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Many of these ideas are not necessarily things you agree with, and discussion also gives you an opportunity to explain your beliefs about language learning and share your rationale. The example cards can be used in a variety of ways depending on...
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Preparation Have a short childhood story of your own on hand to share with your students. You could also write the story for them to read, but the 'live listening' aspect of an oral version can be more effective because it allows you to use...
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Preparation
Before starting the games, you need to brainstorm language which the children will need in order to instruct each other and manage the game. Some possibilities are:
My turn
Your turn
Let's go
You / I won
You're out
Play again…
Tickum -...
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IntroductionThe finished product provides both them and you with good feedback on their ability to communicate. It also gives children the chance to practise simple vocabulary, cardinal numbers and to give simple instructions. The activity requires...
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Even from the age of 6 or 7 children can be encouraged to think for themselves about their learning and what goes on in class. For teenagers, asking them what they think about what they are doing, asking for their opinions and involving them in some...
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Many people can have problems with teenagers when teaching. Here are some guidelines for a general attitude you can adopt in the classroom.
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I get students to brainstorm all the kind of things I as a teacher do and things which we do in class. Some examples might be:
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Conditional chain game
This game is good to revise and practise structures in the first conditional.
The teacher begins with a sentence, for example 'If I go out tonight, I'll go to the cinema.'
The next person in the circle must use the end of...
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Learners will practise regular and irregular past simple verbs and holiday vocabulary.
I've found that this activity works well with pre-intermediate 10 and 11 year olds but can be adapted for various ages and levels.
Materials
ink pads (one for...
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I've adapted this Snakes and ladders game to give learners an opportunity to discuss cultural differences between countries.
Preparation
Before my lesson, I modified the typical game board so that it could give my learners an opportunity not only...
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A simple way to get students talking and sharing ideas, or predicting the topic of your lesson and so arousing their interest, is the following:
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Stories can be a very versatile and powerful teaching tool.
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They are powerful teaching tools and can:
Tell a complex story in a few images
Provide comment and provoke thought on events and issues in the news
Give an example of vocabulary related to current trends and fads
Provide easily identifiable...
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Memory activities
Example activity: Memory tester
Place a selection of flash cards on the floor in a circle.
Students have one minute to memorise the cards.
In groups, they have two minutes to write as many of the names as they can remember....
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TopicAnimated storiesAimsGlobal understanding of videoPresentation of languageTo give learners an opportunity to use language from video in a creative contextAge5 - 10 year oldsLevelElementaryIntroductionThere are lots of animated videos for native...
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Topic
Documentary programmes
Aims
To provide information relevant to interests of students for use in post-video work
To present/reinforce language
To give learners an opportunity to use language from the video
Age
11–14 year olds (when ...
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This is based on the idea that student partners are only given half the complete information, i.e. one learner only watches the video and the partner only listens to it. In order to recreate the complete advert, they will need to share their...
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Be realistic about your time It's very easy to be enthusiastic about a project at the beginning, and feel you can devote a lot of time to it. However, if you have too many meetings, some students might begin to feel they cannot attend. On the other...
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Vocabulary quizzes Word search and crossword activities can be fun. Club members, in pairs or small groups, can devise quizzes for each other. Put the most successful quizzes and puzzles on a poster. Mini presentations Members of the group take...
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There is a danger of putting students off reading newspapers if articles are used in the same way as course books, with tedious comprehension activities. If used in a more inspiring way, newspapers can help students to develop not only reading...
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They can easily be used with any text and take no longer than five minutes each.Pair text predictionsThis is a before-reading activity.Procedure
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Not only individual sounds, but the way words connect, intonation and rhythm are all important in coming across as an effective, natural-sounding speaker of English. It can be helpful for students to have practice in stretching speech, in playing...
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It is based on a 'maze' principle, which gives students different options and a variety of different financial outcomes. There isn't one 'correct' answer, so different groups find themselves spending the money different ways - so you can use the...
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We recommend you look at these classroom activities after you have read this article and before you read the other article - Lexical Approach 2.These classroom activities are based on reading texts and provide classroom materials that are informed...
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Simple search tasks are incredibly easy to set students using the web as a language-learning tool. They don't have to be particularly complicated, or even well-researched, although this helps!
A simple task I have used with students is to set your...
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Here are some examples of DARTs that are based on the poem "When I heard the learned astronomer" by Walt Whitman.When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and...
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Jigsaw reading can be done in two ways
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Answering questions may become simply a repetition of what is written in the story. The simple retelling of a paragraph may become an instrument to 'drill and kill' students' use of language. Comprehension questions may turn into a dissection of the...
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Despite the simplicity, the activity can be really challenging and is more suitable for higher levels.
Procedure
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The task: going shopping along a typical British high street. Half the class have shopping lists and the other half own a shop.
There are five shops:
a computer shop
a newsagent's
a fruit shop
a small supermarket
a language bookshop
The cards are...
