What's in YOUR dream house?

Draw Your Dream House!

Written on 5/5/2015

Last week, while I was sick at home planning my upcoming lessons, I watched a few TED Talks on Education. One really stood out - Ken Robinson's: How to escape education's death valley. It reminded me that teachers need to do more than just teach. They need to facilitate learning. They need to inspire students to reach beyond the limits of the classroom. They need to spark imagination, interest, and curiosity.

But how do I do that teaching English? I looked at my next lesson, Furniture in the Home. I new I needed to learn vocabulary, and I knew drawing pictures on the board would be the best way to do this. And it hit me, drawing pictures! The students at the center LOVE to draw, but often they copy from books or magazines. They are never asked to be creative.

So, I decided to create an exercise asking students to draw their home. In my first class, some students raised their hand and said, "but I don't have this furniture in my house..what do I draw?" I told them to draw the house they want to live in when they are grown up, and I saw the whole classes eyes glow with creativity.

Soon erasers dust was flying across the classroom as students were erasing the homes they live in now and imaging the homes they want to live in when they grow up. They said, "Can my house be a house in another country?" OF COURSE IT CAN! I smiled. I told them they can live in a house with whatever they want and where ever they want. But first, you have to study well and work hard.

Suddenly my most uninterested students were asking what a vase, stereo system, sink, picture frame, and many other things were in English. Although it started to get a bit materialistic, it was a great creative, imaginative, exercise to bring energy back into my classroom and spark a bit an interest in English again.

Because I think that when you ask students to create something for themselves, not only do they get to be creative, but they start learning words in their own way. They were imagining sofas, and lamps, and televisions while they were writing the words on paper.

It was an exciting lesson for my students, and an enlightening lesson for myself. And we all left with smiles on our faces.