OFF TO A FRESH START!

It is that time of the year again... September is about to finish soon and school children are already used to getting up early every weekday and grabbing their school bag in a rush so as not to miss the bus that will take them to their well-settled routine. Our summer blues has definitely vanished, hasn't it?

However, even though both primary and secondary school teachers have already plunged into the school curriculum, we - of course, EOI teachers - are still struggling with the preparatory work for school year 21-22: enrolment periods, virtual classroom management, getting to know each other lesson plans, ice breakers... we are set to start in just a few days! As usual, it often depends on the Autonomous Community we live in or even our local Education Authorities. But for better or worse, it is that time of the year again for EOIs...

I have already been designing the new beginning. This year I will be teaching C1.2 again but the school course comes with an extra bonus: a Blended C1.1 English course I just can't wait to teach!

No wonder I am preparing a plethora of resources I will be sharing with my school community. Here is one I am particularly proud of: my @wakelet compilation of online dictionaries, translators and corpus dictionaries. I hope my blended course students find it useful. I will definitely devote some time to providing the right instructions on how to make the most of them. I love collocation dictionaries and expanding my students' knowledge on how to sound more natural. It is most likely this will help. Wish me luck and all the best for the new EOI school year!!

END OF SCHOOL YEAR 19-20

Dear all!

As everyone knows, this has been a really weird course to teach for very obvious reasons. However, my C1 students have met the challenge and lived up to my expectations. A teacher's dream come true!

Now it is high time to look back and reflect upon the work that has been carried out. Our journey has come to an end! But we have first built up our own memories together to help us recall a great year of joint successful learning!

Here is the video with my students' contribution to drawing a final picture of our year. Judge for yourselves! What do you think the year was like?

CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION

As an enthusiastic teacher, I have always praised students for their hard work and constant passion for learning. However, this year they have well-deserved my thankful admiration and appreciation for both following their own dreams and supporting mine alike. Nothing - not even a pandemic - has stopped them from carrying on!

That is the reason why I have come up with this inspirational idea of showing my heartfelt gratitude to them. Every single student of mine will be awarded a Certificate of Appreciation for constantly trying to improve and tirelessly building a positive classroom community in the school year 2019-2020. Whether emergency remote teaching and learning is coming to stay or not, they have proved to be inspiring and have really pushed me to take new chances and risks. It seems obvious to me that teachers and students are stronger together when they build up a close-knit team!

EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING SURVEY

The school has inevitably embarked on this new adventure of remote teaching and we are looking forward to finding out whether the process is challenging enough or just back-breaking! In the age when information is power, we are willing to gather as many data as possible from students taking part in the online learning process at school. Our main goal is to identify needs and make a valuable contribution to learning.

How are you coping? Is distance learning effective enough for you? Please, do not hesitate to fill in the form below and help us gather information to continue to improve.

EMERGENCY REMOTE LEARNING

My students and I are striving to make the most of our emergency remote learning. Since our school was locked down, we have been keeping in touch via email, our blog and google sites to keep up the good work. The more engaging lessons are, the more focused they get. So, the next step was no other than virtual classes! And I just can't wait to meet them all again through Webex. Missing classes at school is not preventing us from moving on and learning as a team! We are stronger together!