I saw a great video recently that was all about the art of procrastination and I have decided that I could be a world champion if it were a competitive event.  

So, in the process of procrastinating, I end up surfing the web and finding all sorts of interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) sites that give me opportunities to get even more sidetracked and even further away from the job I am supposed to be doing.  Any way, I found this blog which got me thinking – what sorts of things do I do and could I do at the beginnings of my lessons that will boost my students’ engagement and interest? 

I also saw this picture that someone had posted on Facebook – this is a French version but I saw an English version of it a couple of weeks ago – would love to know if there is a Spanish version out there somewhere.

So, where are you? I think I am permanently on the I am going to try to do, but that’s probably because I spend most of my time procrastinating and not actually getting on with stuff!

And what sort of things do I do with my classes at the beginning of lessons? One of my favourite activities is using a piece of artwork and getting the students to come up with a Haiku in the target language. This usually forces them to focus on real meaning and they have to think concisely.  Usually nouns and adjectives are the first words they think of and then come the verbs. 

Here are a few that one of my French classes did last year for this picture called “Tokyo Girl” by NZ artist Harvey Benge.

 Mascara noir, vif