SESSION 1E

Nancy Stephan
Making Learning Fun

Abstract
Via an interactive session where fellow teachers can experience 'being a student', we will see how new vocabulary and 'sayings' can be taught and 'cemented.'

The main objective of the session is to show that learning can be extremely 'fun' with smiles happening in all corners of the classroom by using tools such as song and also by using the teacher's own personal character to motivate and highlight the meaning of the new vocab and 'sayings'.

The beginning of the session will introduce the new vocabulary and 'sayings' via a guessing game where learners must try and guess the missing words in the song.

The trainer will then give lively examples to create context of the meanings of the new vocab and sayings.

The learners will then listen to the song to see the meaning in action.

Learners will then use the new vocab and sayings to write their own 'rap' or to make a story that 'rhymes'. This will cement the new language in an engaging and fun way as they partner with each other to create something. More new vocabulary will come out of this as they try to find rhyming words.

Learners then must sing the rap to the rest of the class (it's amazing how I have seen even the quietest of students really get into this and bop their head in a rap fashion).

All in all, the session is fun and there are smiles all around whilst new language is being played with and used all the time.

Bio
Nancy holds Bachelor of Commerce (Human Resources), Cert IV in Workplace Training & Staff Assessment, CELTA, and Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People). Prior to teaching in the academic field, Nancy worked in Human Resources (specifically Recruitment and Training). As teaching has been her passion since she was a child she always steered herself towards running training sessions in any way that she could.

In 2007 circumstances led her to move to Germany and she took this opportunity to leave behind the corporate HR path and follow my true passion of teaching.

Nancy completed the CELTA course and whilst in Germany taught privately and also taught at the University of Stuttgart in English for either English for Conversational or Business Communication purposes (interviewing and negotiating skills).
After arriving back to her home town of Melbourne in 2012 she continued the path of teaching and has since worked for Monash College, Neighbourhood Learning Centres and Deakin University. Nancy also has volunteered her time to the community by running a training session for RSPCA office staff in the area of Time Management.

For the last 3 years at Deakin University Nancy has taught General English to students from elementary to intermediate levels of English speaking ability. She has used the time here to practice, fine tune and trial many ways of teaching EAL and she believes she is now providing high level 'engaging' sessions through some proven techniques.