New classes introducing themselves to me

As a follow up to day 1, in which the class learned about me, I went for an activity on day 2 that would give the kids more of a chance to tell me about themselves. I used an idea from the 'Interesting Ways to Get to Know Your Class' slideshow and asked the students to draw a coat of arms (thanks @tombarrett for the idea). This consisted of a shield shape divided into 4 with the students drawing pictures to represent important information about themselves in each quadrant (favourite colour, favourite animal, a hobby etc). To make it more personal, I showed them a photo of my ancestoral coat of arms, which they thought was cool.

They really enjoyed doing the activity and comparing their pictures with each other. While they were drawing, I circulated around the room asking questions. The whole activity offered a great way to get to know about their interests without demanding too much in terms of language production and it's definitely something I'll be trying again.

Perhaps I'll add a scan or two of some of their work once I've collected it all in. ;)

Comments

  1. Hi David

    I've just read your great post on "Getting the most out of Power Point" over at Barbara's blog, and then clicked onto your blog here, which looks full of fabulous and practical teaching ideas.

    I love the Coat of Arms activity you have highlighted above. I enjoy using it with new classes. I have copied the outline of a coat of arms on an A3 size sheet of paper, and then attached 4 pictures of things associated with my life to show to the students as an example, exactly as you have mentioned above.

    Showing your students a real ancestoral coat of arms is a great idea, and one which I am sure the students must have loved seeing.

    Many thanks for sharing!

    Janet

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  2. Hi Janet,

    Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment. I've since used the completed coats of arms to make a corridor display and asked the students to show them to their former English teachers at lunchtime, explaining each picture. They really enjoyed that and were delighted to have a 'public' display of their work so early in the year.

    DavidD

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