggle and even if you do study, you're bound to forget some of the verbs when you need them the most.
 To help my T3 students print those mean little verbs in their heads, I created a fun game they all enjoyed playing. It goes as follows:
 Students were "tied" leg to leg in pairs. One student held a pencil; the other, an eraser. For each pair, I taped a paper on the wall with a list of verbs in the present and a blank column to be filled with the past participle.
 When the music was playing, they had to write down as many of the past participle verbs they could remember. Whenever it stopped, they had to stop writing, run around the class, erase ONE of the other pairs verbs and take a peak at what they had written so they could copy on their paper. The music only stopped for a few seconds and when it was playing again they had to run back to their papers and start writing. The game was over when I turned off the lights.
 The pair with the highest number of accurate answers won the game. Although there will never be a miracle technique to memorize past participle verbs, this game sure helped them practise and was tons of fun!

Cambridge Teaching Knowledge Test

 In June this year (or was it May? Thank you, good memory!) some of the teachers took the Cambridge TKT pretest at Red Balloon. Although it wasn't the "real" test, I was very happy to learn that I got the highest mark in the class, 90% and 56 correct answers out of 60 questions!!! Am I a good student or what? Mom would be so proud!

My TKT Results

Me taking the TKT

T4 Forever

 In my 7 years as a Red Balloon teacher I think I can safely say that I have received hundreds of letters, notes hidden in my box, cute drawings on the board and sentences scattered virtually everywhere I can remember. I even got a little note written on my shoe once!

 I couldn't find many to post here (I'll be posting more as I find them), but each little word I get is special to me!

One of my T4 notes (click to enlarge)

Isn't this teaching life great?

Vocabulary Wall

  A couple years ago, in order to help my T4 students remember the learned vocabulary, I created a "Vocabulary Wall". The idea was that with each unit, students would add the new set of lexis and their meanings to the wall, where they could refer to whenever they had to use the language.
  It worked, so I've been using this technique ever since!

Last Year's Wall - a compilation of words

One of the word groups

Spelling Bee

My T1 student (in the middle) with his first "Perfect" on Spelling Bee! The whole family got Perfect, isn't that great?!!

 About a month ago I was called in the principal's office (yikes!) about an upset mom. There was a misunderstanding about something I said to her about her daughter during the first PTM and I was really shocked to know that what I said came out all wrong to her. Anyway, I met her by chance a few days later and was glad to clear things up.
 And to my wonderful surprise, during the last PTM she said to me, and I quote: "Eu queria te agradecer de coração por tudo o que você tem feito pela minha filha e por todo carinho. Ela te adora e ficou claro que você também sente o mesmo. Ela não quis mudar de sala de jeito nenhum por sua causa e eu estou muito feliz por te-la deixado ficar."
 Needless to say I went to heaven and back at that moment, relieved and with a feeling of job done!

Role Play

 It is not enough merely to provide students with opportunities to speak English, as teachers we need to encourage students to speak in a variety of different situations, and hence help them to speak with confidence.

 Role Playing is a fun way to lighten up the mood and ‘shake things up’ a bit. The effective use of role-plays can add variety to the kinds of activities students are asked to perform. It encourages thinking and creativity; lets students develop and practice new language and behavioural skills in a relatively safe setting, and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for real learning to occur.

 These are my T1 students using those techniques to practise the Present Continuous. They created and wrote their own scripts, reherased and each had the chance to play the "interviewer". Fun, fun, fun!

Happy Mother's Day

 Some of my classes and their Mother's Day Gift!

Practice makes perfect

Some of my Courses and Workshop Certificates

 Over the years I have taken a number of training courses, workshops and attended numerous lectures which added to my professional skills.
 Some of the courses and workshops I attended: Grammar in Action; Songs in Class; Pronunciation for Children; Writing Skills; English Teaching Games; Listening Skills; Speaking English in Real Life; Perfect Pronunciation; In Services from 2005 to 2011; Mega Meetings from 2005 to 2010 (I wasn't able to attend 2011 Mega Meeting as my son was hospitalized).

My Resume

Click to enlarge