MOBILITY 8. “Interactive teaching - Using educational games and new technology in order to enhance learners’ motivation”. Eruditus Language School. Konstanz, Germany. Daniel Arador. Day 2

We have begun today’s class talking about the concept of attention. First we did a short activity to prove that even easy instructions can be hard to follow. The teacher trainer told us to fold a sheet of paper in different ways and rip out a corner of it each time. Then we had to unfold the paper. Although all of us had tried to follow her instructions precisely, the patterns our sheets revealed looked completely different.

Then we were told that attention varies throughout a lesson. It starts low and rapidly goes up for a short period of time. Then it goes down little by little until the very end, when it goes up again. In order to keep that from happening and keep a level degree of attention throughout the lesson, we need to use attention catchers here and there (approximately every ten minutes). An attention catcher is anything that breaks the routine for a few minutes: a joke, a short game, a funny remark, etc. Of course, this is only necessary in lessons that are more teacher-centred or in lesson in which the teacher must give long instructions.

After that, we discussed what kind of teaching styles there are. We discovered that there are four: authoritarian, authoritative, uninvolved and permissive. There is no pure authoritarian style just as there is no pure permissive style, but we tend to lean closer to one of those styles. Ideally, we should try to be authoritative teachers. Definitions can be found online.

Then we moved on to play some more games that can either be used to help create a more cohesive group or as language activities:

• The line game. The teacher must stick a cello tape line on the floor and ask students to form two lines on either side of the tape, one step away from it. Each student must be facing another student from the opposite line. The teacher will then ask questions out loud and students have to take a step forward (thus coming closer to the tape) if the answer is yes, and remain where they are if the answer is no. This way, students discover that they have many things in common with their classmates in an bodily active way. This games also works great for shier students, for they do not need to speak to communicate.
  
• The overlapping circles. Students are told to get in groups of three and draw three overlapping circles on a piece of paper. Each circle represents one of the students and each overlaps with the two other circles. In the centre all three circles overlap. The goal is to find things in common with one or two classmates (which must be written in the overlapping areas of the circles) as well as to find out what makes us unique (which must be written in the non-overlapping areas of the circles). It also gets students to know each other better.

After that we started to speak about new technologies and how they have revolutionized teaching. We were introduced to two educational Internet resources for language teachers:

• Quizlet. This is a great tool to get students to learn or revise vocabulary both in class and at home. It has different functions (flashcards, games, tests, etc.), but the one we found most useful is the live quiz, as it involves cooperative work and it is quite fun to play too.
  
• Lyrics training. Again, this is a fun tool to play with language. One selects a song from the website’s datebase and has to fill in the gaps in the lyrics even as the song plays. Teachers can tweak the songs and decide where the gaps will be. This way they can focus the students’ attention on a particular element (a verb tense, vocabulary, etc.).

Again this was a profitable class with some practical ideas and activities that we can all put into practice in our classes back home.