[ Article written in September 2014, in San Francisco]

I want to tell you the story of an ‘Epiphany’ I experienced in February 2014.

I love this word, the origin of which is the celebration of the visit of the wise men to Jesus newly born, in other words, the manifestation of the divine to the common people. In English it is more commonly defined as a sudden revelation of the essential meaning of something often initiated by some simple common occurrences. It is actually the reason why I am here in San Francisco.

In February 2014, I decided to go on a trip to Asia as a way to turn the page of a finished relationship. I was, as well, at a turning point in my professional life. I was kind of worn-out by my work environment, after 22 years at Air Liquide company, and was trying to figure out my motivation for the next 20 years of my working life.
In this context, I decided to travel alone. I wanted to leave my mind open and available to random encounters and to my new environment. I did well..

In this context I decided to travel alone, not allowing  a friend to accompany me. I wanted to leave my mind open and available to random encounters and to my new environment, and I did well.

This is how I set off on a trip to Laos and Cambodia.

I met a few people there. Surprisingly, they didn’t realise that what they were telling me was unwittingly going to change the course of my life …and I didn’t know it either!

# The trigger point for a change of life

I met Christophe and Olivier in a restaurant in Laos at the border of Thailand. They both had settled in Laos a few years previously and were so happy about their new life there. I was actually very intrigued and envious. I asked them what the trigger point had been for taking action, I was actually obsessed by this question. They had both spent some time in Laos, were attracted to its quietness and simplicity. They had both been at a turn in their lives when they felt a strong desire for change. Christopher told me this anecdote: “I was in the Parisian metro and smiled spontaneoulsy at a woman sitting in front of me. I gave her a passing gaze and she responded by turning her face away and pouting. I could not put up with this fearful closed-minded behaviour anymore.” (Everybody knows Paris is the capital of pouting faces whereas San Franciso is that of fake smiles…). They also talked me into going on a ‘Gibbon experience’ trip. So, I set out to do just that the next morning…

# The job I would have loved to do

The Gibbon experience was created by a French man to raise people’s awareness about the preservation of the jungle in Laos and its last remaining Gibbons. It is a 2-to-3-day hike in the jungle, using an exceptional zip line cable network throughout the forest, enabling the visitors to glide above the canopy of trees. Guests sleep in tree houses at night, with breathtaking views of the forest. The fear I had about this trip was being surrounded by young Westerners. My fears were confirmed. Nonetheless, it appeared that those young people, mostly from South Africa and the United States, were English teachers in Bankgok or Seoul and told me about their jobs. I found it so awesome, it was like a thwarted desire that came rushing back to the surface. I started thinking how wonderful it would be to do such an exciting and rewarding job. I remember thinking to myself at that time “I would have loved doing that!”, as if it were too late for me to contemplate such an endeavor.

# Daring a total change of job

I met Mary on the boat trip from the Thaï border to Luang Prabang: a 2-day tourist trap boat trip for Western backpackers. However, the journey remained impressive for we did not cross a bridge during the two days of the trip, nor a town, rarely a village, sometimes wooden houses scattered in the countryside, mainly endless wild forest (this reflects the level of industrialisation of the country). Mary was a 30-year-old German woman from Berlin, sitting just behind me. We had time to talk. She was actually in the process of changing jobs. She wanted to study sustainable environment and quit her job in the tourism industry that had led her on luxurious ships throughout the world, but she found it too perfunctory and was seeking more meaningful work.

The same thing happened with a Korean woman I met later on, during a boating trip to Nuang Kew fishermen’s village. She wanted to leave a job in web advertising which she found meaningless for a job in tourism where she thought she could find more meaningful human connections. Alas, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. However, I was really impressed by this turning point they both had decided to take in their professional lives.

