Teacher Tools

Teachers can't be all-wise, all-knowing, all-caring, and always positive all the time in the classroom. We can't go home and prepare 5 lessons a day, grade 50 quizzes, record a video of highlights from class, fill out student progress reports, and then cut out holiday’s shapes for the bulletin boards. Not every day, even though we'd like to. It is only recently that we've realized that our expectations for teachers are just not healthy! We can't be everything and everyone to all our students, all the time, much as we wish we could. But so many teacher self-care books encourage you to do even more! Now you have to find time for journaling, yoga, coffee dates, and more. Plus, you feel guilty the whole time, because you're not planning lessons or buying pencils to give your students before their big exam Friday! “The Teacher Self-Care Manual: Simple Self-Care Strategies for Stressed Teachers” by teacher, trainer, and coach Patrice Palmer provides simple, easy-to-apply strategies that will help you take care of yourself. Patrice leads you through the simple processes of changing the mindsets and habits that make us work until we burn out! Clearly and thoughtfully written, Palmer gives you the awareness and tools you need to be a great teacher without sacrificing yourself! And she should know. She's been through teacher burnout and come out the other side. The book also features: Tips you can apply right now. Activities to help you find your strengths. Exercises to share with your studentsAdvice for administrators to support teachers and their own mental health. Book-club discussion questions

Everything you need to get dramatic in the classroom. This easy-to-use, comprehensive teacher-resource book has lesson plans and practical activities that integrate theater into language learning. Plus ten original scripts so you can put the activities into action immediately! Drama and play scripts can be used to teach pronunciation, pragmatics, and other communication skills, as well as provide grammar and vocabulary practice! Conveniently organized into two parts, Part 1 includes pragmatics mini-lessons, community builders, drama games, and pronunciation activities. There are also lesson plans for producing a play (either fully-staged or as Reader's Theater), as well as guidelines and activities for writing plays to use with (or without students,) and suggestions for integrating academic content. You'll even find rubrics and evaluation schemes for giving notes and feedback. Part 2 includes 10 original monologues and scripts of varying lengths that can be photocopied and used in the classroom. Specifically designed to feature everyday language and high frequency social interactions, these scenes and sketches follow engaging plot arcs in which characters face obstacles and strive to achieve objectives. With a foreword by Ken Wilson, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in using the performing arts to help students become more confident and fluent speakers.

Language is more than words. But too often, we teach grammar as a set of boring rules, best practiced by filling out worksheet after worksheet. “60 Kinesthetic Grammar Activities” bursts this myth with a collection of activities that get students out of their seats and learning in a dynamic and active classroom. The benefits of kinetic language learning activities are many: teach gesture and non-verbal communication, activate our embodied mind, make grammar memorable, change the dynamics of the classroom, build community, and raise students' moods. You'll find the activities inside are all low-prep or no-prep, easy to adapt to your classroom, and flexible enough to work with a variety of target language features.

50 Activities for the First Day of School is a collection of activities teachers can use on the first day of school or anytime they need an icebreaker or team building activity. While aimed at the English language classroom, the book is useful to any teacher. Activities include getting to know you games, creative ways to do needs evaluation, as well as methods of setting your expectations for the class on day one. The first day of school is the most important and the busiest. It's also the hardest because you don't know your students yet. You don't know what they like and what their interests are. Heck, you don't even know their names! And yet, it's your job to walk into a room full of strangers and turn it into a community. You need to set the rules and convey your expectations. You need to find out their needs and expectations. You need to start building a class community. You need to learn their names! With 50 Activities for the First Day of School, you can walk in to any classroom and start off right foot with no preparation. These fun and engaging activities will help you learn students' names, build rapport, assess their knowledge, introduce language, and establish the class rules. Your students will walk away having had a fun first class and you will walk away ready to tackle the rest of the term. All of these activities are all classroom-tested and teacher-approved. And all are presented with clear instructions and ideas to adapt or vary the activities to your students, your teaching style and your classroom.