A Creative English Teacher – Lead the Way!

A Creative English Teacher – Lead the Way!

Benjamin Franklin said: "Tell me and I’ll forget. Teach me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll learn."

A good teacher has to be able to activate the pupils, raise their curiosity and boost their motivation.
A good teacher nowadays has to be interesting, versatile, innovative – like a juggler or a magician!
A creative teacher can achieve all of the above and Rania Essa is such a teacher.

Some of her activities require some preparation: a Gallery Walk, Interactive notebooks, Quizlet games, videos (such as Learning English Idioms is a piece of cake), PowerPoint presentations, Powtoon videos, Bitmoji…But other activities that she creates are quite simple to execute in class and hardly demand any preparation.

Gamification is an educational approach whose goal is to motivate students to learn by using video game design and game elements in learning environments and to increase pupils' involvement and joy while studying. Gamification, in Rania's book, can also apply to simple, non-elaborate games.

Take, for example, the game "Who is the winner?!" Stick blank post-it notes on a board, divide the class into teams or groups and address questions in turn to each group. If they answer correctly, a representative comes to the board, chooses a blank note and lifts it. On the back of the note there are points. Most are 'plus' points (+5, +10…) but some are 'minus' points (-3, -5…) and this can create a 'twist'. It's a non-predictable element which turns it into an exciting game since everyone likes winning, but the surprise factor – "Lady Luck" - may turn the whole thing around and there's no way of predicting who the winner is going to be.

Luckily for us, Rania Essa's motto is "Caring is Sharing." She shares her ideas constantly on her website, on Facebook and in several teachers' groups.

Rania leads the way and inspires many teachers and those who follow her are no doubt all the better for it.