# Children are a lifelong burden

When I arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, after a 10-hour bus trip, it was nearly midnight. I hadn’t made any hotel reservation, and it appeared that the hotels were rather full. Exhausted I asked the first rickshaw to take me to a place he recommended. “Cheap place” he said. I ended up in a gloomy room without any window, nor bathroom, just a mere water hose over a toilet to take a shower. In short, this place was awful. It was too late, and I was too exhausted to make a move. However, the young Cambodian woman, who was in charge of the hotel rooms, made up for the ugliness because she was so sweet. She offered me fruit, as I had not eaten a bite for hours, offered me use of the open air kitchen sink to brush my teeth. She asked me the common question: ”Do you have children?” To which I answered no. Surprisingly her reaction was: “You are so lucky, you are free to go wherever you want, you can travel and discover the world. I am stuck here with my two kids.”
A couple days later leaving Phnom Penh for Siem Rep, I was in a bus sitting next to an Indonesian family who was there for a family vacation. The man of the family asked me the same question, to which I gave the same answer. His reaction was: “Good for you, children are lifelong worries. You are free!”
Well, that was an insight!

All those people were the stones that paved the way to my epiphany.

When I returned home, my company was offering a severance package, including training to learn a new job. Then it became clear what I was going to do, I could change my job, become a teacher and settle in South East Asia. It was so clear that it frightened me for a while ‘Am I insane?’. It felt like a tsunami. Nothing could stop me.

After having worked in the field of industrial gases for more than 20 years, I decided to become a teacher. Here is how I set out to get a Celta certificate, to teach English as a second language. The school I chose at that time offered both English classes to brush up on my English skills and a Celta teacher training course was in San Francisco, a city I yearned to discover!
The following describes my teacher training and my first practical teaching experiences.

[ May 2015]
I have done my teacher training and got what I’ve come here to get, the Celta certificate! This intense training session was such an empowering experience!

There were just three of us as teacher trainees in my class. We were asked to teach an actual class on the third day of our course. It was something both highly useful and scary because we had to teach so soon. It is also the best way to learn, by making mistakes which is part of the learning process. Every afternoon we taught extra free classes to registered students of the school. There were 8 to 14 students aged 20 to 60 years old. They were from all over the world. Their skills were elementary to upper intermediate level.

I have entered a new world! I realized I didn’t have the skill set that was required for being a teacher. I had to shed my former reliance on corporate presentation skills I had been using for years. I had to relearn a new way of expressing things. We – company workers – were used to studying a topic and gaining an expertise on it to be able to tell about it extensively to our colleagues and managers. Now, I had to reverse the process and ask our students questions to elicit their skills, their thinking, their speaking ability, to find the answers by themselves. It was a new philosophy I had to adopt. I entered the dialectic method of enquiry of Socrates. As our renowned friend Wikipedia says, “The Socratic method remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. This is perhaps Socrates’ most important contribution to Western thought”.

No wonder this training was baffling. The overreaching principle of our teaching hinges on this student-centered methodology. I have entered a new world! I need an overall rebooting of my brain. 

One concept of our training lies in the CCQ – Concept Checking Question – and its infamous enemy the TTT – Teacher Talking Time! The CCQ is a clever way to elicit students understanding rather than “spoon feeding them”, as our teacher Sezgi says! That might be the most difficult part for us trainee teachers because as I previously said, I was wired differently from my time in the corporate world! CCQ requires us to have a thorough grasp of the grammar point, the vocabulary, or the functions we are supposed to teach. We know we have done a good job when we’ve been almost silent during the class.

The interesting part of this course is that we’ve been taught the way we are supposed to teach our students, with this same discursive process.

Praise is the first tool of class management we were told about. Surprisingly, it seems to me that the word praise is not in the dictionary of the educational system in France. As a tool of class management, it is so supremely obvious because our students need confidence to be able to speak a new language! The use of interaction patterns, such as working in pairs, also fosters confidence, and encourages the student to practice the language in a “safe” environment, not having to speak directly to the teacher or the entire class. This is also the spirit of the “check in pairs” stage, in which the student can check their answers with their classmate and be sure of themselves before giving an oral answer to the class.

Ultimately, a good lesson plan is the scaffolding of effective teaching. The objective must be clear. The lead-in (introduction to the subject) serves as an icebreaker.  We then introduce the context of what we’re going to teach. After which, we set up a “treasure hunt” to make the students guess the rules (e.g., grammar) or the meaning (e.g., vocabulary) of what they are being taught. Then we proceed to a controlled practice to check their understanding. Lastly, we set up a freer practice to give them a less guided way to practice the new language they’ve learned. That in a nutshell are the guidelines to the language lessons: vocabulary, grammar, functions.  It is simply a logical way to learn a new language.

