These posts are written for learners of English themselves. Find learning tips and ideas for learning English.

For Students

A learning journal is a personal record of the past, present, and future of your learning. It&#39;s a great way to look back at how much you&#39;ve learned, think about what works best for you, and plan ways to learn even more in the future. You can also use it to note down how you felt doing different tasks or activities.&nbsp;

This blog post shares some ways that you can use a learning journal for your English language learning.&nbsp;

<h2>1. Planning</h2>

Planning your learning helps you to know what you need to do&mdash;and do it!

Use your journal to:

<ul>
	<li>note your schedule for the day, week, or month</li>
	<li>list&nbsp;your homework tasks (and check them off when you finish them!)</li>
	<li>write down your goals (and take notes of ways to achieve them)</li>
</ul>

Each day, week, or month, ask yourself:

<ul>
	<li>What do I want to do?</li>
	<li>How can I do it?</li>
	<li>What can I do better?</li>
</ul>

Take notes and&nbsp;do the work. Then, in the future, read your notes again and&nbsp;look back at how you have changed!

<h2>2. Tracking progress</h2>

Ellii helps you to plan and track your learning. But having a paper journal is a great way to think about this over a period of time.

At the end of each class, you could think about how confident you feel. Give yourself a number from 1 (not confident) to 10 (very confident). Write this down on one page of your journal. Over time, you will&nbsp;see the numbers changing!

You can also draw a rocket to the moon and some stars in your journal. The moon is where you want your English&nbsp;to be&nbsp;(for example, B2 level). Give each star a goal (for example, get confident with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCzJN0g5NHQ" target="_blank">present perfect progressive</a>). As you meet each goal, color in one of the stars.&nbsp;

<img alt="rocket to the moon" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/5056/content_Notebook_Rocket-to-the-moon_Emily-Bryson.png" />

<h2>3. Reflecting</h2>

When we reflect, we look back at our learning. It can be helpful to ask ourselves these questions at the end of every class:

<ul>
	<li>What did I learn?&nbsp;</li>
	<li>How did I feel?&nbsp;</li>
	<li>What worked well?&nbsp;</li>
	<li>What do I want to do differently next time?&nbsp;</li>
	<li>What questions do I have?&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

A fun way to do this is by drawing a rose, a bud, and a thorn in your journal. Next to the rose, write something good that happened. Beside the bud, write something that you are excited about or an idea you had. And by the thorn, write something that you need to work on or get help with.&nbsp;

You can draw the rose, bud, and thorn yourself, or print this <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/warm-up-activity-for-social-emotional-learning" target="_blank">worksheet</a>.

<img alt="Rose, bud, thorn step by step Emily Bryson" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/5057/content_Rose-bud-thorn-step-by-step-Emily-Bryson.png" />

<img alt="Rose, bud, Thorn, Ellii activity" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/5058/content_Rose-Bud-Thorn-Activity_Ellii.jpg" />

<h2>4. Daily diary</h2>

Every day, we do a lot of things. Keeping a diary of your day in English is a fantastic way to practice the language. You could even sketchnote your day by adding simple drawings. Try to use grammar or vocabulary that you have learned recently or need to practice.&nbsp;

<h2>5. Writing prompts</h2>

Starting a daily journaling habit means that you will spend 5&ndash;10 minutes a day writing in English. Over time, that adds up to 35&ndash;70 minutes per week, 2&ndash;5 hours per month, and 30&ndash;60 hours per year. Just think how much your English&nbsp;can improve in that time!

But sometimes, finding things to write about can be hard. Here are 35 ideas to get you started: 
 
<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/journal-prompts-for-writing-practice" target="_blank">Journal Prompts for Writing Practice</a>

<h2>6. Ideas</h2>

Some of the best ideas never happen because we don&#39;t write them down! Keep notes of your ideas and things you want to try in your journal&mdash;for example, a podcast you want to listen to or TV show in English that you want to watch. That way you can look at the&nbsp;list when you have time&nbsp;and choose one of them.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
Have you tried journaling to help you learn English? Which of these ideas do you want to try? Share your ideas and advice for other learners in the comments.&nbsp;
</blockquote>

6 Ways to Use Journaling to Learn English Fast

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Stay up-to-date with ELT trends and ideas with articles from experts and teachers in the field.

Articles

Vacations are a glorious, much-needed, brain reset. But sometimes it can be tricky getting back into the work zone after the holidays.

Here are five&nbsp;of my top tips for easing yourself back into teaching mode after vacation:&nbsp;

<h2>1. Check your emails</h2>

Checking your inbox and combing through your emails is&nbsp;a great place to start. It&rsquo;s a chance to get organized and familiarize yourself with current tasks, sort out your calendar, delete old emails, and get started on a &quot;to-do&quot;&nbsp;list.

<h2>2. Chat with&nbsp;colleagues</h2>

Whether your colleagues have been working throughout summer or your team has been sharing the same vacation schedule, reconnecting over a warm beverage&nbsp;always feels&nbsp;good.

Exchanging&nbsp;vacation tales and workplace news also helps build relationships and strengthens workplace&nbsp;connections.&nbsp;

The conversation will inevitably lead to chatting about upcoming deadlines, agendas, and meetings. This allows your&nbsp;brain to naturally get back into work mode.&nbsp;

<h2>3. Tidy your desktop</h2>

Returning from vacation can be the perfect time to clean up your overcrowded desktop.

Sorting out piles of papers&nbsp;in your workspace&nbsp;or folders on your computer often unveils <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/3971" target="_blank">hidden treasures</a>.&nbsp;You may find that long forgotten <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/categories/activities" target="_blank">activities</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/103/resources" target="_blank">worksheets</a> re-emerge, serendipitously, effortlessly preparing your classes for you&mdash;all with the added bonus of a tidy&nbsp;desk!

<h2>4. Sign up for continuous professional development</h2>

Continuous professional development (CPD) can help get your brain back into teaching&nbsp;mode.&nbsp;

Search online or check&nbsp;social media for interesting courses. Another easy way to keep learning and to stay on top of teaching trends and best practices&nbsp;is to&nbsp;read blog posts, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WClGk9Q8Owc&amp;list=PL0MvnNQjMzmbCk_AEw6JNaf8EoD5ATs5L" target="_blank">watch videos</a>, or sign up for a webinar or event. You could also watch videos from past events, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@elliiteachers" target="_blank">Ellii Con</a>!

<h2>5. Search for ideas</h2>

Preparing for your classes&nbsp;will probably be one of your top priorities.

If you&rsquo;re not sure where to start, try browsing the Ellii website for ideas. Explore their&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/discover" target="_blank">Discover page</a>&nbsp;(found under&nbsp;Materials&nbsp;in the navigation bar) to view a wide assortment of trending lessons and teaching ideas.&nbsp;

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts!</h5>

What helps you get back into the teaching groove? Do you have a process? We&rsquo;d love to know. Share your ideas in the&nbsp;comments!
</div>

5 Ways to Get Back into Teaching Mode after Vacation

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Tour around the ELT conference circuit as our team shares conference highlights and session reviews.

Conferences

<div class="white-box">
This September 15 and 16, 2022, we&rsquo;ll be hosting&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon</a>, a free, two-day virtual conference to explore simple, effective, and practical strategies that will help you build stronger relationships with your students and engage them in a more meaningful way. This article is part of a series of posts introducing some of the conference speakers.
</div>

Those who attended our virtual conference last year will recognize this speaker! We&rsquo;re thrilled to announce that Dr. Katie Welch will be joining us once again at ElliiCon2022 on September 16.

Dr. Welch is an educational consultant at <a href="https://www.welcheducation.com/" target="_blank">Welch Education</a> in Dallas, Texas. For two decades, Dr. Welch has&nbsp;taught and trained teachers to effectively work with English learners at the K&ndash;12, adult, and higher education levels.

She currently provides professional development to language educators through partnerships with institutions like the US Department of State and Cambridge University Press.

<h2>Literacy for multilingual learners</h2>

An education topic that Dr. Welch is closely following these days is literacy for multilingual learners.

&ldquo;In the US K&ndash;12 space, there&#39;s been a shift in recent years toward &lsquo;the science of teaching reading,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Dr. Welch. &ldquo;Many states, including Texas where I&#39;m located,&nbsp;have retooled their teacher&nbsp;certification exams and are now requiring elementary school teachers&nbsp;to take part in reading academies to become more proficient in early literacy&nbsp;research.&quot; 
 
According to Dr. Welch,&nbsp;teachers of multilingual students have concerns that the research does not take into account the unique needs of English learners.

