Sunday, August 4, 2013

30 Goals Challenge: Goal 9: Send a future message #30GoalsEdu

This challenge reminded me of something I used to do with my classes (when I was still working at language schools)
The first weeks of school are always difficult for both teachers and students. New class maybe, new faces, different level of what we have taught before... New faces, new characters, maybe we do not know each other. It's a phase of adjustment.

So, after a few "get-to know" games with my students, this is what I do:
We talk about what we want to accomplish the following year. What the students expect from the teacher, what they expect from their fellow students, what they expect from themselves. The teacher also expresses him/herself about what he/she wants to achieve. This conversation can be in English (if the language level of the students is high enough) or even in the native language of the students. I think this is very important, if the class wants to co-operate as a team.

These "future goals" can be written by each student on paper. They can write, sketch, draw, as long as they express their goals. The papers go into small bottles and are hung on a wall or put somewhere, where the students can see them all year long.
When the school year is over, we make a small celebration, we open the bottles, read our goals again, see what we have accomplished, discuss problems and successes and set new goals for the next year.
The bottle is a future message to ourselves ... a way to make ourselves better....
It's a way to make us all think how we are, what we want to change and how we want to be....


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Absolutely love, love this activity and post. Thanks so much for sharing. This is exactly what I was thinking when I was thinking of this post. I also had in mind letters that teachers had written to themselves at the beginning of the year or when they first started teaching and opened years later. It's so empowering, motivating, and insightful when we go back and read things we promised ourselves months and years before.

Theodora Papapanagiotou said...

For me it is very important to bond with the students, to be a team. Activities like this make it happen!!! Thanks for taking the time to read my ideas!

Featured Post

Teaching online through Lockdown

Some months ago, when I wrote a blog on online Teaching for iTDi , I could never imagine that the teaching world would turn digital overn...