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Let’s recap!

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We have read about Project-based Learning

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We have analysed a real PjBL project which was related to literature and the arts

We have seen that projects build students’ social and emotional skills and promote a

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positive classroom environment

We are aware that project work sets the ground for the incorporation of soft-skills

and materials-light teaching

Now we will focus on these two - soft-skills and materials-light teaching! We

are used to planning for the hard skills - knowledge to be acquired, such as Maths,
Writing, Reading, Grammar - but we must also follow a soft skills curriculum that covers
all of the other essential, intangible skills that students will need in the future. We have
not been trained to do this but at present these life skills are at the heart of both
educational research and job hunts.

Have a look at some statistics regarding soft skills as analysed by LinkedIN

Data Reveals The Most In-Demand Soft Skills Among Candidates

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These skills are not mechanical nor can they be systematized or taught. In
addition, they are difficult to measure and/or assess or evaluate. Last but not least, we
must plan for them and disregard uninformed comments regarding the validity of our
choice. We believe these are factors which make it even more difficult for us to
incorporate these skills into our daily school practice.

According to the Collins online dictionary, soft skills are `desirable qualities for
certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include
common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude´
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/es/diccionario/ingles/soft-skills

They are also sometimes referred to as essential, people, transferable or portable

skills. You will find lots of content on-line relating these skills to business and career
success - as the term was first used in the field of professional endeavour. Even though
the specific literature is often connected to the entrepreneurship and health care areas, of
course here we will be dealing with it in the light of education.

The semantics might be misleading as we tend to connect soft with `bland, light,
tender´ but in fact we are dealing with world-changing skills which seem hard to find at
present in adults. Children need to get involved in the activities in order to be able to
experience these skills!

Have a look at a tentative organization of soft skills - this list by no means exhaustive!

https://prezi.com/view/YeXRkSMlJSMLwUsnOvNs/

1. Let’s go back to A Book of Values project. Go over the soft

skills that students have developed throughout the implementation of
this project. Can you place them in skills categories?
2. Which are your strongest soft skills? Have you learnt any other
of these lately?

Complete your ideas in the classroom forum.

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Benefits of including soft skills in our lesson plans or course designs:

Read the following flipsnack:

Making memes by teachosophy

Let’s watch and listen to Jack Ma, Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group
Holding, People's Republic of China. He was a speaker in the World
Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018 held in Davos 23-26 January, under
the theme Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World. He shares his
views on education in this extract. https://ytcropper.com/cropped/4z5c58f34bbfbae

Please, answer these questions in this Pin-up board:

https://pinup.com/OfJyxNTGZ
1. According to Ma, which is a trait of a good teacher?
2. Which soft skills does he think should be taught?
3. Include a brief reflection in the Pin up above.

Find the full conference here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zzVjonyHcQ

As Jack Ma states, we must provide opportunities to develop these skills and help
students be better prepared for courses of studies and careers. PjBL is a comprehensive
approach for the practice of these skills. However, we are fully aware that we may not
have the time to produce such an extensive task.

We have thought how to give space for the inclusion of these skills by adding
certain tasks to our routines in every class - respecting each school’s procedures. Find
below examples of activities organized around the soft skills which are in use.

Bear in mind the division into the skills and their sub characteristics are not
clear-cut. In fact, the same characteristic might be applied in different skills.

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Classroom activities that trigger

Critical Thinking and Creativity - We will be devoting a separate section for

these skills, so more about these, later on in Module IV!

Communication skills

Teachers and students are to create a healthy atmosphere in the classroom and if
some problem arises, they must all feel confident that `We can work it out!´, that is to say,
they can talk about it! If students feel at ease in class, there will be room to express
emotions.

● Establishing routines for different parts of the class

○ Passwords to enter the class: a student chooses a password to enter
the class - you can go in alphabetical order; the following day the next
student chooses a new password. In class, they can sing a chat to
remember the password and even recall the previous one. You can also
have that student draw the password or write it down in coloured letters
to include it in a list.

Display for children

○ Greetings to enter the class - they will feel

welcomed, acknowledged and more engaged to start the
lesson. It could be a handshake, a high five, a fist bump,
saying their names when greeting and making eye contact
or simply waving hello! For little children, you could have a
Greeter per class who will be in charge of the greetings. A
pinky finger hug is a favourite in the first years of school.
For older students, this could be just like Meet and Greet and need not be done
daily. In another version, they can enter the classroom by moving in some way.

