Decorating and Organizing Your Classroom
Decorating a classroom can be a challenge, particularly as students get older. You want to make sure that posted information is relevant as well as age appropriate. Here are some great ways to decorate your classroom in an intentional, instructional, and intersting way.
Post clear goals that are measurable and change regularly. Having a section of your chalkboard or whiteboard dedicated to featuring your objective for the class or that week is a great way for students to feel like they are making progress as they are studying for the exam. I like to list the type of question and the focus skill. In this way, students will see how the English skill they are learning translates directly to the exam as well as how it applies to life beyond the test. Students can mark off each skill that they have studied in their notebook at the end of the week/lesson, futher cementing a sense of accomplishment.
View vocabulary: create word walls and classroom labels. Both word walls and classroom labels are popular tools when working with young learners.
Show off student work. Make sure you display student essays on a bulletin board. Students love to see their own work on display, and in my experience, they really enjoy checking out what other students are doing as well. I think making sure that essays are up on a bulletin board encourages students to learn from each other. The TOEFL is a pretty repetitive test, so students might even see new ideas, examples, or perspectives on certain topics in addition to new vocabulary words or sentence structures.
Grammar posters and cartoons. If you look aroun
d on Pinterest, there are some great grammar posters available, many of them from TeachersPayTeachers, at a very reasonable cost. Some of my favorites use puns, and even if you don't think your students will get the joke right away, it is a great way to encourage students to ask questions in the classroom.
Encouragement. Motivational posters seem like a staple in every classroom, and they are extremely easy to DIY with your own favorite quote! Make sure you laminate it so you can reuse it if you ever get assigned a different classroom.
Student resources. Use a hanging letter organizer to put additional practice or make up work sorted by section in an easy to access place.
Follow the above suggestions, and your classroom will not only be functional but also HGTV-ready in no time!
-Danielle
