1. Monique Mainella Boring BegoneVS
Aka ‘’How to Catch Students’ Attention Without Standing on their Desks’’

2. Overview Monique Mainella: high school ESL teacher
Presentation about capturing and maintaining students’ attention, while making meaningful and productive learning
Typical appropriate content/projects/assessments but done differently (NOT JUST LECTURING WITH A POWERPOINT LIKE I’M DOING RIGHT NOW)

3. Forget Filler Fun, Friends!
Filler = No pedagogical content (Hey guys let’s watch a movie! Fun! Am I the cool teacher yet?)
‘’If it doesn’t have a pedagogical goal,
then it’s no good’’
‘’Never show a video for nothing’’
SUGGESTIONS!
(that I liked and would like to incorporate into my class)

4. Orals Done Differently
Famous Rick Mercer rants, what’s so special? (cue for deconstruction)
Argumentative language, but (typically) more engaging than a debate or argumentative oral presentation
Pet peeve (cellphones)
Issue at heart (politics, or even philosophy!)
VideoAnt (
Free service that annotates or comments on videos
You can create collections of videos, and share easily
Most importantly, they learn:
Structure
Complaining
Instead of

5. Writing CV and Cover Letter Differently
Write a CV and Cover Letter for a particular character from a book/movie
Students learn:
1. The structure of a CV and cover letter
2. Infer while or after reading the book or viewing the movie (characteristics and actions that show proficiencies, personality traits, etc. relevant to a CV)

6. Bring the real world to the class/poster presentations
Attend an event in their community and
report back on it. Presentations = exhibition
Students:
Practice taking notes
Practice recounting past events
Come into contact with their community
Learn something new
Get an authentic experience
(make the event they must attend an English one, if possible!)

7. Jigsaw Reading with various texts
You know this one!
A team of students are given a same
article/book/song/video/etc to consume
Come together in their expert group
Answer each other’s questions,
inferences, or confusion (or teacher’s guiding questions)
Share thoughts, theories, points of interest
Students go back to a home/base team made up of one student per work and share their now extensive knowledge
Betters understanding, creates significant oral participation

8. Dragons Den/Shark Tank
Deconstruct videos of these shows
Make their own pitches
Again, more engaging way of practicing argumentative texts in a creative way
To make this even more interesting and relevant to them, have them find things that really
bother them and create solutions
Give a silly example to both
model and show it is doable

9. Conclusion
Many ideas and suggestions to teach the same old things in a way that has students make meaningful connections and learn skills they typically would not (annotating videos, writing CVs)
The curriculum does not have to be the boring part of teaching
If she is at SPEAQ again, GO SEE HER PRESENTATION