She says that while&nbsp;these conversations are most&nbsp;applicable to those in K&ndash;6 education, the topic of literacy is emerging more broadly as an area of interest applicable to all levels. 
 
&quot;I just read a great&nbsp;<a href="http://blog.tesol.org/literacy-vs-reading-3-questions-to-consider-this-fall/?utm_content=buffer378e0&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=linkedin.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">TESOL International blog</a>&nbsp;this week about how our understanding of literacy is growing beyond just the discrete skill of reading,&quot; said Dr. Welch.&nbsp;&quot;Since reading is one of the four foundational language skills of English language teaching, this shift is definitely one to watch.&rdquo;

As an educational consultant, Dr. Welch explains she is also incredibly passionate about helping other teachers:

<blockquote>
&quot;I tend to &lsquo;nerd-out&rsquo; on all things pedagogy, so what I&rsquo;m most excited about right now is how I can be the best teacher I can be and how I can help other teachers do the same in their classrooms.

I especially enjoy following other educators on Twitter because I learn so much by seeing what others are doing in their classrooms.

Just today, I was inspired by a teacher who said&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/JakeMillerTech/status/1556943494354276354?s=20&amp;t=Pe9fWiLRtX6vCtmtWD6srg" target="_blank">he turns his syllabus into a mad-lib</a>&nbsp;as a way to build community, help students become aware of learning targets, and keep students interested in what otherwise can be a very boring first-day-of-class housekeeping matter.

I love adding new ideas like this to my teacher toolkit and enjoy passing them along to others&nbsp;as well.&quot;
</blockquote>

<h2>Learn about addressing teachers&rsquo; social-emotional needs with Dr. Welch at ElliiCon2022</h2>

On September 16, Dr. Welch will be joining us at ElliiCon2022 to talk about self-care.

&ldquo;The last few years have been so difficult for teachers,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Dr. Welch. &ldquo;Teaching was already a challenging profession, and the pandemic exacerbated that even more.&quot; 
 
Dr. Welch has&nbsp;spent more than a decade training teachers and has recently seen many former students&mdash;who she says were fantastic teachers&mdash;leave the profession altogether. 
 
&quot;Those&nbsp;who have stayed are often teaching with as much or more pressure than they had pre-pandemic but with much less energy and emotional reserves.&quot;

At last year&rsquo;s conference, Dr. Welch addressed students&rsquo; well-being and discussed how to cultivate social and emotional learning in the ESL classroom.

This year, Dr. Welch will focus on&nbsp;teachers&rsquo; social and emotional needs. She&rsquo;ll unpack how sustainable self-care must go beyond bubble baths and massages and instead address the underlying issues that make teaching so challenging.

Attendees will gain practical, concrete solutions for how they can prioritize their own social and emotional well-being so that they can bring their best self to the classroom each week.

&ldquo;While the topic of self-care tends to evoke images of bubble baths and massages (both good things!), I want to give teachers some additional tools to cope with the emotional labor that is often required when working with immigrants or refugees from traumatic backgrounds,&rdquo; said Dr. Welch.

&ldquo;I have personally walked through a season of burnout in my teaching journey and had to learn the hard way how to prioritize my own well-being,&quot; she admitted.&nbsp;&quot;I look forward to sharing some of those hard-won lessons with the Ellii conference participants&nbsp;as well as some practical ways that teachers can bring their best selves to the classroom each&nbsp;day. I hope attendees will leave feeling refreshed and encouraged!&rdquo;

<blockquote>
Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Dr. Welch&rsquo;s presentation?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/0ee877b0-e369-11ec-b1b2-394b94cc9521" target="_blank">Register for ElliiCon2022</a>&nbsp;(it&#39;s free!).

To learn more about Dr. Welch, visit her <a href="https://www.welcheducation.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">website</a>. You can also follow her on <a href="https://twitter.com/drkatiewelch" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.
</blockquote>

ElliiCon2022 Speaker Spotlight: Dr. Katie Welch

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<div class="white-box">
This September 15 and 16, 2022, we&rsquo;ll be hosting&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon</a>, a free, two-day virtual conference to explore simple, effective, and practical strategies that will help you build stronger relationships with your students and engage them in a more meaningful way. This article is part of a series of posts introducing some of the conference&nbsp;speakers.
</div>

Karina Zew was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and raised in New Jersey, United&nbsp;States.

&ldquo;My passion for languages occurred to me while I was looking the other way,&rdquo; Karina said. &ldquo;As a bilingual child, I had always taken languages for granted. Learning how to speak English was something that just happened to&nbsp;me.&rdquo;

After high school, Karina moved back to Argentina. Like most young adults at this age, she was trying to figure out what she wanted to&nbsp;do.

&quot;In the meantime, I needed a job . . . ,&quot; said Karina. &quot;So that&#39;s how I started to teach.&quot;

Over the years, she&rsquo;s taught Business English classes at international companies and general English to young&nbsp;learners.

<h2>The beginning of a new chapter with&nbsp;Bridge</h2>

Today, Karina works at <a href="https://bridge.edu/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Bridge&nbsp;Education&nbsp;Group</a>.

She&#39;s a tutor for Bridge&rsquo;s online TEFL/TESOL courses and&nbsp;an ESL instructor for BridgeEnglish in Latin America. In these roles, she interviews and recruits teachers, observes classes and provides feedback for teachers, and tutors online TEFL students from around the&nbsp;globe.

&ldquo;I really enjoy being able to share with others what I have learned throughout these years, both from experience and from academic training,&rdquo; she said.

Karina&#39;s also spoken at many TEFL/TESOL conferences, sharing the knowledge she&rsquo;s gained from over 30 years in the field of English language teaching. She&rsquo;s lectured on a variety of topics, from teaching methodologies and lesson planning to scaffolding and using technology in the&nbsp;classroom.

&ldquo;Before COVID, online classes were quite frowned upon,&quot; said Karina.&nbsp;&quot;However, nowadays, they&#39;re actually many people&#39;s preferred method of learning. This opens up a whole new world! For example, our students who live in Chile have the possibility of taking lessons from teachers who live in South Africa. They exchange cultural experiences and share their views. This is beneficial not only for language learning but for life in general. It also forces us to become more familiar with new technologies, of&nbsp;course!&rdquo;

<h2>Learn about fostering 21st-century skills with Karina at&nbsp;ElliiCon2022</h2>

On September 15, Karina will be joining us at ElliiCon2022 to talk about fostering 21st-century skills for academic and business&nbsp;success.

She&rsquo;ll share how you can teach 21st-century skills&mdash;like communication, collaboration, leadership, innovation, and digital literacy&mdash;in the classroom and help prepare your students for success in academics, business, and&nbsp;more.

You&rsquo;ll also&nbsp;learn useful tips and techniques that you can implement to help your English language learners of all ages cultivate necessary, real-world&nbsp;skills.

<blockquote>
Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Karina&#39;s presentation? <a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/0ee877b0-e369-11ec-b1b2-394b94cc9521" target="_blank">Registers&nbsp;for&nbsp;ElliiCon2022</a>&nbsp;(it&#39;s&nbsp;free!).
</blockquote>

ElliiCon2022 Speaker Spotlight: Karina Zew

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Learn how to make the most of your Ellii subscription with tips from our publishing team.

Teaching with Ellii

Graphic organizers are visual tools which support learners in&nbsp;processing, ordering, and recording information.&nbsp;

They include diagrams, flow charts, mind maps, tables, vocabulary organizers, visual calendars, and Venn diagrams.&nbsp;

Often, they&#39;re supported by simple icons to activate schemata and aid&nbsp;understanding.&nbsp;

I love using graphic organizers&nbsp;because they...

