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Dear fellow teacher,
This time of the semester can be quite challenging for those starting with new groups or working at language centers where there's an exchange of teachers between terms. Once I heard in a training session the following quote:
A nice teacher wants students to like them. A smart teacher wants students to like themselves.
That got me thinking and there was a lot of reflection after this session. On the following semesters, I started observing how my students behaved at different situations throughout the course and read a lot about group formation theories. Let me give you a brief description of that:
Tuckman (1965) describes four stages of psychological development a team goes through as they work on a project: forming, storming, norming, performing and mourning. Each stage brings different behaviors and adjustments need to be made in order to achieve success.
That's when I came across with one of the most useful books in my career: Group Dynamics, by Jill Hadfield. Hadfild's book brings activities and dynamics mixing language and group formation theories and they are divided into Tuckman's 5 stages. How cool is that? Long story short: I implemented some of Hadfield's activities in my classes and used interesting strategies from Tuckman. Result? Higher retention rates, increase in participation, reduction in absence, and boost in performance and motivation.
If you think I should offer a webinar about this topic, leave a comment on this post! Now, here are some interesting activities for you start the semester on the right foot:
MEET INSTAFEST: This incredible website creates a fictional festival lineup based on your streaming playlists.
Ask Ss to access www.instafest.app and have them log in and create their festival lineups.
Ask Ss to click on "Hide my username" and download the poster.
If Ss know each other: Have them upload their poster to a Padlet you're showing on the board. In small groups, Ss try to guess who is the owner of each setlist.
If Ss don't know each other: Have them mingle and find similarities between the playlists.
GREMLINS & WATER: I designed this activity in which Ss have to talk about themselves by answering the questions on the board. Now, if you've watched the movie, you know what happens to them if they have contact with water: they turn evil. The questions are categorized as "dry gremlins" and "wet gremlins".
Dry: fun and easy questions to answer.
Wet: tricky and (healthily) embarrassing questions. Download the file on the link below:
YOUR NETFLIX STREAM: There's nothing better than our Netflix stream to tell everything people need to know about what we watch and what makes interested, is there?
Have you Ss log in to their Netflix apps;
In small groups (or mingling -- why not?):
First round: Ss find similarities among their lists.
Second round: Ss find something they'd never watch.
Third round: Ss look at what they've watched and give recommendations.
All these activities foster for the forming stage. These get-to-know activities are not meant only for the first day of classes. Make sure you bring this activity whenever you feel Ss need to know more about each other to promote group cohesiveness.
I hope you have a great semester! Cheers!