My first #flashmobELT experience

      A thing I’ve tried today with Intermediates. In Ann Loseva’s blog I found a link to ELT flashmob. The idea is pretty simple: teachers from different places post their ideas for the lesson starters, warmers or games, or just some interesting things I tried in the classroom and you can see all of them. When you try something, you need to leave feedback about your experience, write a post with a hashtag #flashmobELT.

      My today #flashmobELT idea is ‘password’ for letting students in. The original idea comes from Ann Loseva.

It’s a very simple task which aims more at getting students into the mood for English right at the doorstep than at focusing on any particular skills. And it works for me with classes which are locked before I come with the key and we all come in.
Today in order to enter the classroom you should say a password.” Ideas for what the password of the day is depend on the topic you’re doing, grammar structure you want them to revise, your mood, some news, etc. Basically, on your imagination. Let them think on their feet. Let it be one word, a word combination, a sentence, a question”. Some examples from my class: “one object inside/ outside the house”, “what’s your opinion about being late?” (obviously I was late for class), “one word connected with this day” (that was April 12th).

    My Intermediate students have just learnt adjectives defining jobs and responsibilities, such as demanding, stressful, boring, depressing, rewarding, fun, etc. So the password of the day was one of these words and I gave them a definition and they were supposed to say a right word. It worked perfectly. Now I am full of ideas of how to introduce this task to every single lesson. As for lesson planning which I do regularly, I am about to include this idea in a lesson plan along with other useful and important things.

Thank you, Ann, for your idea! It is wonderful!