The use of the blackboard in the ELE classroom

The use of the blackboard in the ELE classroom

I always remember my childhood teachers with white chalk in their hands. Who doesn't remember those clouds of smoke that formed when the teacher cleaned the blackboard? Perhaps this was one of the reasons that made me become a teacher obsessed with it and who uses it all the time.

The truth is that over time we have realised that using the board properly, knowing how to handle it, manage it, make the most of it and get the most out of it is a key skill for a good teacher, especially for a good language teacher.

And how have whiteboards evolved, how crazy is it to have a digital whiteboard and to be able to take advantage of all the resources it offers us, but do we really make the most of it? In this article we would like to talk about the importance of whiteboards, how they help us to use them and how we can use them well, read on if you want to improve.

How does the whiteboard help us?

We are dealing with a SUPPORTING RESOURCE in the learning process that helps us to VISUALISE all the information that appears in class. It helps us to REMEMBER the information better, making it very easy to RESOURCE to the knowledge we are working on in the classroom.

Is any blackboard good enough?

The most important thing is that it is CLEAR, LEGIBLE, that it is ORDERLY, we must adapt it to the LEVEL of the students, even to their origin, because not all of them need this reinforcement, some need it more than others.

How do I design the board?

Use different COLOURS to attract attention, change the SIZE, the type of LETTERS. You can create CONNECTIONS, relate with LINES, SHAPES. Anything is welcome to attract attention and facilitate understanding.

Divide the board into parts, for example we can leave a part with information that we want to keep for the whole class, an erasable part where all our examples will go and a part where we will add all the new vocabulary that will appear in the session. You can create MAPS, DRAWINGS, PROJECT IMAGES, if you have a digital whiteboard you can even capture images in a Word or Pdf document, in fact there is a wide range of possibilities and opportunities that will help you to make your explanations reach the students better.

We tend to create the blackboard as the class progresses, but we can have parts of it delimited and a lot of information already prepared before starting our class, this denotes order, organisation and a lot of preparation in a teacher.

We encourage you to gradually introduce these tips in the classroom, we hope that your blackboard will become more colourful.