What can you see from your bedroom window?

            When I asked my younger students “what can you see from your bedroom window?” I got a rather dull and boring answer of “a wall”. One of my students even said that he doesn't have a bedroom. I had to make sure he wasn't Harry Potter! These were not exactly the responses of inspiration and wonder I was hoping for. I couldn't even use the Japanese Alps in view from out of my classroom window as creative inspiration since it was dark. As I wanted my students to transfer their bedroom views onto paper, I realized this was going to be rather an unfruitful activity if we spent the next part of the lesson drawing our neighbour’s walls.

So I took a slightly different approach. Instead of asking “what can you see from your bedroom window?” I asked “what would you like to see from your bedroom window?”. This gave the class the spark I was looking for, giving them the incentive to use their creativity and imagination. The students began to draw the most bizarre and wonderful things you could imagine: from dinosaurs to an octopus climbing Mount Fuji, even the vast expanses of space!

Once our visions of wonder were completed, we learnt how to spell and write all of the marvellous things we had just drawn. This allowed the students to recycle the words they have learnt previously as well as learn how to say some of their favourite things in English! The students took great pride in hanging up their make believe bedroom view around my classroom, boasting to their fellow classmates of all the new exciting words they have learnt.

A fantastic way of engaging the students while giving you the opportunity to learn a little more about them. So the question is; what can YOU see from your bedroom window?

Damian Gowland