MariaVlachopoulou

Martin E.P. Seligman, an internationally known psychologist, of the Positive Psychology movement, introduced the PERMA model of well-being (2011), in which psychological well-being is defined in terms of five elements: positive emotions (P), engagement (E), relationships (R), meaning (M), and accomplishment (A). According to Seligman having PERMA equals flourishing.   According to Peterson (2006) schools are ideal institutions to provide opportunities for these elements and they should start focusing not only on academic learning but also the promotion of character and well-being. Let’s see what the acronym PERMA stands for and how we can link each element to our teaching:   POSITIVE EMOTIONS (P) Positive emotions are directly linked to happiness. Positive emotions coming from positive thinking and optimism help us feel less depressed when bad events occur and focus on the good things, make us feel better about ourselves and thus stronger and more confi...

(This is part of my article published in the summer e-bulletin of TESOL Macedonia Thrace Northern Greece. You can read the rest there, if you are a TESOL MTh member) ...However, even if you follow all these tips, students may not always share your enthusiasm for writing. This is the time when you have to employ some other means to get them interested! I call these “My contemporary Muses”, because they inspire my students to write! Here are some web tools I am using for my writing activities: ·          Storybird.com : This must be the most popular web tool for story writing at the moment.  Students can choose a set of pictures and write their stories based on these. I can personally guarantee that even the most reluctant to participate get excited with this! The art is so wonderful and there is not one student who will not be interested in turning picture prompts into a story. Recently, I have discovered that there is also the op...

http://www.tesolmacedoniathrace.org/2016/05/teaching-beyond-classroom-teachers.html

ΤΡΙΤΗ 9 ΦΕΒΡΟΥΑΡΙΟΥ ΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΣΦΑΛΟΥΣ ΔΙΑΔΙΚΤΥΟΥ 1ο Δ/Σ ΑΜΥΝΤΑΙΟΥ-ΠΡΕΒΕΥΤΗΣ: ΜΑΡΙΑ ΒΛΑΧΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ Για δεύτερη συνεχή χρονιά το 1ο Δημοτικό Σχολείο Αμυνταίου πραγματοποίησε δράσεις για την Ημέρα Ασφαλούς Διαδικτύου. Το σχολείο είναι πρεσβευτής του www.saferinternet.gr από πέρυσι.  Οι  μαθητές των τάξεων Ε' και ΣΤ' συμπλήρωσαν αρχικά τα φύλλα εργασίας "Δικαιώματα και υποχρεώσεις online" , στα οποία έπρεπε να επιλέξουν τα 5 πιο σημαντικά, δικαιώματα και υποχρεώσεις όσον αφορά στη διαδικτυακή τους ασφάλεια. Οι απαντήσεις τους συγκεντρώθηκαν και καταγράφηκαν στο υπολογιστικό φύλλο που είχαμε στη διάθεση μας και με αυτόν τον τρόπο μπορέσαμε να δούμε και να σχολιάσουμε τις πιο δημοφιλείς απαντήσεις. Μεταξύ των σημαντικότερων δικαιωμάτων που επέλεξαν οι μαθητές ήταν το δικαίωμα να προστατεύουν την ιδιωτικότητα τους, να αισθάνονται ασφαλείς και να απολαμβάνουν Διαδίκτυο, το δικαίωμα να μπορούν εύκολα να αναφέρουν ύποπτες ή ενοχλητικές συμπεριφορές στους διαχειριστές...

It all started with a lesson plan based on an activity from Günter Gerngross, Herbert Puchta and Scott Thornbury's "Teaching Grammar Creatively". The activity aimed at teaching verbs of the senses-looks, sounds, smells, tastes, feels-a problematic area for students, at least the way it was presented in the school book of 6th grade.I needed something to make an impression, to stay with them after the lesson. So after the presentation and the consolidation I decided to try something I had never tried with this class before. Ask them to write poetry. When I started explaining the activity I was not at all sure if everybody would be able to cope with it. In fact, I thought that some students may even start nagging or refuse to do it.To my surprise, nothing of the above happened. On the contrary, the moment I explained what they had to do everybody-and I mean everybody-set to work. Some of them asked to work in pairs and I didn't mind this. So adapting the activity a ...

The most vivid memory of my school years is my dear English teacher, Naki, who used to make us circle prepositions spotted in texts, lesson after lesson. This is something I like to do with my students, too, from the beginning of my teaching career. It is a "ritual" we follow in every reading lesson and my students know it by now! Prepositions are an important part of the English language and they are everywhere! They are in prepositional phrases, phrasal verbs, idioms and expressions. They can go with verbs, adjectives or nouns and then we also have prepositions for time and place. Greek learners- and not only them,I am guessing- find it really hard to remember where to put it and if they remember that they need a preposition, they may still have problems in finding which one they should use. A problem with prepositions is that they usually cannot be translated especially if you try word-to-word translation - something Greek students try more often than needed- contra...

As a foreign language teacher the option not to "go by the book" can give you a freedom and a power, which will give both you and your students an insight you never imagined! The option to raise awareness using English as a vehicle, will take off you the "burden" to just teach rules,and random lists of vocabulary! After all, being a teacher is more than just a job! This year I have chosen to focus on  four different issues to raise awareness: Safer Internet, Bullying, Racism and Environmental Conservation. Each of them was covered occasioned by the respective Day dedicated to it. And on this day I taught it to different levels using a variety of lesson plans according to level. I must admit that we only had time to scratch the surface, but I like to think that this is only the beginning and we will be able to do more in the future. Starting with Safer Internet Day on February 10th, being an Ambassador of Saferinternet campaign in my school, I was given the chan...