A Thinglink with podcasts suitable for high school students

A new favorite of mine - Semantris

Semantris is a new encounter for me and I easily spent 30 minutes like 30 seconds yesterday trying to stop the blocks from advancing upwards...a great deal of fun and educational too! Put your vocabulary to use! Try it out!

Link to Semantris

End of year reflections

The school year has come to an end and I am off on my summer break tomorrow. Looking back on the year I have a few comments to make.

For me, this school year has been fantastic in many ways. First of all, I got the chance to start at Bäckängsgymnasiet, the biggest high school in town with around 520 students, in August as of last year. I have taught five courses in English and gotten to know many wonderful students and teachers along the way. The year has given me possibilities of working with new and old digital tools and to emphasize the importance of evaluating sources even more than before. My love for English has grown deeper and the zest for evolving as a teacher is as big as it will probably ever get!

The biggest event of the year was the Skypeathon that took place in March. It was an enormous task of organizing the close to 35 calls with regards to classes, groups, staff, time differences, continents and so on, but we managed and it was a huge success! In November we will give it another shot, this time however looking at around 12 hours and not 24. More about this in the fall.

When it comes to digital tools used during the year, I often return to my favorites Canva, ThingLink, Kahoot, Socrative, Google Forms and Presentations, Sway and Flipgrid. Right now I am a Flipgrid ambassador and I am trying to spread the word about the great tool as much as my energy levels right now allow me. If you want to try Flipgrid you can enter the code PERNILLA to get a FREE upgrade to Fligrid Classroom. The promotion is valid to September 30.

My objectives for the next school year is to work even more with digital tools and I am also looking forward to going back to teaching History again! Another thing on my list is to take a university course about ICT and languages. The Global Read Aloud awaits in October (reading "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness and then in November the Skypeathon, to name but a few things....

But now, I am closing down the laptop for the summer and I will be back in early August again...

With that said, I wish you...

ever! :) /Pernilla

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

Well, I really need a good laugh right now... and maybe you do too?? Here you go - puns galore:

source: https://iwastesomuchtime.com/68616

Grammar galore and popular proverbs - year 8

Link to list of idioms.

Snapshots from today - Valentine's Day posters - year 8 and 9

Today we had an exhibition in year 8 and 9 for students who have English and Swedish instead of modern languages like German, French or Spanish. We have focused on Valentine and how to write an ode to someone or something. The students have tried to express themselves in English or Swedish. Some of the students have only been in Sweden a short time, so I was extremely impressed by their work. Add chocolate snowballs, chocolate cookies, cider and some yummie candy hearts and you have students that enjoy mingling and putting their works on display. Each visitor at the exhibition was also asked to give positive feedback on post-its. 

Natalia writes a positive comment....

Felicia and Amanda prepare the drinks

Amanda, Linnéa and Felicia are prepping to greet the visitors

Malak makes chocolate snowballs

Gabbe opens the cocoa box....

Plan for English year 8 + instructions for first theme

Here comes a preliminary plan for year 8....things could change but this is the rough plan.

Here's the link to the document if you want that instead:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f_aU_Y4RyioNVHrIlwCF83y6_OK0aER4zktCXxO2BXU/pub


Here's some info about the first theme of the school year - World Englishes:

On Tuesday we will start working on a theme project called "World Englishes" ... here's a little taster until then....

and these videos might come in handy ... after we have started working on the project:

Looking forward to some great English lessons this year! :)

Peek of the week 16 - Civil Rights - the USA

This week we take a peek at the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. Right now I'm in the process of planning some lessons around this theme for my ninth grade. After their national tests we'll learn more about this topic. Following are some really good links to material that'll be of good use during the lessons, and we'll start off with an infographic about the Civil Rights timeline. The lessons will finish with Alice Walkers' mesmerizing short story "Flowers".

Civil Rights Timeline

Primary Documents

A brief history of Jim Crow

Was Jim Crow a real person?

Examples of Jim Crow laws

Flight to Freedom: Mission US - interactive way to learn history

Headline from newspaper 1954

U2 - Pride (song about Martin Luther King Jr)

Theory of Non-Violence

Short story - "Flowers" by Alice Walker

Mystery Hangout with Valladolid, Spain

Today it was time again for a hangout, this time with Brandon Pinegar and his students from Valladolid, Spain. Being in the same time zone made it easier this time too. My grade 8 was divided into two halves and I took one of them into another classroom to set everything up. A few minutes after 10 we connected via Google Hangout and started asking each other questions straight away. After a few minutes the Spanish students were able to guess our country and, by accident, one Spanish girl asked "Are you close to Estocolmo" and then my students understood that they were from Spain since "Estocolmo" is the Spanish title for Stockholm. Then, we asked if they were close to Madrid but no they weren't....We gave each other a clue about our cities and after a few minutes we both guessed right on each other's exact whereabouts. One of my students - Tilda - got to speak a little bit of Spanish too which I think made her day. Following are some pictures from the hangout: 

Mr Brandon Pinegar and students

 From our point of view

Here is a link to the Spanish students' school Cristo Rey and they write about their experiences.

Mystery Hangout with Highland Village, Texas

Today it was time for another hangout...(it's slightly addictive, I have to admit it! :) This time my students got to meet some students from Highland Village, Texas and we were fortunate to guess the right location after about twenty guesses. Seven girls (Ellen, Maya, Afnan, Mona, Jannica, Lola and Floor) showed off their verbal skills and asked/answered questions and searched for information on Google Maps. As their teacher I was extremely proud of them. Thank you Rick Bleemel for helping me arrange this. Such fun!!

