A RIDDLE A DAY KEEPS BOREDOM AWAY

 

Shared by Eva Rojo:

There is too much food for thought after attending this course, little things that I did and did wrong and some things that I did and will improve. But there is one thing I have applied since the first session.

This academic year there is no five minutes break between lessons in my secondary school and I often find myself rushing from one class to the next. Therefore, I am giving my 2nd year CSE students something to do at the very beginning of the lesson.

This activity is called “A riddle a day keeps boredom away”, well and I make sure they are not misbehaving while waiting for me.

In every lesson I give a student a riddle so that he/she writes it down on the board while they wait for me (please find attached document with common riddles by clicking here).

I do not give that particular student the answer so all of them think about the answer and do not cheat. We have done two so far and they seem to enjoy the activity. Even some of them have volunteered to look for riddles and bring them to class.

I am thinking to do something different once I notice they lose interest. Jokes is my next option for the second term. Maybe proverbs next for the third term. I will see how it goes with the riddles and take it from there.

What is more, I am thinking of doing the same with my 1st year Bachillerato once a week, this time with idioms-first term/phrasal verbs-second term/quotes-third term.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank you and Paul for this course. I have been teaching for many years and this course has been very helpful in highlighting these little things I can change in order to improve my teaching practice: pausing more, more variety of pairing, sticking to my time limits, diverse eliciting, rely more on mother tongue, more interactive checking etc and echoing. Well, this is something I have realized I really need to be working on it. As they say, the hardest part is starting.