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Watch the following video showing a teacher greeting each of her students in
a personalized way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3dhHfhdTOE

And this one in which younger kids pick a greeting. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q0kgR_im7I

What do you think about this? What advantages do you think this
greeting routine brings to the classroom dynamics?

○ News item to start the class - this can be done on a weekly basis.
One student is in charge of sharing with the class a news item that
she / he has found interesting / inspiring / innovative
○ Calling it a day! - allow a couple of minutes to finish the class and
make some kind of reflection about the lesson
● Posters for classroom rules: these are to be agreed among students. Surely,
someone will make a point of listening to one another, not overlapping when
speaking and being polite. You will be surprised by the high standards of their
expectations!
● Posters for breaktime...life skills continue during breaktime, the arts class and
lunchtime. Make sure they have clear guidelines about how to interact in the
different rooms at school. It is in transition time that negative behaviour may
appear.
● Posters for classroom language - keep a bulletin board. Organize students
so that a pair of them is in charge of taking it down and putting up new
material.

Each group can be given an envelope with words and they have
to build the correct phrase or question and then paste it to the
poster. This way, students feel they play a role in the design of
the classroom decoration.

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Tech Sneak Peek

Posters can be designed in the usual way, as can be seen in the picture
above, or with the aid of some very practical e-tools, such as

- Glogster https://edu.glogster.com/
- Postermywall https://www.postermywall.com/ or
- Canva https://www.canva.com/

We will be showing you how to use this soon!

● Interviews: students can interview classmates or they can prepare questions
in pairs to interview teachers or heads
● Group presentations: by preparing the material and the presentation proper
they will get organized to take turns, they will learn to share the pressure and
to work towards a common objective.
● Surveys: Students can start carrying out surveys on different themes from a
very young age. This activity also lends itself to cross curricular projects, for
example, with science, IT or maths (drawing graphs). The following
worksheet is just one of the many examples for survey activities:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/survey.pdf

Tech Sneak Peek

You may also use some technological support to make it more of a
challenging activity. There are very user-friendly tools that you can use
with your students, such as Google Forms (you just need to have a Gmail
account) and Survey Monkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/
● Debates to build up their ability to concentrate. They also encourage
turn-taking, which is of paramount importance given that Spanish is a
language that allows for a great deal more overlapping than English. The
debates could be spontaneous or they could be planned in advance, by
giving students different roles or stances they should assume. For example,
we could hold a trial for one of the characters in a text we are reading. Some

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students will be in charge of defending him/her, while others will be the
prosecutors. The rest could be assigned the roles of judges or jury.

One of the problems of having a debate with the whole class is that the
introverts will be unwilling to participate. A solution for this is the so-called
pyramid discussion, in which students are first asked to work in pairs and
debate upon a certain issue. After that, each pair joins another pair, so that
there are groups of 4. They also have to try to reach an agreement. Then
each group joins another group so that there are 8 students in each group
and finally, the whole class gets together and makes a final decision. This
way, opportunities for speaking are maximized and shy students are less
exposed to share their views.

Pyramid discussions are ideal for activities in which there is a ranking

involved or a choice to be made. The typical example is the desert island
debate. Students must choose x items to take with them to a desert island.
You can use a worksheet or just right the items on the board:

● Peer revision or tutoring - for little children you can use the term `buddy
system´
● Role-play. This is a favourite amongst students and teachers. It provides
learners with the possibility to take on different personas thus becoming more
open to learning, as it occurs in a relaxed and playful atmosphere. The

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role-play activities may range from a more controlled one, where students
must follow certain scripts to a freer one, where they can make a wide range
of choices.

The Hot Air Balloon is a classic role-play that can easily be

adapted to age and level. You will find the worksheets here

Hot Air Balloon - Role Play cards

● Share productions with other forms or welcome students from other classes
to share their work with your class. Students can even prepare thank you
notes for the visitors! They can prepare short exhibitions on different topics
as well.

Sharing their productions with a real audience greatly benefits their

personal skills! More about this soon.

