Traveling is one of my three greatest passions in life (the other two being teaching and singing) and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to spend another summer on the road discovering new places and getting to explore different cultures. Every time I travel, I find myself consciously or unconsciously looking for ways to practise my own skills as a lifelong learner and find fresh and exciting ways to inspire my students to practice their skills outside the classroom. And as it happens with all wonderful learning discoveries, the most exciting ones are those you stumble upon unexpectedly or those whose significance you reflect upon at a later stage of your journey. It’s in these moments that I am reminded once again of the value of learning as a lifelong journey that isn’t confined to textbooks and classrooms, but is instead constantly shaped and reshaped through our experiences. Inspired by this recent road trip, I’ve put together a list of six creative ways/activities you can suggest to your learners so that they continue practising the language during those last days of summer before the new academic year starts. Most of them are also suggestions that learners could follow all year round or activities that you could use as summer-inspired, back-to-school tasks (in case you are interested in finding more summer-inspired activities, you can also check out this blog post I wrote a while ago).
- Virtual Road trip: One of the aspects of going on a road trip that I love so much is in fact the preparation before visiting the trip’s different places as I jot down suggestions for sights, activities worth doing and local restaurants I must try. Similar to that planning involved before going on a trip, learners could create their own virtual road trip guides using online resources such as itineraries designed on Google maps, virtual museum tours and posters with recommendations for places to visit/activities to do on Canva.
- My Summer Learning Bucket List: Inspired by my list of must-do things again, learners can create their own lists or calendars of things they would like to do in relation to practising their English during summer. These could take the form of either daily or weekly tasks and the options are really endless – their lists could include anything from watching films, TV series, vlogs etc. to reading books, listening to new types of music or trying new activities by following instructions in English (such as cooking a new dish they’d never tried before). To make it more interesting, you could also ask them to include 1-2 weekly challenges of tasks they would not normally do and then reflect on their lists after the end of the summer break – How many of their daily or weekly tasks did they do? Which activities did they find more/less interesting as the days went by? Did they find themselves unexpectedly liking/ disliking an activity they thought they wouldn’t like/like? etc.
- Postcards from Summer – The Summer Destinations Edition: This is a variation of a creative writing activity I have used many times which is to ask learners to write imaginary postcards to their family/friends from different destinations. In this variation of the classic “Postcards from Summer” activity, learners are asked to imagine they are tourist destinations and write a postcard to their friends and family as the destination itself. What would a busy Greek island for instance have to say once the summer season is over? What did it enjoy from being a beloved summer destination? What parts of the busy tourist season the island doesn’t like at all and what does it look forward to in the winter? Of course the task can be adapted in many different ways by asking learners to imagine they are famous sights, museum exhibits, summer activities etc. What I like about the different variations is that they are very helpful in introducing learners to perspective taking or further practising their perspective taking skills.
- Keep a video journal: I’m a huge fan of journal writing and constantly use journals for reflective purposes both in my professional and personal life. Learners could keep a paper, digital or video journal which could relate to either travelling-related experiences (e.g. descriptions and impressions of places visited, suggestions of places/activities worthy visiting/trying etc.) or of interesting things that happened to them during summer. If you use a learning platform where these could be saved such as Padlet or Wakelet, you could ask your learners to post their videos there and comment on each other’s video journals.
- Musical Time Capsules: Music is a staple in my life and an essential part of every road trip I go on. As I associate different songs with different periods of my life and in turn with different trips and journeys, I thought of trying a similar activity with my learners by either asking them to create playlists of different types of music they listen to when travelling or even better of the different songs they have associated with summer break throughout their lives. As many of my learners are into science fiction and mystery literature, I’m also thinking of asking them to create their fictional soundtracks of their favourite books either in relation to the book’s plot or the characters that the book focuses on. As with all tasks of this type, I always ask my learners to explain their choices and reflect on whether and how their musical preferences have changed over time.
- Urban Exploration: One of the things I love about exploring new places is that I am reminded of finding beauty in all the small details that make each place unique. And this is something which I have personally discovered I tend to forget when it comes to my hometown, so this activity is an extension of my personal effort to rediscover places in Thessaloniki whose beauty I might have overlooked over the years. The idea is very simple and can take many forms – it is about asking learners to see their hometown through the eyes of a traveller. In its simplest form, you could extend the Video Journal idea by asking your learners to keep an everyday or weekly diary of hidden gems they discovered in their hometown. As an extension of this task, you could also ask them to research landmarks in their city or country and create mini travel guides for their hometown or “mystery tours” for friends or family members of places of interest in their hometown or country.