Summer

It's August and I am here in Canada, my home town of beautiful and oh-so-scenic, Sault Ste. Marie, at the hub of the Great Lakes.

I try to make it home at least once every year for many reasons, the most important of course is to be with my family, many of whom are teachers and educators. We visit and spend catch-up time with each other. This is a very important time of the year for me!

I always feel so grounded when I am here. The love and warmth I get from my family is second to none! But, it`s also the ability to be immersed in the small-town values that I so cherish and often find more challenging to experience in the big city.

Here, people pop by for a coffee and a visit just to see how you are doing. Here,you are always served with "Hello! How are you today? and a super-big smile! Here, you are surrounded by the spleandour of the wild and wonderful outdoors. Nature is so generous. We have seen bears, foxes, rabbits, and deer... in the 8 days we have been here. Exhilarating!

We also talk teaching! I come from a family of teachers... my mother, my stepfather, loads of aunts and uncles, cousins, sister, whew! Yes, teaching and learning is definitely in our blood! There isn`t a family get-together that doesn`t turn to teacher-talk. And I love it! I always come away feeling inspired to try new ideas, explore new thoughts, and look for new materials.

My trips home are also about book scouting. I spend hours and hours in books stores reviewing the newest teaching materials, reading magazines, finding out what teachers and students are talking about, and just getting up-to-date.

For more than 2o years now, almost 25 I have been writing and developing my own teaching/learning materials. I have loads of activities, but more importantly I have developed learning tools which I use over and over again with all my students, regardless of the age and stage of language learning.

These learning tools form a critical part of my strategy for classroom organization and management. They help me create opportunities in the classroom for children to show me what they know, to engage in relevant revision, and to provide meaningful ongoing assessment opportunities.

Please, don`t think for a minute that I have a monoploy over my learning tools. The real interaction happens because every student makes and uses their own learning tool.

Each and every student keeps their learning tools in their own personal English Portfolio, kept whiin a labelled plastic box at the bck of the classroom so that the tools are accessible and can be taken out and used at any time during the class.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to write a little more about some of the learning tools I have created. If this interests you, drop by my blog and let me know what you think!

In the meantime, I hope you are having a wonderful summer full of educational and inspirational moments!

Theresa