● Make sure they practise different genres in writing - from short notes to
essays
● Improvisation cards to act out in pairs
● The Name Game (closed & open or TED (Tell, Explain, Describe) questions).
One student thinks of a famous person and the other has to find out who she
/ he is by asking the right questions and listening carefully to the answers.
● Following directions to see how good they are at this. This can be a listening
activity (in which you read out the instructions, pause, repeat and move on to
the next instruction) or you can provide students with a Worksheet. In this
case, it can also be turned into team work. Find different versions in our
classroom.

Interpersonal skills

● When you call the roll, ask if they know why a friend is absent

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● If possible, change the seating layout so that students can look at each
other to work especially when they work in pairs or in teams
● Assign classroom roles and vary them
● Create a class collection so that they can feel communal ownership

● Run a class survey and then ask them to work in groups to show the results
of the survey in a graphic
● Follow the leader game. The leader may give misleading body language
instructions to make it more challenging
● Play Memory games in groups either related to a unit in the book or with
cards
● Non-verbal lineup. For example, make them lineup according to their hand
size! If they do this one really quickly, you can move on to a more difficult
task like lining up by birthdate - taking month and day only.
● Play Chinese Whispers! You can vary this activity by saying just one word
with little children and you can say a proverb with more advanced students.
You can choose who starts the game from a list or at random
● Detect those fast-finishers who are willing to guide their friends.
Fast-finishers become ‘mentors’. They walk around the classroom helping
those who are struggling with their work.
● Make a poster with the polite words that we all need in class!
● Create a safe place such as Circle time or Group Thinking to tackle issues
that concern students. You can set the rules according to students’ ages.
You can pass a toy or choose speakers at random. This activity must be
planned (through questions) and you can share this time with a professional

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(a school psychologist) or a school authority if you consider it more
convenient. Triggers may be stories, poems or just a puppet for younger
kids asking them how they feel. There are no right answers in Circle Time.
Everybody participates and they must listen to each other respectfully. This
quality time provides unity making them feel they belong to that unique
classroom community.
● Whenever they work in teams, conflicts are to arise. Be there to help them
overcome differences. Listen to the way they talk about the project...do they
use I or We? Are they in for compromise? What are their attitudes like?

Personal skills

● Encourage them to use a personal agenda or calendar to follow school

assignments and projects
● Help them focus and regain calmness by doing some basic breathing
exercises. Keep it simple - you can also make them close their eyes and
concentrate on their breathing or imagine they are in a quiet safe place
surrounded by nature. They excel at imagining! It could be great if they
could actually go to a patio and just gaze at the sky.

Find some guidelines from the experts!

ttps://chopra.com/articles/3-kid-friendly-meditations-your-children-will-love

● Make them do Brain Gym exercises

Find explanations here

BRAIN GYM: Simple Brain Gym Exercises to Awaken the Brain for
Learning Readiness

● Having Helpers each day. They will be happy to take on responsibilities.

Today’s helper can be the second helper tomorrow! Within the role of
helper, there can be different tasks each student may be given:

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● Praise students when they look after their school objects

● Praise and thank students when they are ready to wait
● Praise and thank students when they accept criticism or feedback
● Activities based on emotional Intelligence. Our students’ intelligence goes
beyond their I.Q.

This 2 minute video is a very clear summary of the main ideas behind
emotional intelligence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=GQhbFkB-oLc

If you want to know more about Emotional Intelligence, you may visit Daniel
Goleman’s official site:

http://www.danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/

○ Tips for teachers:

Read the following article about the implementation of

emotional intelligence in the classroom.

Emotional intelligence: why it matters and how to teach it

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Positive attitude

● Have a special day a week so that a student can talk about hobbies / sports
/ likes as in a talent show
● In classrooms with diverse cultural or racial backgrounds, make sure they
all feel we are all the same
● As we have mentioned in Communication skills, greet each student
individually with a handshake / high-five / making eye-contact will help start
the class with enthusiasm
● Praise students when they are generous or do nice things for a friend
● Positive dice: each student throws a dice and follows instructions to boost
self-esteem - with age appropriate rubrics. You can choose the phrases that
best suit your students and change them according to the class’ needs.
This can be done in circle time or when fostering harmonious classroom
relations.

1. I am good at… 4. I am strong

2. I like it when...at because…
school 5. I feel happiest
3. I am really great when…
at…. 6. I am grateful
for….

For Leadership & Work ethic or Professional Skills, you will find a
Powerpoint Presentation in our classroom

Take a look at the following project plan revolving around the story ‘The Blind
Men and the Elephant’ for primary school. Pay special attention to the

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soft-skills that were particularly developed throughout the implementation of this project.
Story Book_Sample Project
Regarding the book, you will find other versions for teenage students available on the
Internet.