<ul>
	<li>help learners to focus their ideas&nbsp;</li>
	<li>are versatile and can be adapted and reused in many&nbsp;ways</li>
	<li>use minimal text so they reduce the processing load on learners with dyslexia or literacy&nbsp;needs</li>
	<li>make information clearer&nbsp;</li>
	<li>aid memory and comprehension</li>
	<li>encourage critical thinking</li>
	<li>are engaging</li>
</ul>

<h2>4 activities for using graphic organizers</h2>

Here are four&nbsp;activity examples&nbsp;of ways you can&nbsp;use graphic organizers using Ellii&#39;s&nbsp;lessons:

<h3>1. Sorting and categorizing information</h3>

This activity supports learners to categorize American words. You could provide interactive feedback on this by drawing the table on the whiteboard. Then give each student a pen and ask them to add the words in the correct&nbsp;category.&nbsp;

Check out Ellii&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/2277" target="_blank">American Citizenship</a> lesson from their Living in English section.&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2697/content_Ellii_American-Citizenship_graphic-organizer.jpg" />

<h3>2. Visualizing information</h3>

This activity uses a family tree diagram to check learners&rsquo; understanding of reading about a family tree. They can then draw their own family tree and describe it to other&nbsp;students.&nbsp;

Check out Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/1655" target="_blank">Family</a> lesson from their Living in English&nbsp;section.&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2698/content_Ellii_Family_graphic-organizer.jpg" />

<h3>3. Scaffolding conversations</h3>

This lesson uses a graphic organizer to focus students&rsquo; discussions on housing. The words on the left can be used as question&nbsp;prompts.

To support your language learners, you could elicit and drill the questions they need to ask before they start their paired&nbsp;conversations.&nbsp;

Check out Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/1652" target="_&quot;blank&quot;">Housing</a> lesson from their Living in English&nbsp;section.

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2699/content_Ellii_Housing_graphic-organizer.jpg" />

<h3>4. Finding comparisons and&nbsp;similarities</h3>

Venn diagrams are excellent visual tools for comparing, contrasting, and finding similarities. They can be used to analyze information after a reading or listening task&nbsp;or to compile thoughts before a writing or speaking activity. You can ask students to draw their own or use this printable, blank&nbsp;worksheet.&nbsp;

Check out Ellii&#39;s <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/3086" target="_blank">Venn Diagram</a> resource from their Visual Learning&nbsp;section.&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2700/content_Ellii_Venn-diagram_graphic-organizer.jpg" />

<h2>Draw your own graphic organizers</h2>

Graphic organizers are perfect for tailoring to your own&nbsp;needs.

You can draw them yourself on paper or on whiteboard and then have students copy them. You could also create your own using Powerpoint, Word, or online tools such as <a href="https://miro.com/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Miro</a> or <a href="https://www.mural.co/" nofollow="" noreferrer="" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Mural</a>.&nbsp;

The following is an example of a hand-drawn graphic organizer.

<img alt="Five speech bubble, labled as Who, What, When, Where, Why" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2701/content_Ellii_hand-drawn-organizer.jpg" />

Example of a hand-drawn graphic organizer by Emily Bryson.

It can be used in many ways. One idea is to give students a text or audio and have them write the answers. It could also be used to prepare for a speaking or writing activity where students tell a&nbsp;story.&nbsp;

<h2>Related posts</h2>

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/7-activities-for-engaging-students-this-school-year" target="_blank">7 Activities for Engaging Students This School Year</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/10-activities-to-increase-understanding-while-reading" target="_blank">10 Activities to Increase Understanding While Reading</a></li>
	<li class="blog-post"><a href="https://ellii.com/blog/bell-ringers" target="_blank">Bell Ringers</a></li>
</ul>

Using Graphic Organizers for Language Skills Development

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On the Ellii platform, you&#39;ll find thousands of relevant lessons and several types of digital tasks where English learners can practice different skills, including reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

If you&#39;ve ever assigned your students a digital task through Ellii, then you may have already noticed that many digital task types get auto⁠⁠-⁠⁠corrected by the platform. That&#39;s because there&#39;s only one correct answer (e.g., fill in the blanks, multiple-choice, true or false).

However, there are a few task types that require manual&nbsp;scoring (e.g., writing and speaking), which can be time-consuming for teachers to grade.

<img alt="requires manual scoring" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2598/content_Ellii_Task_Requires-manual-scoring.jpg" />

This means that when you assign a full lesson with multiple tasks, including open-ended speaking and writing tasks, chances are you&#39;re spending more time grading assignments than you&#39;d like to.

Realizing this has led us to ask&nbsp;ourselves the following question:

<blockquote>
How can we make this easier on teachers and reduce grading time?
</blockquote>

Triggered by this question, the developers kick-started their&nbsp;mission to figure out a way to make some manually scored tasks auto-scorable, paving the way for Ellii&#39;s new Auto-Scoring (AI) feature.

Here&#39;s a behind-the-scenes look at how we developed&nbsp;Ellii&#39;s Auto-Scoring (AI)&nbsp;feature:

<h2>Phase 1: Research</h2>

We started by talking to the Publishing team about how these manually scored&nbsp;questions are created in digital lessons and how they work&nbsp;internally.

We identified&nbsp;two types of written responses:

<ul>
	<li>Opinion questions (or open-ended questions)

	<ul>
		<li>Example: Do you like pizza?</li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li>Correct/incorrect questions (or closed questions)
	<ul>
		<li>Example: What is the man in the video doing?</li>
	</ul>
	</li>
</ul>

Every month, students answer nearly half a million questions in writing.&nbsp;More than 80% of those are closed questions.

Since written responses&nbsp;are the most assigned task and take the most time to grade, it made sense for our team to start thinking about getting these auto-scored&nbsp;first.&nbsp;As for grammar, vocabulary, and spelling tasks, we will consider&nbsp;auto-scoring for them&nbsp;in the future.

After doing extensive research on written responses, our team realized we could use artificial&nbsp;intelligence&nbsp;(AI) to match the student&#39;s answer to the correct answer (i.e., the suggested answer that shows up on the platform).

There&rsquo;s a common term in the AI world known as Natural&nbsp;Language&nbsp;Processing&nbsp;(NLP).

Wikipedia defines NLP as follows:

<blockquote>
&quot;. . . interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to process and analyze large amounts of&nbsp;natural language data. The goal is a computer capable of &quot;understanding&quot; the contents of documents, including the contextual nuances of the language within them.&quot;
</blockquote>

In short, we decided to use NLP to semantically match the student&#39;s answer to the correct answer. In other words,&nbsp;the NLP is able to gauge the meaning behind the student&#39;s response against the provided answer without having to match it word for word.

Here&rsquo;s an example of what a semantic match looks like:&nbsp;

<img alt="semantic match chart" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2604/content_Ellii_semantic-match.jpg" />

<h2>Phase 2: Analysis</h2>

Up until this point, our research was all theory. We now needed to put it&nbsp;into practice.

The first thing we did was take a small sample of different types of written responses: complex ones, simpler ones, and ones where the answer is a list of items.&nbsp;Then&nbsp;we took random student answers&nbsp;for those sample questions and began analyzing them.

We ran multiple NLP algorithms to test them. Our developers compared student answers to the correct answer and took notes on the score&nbsp;the AI was assigning.

We manually analyzed all the answers one by one&nbsp;to see which algorithms made sense. Since we&#39;re developers and not teachers, we also took into account the score the teacher gave the student for a particular question.

In doing so, we quickly noticed that one of the algorithms was looking very promising.

Let&#39;s see it in action! The following examples show how writing tasks are scored by AI vs. a teacher:

<h3>Question 1</h3>

What happened in the boss&rsquo;s office?

Ellii&#39;s suggested answer

He tripped over a phone cord and fell in the boss&rsquo;s office.

<img alt="suggested answers vs AI" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2600/content_Ellii_Ellii_auto-scoring-Ai.jpg" />

You&#39;ll notice that even if the student&#39;s answer&nbsp;doesn&rsquo;t fully&nbsp;match the Publishing team&#39;s suggested answer, the AI does&nbsp;consider the meaning behind the sentence&nbsp;and sets a score accordingly.

<h3>Question 2</h3>

Why does the reviewer mention food labels? Use the word &quot;disclose&quot; in your answer.

Ellii&#39;s suggested answer&nbsp;

The reviewer compares how app makers have to disclose what data is shared in their apps, just like how food sellers have to disclose information about what&#39;s in the food. Later he says that in their privacy label requirements, Apple doesn&#39;t ask app developers to say who they share data with. The reviewer says this is like having a nutrition label without listing the ingredients. He sums up by saying that we deserve an honest account of what&#39;s in both our food and our apps.

<img alt="Complex AI Scoring" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2601/content_Ellii_Ellii_auto-scoring-Ai-1.jpg" />

This is a very complex question and answer.&nbsp;You&#39;ll notice the NLP service was able to compare the semantics of the student&#39;s response against the suggested answer.

