Education World

Fun Project: The English Language Study Planner & Journal 2017

Assalamualaikum and good day. Today, I would like to share about a small project I am doing with my students. This year, we are doing The English Language Study Planner & Journal 2017. Now, those who are familiar with me know that I am an avid collector of notebooks, stationery, planner and journals. I plan my days and journal my experiences. Planning and journalling have encouraged me to become a more organised person. Read my rationale below or CLICK HERE to skip to the download links.

Why planning and journalling?

I am not pushing my interests blindly onto my darling students, nope. According to Walker (2006), journalling provides the clinical advantages of enhancing students’ ability to reflect, facilitating their critical thoughts, helping them to better express their feelings and guiding them to write more focused arguments. In short, students who dawdle in journalling are more likely to produce substantial essays. For this project, I have combined both planning (pre-lesson) and journalling (post-lesson) to maximise the expected benefits. Planning ahead, for instance, can help reduce one’s level of stress and help them to become more decisive when it comes to making decisions (Stack, 2000). I intend to let students jot down their feelings before and after each lesson as an emotional outlet for them – a small space for them to vent. Keeping feelings to oneself is detrimental (Blake’s Poison Tree, anyone?)

Who are the target students?

Students with intermediate proficiency level and little opportunity to practise their English. *There are separate project templates for lower and higher proficiency but that will be discussed later. I created this project with secondary school students in mind, so adjustments needed to be done if you intend to use the same template at primary or tertiary level.

What it the ultimate goal of this project?

My ultimate goal is to get my students to be familiar with writing brief statements with correct sentence structures. Sometimes when they journal, they will repeat familiar structures before they find the courage to venture into more complex structures. Rather than hoping they can write flowery essays overnight, I’d rather they write in simple sentences that are correct. Complex and long sentences do not automatically make them appear “more intelligent”, especially if they are laden with errors. (Did you know that writing sentences that are simple in structure but are grammatically correct will award a mark of higher than 28/50 in the actual SPM examination compared to long, winded writing with complex structures laden with errors?)

 

What do you need to edit the document?

  1. Avenir font (download) and Brusher font  (download) installed on your computer. Without this fonts, the documents may not look as fine.
  2. A PDF viewer if you’re downloading the PDF version -AND-
  3. Microsoft Word for Windows or Mac. The files are originally edited on Microsoft Word for Mac in the Publishing Layout View (third view option from the left).

Core Pages Download Links

  1. Cover page:  [download#8#size]
  2. Study Pledge:  [download#9#size]
  3. Monthly Plan & To-Do’s:  [download#10#size]
  4. Daily Planner & Journal Page:  [download#11#size]

Extra Pages (Coming Soon)

  1. Weekly Journal Prompts
  2. Monthly Reflection
  3. Holiday Planner & Journal Tasks
  4. Progress Tracker

Binding

I suggest using the sweet and simple Management Files. It’s cost effective and durable. I use Campap and A-Star brands with my students. This is a picture of how it looks in my student’s file:

Have fun teaching and thank you for checking it out! Leave a comment if you’d like to ask me anything. Here’s a flipthrough.

3 Comments

  • Student teacher

    Hye Madam, I am very intrigued with this idea as it really encourages students to write grammatically correct sentences. May I know how do you ensure that this project achieves its goal. Thank you.

  • ainnia

    salam. i’ll be using this with my students. been asking them to write journals but it seems to be such a messy organisation for me. this would be of great hell. thanks a lot and may god bless you abundantly ?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *