TEA-family consists of people who spent together fabulous weeks in Boone, NC and Appalachian State University in autumn 2011 taking part in Teaching Excellence and Achievement progam (TEA).
Google celebrated with all of the Estonians the 94th anniversary of our small state.
The independence was declared on 24th of February 1918, but the real independence was won only after being at war for 2 years and the Tartu Peace Treaty was signed between Russia and Estonia on Feb2 in 1920.
The Estonian television channel always broadcasts the speech of the President as well as the formal reception that everybody in Estonia calls: "the Parade of the Penguins".So, everybody in Estonia spends about two or more hours in the evening being envious and criticizing the clothes of the ladies and gentlemen having been invited to the reception.
And there will be another week when we can read about it all in the local magazines and newspapers.
However, we are happy and wish:
Happy Birthday Estonia!
Let's hope there won't be any invasion until the end of the world...
Although we have -25 to -35 degrees Celcius temperatures in Estonia... I LOVE WINTER!
I love the fire in the stove.
The sound the wood makes when it burns.
The Snow covering everything.
The sound of snow below your feet when it's really cold.
I love winter!
I've been thinking that one of the ways I've learned languages is through music.
So I'm compiling a page where people could listen to songs making use of conditionals types 0-3.
Check for yourself and suggest other songs!
I have been really busy at school and new chores and obligations pile up continuously.
I've been working on the syllabus of American Literature course (which actually focuses on the literature of the USA). The title of the course is deliberately broad :)
The course itself consists only of 35 lessons, so you can imagine, I cannot really introduce the whole mountain of good literature that has sprouted from the United States which is a great pity.
I would really like somebody to comment on what I've put together this far and maybe help me make this course a bit better for next year. It's a work in progress. We have had about a third of the lessons thus far and I've only been able to cover SO LITTLE. I feel overwhelmed. They do have to read one book and make a presentation - so that will be about 3-4 lessons as well.
I'm so proud that we managed to pull off another great event - it was the 20th time our school celebrated Christmas with a show and 4th time when we had the Christmas Show on the theatre stage of our town!
I think the show is improving with every year and it's quite a masterpiece already.
This year the topic was nations and nationalities or UNITY IN DIVERSITY.
Every class was given a country - it was like lottery.
Then they had to brainstorm, investigate and write a script. So all the short plays or shows were original pieces of work by the students. All in all, 15 classes of students participated (9th-12th grade) - which is about 450 students in all. Other classes helped to organise, host and record the show.
To me it seems that this show really helps to create friendships and change the relationships within the classes as well as show how wonderful their other schoolmates are. A lot of alumni came to see the show as well as many parents. I'm so happy that we managed to have another wonderful show and just to give you another glimpse I'll post another video from last year featuring our national hero whom we also talked about in Boone - KALEVIPOEG. Some sentences in that clip are in Estonian but all in all you'll get the point I hope.
AND I'd like to wish you all wonderful holidays, Merry Christmas!!
Here's just a sample of what the students do in our school every year.
In this video there is a class to whom I teach British-American literature. They were 10B last year.
It's been hectic time at school recently because the Christmas holiday is approaching and everything needs to be done before it begins...
I attended a course by Tiger Leap Foundation about formative assessment (rubrics and portfolios etc) and I can say that I got some really good ideas and links from there. But I'll talk about that sometime soon.
Today, I actually wanted to say a few words about the Literature Circles. You probably remember the lesson we had not really prepared for in Boone and therefore couldn't try out how it would work. At that time we were supposed to learn about the Literature Circles...
Well, I did try it now.
One of the lesson plans I submitted to IREX was the one about "My Papa's Waltz" - a literature lesson. We read the poem, we listened to an interpretation (a song) by a young guy on Youtube and then I gave them all numbers from 1-5 (they asked whether these are the grades for that lesson - haha!). All 1's, 2's etc. had to form a group together - so I got about 6 groups. They had to start distributing roles and working on the poem together and the homework was to work on their role. Literary circle roles - I gave them this page to help them decide their roles and remember what they had to do.
DISCUSSION LEADERS working hard
Next lesson: I gave the orginal groups some time to work together (about 5-7 min) and then grouped them according to their roles (illustrator, messenger etc.).
These are the CONNECTORS
They had once again about 7-10 minutes to decide on what they are going to talk about (with the help of some discussion questions).
The WORD WIZARDS
The work of the illustrators was OK for the first try I guess - you can see it here. At least we had something to discuss.
It seemed that we did have more fun doing that than any lecture could have provided. They are used to me lecturing about literature. Now they had to be involved. I'll have to check how much they know afterwards but it still felt good to do something new.
The students are NOT that different from the US students - so it can be done! They might need a bit more training as to group work and sharing responsibilities and so on but IT CAN BE DONE.
The timing in my lesson plan was seriously OFF - I expected it to be ready in 2x45 minutes but it will take me twice as long with my students.
Next time I'm going to talk about the Christmas Show that we are preparing for. Fun and stressful time...
So, I had this idea at some point in the US or maybe even before but in Boone, NC I had more time to think (in Estonia I only have to work).
Well, the idea was to have the students think about what they would like to learn and then they should search for a "how-to" video on the topic, post it on wiki and try to do the same thing and introduce it in class.
I chose my technology class as guinea-pigs for this "great" idea.
Of course, I didn't realise how much fun has been made of all the absolutely stupid how-to videos on the web...
But some of the people from that class pointed it out to me.
Viral Video FILM School
MAKES FUN OF THE HOW-TO VIDEOS
Don't be afraid of the girl in apron - it's not that bad :)
This guy for example makes fun of the how-to stuff
When you watch it - start at about 2:58
(and thanks, Pablo, for showing him to me in Boone - he's hilarious)
You might start to think that this is a really stupid idea to use how-to videos in your English class BUT actually we did have a lot of fun and they had to listen to the video and watch it carefully in order to come up with anything.
