Can I have a 'P' please Mr David?

There's a great new teacher in my department who has only recently completed the CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course. (This is the same course I left Scotland to do just after I started Blipping a couple of years ago.) You can tell the ones that are fresh off the mark as they are really enthusiastic and are eager to make every lesson as good as it can be.

I'm still like that after two years of teaching. Part of the reason is that 1h40m can seem a very long time if you haven't done any proper planning for the lesson. More importantly for me though, is the buzz I get when a well designed activity goes down a storm in the classroom.

Today, I 'tested' my tour guiding students' knowledge of countries and languages (the very first thing most teaching books concentrate on) using the Blockbusters format. It's quite a common classroom game as it happens but I've tarted it up a bit. You see that grid on the wall? That was all done by my good self using PowerPoint where different clicks on different areas of the hexagon turn it red or blue after a successful answer. (It's a work of genius, I must say. Wingpig and Tractor Factory Photos, you would be proud!)

This particular game got quite heated (in a healthy way) when it came to the crunch and everyone was struggling with the 'L'* question that would clinch the game. Ali (pictured) got it in the end and the whoops and cries from his team as the other team sat and sulked was really funny! Then two minutes later:

"Again teacher, again!"







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* Which 'L' is a European city where one of the official languages is Luxembourgish?

Quite why they found this so difficult is still beyond me ;)