Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Sandy's Nutty Tefl Mayday Offering!

Oops - Forgot to post this one! I mean, can you actually believe this shite?! I'll give anybody ten free pints of Old Speckled Hen if they can tell me from which highly-esteemed teachers' journal it emanated.

A new group is about to start a programme where it is important that learners mix with others. Each new member of the group is issued with a lollipop stick.

On one side they write their name. On the other side they write down an interest or something that the others will probably not know about them. All the sticks are then placed in a bag.

To form sub-groups, one member of the whole group is asked to take a stick out of the bag. They read the name and that learner joins them and is given their stick. As they do this, they pick another stick and that person joins them, and so on, until the last person picks the stick for the member of the second sub-group.

Once in their sub-groups, the aim is to match the interests on the sticks to people. When matched correctly, each learner then contributes something about their interest. Each sub-group then builds a model – using all the sticks and other materials – that symbolises their group name.

The completed models form the ‘centrepiece’ for each group’s table for as long as they work together.

I mean, does anybody actually do this bollocks, really?  Would any right-minded being (that probably excludes most Teflers, admittedly) believe the author's claims that this somehow helps to form cohesion in the class body? Or is it just a crackin' way to waste the first few hours of 'teaching'?!

I reckon the poor students would simply think 'Oh, fuck - they've sent us the college retard...'. And that 'centrepiece' would soon get crushed by the class bully, thus symbolising 'knobhead teacher', I'd say.

Actually if I had such a large amount of lolly sticks at my disposal I'd use them to prod dozy students into life before one of my famous pointless 'mingle' activities, which are a frequent feature of teachers who want to dash outside for a quick toke.

Come to think of it, the guy that wrote that pile of lollystick crap above must have been a bit high too. It wasn't YOU, was it?