Dimmi Domanda is adapted from an idea I saw on The Language Gym (a great resource for this kind of thing!). Using DimmiDeck, or even scrap paper on which the students have written or drawn the relevant vocabulary, students practise question forms and short answers in a simple, fun and frantic card collecting game. Great for kids and teens!
It’s giveaway time!
To celebrate our returning to the classroom for a new term DimmiDeck are giving away a 1-year digital subscription to the excellent English Teaching Professional magazine.
Plus, the winner will also get a free DimmiDeck Standard Edition enabling them to use all our DimmiDeck activities in their classroom, plus add a few of their own! If you’re new to DimmiDeck, check out our about page for more information.
Entry is completely free – and by sharing your unique link with your teacher friends they will not only get a chance to win, but you will get an extra three chances to win for each friend who signs up!
What are you waiting for? Sign up for the contest today! Entries will close on Sunday evening and the winner will be announced the following week.
Thank you and good luck!
Anthony and Alessandra
I recently had the pleasure of buying my first course books aimed at young learners. I say pleasure, but actually finding materials that I found both engaging and well illustrated was a much larger struggle than I’d anticipated.
Long story short I eventually settled on ‘New Treetops’ (Oxford Press), a cute EFL course aimed at Italian primary students. It focuses on teaching grammar through four modules based around the seasons. Each one tells stories of some little elves and animals who live together in ‘treetops town’.
The book is nicely illustrated, comes with loads of extra activities and is gives just enough new language and grammar in each module without overloading the students. So far I’m impressed and it has made my 121 students so much more engaged.
It got me thinking about where I stand on materials creation. Treetops does follow the CEF and definitely has clear ‘vocabulary’ and ‘grammar’ sections but, and this may just be because it’s aimed at kids, they are much less ‘in-your-face’ as in the more often used adult course books such as Cutting Edge or Headway.
I started to wonder – why are our adult course books always so blatant about their following of a grammar-based syllabus when it can be much more engaging to disguise language like this?
I’m a relatively recent graduate of CELTA so was frequently taught about the general love/hate attitude towards course books in our industry. In fact it was a crucial part of the syllabus. I do, however, find the problem quite perplexing.
On the one hand, the majority of teachers bemoan course book syllabuses as being too restrictive and uninspired, whilst on the other hand many of these same teachers continue to use them and are unable or unwilling to suggest alternatives – probably because this alternative may mean creating all our lessons from scratch!
Scott Thornbury’s talk at the end of the IATEFL conference last year talked about a similar thing. His words were along the lines of ‘we’ve been talking about moving away from a grammar-based syllabus for 30 years. We know the pitfalls of the grammar-based syllabus and we know the alternatives. So why are our course books still so rooted in the idea?’
Another teacher and blogger Peter Viney caused a stir last year with his post ‘The Dead Hand of The CEF’ which pointed the finger directly at the Common European Framework for this lack of creativity and desire to think outside the box. Again, many teachers agreed. So what now?
I recently worked at one of the more modern school franchises in Italy called My English School. Their method utilises aspects of blended learning and positive psychology in SLA with a communicative focus. Their course breaks the CEFR into 13 individual levels where 80% of the lessons are based around a functional syllabus. This means they spend the majority of their lessons learning functional language (ordering a coffee, discussing recent events, describing your town) and the ‘grammar lessons’ are much shorter and spread less frequently throughout.
When grammar lessons do occur (five times per ‘level’) they are blended. The student completes a task online before the lesson. They practise the language during the lesson and do a final task online afterwards.
After every level there is a revision lesson reviewing all the grammar that they have covered and a final ‘test’. After passing this test the student can move onto the next level. If they fail, they simply repeat the lesson or lessons on which they need to focus while continuing their spoken practise with the multitude of functional language lessons through the week.
I have to say I liked the method and so did the students. It’s not perfect but it did show what can be achieved with a little creative thinking. I would love to see some research on it’s effectiveness over a longer term but generally it was just refreshing to see a different approach.
Now with DimmiDeck having reached it’s Kickstarter goal we’ve started to focus on the future. Downloadable materials and worksheets are absolutely part of this, but where do we start? Do we stick with grammar based activities? Should we look at functional language? Do we try a situational approach? Or do we take aspects of all three and create something totally new?