Observing and being observed by my peers with constructive feedback was a very empowering process and a time of self-awareness thanks to our professional and empathetic instructors. Ultimately, establishing a rapport with the students was a wonderful experience.

I feel like a whole new world is opening up before me.

‘my first experience as a teacher was not something to boast about’

Teaching young lao kids was a dream come true! Those little lao faces staring at you were so irresistibly adorable and cute… for a couple of weeks. Then things became more complicated, keeping them focused as they were in dire need of moving around was a real challenge. I was overwhelmed with rambunctious kids that I had expected to be polite, calm, and respectful as I had in mind this stereotype of Asian children. I really needed to hone my teaching skills.
After a few years of teaching, I learned some tips that have helped me greatly in the way I manage my class. They may seem to be little things but one after the other, it makes a big difference. I learnt that along the way, and thanks to the support and advice of friends, teachers, and managers.

Make sure all students feel they belong

The first pillar is to create a safe environment where the students can feel good among their peers and feel they belong in the class. This is why I am truly wary of the students’ emotional state and their inclusion in the class. It is not uncommon to see students that are singled out because they are a little different from the others. I have come across students who have been made fun of or looked down upon because they were a little fat, or their skin color was dark or they couldn’t speak Lao nor English or because boys had feminine manners…These issues are not always easy to address. It is important to not let these attitudes go unnoticed. One way I found effective was to invent a credible story to make the students aware of the effect of their behaviors on others.

Set up rules and be consistent

While creating a safe and welcoming environment, you need a structure that is conducive to learning. Set up clear rules in the classroom and be consistent in applying them. Make sure everyone understands the rules and agrees with them, this will come in handy as you can remind them of the rules if they have strayed from them.

Don’t raise your voice

Sometimes, you need to calm your classroom down to get their attention.
– Lower your voice: I have a naturally loud and powerful voice, but I learned not to raise my voice if I need to get students attention. On the contrary, I actually lower my voice just to differentiate my tone and wait until the students are quiet.
– Play soothing music and dim the lights. Ask the students to close their eyes, put their hand on the table and focus on the music. Classical music or slow jazz are good options.
– Count down: This magical trick works well with young kids. Raise you hand, widespread, and count down from 5 to 1, folding your fingers one by one and saying ‘5-4-3-2…’. Very surpisingly, this works like magic!
Those two last tips are good for young students up to 12 years old.

Reward participation

Speaking the language is paramount in the learning process. This is why I have always strived to encourage participation in my classes.
Set up a participation & behavior board with the students’ names. Every time a student answers a question, or tries to answer a question, you write a little mark on the side of the white board in front of their name to remind both the teacher and students that they have tried to participate. At the end of the day, you add up the marks and keep a record of them on a ‘participation & behavior chart’. At the end of the month, you give a ‘student of the month’ certificate to the student who got the most points, certificate that they surprisingly all covet.

Don’t forget that repetition is key

Every time you teach a new word or expression, make a word card (or picture card as well if suited). Thus, you will build a collection of new words in a stack of cards that get bigger as you go on. Every morning you can use these cards to review the vocabulary that has been learned. You can ask a student to pick a card and explain the word to her classmates for them to guess, or you as a teacher can do it. This enables repetition in a fun way.
See the article ‘how to use flashcards’.

Do fun and memorable activities

– Introduce games to keep the students engaged. The ingredients for a good game are competition and randomness. Competition makes the activity more challenging and randomness spices it up. Using card games is one way to to use the target language in a guided practice that is fun and interactive. See my chapter ‘card games’.

– Try to make the activities memorable by using resources from non academic material/ authentic documents that can strike the students’ imagination. Using famous characters that they know, funny videos, or striking cultural events, are ways to surprise the students and help the learning process.

– Make things personal, if the students take part in the building of the game or the activity by adding their own personal touches, they will love it.