Implications for us teachers

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Dogme ELT

Given that the topic of this course is ‘Innovation’, we cannot help but mention the
Dogme ELT approach to teaching, which has its roots in an article written by Scott
Thornbury and Luke Meddings called ‘The roaring in the chimney’. This preliminary idea
was later elaborated into the ‘Teaching Unplugged’ guide, which won the British Council
ELTons award for Innovation1 in 2010.
The main pillars of this method are:

1
Eltons Awards value innovation in language teaching and are granted yearly by the British Council. Read
more about them here https://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/events/eltons-innovation-awards
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Watch the following video featuring Luke Meddings in which he answers the
questions from the audience regarding Dogme teaching.

http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/continuing-professional-development/teacher-educator-fra
mework/knowing-subject/dogme-lesson-luke-meddings-exeter-question-and-answer-session

Actually, advocates of this approach claim that it is more than just about
methodology. It is a philosophy. It is about giving the learner priority over the syllabus and
the coursebook. Hence, the name ‘materials-light teaching’. It is about acknowledging the
central role that motivation plays in learning, so that the linguistic content to be taught
should result from the students’ needs and not from an externally imposed syllabus. Let’s
think of a practical situation. Say an elementary student comes back from a skiing holiday
and wants to share her experience with the others. Another student wants to say he’s
never skied before. In a Dogme lesson, the teacher will take this opportunity to teach this
present perfect structure, even though the teaching of this tense does not occur until a
pre-intermediate level.

In this animated video you will find the main tenets and advantages of the
Dogme approach. But the last slide, containing the disadvantages of this
method, is incomplete. Which do you think might be some of the drawbacks of
this method?

https://view.genial.ly/5c5cab411ef86d73dd9b6012/

Find the following articles in the Further Reading section in our virtual
classroom.

❖ Teaching without textbooks: Dogme

❖ Luke Meddings on Dogme ELT

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Seize that teachable moment!

We have discussed some innovative strategies which we can deploy in our classes. We
would like to mention some other approaches which are also innovative in their own way
and which can also enrich our pedagogical toolkit.

Go over the following pages which suggest a wide array of innovative strategies.

★ Differentiated instruction or Differential learning

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction

★ Activity-based learning and learning labs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGp6pyiNEtc
★ Kinesthetic classrooms
https://educhatter.wordpress.com/category/student-work-ethic/

https://www.gettingsmart.com/2019/02/cultivating-an-innovation-mindset-in-
the-classroom/

★ Adaptive Learning
https://www.prodigygame.com/blog/adaptive-learning/
https://www.thetechedvocate.org/5-things-know-adaptive-learning/
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/10/integrating-edp-and-cbl-in-stem/

Beyond pedagogy, let’s make the most of the time in the classroom. In the end, we
want to empower our students and provide them with learning that lasts. We might also
find inspiration in them so be on the look-out for those precious teachable moments!

A teachable moment is an event or experience which presents a good unexpected

opportunity for learning about a particular aspect of life. These are unplanned, naturally
spontaneous moments in which students can gain understanding of a certain topic. We
need to get hold of this chance and provide them with meaningful insight. This is the
moment in which the student can also receive significant information akin to these 21st
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century skills! You might need to move away from the prescribed plan but it will be worth
it. It would be perfect if this teachable moment was followed by a light-bulb moment: a
moment of sudden realization, enlightenment, or inspiration.

Urban dictionary: An instance of mental and emotional clarity when all doubts
vanish and an illuminating truth is suddenly revealed.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lightbulb%20moment

Find below a couple of anecdotes:

● First form class….we were just finishing a song in which a monster ate certain
food. In the lyrics, the food increased in number: one pizza, two apples, three
carrots and so on. Suddenly, a fly flew into the classroom and I just said a fly! A
student said He ate one fly, another one 2 spiders and I ended up introducing
insects. In fact, all together, they managed to produce some themselves. As this
was in first form, there was no grammar involved - just items of vocabulary.

