This something I read in Lindsay Clandfield´s blog (Six things) which I absolutely recommend you to visit. In this post, you can read six skills he (and now me) is convinced students develop sitting in boring classes (not his, neither mine jajajajajajaja). As he says, they are not the ones we want them to develop in English, but they still are skills. So here they are
1 Twirling a pen between two forefingers and a thumb.
2 Leaning back on a chair just far enough to avoid falling over.
3 Drawing moustaches, devil’s horns and penises on photos in a book.
4 Opening the book to the wrong page every class.
5 Balancing a pen between the upper lip and nose.
6 Clicking pens quickly and noisily..
When I read them I couldn´t help remember myself during my long, boring chemistry classes (sorry Mrs Di Modugno) trying to break my own record of pen clicks during one minute!!!! This is something I still do in long meetings or during my “thinking time”, I know it´s annoying, but it sometimes helped me to kill the time and even to come up with an good idea to contribute with.
Now that I am the teacher, I sometimes see my students doing some of these during assemblies, classes or speeches and I tell to myself to be patient and not to take it personally, so I smile, try to change the activity, make a joke and go on.
Can you think about some other useless things your students do very well? I have one…
7. Use their desk as drums and perform a song using their hands and a ruler as a drum stick.
If you have another, please post a comment….
teachernormarojas 