<h3>Question 3</h3>

How does the reading end?

Ellii&#39;s suggested answer

The reading ends with a question worth pondering. Since it is the migrant who has to take the action and send the money home, what happens if he/she decides to cut the family off? Do his/her dependents have any way to coerce the migrant to continue funding the family back home? Imagine what happens when a migrant remarries in a foreign country. Will his/her new family agree to share the family income?

<img alt="AI Score chart" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2602/content_Ellii_Ellii_auto-scoring-Ai-2.jpg" />

<h2>Phase 3: Closed beta</h2>

The results were very promising at this point, but we were not 100% confident about how useful this feature would be and how good the AI scoring was.

So we decided to do a closed beta test. This meant selecting a handful of Ellii teachers&nbsp;and inviting them to test the feature.

We ran the closed beta in May 2022, and teachers were very happy with it according to the feedback we received from our beta test survey.

Here are some notable statistics:

<ul>
	<li>4,340 questions were answered and auto-scored during the month of May 2022</li>
	<li>Teachers changed the AI score&nbsp;in only 3.2% of questions</li>
	<li>66% of surveyed teachers said they would love to have this feature be permanent</li>
	<li>33% said they don&rsquo;t have a strong opinion on whether AI was useful or not&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

After thoroughly analyzing the results, we&nbsp;noticed a few areas where we could improve the AI to provide teachers and their students with more accurate scoring.

We worked on these improvements, and now we&#39;re ready for the next phase.

<h2>Phase 4: Open beta</h2>

As of now, we&#39;re officially doing an open beta test of the Auto-Scoring (AI) feature. This means that Ellii teachers will be able to opt in to use this feature in their classes.

You&#39;ll find the&nbsp;auto-scoring opt-in checkbox when you create your class and edit&nbsp;it. Note that you need to opt in for each class and assign to students within a class in order for the AI to work.&nbsp;&nbsp;

<img alt="Class Edit Settings" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2603/content_Ellii_auto-scoring-opt-in.jpg" />

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Have you tried Ellii&#39;s Auto-Scoring (AI) feature yet?</h5>

Share your feedback with us in the comments! Let us know what you loved and what you think needs improvement so that we can continue to make grading easier for you.
</div>

Research Behind Ellii's Auto-Scoring (AI) Feature

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<div class="white-box">
This September 15 and 16, 2022, we&rsquo;ll be hosting&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon</a>, a free, two-day virtual conference to explore simple, effective, and practical strategies that will help you build stronger relationships with your students and engage them in a more meaningful way. This article is part of a series of posts introducing some of the conference&nbsp;speakers.
</div>

Readers of our blog will surely recognize this speaker! Emily Bryson is one of our Ellii bloggers. She writes&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/authors/emily-bryson" target="_blank">educational ELT articles</a> where she shares tons of insightful teaching tips, advice, and inspiration.&nbsp;We&#39;re thrilled to have her join us at ElliiCon2022 on September&nbsp;16.

Emily&rsquo;s teaching journey began in Poland where, during her summer break in university, she taught at a summer&nbsp;school.

&ldquo;I loved it so much that when I graduated, I took a job teaching young learners in Daegu, South Korea,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Emily.

In addition to being one of Ellii&rsquo;s bloggers, Emily is now an ESOL lecturer, ELT author, teacher educator, and graphic&nbsp;facilitator.

Her favorite part about being an ESOL lecturer? The&nbsp;students.

&ldquo;I&#39;ve taught some really wonderful people from all over globe,&quot; she said.&nbsp;&quot;We&#39;ve had a lot of fun, and I&#39;ve learned a lot about things I could never have&nbsp;imagined.&quot;

<h2>The importance of literacy, diversity, equity, and inclusion in&nbsp;education</h2>

Emily is particularly interested in literacy, accessibility, graphic facilitation, and <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/support-english-learners-from-refugee-backgrounds" target="_blank">supporting learners from refugee&nbsp;backgrounds</a>.

She spoke at length&nbsp;about the importance of adult ESOL&nbsp;literacy.

&ldquo;It&#39;s an underfunded area,&rdquo; said Emily. &ldquo;There must be so many learners in the world whose first script is not Roman, yet publishers mostly overlook things like phonics, handwriting, and very&nbsp;basic punctuation. So many of my learners have jagged profiles. Even at the intermediate level, I&rsquo;ll find students writing letters from right to left, struggling to read, or putting capital letters in the middle of words as they haven&#39;t had this explained. It&#39;s not covered in so many courses. I&#39;d love to see learners whose first script isn&#39;t Roman having the support they&nbsp;need.&rdquo;

She&rsquo;s also incredibly passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the language&nbsp;classroom.

&ldquo;It&#39;s important that our lessons reflect the reality of our learners and give them a voice,&rdquo; said Emily. &ldquo;Talking about global issues in the classroom such as female empowerment, [LGBTQ+] rights, and refugee matters can lead to positive change and students who can advocate for&nbsp;themselves.&rdquo;

<h2>Graphic facilitation is a powerful teaching&nbsp;tool</h2>

Emily&rsquo;s workshops and training courses in graphic facilitation for ELT professionals have received rave&nbsp;reviews.

&ldquo;Graphic facilitation is my passion and my superpower,&rdquo; Emily said&nbsp;proudly.

&ldquo;When I did my first GF course, I&#39;d been teaching for years. I was in a bit of a slump,&quot; she admitted. &quot;But it rejuvenated me and reactivated the excitement I felt when I first started teaching. I realized how powerful [graphic facilitation]&nbsp;was as a teaching tool. A simple drawing can make everything instantly clearer. It makes learning more accessible, fun, engaging, inclusive, interesting, and creative. It helps learners remember and reduces processing&nbsp;load.&rdquo;

Graphic facilitation uses&nbsp;simple drawings to provide a template or prompt for&nbsp;learning.

Emily explained that this can support reflection, planning, ideation, or focus students&rsquo;&nbsp;thoughts.

&quot;The drawings are not art&nbsp;but a visual vocabulary which can be learned just like any other language, so anyone can draw to communicate,&quot; she&nbsp;said.

<img alt="A schetch note with a list of nine accessible teaching tips for ADHD, autism, digital skills, dyslexia, dyscalcula, literacy, sensory impairment, mobility, and study skills." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2651/content_Accessible_Learning_Tips_EmilyBrysonELT-com.jpg" />

One of Emily&rsquo;s sketch notes is pictured&nbsp;here.

<h2>Learn more about graphic facilitation for ELT with Emily at&nbsp;ElliiCon2022</h2>

On September 16, Emily will be joining us at ElliiCon2022 to talk more about how you can use simple drawings to engage learners. You&rsquo;ll learn about simple facilitation techniques such as visual templates, capture sheets, graphic organizers, and&nbsp;sketchnoting.

&ldquo;I&#39;ll be showing some&nbsp;basic GF techniques and tools which can save teachers time and make lessons engaging and accessible,&quot; said Emily.&nbsp;&quot;I&#39;ll be demonstrating some simple drawings too, so it&#39;ll be a really practical and fun&nbsp;session.&quot;

<blockquote>
Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Emily&#39;s presentation?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/0ee877b0-e369-11ec-b1b2-394b94cc9521" target="_blank">Register for ElliiCon2022</a>&nbsp;(it&#39;s&nbsp;free!).

To learn more about Emily, visit her <a href="https://emilybrysonelt.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">website</a>. You can also follow her on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/emilybrysonelt/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Emilybrysonelt" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brysonemily/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>.
</blockquote>

ElliiCon2022 Speaker Spotlight: Emily Bryson

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At Ellii, we enjoy&nbsp;using our creative skills to develop materials that teachers and students love! Let&#39;s go behind the scenes to see a fun project the Publishing team worked on this&nbsp;year.

<h2>Genius Hour</h2>

Did you know? Ellii&#39;s popular <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/136/lessons" target="_blank">Story Prompts</a> and <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/132/lessons" target="_blank">Picture Stories</a>&nbsp;sections were born out of Google&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://sites.google.com/a/sduhsd.net/genius-hour/what-is-genius-hour" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Genius Hour</a> concept&nbsp;where staff are given free time to&nbsp;create.