Here are some pictures from the hangout:

Peek of the week 15 - Gandhi

After a few days off from work it is time to get back to the peeks of the week and this time it's number 15. This week the focus is on Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), a figure synonymous with civil rights, non-violence, fight for Indian independence and almost considered a father of India. Read the article below and watch the biographical video to learn more about this fascinating man. 

Picture source: wikipedia  Gandhi to the right in the picture

Historic figure Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma) (article)


Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi biography (video)

Peek of the week 14 - Short films

I like short films very much, so much that I always come back to them in the blog and in life. I sometimes use short films at the end of lessons to quickly discuss a theme or to take up something important. Occasionally I even make the short film the center of attention during a lesson and build tasks around it. Some of my favorite short films I have collected under the page "short films" above.

The Australian short film festival Tropfest is where my interest started. From there on I found other good sites with short films: Film English, Film Shortage, Short of the week and Films Short. Of course there are other places to find brilliant shorties, but these are a few that I regularly go back to.

So which are my favorite short short films of all time? Well, that is too difficult to say, but a few of my current favorites are:

Alma:

Mind the gap: 

Mind The Gap from Luke Flanagan on Vimeo.

Mo'Ne Davis: Throw like a girl:

Peek of the week 13 - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Peek of the week number 13 takes a look at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), sometimes called "the Mounties", is Canada's federal police force. The force is to be found in all provinces and territories. The force was founded in 1873 but the current name came into use in 1920. Today, the force has about 25 000 employees all over the country. Here is a picture of their beautiful, ceremonial, uniform: 

Picture source: http://pixshark.com/canadian-mounted-police-hat.htm

Tea party - the UK - year 7

Wow! During this week my students in year 7 have been treated to a British tea party - or at least my version of it... It has been a lot of fun and when the students got to summarize the happening with one word each, words like "awesome", "good", "fun" and "nice" came up. Well, I guess no one says no to a brew and a cucumber sandwich!!! We have learned about the UK for a few weeks now in year 7 and it was time to show the students what a casual British afternoon could be like, meeting up for tea. 

From the beginning the students were given the instructions: "we speak English, and nothing but English for the coming hour", "take a note with a task description", "cooperate with each other", and just "have a jolly good time"! So, the students were given a task each, e.g:

* butter the sandwiches

* set the table with cups, spoons, napkins

* slice the cucumber with a cheese slicer 

* cut the sandwiches into triangles

* find "Rule Britannia" on YouTube and set up the computer with the projector

* boil water

Everyone spoke English, everyone cooperated, everyone was in a good mood and we were all in festive spirits. Sitting down we talked about the weather (soooo British, right?? ;), everyone told what they usually had for breakfast, we discussed what kind of phrases you can use when eating together with other people (e.g. "can I have some more tea, please?", "could you pass me the milk, please"?) and listened to "Rule Britannia". Finally, each student had worked on something special in class, with connections to the UK, and they got about 1 minute each to tell the others what they had researched about. We learned about haggis, kilts, Liverpool FC, English food, famous cities, universities, sights in London, Wales, Liverpool, Tower Bridge, among other things. 

Here are some wonderful pictures of the students and the tea party: 

Paolo wearing my British fun hat! This hat has seen many heads!

PG tips, pyramid teabags, a must!

Liam is a happy guy eating a cucumber sandwich and also testing the British fun hat!

Milk, sugars, napkins, cups, spoons, tea, cucumber sandwiches and some Union Jack decorations on the table. English flag in the background, on the screen. 

From left: Daniel, Dejan, Wiktor, Filippa, Maya, Isabella (with the hat!), Afnan and Limar. 

Isabella and Filippa fixing the sandwiches

Yum...tea with milk...

 Isabella, Filippa, Maya and Emil are preparing their speeches..

Triangular cucumber sandwiches

Why do this you might ask? Why go to all this effort (because there is a lot of planning, purchasing and patience involved)? Well, the truth is, I see such new positive sides of my students, they speak English ALL THE TIME (and not everyone does that in the classroom), they think it is a lot of fun, they understand that I care about them, they learn a whole lot by listening and taking part in the tea party, they get a taste of what it would be like to be British and can compare the custom of a tea party with that of the Swedish "fika". I could go on for quite a while, but the truth is that the positive effects of doing this are tenfold. Rule Britannia!

Instructions for book report - year 9

Here are the instructions for the book report that you are to write after finishing reading your book.

The instructions for the book circle can be found here.

Peek of the week 12 - Australia: Uluru

It is time to take a look at Australia and one of its fascinating wonders: Uluru, formerly more known as "Ayer's Rock". Uluru is a huge sandstone formation, 348 meters high and with a circumference of close to 9, 5 kilometers, in the middle of Australia and in the southern part of the Northern Territory. As a cultural landmark it is of utmost significance and it also seems like a sacred place for many people. The wonders of nature are amazing and Uluru is a great example of this! Take a look at the video!

(picture source: http://australiasgeography.weebly.com/uluru.html)

Year 7 - Anglophenia explains the British school system

For next time please have a look at the video above, where Anglophenia explains the British school system. Listen, try to understand as much as you can, and next time we meet we will see it together and talk about it. We will see if we can straighten out the questions marks.. :)

Snapshot from today

This week I started with "phrase of the week." Each week I will present a phrase or idiom to my classes - the same one for all of them - and we are going to help each other explain the phrases and discuss in what context we might find them. Also, what do they mean in Swedish? The phrase will sit on the whiteboard for a week until it is time for a new one to make its entrance.  My idea is to surround the students with English - what they see and hear is what they will learn...
This week's phrase is: A piece of cake.