● On a first day of school, children were preparing badges with their names for the
teacher to identify the kids more quickly. One of the kids suggested adding labels
to objects in the class! The unit of classroom vocabulary was in the syllabus but in
a couple of months ahead. Of course, we did it that same day so that they could
identify the objects around them more easily.

● The students in 5th year (secondary school) were doing their internships in
different companies and as it was their first week, they were all in a flutter about
the experiences each of them had gone through in the first days. The plan had
been to do a First Certificate use of English activity, but it was impossible for the
students to focus on this lesson. I could either move on with the language lesson,
leaving most of the class behind, or take advantage of this helter-skelter situation
and turn it into a teachable moment. This way, we started sharing anecdotes and
learning a great deal of business-related vocabulary. Students were receptive and

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open to incorporating the new lexical items. It turned out to be a highly significant
and memorable learning situation for them.

● We were in class (first form again), a storm was approaching, there was a power
cut.., children started to feel afraid...even of their own shadows. There and then,
we started playing with shadows and light, making or better say, trying to make
puppet shadows with our hands on the wall.

Taking the classroom outside

At present, making a change of scenery might even be the only option to deliver lessons
so taking the classroom outside might turn out being a valid way of sustaining education.

Apart from the fact that being in a patio or surrounded by nature is invitation enough, let’s

consider some of the reasons why teachers decide to make this shift:
- to make the most of clean air
- to teach content related to nature
- to resort to nature as an input to teach other contents
- to build up teams
- to strengthen social skills
- to improve environmental awareness
- to make room for play
- to provide opportunities for movement
- to build independence too!

Now let’s go over some of the benefits

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https://meganzeni.com/teaching-outside-the-classroom/

Plan your class so that nature plays a role in it!

- find patterns in nature
- complete charts via observation
- follow procedures
- look around to learn vocabulary (colours, for instance!)
- do some storytelling
- get dirty!
- use nature to trigger writing (descriptions for instance!)
- sing and dance!
- dedicate some time to talk about their feelings or share news (Circle Time)
- us their cell phones to locate objects
- incorporate science, geography or even geology into the ESL class
- make land art!
- play games

If you still have doubts, here is a video from Sir Ken Robinson on why we should
take our learning outdoors!

Sir Ken Robinson: Five reasons to teach outside

Learning activities carried out outside the conventional classroom are often authentic,
hands-on and they also build on previous classroom learning.

We can also incorporate field trips to our programme. It is definitely an excellent way of
enriching our students’ educational experience by showing them real-life applications or
instances of theories that they have learnt indoors at school.

Various research studies have collected evidence of the benefits of taking the classroom
outside, both in delivering a lesson or organizing school trips. These include a boost on
students’ self-esteem, better interpersonal relations, an improvement in behavior, more

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student engagement and better grades, increase in confidence and emotional
development among others.
Sitemap and Learning outside the classroom

There are physical, emotional, and psychological benefits for teaching in the
natural world. Students show improved cognitive abilities and focus, as well as a
greater level of engagement in the educational content and process (Blair, 2010;
Chawla, 2015; Li & Sullivan, 2016; Rios & Brewer, 2014). In addition, there is
evidence that the natural world can improve creative and critical thinking
(Berezowilz, et al., 2015; Williams & Dixon, 2013) especially in K-12 settings
(Barnes, Cross & Gresalfi, 2011; Benfield, Rainbold, Bell & Donovan, 2013).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nature-is-nurture/202007/teaching-in-nature-ta
king-the-classroom-outside

At present, we can resort to technology to bring the outside to the inside as well. We can
go to any part of the world with Google Earth or visit museums which showcase content
related to the topic of your lesson.

As we have mentioned before, planning is key. Should we wish to cater for all our
students' needs then a multiple intelligences plan will do the trick!

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Let’s get down to business. Here are some images of possible templates.

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We would also like to share some Sample Planning carried out in the light of MI.

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Here is the template shown above

Template MI Planning

And another template to enlarge a Literature Project via MI

Enlarging a Literature Project with MI

We will meet again in Module IV with a wealth of other fascinating concepts: critical
thinking, e-tools and more!

Module III: Final compulsory activity

You will find the link to this final task in our classroom.

References
Claiborne, L., Morrell, J., Bandy, J., Bruff, D., Smith, G. & Fedesco, H. (2020). Teaching
Outside the Classroom. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [4-4-2021]
from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-outside-the-classroom/.

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