<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/136/lessons" target="_blank"><img alt="Story Prompts lesson section on Ellii" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2703/content_Ellii_Story-Prompts.jpg" /></a>

Ellii&#39;s illustrators, Saori and Steve, were given creative license to come up with their own ideas for lessons while playing with some new illustration&nbsp;styles.

After spending time experimenting with some visual concepts, they&nbsp;worked with Ellii&#39;s writers and editors to build out templates that eventually became full lesson&nbsp;sections for beginner-level&nbsp;learners.

<a href="https://ellii.com/courses/132/lessons" target="_blank"><img alt="Picture Stories" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2623/content_Ellii_Picture-Stories.jpg" /></a>

<h2>A hackathon for Ellii&#39;s Publishing&nbsp;team</h2>

A few months ago, Ellii&rsquo;s Publishing team heard that our Product team of developers was going to try a hackathon, which is a time set aside for them to play with code and aim to build something fun or solve a problem.

The Publishing team decided they wanted to do something&nbsp;similar.

At the TESOL conference earlier this year, Tara, our VP of Publishing, was&nbsp;inspired by the theme of wordless stories, which came up in some&nbsp;sessions.

<blockquote>
Wordless story: a book&nbsp;without text where the story is told solely through the&nbsp;art
</blockquote>

She divided the Publishing team into two groups (Wordless Video team&nbsp;and Wordless Picture Story team) to explore this idea.

In addition to giving creatives a chance to do something new and fun, this&nbsp;project gave team members an opportunity&nbsp;to collaborate with people they may not work with every&nbsp;day.&nbsp;

Here are the finished products:

<h3><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4187" target="_blank">Wedding Receptions</a>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4187" target="_blank"><img alt="Wedding receptions video lesson description" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2620/content_Ellii_Wedding-Receptions.jpg" /></a></h3>

<h3><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4193" target="_blank">Think inside the Box&nbsp;</a></h3>

<a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4193" target="_blank"><img alt="Think inside the box (print version)" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2621/content_Ellii_Think-inside-the-Box.jpg" /></a>

<h2>Wordless picture stories and their&nbsp;benefits</h2>

When each team had finished their product, they presented it to the entire&nbsp;Publishing&nbsp;team.&nbsp;

Here is some useful background about the <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/107/resources/4193" target="_blank">Think inside the Box</a> wordless picture story lesson, which was inspired by an article about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/28/schools-killing-curiosity-learn" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">schools&nbsp;and&nbsp;curiosity</a>.

Lesson objective:&nbsp;To promote creativity, develop new&nbsp;vocabulary, practice basic tenses, check understanding of Wh-questions, and assess speaking skills. This story can also be used to promote social-emotional&nbsp;learning&nbsp;(SEL).

<h3>How wordless lessons develop creativity and&nbsp;SEL</h3>

Creativity needs to be an active part of learning&mdash;not something that&rsquo;s nice to have if time&nbsp;allows.

<a href="https://www.iste.org/explore/5_Reasons_Why_It_Is_More_Important_Than_Ever%20_Teach_Creativity" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">ISTE&rsquo;s research</a> shows how integral creativity is in healthy socio-emotional growth.&nbsp;This applies to learners of all ages. Emotional development and self-esteem are promoted through creative learning.

<blockquote>
&ldquo;Teachers who frequently assign classwork involving creativity are&nbsp;[more likely to observe] higher-order cognitive&nbsp;skills.&rdquo;

&mdash;<a href="https://www.gallup.com/people/item.aspx?a=100174" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Lydia Saad</a>
</blockquote>

Wordless stories encourage students to be the&nbsp;storyteller.

This kind of activity builds on&nbsp;students&#39;&nbsp;prior knowledge, activating schemata and developing language/communication&nbsp;skills.

For WIDA teachers, this kind of activity takes student assets into account&nbsp;as the story can be told from&nbsp;students&#39; perspective. Furthermore, the same story can also be told in many different ways&nbsp;with the target language scaffolded by the teacher (can focus on simple adjectives, tenses, questions and answers, adverbs, sequence markers,&nbsp;etc.).

<h3>Wordless stories and Bloom&rsquo;s Taxonomy</h3>

Ellii&#39;s wordless stories will allow&nbsp;students to develop <a href="https://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/blooms-taxonomy-verbs-2/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">higher-order thinking skills</a>&nbsp;as well as to review and strengthen the lower-order&nbsp;skills.

Providing a cognitive challenge will help&nbsp;students develop their language and communication in addition to their socio-emotional&nbsp;skills.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
Remember:&nbsp;What happened before? Who are the characters? What did they&nbsp;do?

Understand:&nbsp;Predict what will happen next. Describe what&rsquo;s happening&nbsp;now.

Apply:&nbsp;Organize the story and&nbsp;arrange the sequence. Write a brief&nbsp;description.

Analyze:&nbsp;Compare your story with a classmate&rsquo;s.&nbsp;How are they&nbsp;similar/different?

Evaluate: Reflect on your story.&nbsp;Go back and apply feedback from classmates and&nbsp;teacher.

Create: Propose the next part of the story. What happens&nbsp;next?&nbsp;
</blockquote>

<h3>Task types in Ellii&#39;s Think inside the Box&nbsp;wordless lesson</h3>

Every task type plays a specific role&nbsp;in developing your students&#39; literacy skills and supporting their language-learning journey.&nbsp;

<h4>Warm-Up Questions</h4>

<ul>
	<li>serve&nbsp;to activate prior knowledge</li>
	<li>take&nbsp;into account student assets and backgrounds</li>
	<li>provide&nbsp;a hint as to what the content is going to be&nbsp;about</li>
</ul>

<h4>Image Match</h4>

<ul>
	<li>provides some of the language students will encounter and&nbsp;use</li>
	<li>allows for&nbsp;students to interact with the&nbsp;vocabulary</li>
	<li>encourages students to&nbsp;ask&nbsp;questions</li>
</ul>

<h4>Picture Story</h4>

<ul>
	<li>enables&nbsp;students to use the language and respond to the prompts</li>
	<li>encourages creativity and collaboration&mdash;students can work together or individually to think of the story</li>
	<li>encourages the target language&nbsp;(the teacher can direct this however they see fit&mdash;e.g., parts of speech, colors, sequence markers, Wh-questions,&nbsp;etc.)</li>
</ul>

<h4>Speaking Task</h4>

<ul>
	<li>encourages&nbsp;students&nbsp;to remember what was discussed in&nbsp;class</li>
	<li>allows students to reproduce the story with their own ideas</li>
	<li>gives students a chance to use their own&nbsp;creativity</li>
</ul>

<h2>Virtual classroom and&nbsp;in-person classroom ideas for wordless&nbsp;lessons</h2>

These activities can be modified for either context. Students in an online&nbsp;classroom can work together in breakout rooms in&nbsp;synchronous class sessions. The teacher can share their screen and then assign the tasks to students individually or in pairs/small&nbsp;groups.

In-person or face-to-face (F2F) classes can use the digital activities easily by projecting the images onto a screen and encouraging students to collaborate. Live F2F classes can also take advantage of the in-person element by encouraging role-plays&nbsp;and then acting out&nbsp;the&nbsp;storyline.

Regardless of whether students are in virtual or live classes, creativity can be encouraged in many&nbsp;ways.

Ask students to find a real box (tissue box, TV box, etc.) to use as a prop for their story. Adding a tactile or kinesthetic approach&nbsp;can help facilitate learning by engaging other&nbsp;senses.

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Share your thoughts!</h5>

Wordless stories and videos are a tool that you can adapt and use to fit your students&#39; learning goals and objectives.

By taking student assets into account and engaging creativity, the teacher encourages students to take part&nbsp;in their own &quot;Genius Hour.&quot;&nbsp;Teachers, give it a try! Let us know what your students&nbsp;created.
</div>

Wordless Lessons: An Innovation Project

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Posts describing lessons or activities for the ESL classroom.

Activities

The first day of class can be daunting and challenging. It&rsquo;s an opportunity for students to get to know each other, get to know their teachers, and feel comfortable in their new classes.

Here are four of my favorite first-day-of-term activities to&nbsp;help break the&nbsp;ice:&nbsp;

<h2>1. Picture me!&nbsp;</h2>

For this activity, ask students to find (or draw) five pictures that represent them. Give them time to discuss in pairs or small groups why they chose each&nbsp;image.

