Language for Peace Forum
instructional strategies
Creating a Classroom Community: 5 First Day Activities for ELLs
The TESOL Teacher of the Year shares some fun, interactive activities for your students—of any level—to get to know one another and use language meaningfully. Source: Creating a Classroom Community: 5 First Day Activities for ELLs | TESOL Blog
Book Review: Better Than Carrots or Sticks
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” –widely attributed to Frederick Douglass, pg 1 I’m beginning my review of Dominique Smith, Douglas B. Fisher and Nancy Frey’s excellent book Better Than Carrots or Sticks: Restorative Practices for Positive Classroom Management in the same way they begin the first chapter: a reminder that … Continue reading
Questions to Ask Oneself While Designing Learning Activities
Originally posted on User Generated Education:
I absolutely love planning lessons from scratch. I just got a job teaching technology units for a summer camp for elementary age students. I can design and teach whatever I want – planning for a different theme each week. Some of the themes I am planning are: Expanding and…
Social Justice and Peace Education Perspectives
An article by Tabitha Dell’Angelo entitled Creating classrooms for social justice highlights a few key aspects of peace education. She lists connecting to learners’ lives in relevant ways, addressing real issues from diverse perspectives, nurturing caring learning communities, and using authentic forms of assessment as essential not just for integrating social justice in the classroom, … Continue reading
Speaking to the Whole Class
This critique of whole class instruction poses some helpful questions and suggestions for language and peace educators. Continue reading
Creating a Positive Mindset
Maurice Elias, a professor of psychology, posted some helpful tips for activities to kick off the semester at Helping students start the year with a positive mindset. Would you try any of these in your language classes?
3 Approaches to Curriculum: Problem, Project, or Inquiry
Problem-based, project-based, and inquiry-based approaches to curriculum are all conducive to a peace education lens and can promote collaborative and constructivist learning. This article summarises the similarities and differences among the three approaches. While language curriculum has been slow in adopting any of these, all can contribute greatly to the language classroom. Please feel free … Continue reading
Humility as a Language Learning Tool
What role does humility play in learning? This article highlights the importance of starting with humility both as learner and educator in classroom. Particularly with language education, teachers are seen as the “experts” and it becomes difficult not to live into that perception. Perhaps some of the writer’s suggestions could be helpful in starting with … Continue reading
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