Summer is usually a quieter period - this is the best time for catching up on various teaching-related stuffs. The 3 'R's: reading, reorganisation (of materials), and reflections.
Some of the things I've learnt over the past year (in no particular order):
- garnering moments of plenary learning through spontaneous teaching
- using shapes and colours to clarify language for YLs - bypassing metalanguage
- further understanding of how every lesson stage builds up progressively towards the main aim
- criteria for defining a lesson's main aim - how it is expected at DELTA level
- differentiating between teaching and testing receptive skills
- identifying and implementing appropriate scaffolding stages - not to make some students cry again
- ideas for teaching IELTS in a communicative approach
- a new perspective of the place of grammar in language learning
- personalising lesson or practice contexts - which I personally call 'Dogme-Lite'
- using self-evaluation of abilities as a means of needs analysis - teaching Business English (not exclusively)
Some experiments I've tried out but yet to be backed by further research:
- developing my own procedure of teaching IELTS Academic Reading (I call it a '20-minute formula') - based on how I would approach it and with further input from my colleague who mentored me on this
- psychological perception of timing - training IELTS Speaking Part 2
- lessons shaped in the weak TBL and Dogme (both full and partial) approaches
- using videos in the classroom - Action Research carried forward for 2020-21
Online teaching has got to be the number-one learning for me in the past school year. I'd lived through the SARS pandemic in 2003 and certainly didn't expect the current SARS-II episode to be this serious. Though I suspect I still haven't perfected my tea-making skills - been making cuppas during lockdown (practice makes perfect maybe?) until I ran out of PG Tips teabags after a week or two. Those who appreciate PG Tips will surely feel the emotional pain. Well, at least they sell teabags in supermarkets in Italy.
Finally, I'm thankful to my supportive colleagues - sharing ideas, giving me pointers, laughing with my (not so funny) jokes. Let's call it partially British humour, shall we? What an unforgettable journey through uncharted waters - with water mines which look disturbingly like coronaviruses!