Grouping your class

When I started teaching this year, I also started to use grouping techniques because they have plenty of advantages for students' performance:

• They allow interaction which is one of the most important factors in an EFL classroom.
• Students can negotiate for meaning.
• It may be a meaningful activity if the teacher bases the technique on their interests.
• It creates a positive atmosphere and the student doesn't feel vulnerable or threatened.
• It encourgares team work.
• And my favorite: It develops Multiple Intelligences since students must make use of their abilties to accomplish a task.

Some of the techniques I have used are:

1. Animals sound: Hand in several cardboard-made animals to students and make them find their peers by making the sound of the animal :)

2. Color cards: Hand in cardboard cards of different colors. Ask your students stand up and mingle to find their group.

3. A deck of Cards: Hand them in and have students to find either numbers or the symbols (eg. cloves, diamonds, etc.)

4. Numbers: This is simpler. Just give students a number and have them group with the same numbers.

5. Birth: Group students according to their birth month. Have them stand up and ask around until they find one another. 

6. Zodiac sign: Ask them to find people from the same zodiac sign.

7. Puzzles: Make 6-piece puzzles and hand them in to your students. Have them mingle in order to find the complete puzzle.

8. Sayings and Expressions: Split your expression into three or four parts. Hand them in. Let them find the expression around.

These techniques are not only useful but fun also which makes the classroom a better place to work in. Some of the activities you can implement when grouping are:

- Discussions, debates, simulations, role-plays, news forecast, creation of a story, fashion show, talk show, dramatization, jigsaws, writing assignments, projects, detecting differences from pictures, picture and/or sentence sequence... AND SO MANY MORE.

IT IS IMPORTANT WHEN GROUPING TO INTRODUCE, MODEL, EXPLAIN, ASSIGN ROLES, CHECK FOR CLARIFICATION, AND MONITOR THE TASK. IT WILL BE A SUCCESS FOR SURE :)

See you teachers!

Were you, teacher, aware?

And some people say that to be a TEACHER is easy.... OMG!!!!
Here is a list of some of the tons of things we have to include when teaching; and please, let's not forget that one class is only 45 minutes....
WE ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!


And my tip of the day: these are word clouds. You can use them to motivate your students. Just click on the picture and you will be linked to the page and you will be able to see this one a lot bigger ;).


See you teachers!