You&#39;ll want to encourage them to ask as many questions and talk for as long as&nbsp;possible.&nbsp;

You could model this activity first by selecting five <a href="https://ellii.com/media/flashcards" target="_blank">flashcards from Ellii&#39;s Media&nbsp;Gallery</a>.&nbsp;

<h3>Example</h3>

<blockquote>
Student A: Why did you choose a&nbsp;bicycle?

Student B: I love cycling.&nbsp;

Student C: Where do you cycle?&nbsp;

Student B: I usually cycle along the river or to&nbsp;class.&nbsp;

Student A: I like cycling too.&nbsp;

Student C: I don&rsquo;t have a bike, but I want&nbsp;one.&nbsp;
</blockquote>

Online, this works well in breakout rooms and&nbsp;then as a whole class in the main&nbsp;room.&nbsp;

As an extension, you could ask your language learners to write about another student or introduce them to the rest of the&nbsp;class.&nbsp;

<h2>2. Find someone who...</h2>

Where would the English language teaching world be without &quot;Find Someone Who&hellip;,&quot; also known as &quot;People&nbsp;Bingo&quot;?

In this activity, students go around the room, asking their peers questions based on a list of personal attributes. When they &lsquo;&quot;find someone who&quot;&nbsp;meets the criteria they&#39;re looking for, they write their name on a list.

The first person to find someone who ticks each box on their list wins. But if you ask me, the real winners are anyone who has used their English as much as possible throughout the&nbsp;activity.

Here are some questions to get you started:&nbsp;

<blockquote>
Find someone who&hellip;&nbsp;

&hellip;got up at 6 am.&nbsp;

&hellip;has two brothers.&nbsp;

&hellip;lived in another country.&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;&hellip;speaks three languages.&nbsp;

&hellip;enjoys swimming.&nbsp;

&hellip;loves carrots.&nbsp;

&hellip;can stand on their head.&nbsp;
</blockquote>

Online, you can do this using breakout rooms, switching the people in each room every 2&ndash;3 minutes to maintain&nbsp;energy.

You may wish to create your own questions&nbsp;or have students write their own. If you&#39;re already an Ellii subscriber, you can use their&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/105/resources/2194" target="_blank">Find&nbsp;Someone&nbsp;Who&nbsp;template</a>.

You could also try this fun Ellii alternative: <a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/105/resources/2138" target="_blank">Find&nbsp;Someone&nbsp;Who&nbsp;Didn&#39;t</a>.&nbsp;

<h2>3. Two truths and a lie</h2>

In this activity, students write two facts about themselves and one thing that isn&#39;t true. In pairs or small groups, they work together to decide which two out of the three statements&nbsp;are&nbsp;true.&nbsp;

Demonstrate the activity first by giving your own examples. Here&rsquo;s the one I usually&nbsp;use:&nbsp;

<blockquote>
<ol>
	<li>I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>I ran Edinburgh, Berlin, and New York marathons.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>My husband usually cooks for me.&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>

At higher levels, students can ask questions (e.g., Do you like cooking? What are your hobbies?) to discover the answers. At lower levels, they can have just as much fun&nbsp;guessing.

In terms of which of the example statements is true for me, I&rsquo;m going to leave you guessing here.&nbsp;Feel free to write your guesses (or questions) in the <a href="#comment">comments&nbsp;section</a>!

Please note: Some students may not wish to tell lies for religious reasons. In this case, you can ask them to write correct&nbsp;and incorrect&nbsp;sentences&nbsp;instead.&nbsp;

<h2>4. Adjective acronames</h2>

This activity is a great way to review vocabulary and learn more about your new students&rsquo; language&nbsp;level.&nbsp;

The aim is for students to assign an adjective which describes them to each letter of their name. Students can refer to a dictionary, search online, or ask a peer for help.

First, think of adjectives that correspond to your own name. Then&nbsp;demonstrate the&nbsp;activity.&nbsp;

<h3>Example</h3>

<blockquote>
Enthusiastic

Mysterious

Imaginative

Lively

Young&nbsp;
</blockquote>

This activity can be adapted for lower levels so that students can write any word beginning with that letter. You could also try this fun variation: <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/my-favourite-warm-up-activity" target="_blank">Adjectives&nbsp;with&nbsp;a&nbsp;twist.</a>

<div class="white-box">
<h5>Join the conversation!</h5>

What&rsquo;s your favorite first day of class activity? We&rsquo;d love to know! Share your ideas in the&nbsp;comments.&nbsp;
</div>

<h2><a id="comment"></a>Related materials</h2>

&nbsp;

<ul class="resources">
	<li class="collection"><a href="https://ellii.com/collections/everyday-topics/back-to-school" target="_blank">Back to School</a></li>
	<li class="resource"><a href="https://ellii.com/resource_categories/105/resources/2220 " target="_blank">Getting to Know You</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/75/lessons/1656" target="_blank">Getting Acquainted</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/92/lessons/1737" target="_blank">Saying Hello</a></li>
	<li class="lesson"><a href="https://ellii.com/courses/76/lessons/1717" target="_blank">Making Introductions</a></li>
</ul>

Break the Ice! 4 Fun Activities to Warm Up a New Class

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<div class="white-box">
This September 15 and 16, 2022, we&rsquo;ll be hosting&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon</a>, a free, two-day virtual conference to explore simple, effective, and practical strategies that will help you build stronger relationships with your students and engage them in a more meaningful way. This article is part of a series of posts introducing some of the conference&nbsp;speakers.
</div>

Nik Peachey is a two-time British Council ELTons award winner for innovation in English language teaching and has been short-listed six times. He&rsquo;s also the founder and director of pedagogy at <a href="https://peacheypublications.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">PeacheyPublications</a>, an independent digital publishing company based in the UK that designs digital learning materials for English language&nbsp;classrooms.

To say Nik is familiar with the education sector would be an understatement. Since 1990, Nik&#39;s&nbsp;worked as a teacher, trainer, and educational consultant. He also has more than 25 years of experience with online, remote, and blended learning&nbsp;environments.

He&rsquo;ll be joining&nbsp;us at ElliiCon2022 on September&nbsp;15.

Something you may not know about Nik is that he&nbsp;studied music in university and taught guitar at a prison. That&rsquo;s when he realized how much he enjoyed&nbsp;teaching.

But it was only after spending time in Egypt that he discovered just how deep his passion for teaching went. While in&nbsp;Egypt, Nik&nbsp;received his CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification and taught English to&nbsp;refugees.

&ldquo;I enjoyed helping people in that way and meeting people from other cultures,&rdquo; said Nik. &ldquo;I got hooked on&nbsp;teaching.&rdquo;

For 10 years, Nik taught English all over the&nbsp;world.

In 1999, he became interested in technology. This led him to go back to school to get his master&rsquo;s in educational&nbsp;technology.

<h2>The story behind PeacheyPublications</h2>

PeacheyPublications grew out of Nik&rsquo;s desire to write a book about educational&nbsp;technology.

He spoke to publishers about his idea for the book, but,&nbsp;unfortunately, they were limited on what they could do in book form. At the time, no one was interested in publishing a digital&nbsp;book.

That&#39;s when Nik decided to take matters into his own&nbsp;hands.

He wrote and published the book himself using the money he had raised from crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Later, he entered the book for a British Council ELTons award and&nbsp;won.

<img alt="" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2630/content_ElliiCon2022-Speaker_Nik-Peachey.jpg" />

Nik Peachey is pictured here&nbsp;holding his 2016 British Council ELTon&nbsp;Award for Innovation in Teacher&nbsp;Resources. He&#39;s&nbsp;also won the&nbsp;2012 British Council ELTon&nbsp;Award for Excellence in Course&nbsp;Innovation.

At the time, Nik thought to himself, If I want to keep [publishing books], then I have to find a better way to do&nbsp;it.

To write more books and publish them quicker, Nik founded PeacheyPublications.

Today, PeacheyPublications&nbsp;has 180 products, from lesson plans to books to online&nbsp;courses.

&ldquo;We get great feedback from the teachers who use our products,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Nik.

<h2>In the classroom</h2>

As someone who&#39;s passionate about educational technology, Nik believes that technology shouldn&rsquo;t just be used by teachers. Students should be using it too, and it shouldn&rsquo;t just be about replacing homework either.

&ldquo;Technology should be connecting them to people and enhancing their abilities to be creative,&rdquo; Nik&nbsp;said.

