BRING THE LEARNING OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM?

WELCOME BACK, GUYS!!

I hoooooope everyone is doing well. I'm here again with our new assignment for the Current Issues in Teaching course, and in today’s post, I’ll be sharing my experience designing a flipped-classroom grammar teaching video narrated by us for preparatory high school students and an ASSURE-model lesson plan. This project was a group effort; I worked with my friends Begüm and Halil, and our responsibility was preparing the content of the video and designing pre- and in-class activities focusing on the simple past tense, teaching students outside of the classroom, and practicing content in the classroom.

You can access our Assure Lesson plan and Flipped-classroom grammar teaching video by clicking on the names!

Instead of teaching grammar through long explanations, our goal was to create a clear and visually engaging video that introduces learners to the past tense in a meaningful and functional way. We tried to show how Simple Past is not only about memorizing forms but also about expressing completed actions and past states. The video explains the differences between did/didn’t + verb and was/were, supported with timelines, examples, and short practice tasks. After designing the visual script, we created an ASSURE-model lesson plan to connect the video to in-class learning.

For the video and activities, we focused on making past tense forms easy and accessible for A1–A2 learners. We included step-by-step explanations of regular and irregular verbs, sample sentences, and contrasts between past action (e.g., went, watched) and past state (was/were). We also designed short exercises that encourage students to notice patterns rather than rely on memorization. In class, learners will be practicing their learning by discussing in small groups what they learned, differences, or what they think is interesting about the content of the video.

Designing these materials was more challenging than I expected, especially because I needed to balance visual appeal and clarity, and editing the video was another deal for me, I'm not gonna lie to you guys. It also required careful thinking about how flipped learning works—what belongs in the video vs. what belongs in the classroom. We had to make sure the video prepared students well enough so they could use the class time more productively for speaking and writing tasks. Still, I really enjoyed the creative part, especially building the scenes and deciding how to explain grammar simply, and of course narrating the video was the most engaging part of the video for me!

Of course, when it comes to real-classroom implementation, there may be difficulties. Some students may skip the video or not pay attention, which would make the flipped approach less effective. Technology access can also be a problem, and students may need guidance to understand the difference between was/were and did/didn’t, which is not always understood at beginner levels. Also, the teacher must monitor how students apply the video content during group activities. But overall, with proper guidance, this approach provides an effective way to blend multimedia, grammar instruction, and communicative practice.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this and learned something about flipped learning through my experience. And don’t forget to check out my friends’ blogs too—they are amazing pre-service teachers, maybe almost as good as me, and you can learn a lot from their blogs too!

Have a great day or night, and if you have any questions, feel free to comment!!
See you in another post. <3