a little christmas fun

This is one of the most popular Christmas stories:
A Christmas Carol - Fairy tales and stories for children

Here is the opening to an animated version:



A Christmas Carol, 2009 : Opening Scene (Rescored by SUN) HD 720p

There's more here:
Jay Doubleyou: charles dickens at christmas

What's your favourite carol?
Jingle Bells original with lyrics

There are more here:

Jay Doubleyou: favourite christmas carols

What's your favourite Harry Potter Christmas scene?



Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - christmas at Hogwarts (HD)



Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - christmas scene (HD)

Godric's Hollow | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1



Harry Potter: The Ultimate Christmas Scenes | Christmas in the Wizarding World
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teaching and learning without a coursebook

Teaching unplugged also means teaching without formal, printed 'resources':
Jay Doubleyou: the 'dogme' approach or 'teaching unplugged':

Here's a little more from Thornbury and Meddings:
Dogme the roaring in the chimney by Valentin - issuu

And more from Adrian Underhill:
Teaching Without a Coursebook | Textbook | Learning
Teaching Without a Coursebook | Textbook | Classroom

And many others think the same:
Teaching English with minimal resources | Onestopenglish
C is for Coursebook (by Lindsay Clandfield) | An A-Z of ELT
Teaching without a coursebook | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

With lots more informal, unprinted resources here:
Creativity Autonomy Technology in ELT | Scoop.it
EnglishBanana.com - Teach English without a Course Book - Free Resources

And some discussion here:
Advice on teaching with no books - EnglishClub TEFL Forums
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the 'dogme' approach or 'teaching unplugged':

This blog has already looked at the ideas and practice behind the 'dogme' approach or 'teaching unplugged':
Jay Doubleyou: theories of language learning and teaching: dogme
Jay Doubleyou: dogme and emergent language pt 1
Jay Doubleyou: dogme and emergent language pt 2

Here are a couple more places to go:
Getting Down to Basics- Dogme in Action
(PDF) Teaching unplugged: Is Dogme an innovation or a remake? | Darío Luis Banegas - Academia.edu
Teaching Unplugged | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

20 steps to teaching unplugged
D is for Dogme | An A-Z of ELT
Dogme language teaching - Wikipedia
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teaching as a subversive activity

A provocative read from the 1960s which is perhaps even more relevant:



Teaching As a Subversive Activity: Neil Postman, Charles Weingartner: 9780385290098: Amazon.com: Books

People - and not just teachers - are still talking about it:
Subversive Teaching
Three Bold and Fresh Ideas for Education in ‘Teaching as a Subversive Activity’ | Online Learning Insights

Driven by the test-crazed juggernaut unleashed by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top federal mandates, and emboldened by the poor showing the US has on international test scores, policy makers everywhere are demanding a numbers-driven accountability for teachers and their schools. It is worth noting that in its publication, Human Capital, the OECD (the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), which oversees PISA testing - the most well-known international testing benchmark - suggests that “individual capabilities” are a kind of capital, - an asset just like “a spinning wheel or a flour mill” which can “yield returns.” 1

If you were educated to be a teacher in the 60’s - as I was - you were groomed to see “teaching as a subversive activity” after the leading education prep book of the time by the same name, authored by Charles Weingartner and Neil Postman.2 Their approach to schooling, known as inquiry education, emphasized student questions more than teacher answers. Teaching was characterized as a tool for questioning the status quo, as a means to talk truth to power and as a salvo against the all too often stultifying effects of the establishment. This unique pedagogy was encouraged as an antidote to dull, lifeless and unimaginative teaching. In addition, my cohort of aspiring educators read other works from the pantheon of revolutionary thinkers, including Jonathan Kozol’s Death at an Early Age, Herb Kohl’s 36 Children, and A.S. Neill’s Summerhill. Each offered a manifesto for teachers to change the world, first by questioning the prevailing paradigm. Today, I am afraid the clarion call encouraged of educators is not so much “change the world,” as “preserve the corporation.”