I guess over the next few months we will see. For now though, I can’t help wondering if there’s a good reason why course book writers are hesitant to change. The research is there. The information is out there for us all to find and we study it on just about every further development course we do.
So why are we still not doing it?
If you know of any course books or schools with an alternative and interesting syllabus structure please let us know in the comments!
And we couldn’t be happier. TEFLGamer.com has given a positive first review to DimmiDeck just two days before the Kickstarter campaign finishes.
“When I first saw DimmiDeck, I thought it must have been the work of one of the big publishers, because it looked so polished and ambitious. It’s actually the work of a particularly ingenious couple and it deserves a very serious look.”
You can read the rest of the review here. Also, if you use games as a resource in your language lessons frequently, why not follow the TEFLGamer blog?
Let’s face it, things change.
Even as a (relatively) young teacher I often find myself feeling out of touch with how fast things have moved on since I was a teenager. Just the other week, I presented a computer keyboard to one of my younger students in order to type her name and she explained that she didn’t really know how to use one. She’d only ever used tablets and phones.
Jesus, I felt old.
Yet when it comes to smartphones I’m not intimidated by them. For many teachers they are a scourge amongst teenage classes. They’re an obsession and a distraction, and they have no place in the classroom.
I disagree. Not only should you allow mobile phones in class, but you should integrate them into your activities from time to time.
Hear me out!
We are now live on Kickstarter!
‘Early Birds’ get a 15% discount on the DimmiDeck – limited to the first 150 backers! We are also offering discounts on double decks, limited edition ‘large’ decks and bulk orders as well as Kickstarter Exclusive Cards (scroll down to see!)
For the past year we have been testing, tweaking and improving the DimmiDeck to reduce preparation time and make our language lessons more engaging and more fun.
We’re so happy with the 50 characters that made it into the final deck. 100s of activities, dozens of games and tonnes of vocabulary. Total engagement with minimal preparation. If you’re a language teacher, you’re going to love this deck of cards!
Each of the 50 DimmiDeck characters has 9 different vocabulary sets (plus some surprises…) built into each card. The same card can be used for teaching a dozen different words.
Don’t have any time to prepare? No problem, any card you choose will show one of the desired vocab topics. Got a little more time? Check out our ‘quick reference’ guide to varied vocabulary sets (plus a sneak peak at all the cards!)
Kickstarter is ‘all or nothing’. We either reach our goal and print a large run of DimmiDecks for language teachers all over the world, or we don’t.
Support us today and as well as being the first to get your DimmiDeck, you can look forward to free activities and lesson plans, future products that expand on new ideas and vocabulary topics, a community of language teachers sharing activities and advice for free and support from us here at DimmiDeck.
What are you waiting for? Check out our Kickstarter campaign, watch our video, try our free activity ideas, see our productions stills and, most importantly, order your DimmiDeck before the discount expires!
Thank you for your support!
Anthony and Alessandra
There’s much more to teaching than vocabulary and grammar. But secretly, we all like to think we know it all, don’t we? Most English speakers use these words incorrectly on a daily basis.
English teachers we challenge you – how many do you know? Post your scores below!
[playbuzz-item url=”//www.playbuzz.com/dimmideck10/the-12-most-misused-words-in-english-can-you-beat-our-quiz”]
We are currently taking a few days off while we prepare to return to Italy after the Christmas break, so there’ll be a smaller blog update this week. Christmas may be over for us in the UK, but in Italy there’s still one big event left to finish off the Christmas period – Epiphany.
I wrote an article a while ago about the difficulties that language teachers often face in the classroom with regards to ‘preconceptions of teaching’, which related to the expectations we have when entering a new classroom and how that shapes our engagement in a course.
We’re thrilled to announce the winner of our first giveaway – Lilit Bekaryan! Lilit now joins thousands of enthusiastic, creative teachers who use www.onestopenglish.com every day.
Lilit is a PhD, DELTA and CELTA qualified teacher who teachers at university level in Armenia.
We received entries from all types of English teachers all over the world so thank you for entering! Keep your eyes open for our next giveaway in January!