Keep the students active

Do not hesitate to set up active games in your class to break the pace of the lesson, avoiding boredom especially from 5 to 13 years old and to cater to kinaesthetic learners. I learned this very useful ‘freeze and stir’ class management key concept from a PGCE colleague teacher.

• Have students go around the class to interview their peers in a ‘find someone who…’ activity.
• Organise board races in teams to write as fast as possible some target language on the board, do speaking races with 2 teams forming 2 lines, each student having to use the words in a guided way as quickly as they can.
• Have the students tap a word or a picture hung somewhere in the classroom.
• Organise ambulatory reading activities in the classroom. Instead of having your students read a text and answer the questions at their table, break down the text into pieces (speech bubbles for example) that you print and hang on the wall of your classroom. Thus, your students have to stroll around the classroom to be able to answer the questions you have prepared.
• Organise exhibitions in the classroom, hang pictures on the walls and ask the students to describe them using the adjectives learned or to make a comment with any other grammar form/ target language you have just studied.
• Give your students small individual whiteboards they will use to practice memory and spelling. Make them guess a word by giving a definition or showing them a picture card and they have to write the correct spelling on the whiteboard. Young students usually feel very excited about using the boards.
• See the article ‘active games to spice up your class’

September 2020.

Teacher’s Day!

If you are a Western teacher, I bet you have never heard of Teacher’s Day. It is a special day where teachers are praised by their administration as well as their students. You don’t believe this can even be possible? So listen…

• So now imagine a day when arriving at school at 7:30 in the morning, you are welcomed by students in procession who clap and great you with a special handmade “happy Teacher’s Day” pendant, that they wrap around your neck as a welcome gift.
• Imagine a day when getting in your classroom, a student comes and serves you a special breakfast plate with fresh pancakes and gives you a “teacher’s certificate” in your name stating you are “an angel that keeps calm in any situation and shows your students the light” (and of course the message is personalized for each teacher).
• Imagine a day when your desk is filled with gifts from your students: tea mugs, cookies, candies, flowers, notebooks, silk purses, fans… some with personalized messages.
• Imagine a day when you are shown a video that was made by the students with special ‘thank you’ messages.
• Imagine a day when you are ushered to the assembly hall where the students have prepared a special meal they serve you at a table, while entertaining you with songs and music they perform.
• Imagine a day when you are shown a surprise video that features your family members sending personal messages to you. All of the foreign teachers had not been able to go home for more than a year with the covid lockdown. Luckily, they had not reached out to my family, as I am new to this school. I would have cried my head off! However, they recorded a student’s personal message stating how they loved the French class!
• Imagine a day when the students entertain you with games, contests, dancing, singing and you just need to relax and enjoy.

  No, this is not a dream, this happened to me at my school in Laos. Don’t be jealous. This is all part of the emotional roller-coaster a teacher has to go through.

Why is it important to teach with active games?

It is a way to keep the students engaged and avoid boredom by changing the pace of the lesson. As the students are physically active, it can also help them reduce anxiety or shyness and help build their fluency. 

Here are 7 of the active game I  like to use in my classroom .

1-Find Someone Who…

Purpose : practice question forming , getting to know each other.
The teacher prepares a chart with : « Find someone who… » using the vocabulary you want to practice
The students prepare the questions to ask.
They go around the class and Interview their classmates.
They write the answers in each box.

2- Board Race

Purpose : An active way of reviewing a grammar structure or verb tense.
2 teams stand in 2 lines.
The teacher writes the target language on the board
Example: adjectives that have to be put in a comparative form.

Students one by one should write the correct word as fast as possible

Example :               

3-Speaking Race

Purpose : an active and competitive way of practicing speaking skills.

2 teams standing in 2 lines.

The teacher has cards to use with the target language.

Each student in each team should make a correct sentence with the word on the card using the target language.

• Example : target language : just + Present perfect
• Card1 : ‘see’
•  The student says : ‘I have just seen a dog/ a ghost…’

One point is given to the team whose student could utter a correct sentence the fastest.

4- Charade

Purpose : An active way of practicing a target language
In teams or individually
Teacher has cards using the target language.

One student picks a card and makes her team or class guess what it is by miming the action on the card.