He also believes&nbsp;students should come away from a lesson learning three&nbsp;things.&nbsp;

&ldquo;They should learn something about the language, something about the world around them, and something about themselves.&nbsp;The goal isn&rsquo;t language learning; language learning is the means to the&nbsp;goal.&quot;

<h2>Learn about intentional listening with&nbsp;Nik at&nbsp;ElliiCon2022</h2>

On September 15, Nik will be joining us at ElliiCon2022 to talk about how to develop understanding through intentional listening. You&rsquo;ll discover activities that will help your&nbsp;students&hellip;

<ul>
	<li>empathize with others</li>
	<li>listen with the intention to better understand on a more emotional&nbsp;level</li>
	<li>build dialogue and find common ground with those that hold different worldviews than their&nbsp;own</li>
</ul>

<blockquote>
Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Nik&#39;s presentation?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/0ee877b0-e369-11ec-b1b2-394b94cc9521" target="_blank">Register for ElliiCon2022</a>&nbsp;(it&#39;s&nbsp;free!).

To learn more about Nik, follow him on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ICT4ELT/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/NikPeachey" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikpeachey/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>.
</blockquote>

ElliiCon2022 Speaker Spotlight: Nik Peachey

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<div class="white-box">
This September 15 and 16, 2022, we&rsquo;ll be hosting&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon</a>, a free, two-day virtual conference to explore simple, effective, and practical strategies that will help you build stronger relationships with your students and engage them in a more meaningful way. This article is part of a series of posts introducing some of the conference speakers.
</div>

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is a digital innovator, international speaker, author of Hacking Digital Learning Strategies,&nbsp;Bammy Award winner, and the 2014 National Association of Professional Women&rsquo;s Woman of the Year. She&#39;ll be joining us at ElliiCon on September 16.

After graduating with an English degree, one of Shelly&rsquo;s friends asked her to work at a university-run summer camp for middle-school-aged kids from other countries. Since Shelly knew Spanish, she was a huge asset to the team. In addition to working with the campers, she was also able to translate for their Spanish-speaking parents.

After that summer, Shelly worked at&nbsp;a high school&nbsp;as an ESL teacher. She taught there for a few years before moving to Germany to teach English to kids and adults. She also spent two months teaching refugee students in Greece.

Currently, Shelly is a teacher in Texas. In addition to English to newcomers, she also teaches English language arts. Her favorite part about being a teacher is having &ldquo;the ability to give students a voice.&rdquo;

<h2>On using technology in the classroom</h2>

As an award-winning digital innovator and&nbsp;author of numerous education technology books, it&rsquo;s no surprise that Shelly believes it&rsquo;s important to integrate technology into the classroom. She believes technology works best in conjunction with authentic, non-digital materials.

&ldquo;Brainstorm on paper or with a dry-erase marker on a whiteboard or with others. Then tie that into technology. Take what you brainstorm and produce a book, video, presentation, or broadcast,&rdquo; said Shelly. &ldquo;The whole entire process mimics the real world. It&rsquo;s about using technology in a healthy and responsible way.&rdquo;

<img alt="Shelly presenting at TESOL in Texas." src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2610/content_ElliiCon_Speaker_Shelly-Terrell.jpg" />

Shelly is pictured here presenting at the 2015 Texas TESOL State Conference.

As an international speaker and someone who has trained teachers in more than 20 countries as a guest expert, consultant, and ambassador for the US Embassy, Shelly helps other teachers&nbsp;not only teach with technology but also design a virtual learning environment.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s important for students to have a digital home that supports the learning in the classroom and inspires them to practice outside of the classroom,&rdquo; said Shelly.

<h2>On controversial topics</h2>

In addition to EdTech, Shelly is also interested in education-related topics that are controversial and spark debate.

&ldquo;Teachers have different outlooks on policies like grades and homework. Should we have grades? Should we have homework? There are so many ideas and extremes. You see all these perspectives and they help shape your perspective.&rdquo;

<h2>Learn about tools and strategies to get students speaking with Shelly at ElliiCon2022</h2>

On September 16, Shelly will be joining us at ElliiCon2022 to talk about how to get students to speak up in class and use their voice in authentic ways. She&rsquo;ll be sharing strategies, activities, tips, and tools that will inspire even the shyest of English learners to find their voice.

<blockquote>
Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Shelly&#39;s presentation?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/0ee877b0-e369-11ec-b1b2-394b94cc9521" target="_blank">Register for ElliiCon2022</a>&nbsp;(it&#39;s free!).

To learn more about Shelly, visit her <a href="http://ShellyTerrell.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">website</a> and <a href="http://TeacherRebootCamp.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">blog</a>. You can also follow her on <a href="https://twitter.com/shellterrell" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.

PS. Did you know that Shelly used to be one of our bloggers? Explore her <a href="https://ellii.com/blog/authors/shelly-terrell" target="_blank">past blog posts</a> for tons of teaching tips and&nbsp;inspiration!
</blockquote>

ElliiCon2022 Speaker Spotlight: Shelly Terrell

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<div class="white-box">
This September 15 and 16, 2022, we&rsquo;ll be hosting&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon</a>, a free, two-day virtual conference to explore simple, effective, and practical strategies that will help you build stronger relationships with your students and engage them in a more meaningful way. This article is part of a series of posts introducing some of the conference speakers.
</div>

Dr. Ken Beatty is the author and co-author of more than 140 textbooks and has given more than 500 teacher-training sessions in 35 countries. He&#39;ll be joining&nbsp;us at ElliiCon2022 on September 15. 
 
One of Dr. Beatty&#39;s&nbsp;first teaching jobs wasn&#39;t exactly what you would call ordinary. For 18 months, he taught&nbsp;prisoners who were 12&ndash;17 years old.

&ldquo;Although I knew a lot about Shakespeare, I was fairly clueless about how to help students struggling with nouns and verbs,&rdquo; said Dr. Beatty.

This experience led him to go back to school.

After receiving a diploma in applied linguistics, he&nbsp;moved to China to teach English as a second language.

&ldquo;Teaching abroad requires a high degree of empathy&mdash;putting yourself in the place of others to understand their contexts before working backwards from their local logic to imagine what can be improved,&rdquo; explained Dr. Beatty.

Teaching in China was his first year of 18 years abroad. His only regret? He wishes he&#39;d spent more time observing other teachers in the classroom.

&ldquo;Ours is a solitary profession, and we&rsquo;re all in danger of getting comfortable with the way we&rsquo;ve always done things, perhaps even parroting the ways our own teachers did them decades earlier,&quot; he said.&nbsp;&quot;Teaching should be&nbsp;a never-ending quest to do things better.&rdquo;

<img alt="Dr. Ken Beatty in a classroom with smiling students " src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2607/content_ElliiCon_Speaker_Dr-Ken-Beatty_01.jpg" />

Dr. Beatty is pictured here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

<h2>The human element of online teaching</h2>

Today, Dr. Beatty is a TESOL professor at Anaheim University. He teaches students pursuing their master&rsquo;s and doctorate degrees. He particularly enjoys&mdash;and was surprised by&mdash;how intimate teaching online can be.

When he was first invited to join the faculty 12 years ago, he expected it to be less personal than face-to-face classrooms. He has a story to illustrate why he was wrong:

<blockquote>
&ldquo;We all got to know each other well on the discussion forum and&nbsp;one day, John announced&nbsp;that his wife was pregnant. Over the next couple&nbsp;months of classes, we got updates and shared stories and advice. By chance, nine months later, John was enrolled in another of my classes and wrote one week to say he might not attend Friday&rsquo;s session as his wife was expecting any day now.

Then, Wednesday, he announced the birth of their baby girl, and I didn&rsquo;t expect to see him in class that week, but Friday evening he opened his laptop in his kitchen. The class and I shared our congratulations. And then I asked, &#39;Is the baby home yet?&#39;

&#39;Let me get her!&#39;

And suddenly, yawning on screen, we saw a three-day-old baby.

It was a moment like a thousand others that one wouldn&rsquo;t expect in a traditional graduate seminar. I get to know the students and the students all get to know each other much more than if we were in some brick building. Being online can open us to others&rsquo; lives.&rdquo;
</blockquote>

<h2>Technology is a great way to&nbsp;empower your language learners</h2>

Dr. Beatty holds a PhD in computer-assisted language learning and has written a few books on the topic as well. He recalls a time when he was a student and one of his teachers used technology in class.

