Reading Challenge with vocational students

As you all well know, I've been challenging my students to read regardless of their age.
As I posted here a couple of days ago, besides my senior students, my vocational students have also been invited to allocate some time to reading (but in class, with me ;)), in other words, every friday and for about half an hour, they would read either the book they had chosen and brought into class or any of the ones I already had in store in case they "forgot" theirs.
Have I been successful? I would say yes, but I won't lie; I have no illusions and again and again as teachers we face the same situations: not all have managed to finish the books they started... either they were absent from class, involved in different activities or... they simply "forgot" it! Whenever that happened, I would show them some others and they would pick one to read - they would start a different book without ever finishing it. Others though have read more than one - some more slowly, others a bit faster - and one of the students accomplished the feat of reading 5 books. For these classes and for the time we had, it's not bad, believe me!
Let me show you how it was in a clear and simple way:

Now have a look at them reading:

As for the student who read more books - Sónia Leite - she read 5 books in class throughout the year, but I spotted her reading several books in Portuguese and so I truly believe she deserved her REMARKABLE READING AWARD: she got not only a certificate but also books, a notebook and a computer mouse thanks to Oxford, Cambridge and Pearson.
Yet let me tell you the following before finishing this blogpost: no student ever thought I would make use of the collected data much less that I would award anything because I didn't want it to work as a kind of bribery: I challenged them to read for pleasure and not expecting any kind of reward though in the end I felt I should praise those who had read more books / pages.
And here is our winner, Sónia

Hope you all keep on reading, if not the traditional printed word, Gutenberg's precious heritage, then online magazines, newspapers and ebooks.
Never stop, never give up! Wish you all the best, folks!
Teacher Alex

Stephen King on... books

--Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.--

 Stephen King

Ray Bradbury on... books

--There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.--

Ray Bradbury

Maya Angelou on... books

--For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, "Here I am, read me." Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.--

                        Maya Angelou (on Facebook, Oct. 30. 2010)

Teaching English to Senior Classes

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live.”          Mortimor Adler
 
Though I've been involved in adult teaching for some time, in 2011/2012 I've had my first experience teaching English to senior citizens, a group of retired people who simply refuse to sit back.
It's exactly this attitude that I admire, that allowed them to learn so well and so much, and that got me wondering about the claims that adults / senior citizens are at a disadvantage when it comes to learning a foreign language. How true is this??? What is it like to learn a language as an adult?
It's often argued that adults are bad at language learning and that kids absorb it like a sponge - who hasn't heard this yet? However, from my own experience, the most important factor is MOTIVATION (or the lack of it and now I'm comparing to my teens' classes!).
While most had already studied English, they were truly rusty to say the least, but in every single class the group I had showed so much interest and such a level of participation and involvement that I believe some brain myths have to be debunked: they may have time now to commit themselves to learning English, but in no way should lack of it be confused with ability - otherwise, teens may have all the time in the world, but too many aren't successful. Is it only because of the teachers??? Every year, there are more and more unmotivated students and I find it harder to motivate those unmotivated or to connect with disengaged students. Is it only me?
Coming back to my senior students, here is another example of their willingness to learn English with reading (always!) info: one of the senior students in my class (who happens to be a former colleague), read no fewer than 8 graded readers and obviously got book prizes - thanks to the generosity of both Macmillan, Pearson and Oxford!
Thanks to the publishers / editors, but, above all, thanks to this senior class and their lesson of Lifelong Learning!

Word Search on Reading - Try it out!

An easy online activity on any topic, this one is on reading.
The Ultimate Word Search Maker allows us to create these activities easily and fast and then embed them to blogs / websites - we just need to type the words, they will appear underneath as well as the embed code...and it's done!
Try to look for the words given below and when you find them, just click on the first and last letters.
Simple? Fast? Useful? Try it out and give me some feedback :D

Make Your Own Word Search

It's a Book!

I just couldn't help it... so cute!
Watch this book trailer video for a short animated film based on Lane Smith's It's a Book, an adorable picture book for children that celebrates traditional books. Watch as a book-loving ape and a tech-savvy donkey exchange words. (by Macmillan Children)

On World Oceans Day...

Absolutely shocking!!!
How would you describe it?

Resources on "Snow White and the Huntsman"

Here's what I've done:
1st - a multiple choice googledoc with questions on the original version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" for sts to answer online - this way I have their answers / results right away in a spreadsheet; can be done in class or at home (see embed below)
2nd - Cast and Credits on the movie (general info for them to gather while at the mall) - please check my ISSUU shelf above;
3rd - because it's the end of the schoolyear, I decided to do something different: I prepared a set of questions on this 2012 movie for them to answer; can be done orally or as a written activity - please check my ISSUU shelf above;
4th - taking into account the previous questions, I provide info on how to write a film review and their last task is to write one on "Snow White and the Huntsman" - please check my ISSUU shelf above.

Here is the quiz on the original story - and YOU, how well do you remember this? Can you answer it???

Snow White and the Huntsman

As already disclosed here and here after having spent the morning at the IH Coimbra, we headed to the mall to have lunch and then a flick, but this time students didn't even know what I had in store for them - it was a complete surprise, first for them who reacted with some protest and even disdain when I told them we were going to recall our childhood stories (?) with Snow White, and then also for me once it proved better than expected.
"Snow White and the Huntsman" is a modern day fairy tale: among other examples, it still includes the proverbial "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" but "in a twist to the fairy tale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up becoming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen." Check for yourself this good movie: great visual effects, good acting (though a much "fairer" evil Queen than Snow White), awesome landscapes, not like the Disney films we are used to.
I'm not going to tell you much more about it but just for you to have an idea, check this stunning "Breath of Life" music video from the soundtrack of the movie:

You might also be interested in checking my resources for the movie in my next blogpost :D

Visit to IH Coimbra

Some years after our first visit to IH Coimbra, once again in the morning of June 1st the doors were opened for us / our students and as always we were warmly welcomed by all - teachers and staff.
Dave, Jenny and Ben had planned three different activities for our students and they were split into 3 groups that swapped every half an hour. Dave had planned an activity on movies I found awesome (both the film and the activities), Ben had planned a very interesting activity on music and Jenny on computers. Wow! I can assure you that all were FUNtastic and students loved every single bit - check for yourselves in the pics they are about to share here.

There are no words to express my gratitude as a teacher to IH for always being there for my / Soure students no matter their ages. I've already lost track to the number of times that IH and Dave Tucker have been welcoming "kids from Soure" and last year (as published here ) there was even a most generous offer of a summer course to an adult learner of mine. As for the school, both colleagues and students were amazingly helpful: Helena helped with the bunches of flowers, Isabel and students baked the cakes we were to offer in the morning before leaving, Isidoro and students built a "Metal Dave" (Dave's words) as well as a "Metal Jenny", Filipe brought all the flowers and Marco two bottles of home-distilled aguardente from 2010.
Many, many thanks to all!