• Example of target language : present continuous.
•  Card1 : « you are washing a blue cat »

5- Mingle

Purpose : An active way of practicing a target language

The students are in 2 lines facing each other

Each student gets a card and ask a question with the target language. Their counterpart answers with the target language.

After that they mingle to make new pairs and exchange their cards and do it again.

• Example :  Target language : present perfect in questions . 
• Answer : Yes I have/ No I have never xxxx 
• Card1 : « drive a car »
• Student 1 says :Have you ever driven a car?
• Students 2 says : Yes I have / or No I have never driven a car.

6- Tap the Word

Purpose : An active way of reviewing vocabulary.
2 to 4 teams.
The teacher calls on a student to write on the board 3 words that have been learnt . She does so with other students so as to get 20 words on the board.
Then the teachers calls on 1 student per team to come to the board.
The teacher gives a definition and the students have to tap the correct word as fast as they can.

7- Chinese Whisper

Purpose : an active listening, review of structured sentence
2 teams
They stand in 2 separate lines

The teacher says a sentence to the two first students of each team.

Each student passes on the sentence to the next student, whispering.

The last student writes the sentence on the board.
The team whose sentence is the closest to the initial sentence wins.

1-Flashcard Chain

To practice simple interaction patterns: 

IN A CIRCLE:  ask the students to stand in a circle with you. Have the flashcards ready for the activity. Pass the first one to the student on your left ans ask the question you want using the target language. Example: Do you like elephants? . The student responds ‘yes I do’ or ‘No I don’t’ and passes the flashcard to their classmate next to them, asking the question in the same way. When the flash card you first introduced is about 3 students away from you, then introduce the nextflashcard using questions in the same way. 

IN TEAMS: this can be done as a team challenge. Each student of each team has to pass on a question to his classmate who answers and asks the same question to his other classmate…The team that finishes first wins.

2- Categorizing

Choose a language area the students have seen before. You need at least one flashcard per student (of 16 students, you need 16 flashcards or more).  Decide which categories you want the students to categorize the words into. Example: daily life objects???? useful – not useful. / drinks ???? hot drinks –  cold soft drinks – alcoholic drinks… Draw large circles on the board accordingly and write the categories under the circles. 

Teacher models: Hold up a flashcard and ask the students which word it is. ‘it is a wallet’. Ask them if they think it is useful or not useful.They should say why and give arguments to decide. Example: ‘because it is where you keep your money’. Then stick the card in the chosen circle.

Place the flashcard facedown  in a pile at the front of the class, ask the students to come up one at a time and pick up the top flashcard. The class should say the name of the card, then the class should decide which category is the best and explain why. The student at the front then places it in the correct circle.

3-Related Actions 

Material: a set of picture cards.

In teams: Each team draws 1 picture card. Then each team has 1 minute to find as many actions (verbs) as they can related to the pictures they have. They write them on a piece of paper.

Example:  A CAMERA

• Take pictures
• Be on holiday
• Travel around the world
• Remember my family and friends
• Celebrate a birthday
• Smile
• Perform on stage

At the end of the minute, you collect the lists and give points according to the number of actions found. If some are dubious then you can ask the team to explain their choice and have the other teams vote to decide if they get the point or not.

The next rounds will be made by switching the same cards to the other teams to make it fair or, as you wish, pick new cards for every team.

4-Draw-Mime-Describe

Print out 3 action cards : Draw/ Mime / Describe.

Place them face down in a hat or a basket. 

Print out picture cards (objects), as many cards as  you want to review.

One player draws an action card and an picture card and has to make her team guess the word by drawing or describing or miming the object accordingly to the Action card.

This should be done in a time limit, the student or the team that can guess in the time limit wins a point. The team or the player that got the most points is the winner;

5-Time’s up

Time’s Up’ is one of my favorite game as an adult. I love playing it with my family or my friends. This is freely inspired by this game. It works really well with my students.

1. Use between 20 to 30 cards (picture cards or word cards) that your students should already know. (a previous step could be to review their knowledge).
2. Objective: in each team a student should make their teammates guess what the object or the word on her card is as fast as she can in a time limit. 