<img alt="Dr. Ken Beatty holding a big stack of books" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2608/content_ElliiCon_Speaker_Dr-Ken-Beatty_02.jpg" />

Dr. Beatty is pictured here with some of his published books.

&ldquo;When I was in grade two, my teacher, Mrs. Babcock, asked, &#39;Now, which student would like to operate the film strip projector?&#39; Hand in the air, I remember straining every muscle in hopes I would be chosen,&quot;&nbsp;said Dr. Beatty.&nbsp;&quot;It was ridiculously simple, just turning the knob, but to my seven-year-old self, it seemed I was operating a spaceship.&quot;

&ldquo;What was the point?&rdquo; he asked himself, reflecting back on that day.

His teacher, he explained,&nbsp;used the task as a way to both reward good behavior and to give students a small sense of pride and empowerment. 
 
His advice for&nbsp;teachers who want to use technology in the classroom? 
 
Don&rsquo;t. Instead, get your&nbsp;students involved.

&ldquo;Our students tend to be digital natives and are better aware of how new technologies work,&quot; said Dr. Beatty.&nbsp;&quot;Need Quizlet quizzes? Let each student create one. Need to explain new conferencing software to the class? Let a few students teach the rest. They&rsquo;ll do so in ways they best understand and will better connect as friends. Everyone benefits.&rdquo;

<blockquote>
&quot;To teach is to learn twice.&quot;

&mdash;Joseph Joubert, French writer
</blockquote>

<h2>Learning English outside the classroom is just as important</h2>

Dr. Beatty believes that learning needs to happen outside of class time too since there never seems to be enough time to learn a language within the classroom.

A&nbsp;teacher he&nbsp;met in Shanghai gave each of her students wall space and told them to decorate it with English. Dr. Beatty said the students were confused about what to do but soon started putting up items they found outside the classroom, including&nbsp;menus, comics, maps, advertisements, and their own English annotations of pictures of things like soccer games.

&ldquo;It became a kind of subversive competitive treasure hunt,&quot; Dr. Beatty&nbsp;said.&nbsp;&quot;It was subversive because the students didn&rsquo;t understand that by focusing on finding and discussing English materials, they were learning English. Best of all, the teacher only had to start the ball rolling. Once in motion, students did all the work and chattered about each new contribution.&rdquo;

<h2>Advocate for your student&#39;s language learning needs&nbsp;</h2>

Dr. Beatty also believes that teachers should pay attention to politics in education.

&ldquo;As teachers, we are the ones who best understand our students&rsquo; needs. Not parents. Not administrators. Not elected officials,&quot; he said.&nbsp;&quot;Every teacher needs to be involved in the decisions being made about what to teach and how to teach.&rdquo;

If you&#39;re looking to get involved in politics, Dr. Beatty suggests to start by joining your local or national language association. Teachers could share their ideas about education at staff meetings,&nbsp;with friends and family, in blog posts, and in letters to the editor.&nbsp; 
 
From there, Dr. Beatty encourages teachers to identify the issues that matter on a personal level and find other teachers who agree. 
 
&quot;Think about what you can do together,&quot; he said.&nbsp;&quot;Are the needs of students not being met? Are teacher working conditions making it impossible to give students the attention they deserve? Are education budgets being slashed? Shout!&rdquo;

<img alt="Dr. Ken Beatty giving a speech" src="https://esllibrary.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2609/content_ElliiCon_Speaker_Dr-Ken-Beatty_03.jpg" />

Dr. Beatty is pictured here in Liverpool, England.

<h2>Learn about assessment with&nbsp;Dr. Beatty at ElliiCon2022</h2>

On September 15, Dr. Beatty will be joining us at <a href="https://ellii.com/conference/2022" target="_blank">ElliiCon2022</a> to talk about assessment.

Have you had this experience? You spend hours correcting students&rsquo; errors on their assignments only to see them glance at the final mark and crumple the paper into a ball.&nbsp;Students too often see assessments like court verdicts, not learning opportunities.

The title of Dr. Beatty&#39;s talk is &quot;Assessment: Agile, Simple, Effective.&quot; He&#39;ll kick off the session by asking&nbsp;why teachers assess students and then explore the&nbsp;key principles that apply to students of all ages and levels.&nbsp;

Here are the three key principles he will cover:

<ul>
	<li>Agile&nbsp;is about responding to students&rsquo; needs.</li>
	<li>Simple&nbsp;is about saving ourselves time.</li>
	<li>Effective&nbsp;is about ensuring that students learn from their assessments.</li>
</ul>

<blockquote>
Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Dr. Beatty&#39;s presentation? <a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/0ee877b0-e369-11ec-b1b2-394b94cc9521" target="_blank"> Register for ElliiCon2022</a> (it&#39;s free!).

To learn more about Dr. Beatty,&nbsp;<a href="http://kenbeatty.ca/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">visit his website</a>.
</blockquote>

ElliiCon2022 Speaker Spotlight: Dr. Ken Beatty

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<div class="white-box">
This article is part of a series of posts highlighting our community of teachers around the world. We hope you find their stories interesting and&nbsp;inspiring!
</div>

Since 2003, Rick Powell has been busy traveling the&nbsp;world.

He&rsquo;s spent time in several cities in Europe and South America&nbsp;before finally settling down in Mexico. To financially support his travels, Rick spent his time cooking professionally and teaching&nbsp;English. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he made the decision to drop his cooking job and solely focus on&nbsp;teaching.

Today&nbsp;Rick teaches online from Mexico City. He mainly teaches adults at the low-intermediate to advanced levels who are interested in improving their English for work or in preparation for a move&nbsp;to the United&nbsp;States.

Like many teachers,&nbsp;a&nbsp;typical day of teaching for Rick begins with a lot of coffee. Then he opens his computer and heads straight to&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/discover" target="_blank">Ellii</a> and <a href="https://www.notion.so/product" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Notion</a> to plan out his lessons for the&nbsp;day.

&ldquo;I also look at my news channels on YouTube because many of my students are interested in US politics and culture,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Rick. &ldquo;I use videos during&nbsp;class.&rdquo;

Classes start at 10:00 am&nbsp;with his last class of the day sometimes ending as late as 10:00&nbsp;pm.

&ldquo;There are breaks, thankfully,&rdquo; said Rick. &quot;I take lots of short walks, even around the block, so that I stay alert and&nbsp;fresh.&rdquo;

<h2>How Rick uses the Ellii platform with&nbsp;students</h2>

Recently, Rick used our <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons/4189" target="_blank">Supreme Court Overturns Roe V. Wade</a> lesson in&nbsp;class.

&ldquo;I use the <a href="https://ellii.com/courses/133/lessons" target="_blank">That&#39;s News to Me</a> section a lot. There have been some good conversations,&rdquo; he&nbsp;said.

Check out Rick&#39;s&nbsp;text response below to learn more about why he loves Ellii and how he uses it with his&nbsp;students.

<iframe allow="autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *;" height="400px" src="https://www.videoask.com/axle8u41hw8k5wu2ztr9xc643m7k35duz98ns8kv" style="border: none; border-radius: 24px" width="100%"></iframe>

<h2>Overcoming challenges in and out of the&nbsp;classroom</h2>

Getting students to speak up in class and complete their homework outside of class have&nbsp;been two&nbsp;of Rick&#39;s biggest challenges of&nbsp;late.

&ldquo;It has been hard getting some students to speak at any length and, since my students are all working professionals, to get them to do homework and study vocabulary on their own,&rdquo; he&nbsp;admits.

Despite these challenges, Rick still finds teaching incredibly&nbsp;rewarding.

&ldquo;I love it when my students recognize and benefit from their own progress after giving their first presentation or running an international meeting in English, or publishing their first article in English, or getting accepted to an American university&mdash;all of which have happened.&rdquo;

His advice for aspiring teachers?

&ldquo;Be fearless when teaching slang, idioms, and colloquial English,&quot; he said.&nbsp;&quot;Students are very interested in sounding as native (and sometimes as hip and cool) as possible. And make them laugh!&rdquo;

<blockquote>
Want the chance to be featured in our Teacher Feature series? Visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://ellii.com/blog/20th-anniversary-giveaway" target="_blank">20th Anniversary Giveaway</a>&nbsp;blog post&nbsp;to tell us why you love Ellii and how you use it in your classroom.
</blockquote>

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