Teaching as a Subversive Activity | HuffPost

See this for a list:
Jay Doubleyou: student-centred learning

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the lexical approach

We [tend to] [put words into] [little groups of words]:
chunking

This is called the Lexical Approach:

The lexical approach is a method of teaching foreign languages described by Michael Lewis in the early 1990s. The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks. Students are taught to be able to perceive patterns of language (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposal when they are taught in this way.
In the lexical approach, instruction focuses on fixed expressions that occur frequently in dialogues, which Lewis claims make up a larger part of discourse than unique phrases and sentences. Vocabulary is prized over grammar... in this approach. The teaching of chunks and set phrases has become common in English as a foreign or second language...
Lexical approach - Wikipedia

The lexical approach is a way of analysing and teaching language based on the idea that it is made up of lexical units rather than grammatical structures. The units are words, chunks formed by collocations, and fixed phrases.
Example
The phrase 'Rescue attempts are being hampered by bad weather' is a chunk of language, and almost a fixed phrase. It is formed by the collocations 'Rescue' + 'attempt', 'rescue attempt' + 'hampered', 'hampered' + 'by', 'hampered by' + 'bad weather'.
In the classroom
A simple activity to incorporate the lexical approach is to encourage learners to identify and record lexical chunks and fixed phrases in texts they read.
Further links:

Lexical Approach 1 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

Lexical Approach 2 - What does the lexical approach look like? | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC
Lexical approach | TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC

It's getting better to do this kind of thing in the classroom and at home - but traditions die hard:

Taking a lexical approach to teaching: principles and problems - Harwood - 2002 - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Wiley Online Library

But it's very useful - even when it comes to professional English, where we shouldn't be learning lists of single words:

Kavaliauskiene - Using the Lexical Approach for the Acquisition of ESP Vocabulary (TESL/TEFL)

From 2013:

Why has the lexical approach been so long in coming?
Twenty years after Michael Lewis used computer research to show that the phrases and word groups used in English hold the key to learning the language, not grammar rules and vocabulary, ELT remains resistant to change... 

The central role of lexis in ELT has been recognised. Textbooks routinely include collocation boxes, pages with functional language and generally pay more attention to spoken language. But, clearly, Lewis was aiming at much more.

If anything, the lexical approach for me is about grammar. Not the kind of carefully sequenced and fundamentally flawed presentation of discrete items but grammar as a search for patterns and regularities in language we use. Lewis's goal was to effect a radical upheaval in the way we teach language and not merely bring vocabulary to the fore. But 20 years on, it is evident that this is precisely what his lexical approach has achieved and – to finish off with a chunk – we should be grateful for small mercies.
Why has the lexical approach been so long in coming? | Education | The Guardian

From 2019:
The Lexical Approach - Teflpedia
The Lexical Approach in Language Teaching
Lexical Approach e sviluppo del parlato in lingua inglese
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networked learning

This idea has been around for some time:

Network and networked learning theories can be traced back into the 19th Century, when commentators were considering the social implications of networked infrastructure such as the railways and the telegraph.[4] More recently, networked learning has its roots in the 1970s, with the likes of Ivan Illich's book, Deschooling Society, through to more recent commentary in the early 2000s, largely inspired by the Internet and social media.
Networked learning - Wikipedia

See also here:
Jay Doubleyou: deschooling society
Jay Doubleyou: schools as 'total institutions'

Following more well-known learning theories such as behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism, Siemens’ (2005) proposed Connectivism – a ground-breaking theory of learning based on the idea of networks and connectivity within the web.
Siemens work presaged the invention of MOOCs – a term coined by Dave Cormier in 2008 – which subsequently shook formal education to its core with its open and networked approach to online learning.
Networked learning and connectivism

See also:



Massive open online course - Wikipedia
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student-centred learning

Too much of how we learn and teach misses out the student:
Jay Doubleyou: a critique of learning objectives
Jay Doubleyou: students and teachers prefer different activities when learning english...

Maybe we need a different approach:

Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence [1] by putting responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students by imparting them with skills and basis on how to learn a specific subject and schemata required to measure up to the specific performance requirement.[2][3][4] Student-centered instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent problem-solving.[5] Student-centered learning theory and practice are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner's critical role in constructing meaning from new information and prior experience.
Student-centred learning - Wikipedia

Student-centred learning (SCL) is an approach to education, which aims at overcoming some of the problems inherent to more traditional forms of education by focusing on the learner and their needs, rather than being centred around the teacher's input. This approach has many implications for the design and flexibility of curriculum, course content, and interactivity of the learning process and is being increasingly used at universities across Europe.
European Higher Education Area and Bologna Process

This also begs the question of why and what students need to learn:
Jay Doubleyou: producing more employable students

You've been writing about our educational system for decades. What's the most pressing need in public education right now?
Alvin Toffler: Shut down the public education system.

Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up | Edutopia

This is part of a bigger picture - as mapped out on Wikipedia:

Pedagogy

Approaches

Critical pedagogy
Anti-oppressive education
Student-centered learning
Dialogic learning

Key concepts

Education
Society
Culture

Hidden curriculum
Learning
Learning space
Learning theories
Critical pedagogy

Major works
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Critical Pedagogy Primer
Learning to Labour

Theorists
Paulo Freire
Henry Giroux
Peter McLaren
bell hooks
Antonia Darder
Joe Kincheloe
Shirley Steinberg
Paul Willis
Ira Shor
William Pinar

Pedagogy
Anti-oppressive education
Anti-bias curriculum
Multicultural education
Educational inequality
Curriculum studies
Teaching for social justice
Humanitarian education
Inclusion
Student-centered learning
Public sphere pedagogy
Popular education
Feminist composition
Ecopedagogy
Queer pedagogy
Critical literacy
Critical reading
Critical consciousness
Critical theory of maker education

Concepts
Praxis
Hidden curriculum
Consciousness raising

Related
Reconstructivism
Critical theory
Frankfurt School
Political consciousness
Student-centred learning - Wikipedia
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pecha kucha: "talk less, show more"

The power of using the right images in the classroom...

What is PechaKucha?

PechaKucha’s 20x20 presentation format shows your 20 chosen images, each for 20 seconds. In other words, you've got 400 seconds to tell your story, with visuals guiding the way. PechaKucha means "chit chat" in Japanese. This creative outlet began as nighttime get-togethers in Tokyo in 2003 by two renowned architects. Since then, three million people have attended PechaKucha events worldwide. Read more.

Pecha Kucha 20x20: Discover Pecha Kucha presentations, stories, ideas, examples, and videos that will inspire

For example:
Francisco Martínez Architecture & Community Video Presentation: Makers Make

Inspired by their desire to "talk less, show more," Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo's Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa) created PechaKucha in February 2003.^[2][3]
PechaKucha - Wikipedia

For example:
How to Make Great Presentations the Pecha Kucha Way
A Pecha Kucha about Pecha Kucha - YouTube

Great for the classroom!

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pecha-kucha in the classroom - YouTube

A final couple of examples:
Pecha Kucha - Flipping Your Classroom (STLHE 2016) - YouTube
Pecha Kucha: Teaching and Learning - YouTube
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whole brain teaching

This idea has been around for about a decade:
WBT Treasury – Whole Brain Teaching

Designed for students of all ages, from kindergarten through college, Whole Brain Teaching maximizes student engagement by focusing on mimicry, which is a natural way for the brain to learn. This is coupled with an intense, in-the-moment teaching method that compels constant attention from students.Sep 11, 2018

What Is “Whole Brain Teaching” and Does It Work? - Learning Liftoff

https://www.learningliftoff.com › what-is-whole-brain-teaching-and-does-it-...

The brain is one complex part of our body system. It is said that all functions of the human body are communicated by the brain. The "TRIUNE Brain Theory" According to Dr. Roger Sperry, the brain has 2 hemispheres that performs the tasks differently with each other. "The Split Brain Theory"Sep 23, 2016

The Whole Brain Theory by Hazel angeles on Prezi

https://prezi.com › the-whole-brain-theory

Could this be applied to teaching English as a second language?

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Beginner's Guide to Whole Brain Teaching - YouTube
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jigsaw and peer explaining

It's all about learner autonomy:
Jigsaw (teaching technique - Wikipedia
Peer learning - Wikipedia
Learning by teaching - Wikipedia

And in German:

Learning by Teaching: The Goal is Independence

Pupil at the Peter Vischer School during classes. Photo/Copyright: Goethe-Institut

In this method of teaching – “Lernen durch Lehren” (LdL, Learning by Teaching) – the school students teach each other, thereby gaining additional skills – and teachers are better able to respond to the individual problems of the children.

Multilingualism – Languages Without Borders - Multilingualism and education - Goethe-Institut

We've met this before:
Flipped classroom - Wikipedia
Jay Doubleyou: blended learning and the flipped classroom

Here's a great idea - but not without controversy:
The Learning Pyramid

Learning pyramid - Wikipedia

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