Round 1: Explain. There is a stack of cards face down. The timer starts set at 30 seconds. The student picks a card and she has to explain what it is, describe it, say how we use it… without saying the word. If no one in his team can guess, she can skip the card and move on to another one…. And so on until the timer rings. The team keeps the cards they have guessed.Then the stack of cards left over goes to the next team who does the same to win cards. When all the cards have been guessed. You move on to the next round.

 Round 2: one word:  Now the teams know the picture cards (or word cards) better. They proceed to the next round by having their teammates guess the objects by uttering only one word (related to the way they explained the word before). They can skip the cards their teammates can’t guess.

Round 3: act it out: Now the teams have to make their teammates guess the objects by acting out, describing or using the object (they can not show the object if it is in the class, or draw it). The students are not allowed to utter a word, they can only act.

6-Week-end Story

In teams. Each team picks 5 picture-cards from the stack.

These 5 objects are the only objects they have (but as many as they want) to spend the most extraordinary week-end.

They have to create a story and describe their week-end using these objects. They should write their story in the past, in the present, or in the future, depending on what you are currently studying.

Give them 10 minutes to do that.

Collect their papers, read them outloud and the teams vote for the most awesome week-end!

Fostering speaking interactions is paramount in the language learning process. As a means to achieve this, I find using flashcards especially at elementary level a great learning tool.  It is the upside of this level as intermediate students deal with words that are more abstract concepts and are more difficult to represent in one picture.

Thus flashcards can be used to present new vocabulary, and /or can be used to review or revise vocabulary that has already been studied along the lessons.

They offer multiple opportunities to play with the language.

I present herafter a few activities that I have used and liked.

1-Flashcardsgroup

Audience : children.

Divide the class into groups of 3 to 5 students. Assign each group one flashcard. Example: Group 1= Elephant, G2=tigers, …Give the group instructions in the following way:  ‘touch your nose, tigers’.’wave your hands, lions’. Dont forget to say the instruction first and the flashcard 2nd to keep the children’s attention until they know if the instruction applies to their group or not. You can increase or decrease the level of challenge depending if you do the action yourself or not.

2- Hide & Seek

Audience: children.

Play this in teams. Spread the cards around the classroom face down when the students aren’t in the room.  Start playing by naming a card or writing the name on the board.  Then 1 student from each team should find it as fast as possible and bring it back to you or stick it on the board next to its name.

3-Flash the card

FAST: Show the students the flashcard very fast. They should be able to identify what is on the flashcard.

SLOWLY: Do the same thing, but this time cover the flashcard with a piece of paper and gradually reveal the picture, the students should identify the picture as soon as they can recognize it.

4-Guess the word

Can be played in teams. 

Version A) The most basic version: the teacher describes the picture or explains the word, the class should guess what it is.

Version B) One student picks a card card and needs to explain to the rest of the class what the word is. The team that guessed most words wins.

Version C) Each team asks one question at a time to one student at the front who can only answers yes or no.

5-What is missing ?

Stick the flashcards on the board and get the students to repeat the words. Ask the students to close their eyes and cover their eyes with their hands. Remove one of the flashcard from the board and hide it. Ask the children to  open their eyes and say what is missing. This can be done with realia.

 6-Magic Eyes

Stick the flashcards  in a row on the board (6 is a good number to use). Get the students to repeat the words with you in a rhytmic way. Do this a few times. Then remove the first card and continue in the same way. (a couple times).  Remove the next card the same way and repeat again….until you have removed all the cards.

Very good for training the students’ memory.

7- Memory Game

Print out pairs of cards, they can be 2 cards of the same ‘family’ (see Happy Family card games) or ‘a picture card’ and its ‘word card’ (See Flashcards) or 2 same picture cards.
Shuffle the pairs, you should have minimum 10 cards (or 5 pairs) and place them face down next to each others, they shoudln’t overlap.
Each player should return 2 cards , if they form a pair the student should name it, then she can keep the pair ans score a point, in this case she can play again.
If they don’t match, she places them back where they were and the next player returns 2 cards until they find a pair.
The player with the most pairs is the winner.