In addition to these (a box, a crane, a ninja star weapon made of paper [English reading text], pencil crossbow and a Noah's Arc) there was a guy who learned to draw Bart Simpson, a girl who learned to make Lady Gaga hairdo to her little sister, one boy who learned how to tie his tie properly and a guy who gave me a rose made out of a napkin (a useful thing if you are out on a date with no money). All in all, I enjoyed it.
And with a more motivated class the procedure might have been:
Think about what you would like to know about, what would you like to learn how to make (can be food, hairdo, origami, card trick - anything you are interested in) - I showed them the crocheted flower and a brochure made of A4 paper that I had learned to make.
Find a how-to video that will teach it to you.
Post the video to a wiki (Mahara :D or whatever common web-environment that you could be using)
Describe your reasons why you want to learn how to do this thing
Learn how to do it
Show the results (either pictures, videos or real thing in classroom) to the classmates
Tell them if it's difficult and how you feel now that you can do it.
The list is my ideal lesson. At least I took some small steps forward and tried something like that for a change. It helps if you have a topic of HOBBIES or FREE-TIME activities at the same time - so you wouldn't feel that you're wasting precious language lesson time :)
Today's weather was horrible - wet and windy and gray - but it didn't really bother the people of Estonia. As you've probably noticed, we are used to bad weather and darkness and hardship.
Everybody gathered on the town hall square of Tartu today to light the first candles and celebrate the fact that there is just one month till Christmas and also to the time when the days are becoming longer again.
Tartu Town Hall Square
The statue of Kissing Students on the background
I had to go to the Town Hall Square because my kid sings in a children's choir and all the choirs of different schools in Tartu gathered together to celebrate this event by singing several Christmas songs.
Pretending it doesn't RAIN!
Ah, yes. And the things that appear to be like outside blinds of the windows of the Town Hall - they are like a Christmas Calendar - they are going to be "opened" each day to reveal a story by Christmas time.
Mayor of Tartu
Town Hall
The lights
It was really heart-warming and nice to be there among all of these people, listen to the words of the mayor and think about the good things. And most of all - it was really great to see the Christmas lights in the town be lit all at the same time when the Mayor of Tartu had lit a candle. Here you can see more pics of the same event.
Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you really are not in the mood for anything. The alarm clock sounds wrong and you keep hitting the snooze button. Your kid wakes up and says that she's caught cold and you have to let her stay home. You crawl out from under the duvet to find that it's cold again in the apartment. Opening the blinds in the livingroom you encounter Estonian November in its nastiest form: low gray skies, fog, damp air, grumpy people already late for work.
Then you just have to make a cup of coffee (even if you have no paper cups and Irish Cream) and be thankful that you have to go to work an hour later.
Today was really cold - I'm not used to cold weather at all. Our summer was two months longer this year due to our wonderful days in Boone, NC. So it was really weird to feel so cold. Even the buses had ice inside - on the windows and on the ceiling. But sunrise was stunning. I loved it!
Today our school celebrated the end of the "Forest Week".
I couldn't bear not telling them about bare infinitive...
Some of the other bears of 10E. This is my technology class that is very very small. There are just 13 people in the group. It's weird - it always seems that half the class is absent but it's not. I like them bears a lot.
All in all, it's been an exhausting week. Good, but exhausting. I have to get used to being a teacher again instead of a student.
I had a late morning today (16.11.11) - had to go to work by 9am. It gave me an
extra hour to enjoy the rising sun and do just a little bit of walking.
I've forgotten how to use my legs. In the US we were too lazy - buses,
elevators - you don't get much exercise like that.
My
way to work is like moving from the country-side to the city. My house
is an old wooden and stove-heated structure with a bit of a yard
(mainly for parking cars). However, the place where I work is sometimes
called the dormitory area of the town.
Small
apartments in high apartment houses, central heating, lots of people
not really talking to their neighbours - EVER. But I like my workplace
even though it's located in such an area or maybe because of that.
I had a wonderful time at school today. Everybody was glad to see me. 11D had made A REAL BIG CAKE for me! It was delicious. So, we ate the cake, drank tea and wrote and discussed the USA and the most popular prejudices and stereotypes about it. Time went really fast with them. The next class was 11E who greeted me with a big Fazer chocolate and asked me to promise that I won't ever leave them again. This is a hard promise to keep but I'll try. They only have 1.5 years here, so it might be doable. 11B greeted me in the corridor and I was glad to see my 10E, who unfortunately had to take a test today, and thus we couldn't discuss things. Maybe tomorrow. We'll use the thinking maps that I've learned so much about.
My 10B came to greet me and meet me. They want to travel somewhere in the spring. We have to discuss that. Talking about travelling 11E was sure that I'm going to join them in whatever journey they are going to take this year... I hope I'll be able to!
Ah, yes. And my own 10B in my Business English lesson. We learned that ICT stands for I SEE TEA! And they came up with their own creative idea how to memorize an abbreviation "AGM" (Using the lincs strategy that I had learned about but I didn't say a word) Now AGM stands for the Annual General Meeting of ANGRY GARBAGE MEN! I loved it! I used the tickets out of the door thing with the abbreviations and I would like to think it worked quite well. But of course my BE group is so small - it's easy to experiment with them.
In Estonian I liked the word "mittetähenduslik hinne" which is very hard to translate but was meant to mean kind of small and insignificant assignments given in class....
So, I'm looking forward to being out of my comfort zone. There is just SO much to do! I'm glad to be back and see everybody again! :)
