March 7

Bingo! #1

Bingo is great fun and this version is an easy way to get students speaking and revising vocabulary in a different way.  First, tell students to draw a bingo board – I did mine 5×5 – and dictate the words to them that you’d like them to review.  Remind them to write them in jumbled up.  When you’re ready to play, rather than just saying the word, you describe it.  When students have four words in a row crossed off, they shout, “BINGO!”  I did one game as a group as an example, then split them into groups of three to play.

 

It’s a great game for all levels, as lower levels can use quite simple language to describe the word, whereas higher levels can give more complex clues and make it harder to guess the word.  It also works well with all ages – I played with a group of nine-year-olds yesterday and I’m going to do the activity with my A1 adults tomorrow.  Also, you can either use it as a review of specific vocabulary points, or give them a completely random set of words.

February 10

Deep drilling

Although I can see quite obviously see the reasons for it, I’m not a fan of drilling.  As such, I know I don’t do enough drilling in class so one of the challenges I set myself in my bid to get back on the blog was to find an interesting way to drill vocab with young learners.  It was actually inspired by some videos I saw ages ago about an American teaching method called Whole Brain or Power Teaching.  If you haven’t heard of it before, I recommend checking out some videos on youTube.

So, one of the points of Power Teaching is the method in which the teacher gains the students’ focus at the end of an activity (or at any other point in the lesson).  He says, “Class” and the students respond, “Yes.”  BUT, they must respond using the same tone, speed and volume of voice as the teacher.  I adapted this to get the students repeating this unit’s vocabulary, whilst showing them the flashcards and it was a great success – they were more focussed and participated much more than they would have if I had simply asked them to repeat.

Here are some ideas for “voices” to use:

Whisper / Shout – or repeat the same word and slowly get louder

Fast / Slow

With a deep / squeaky voice

Say the word three times quickly

Say the word as if it’s zooming past you in a car

Say the word as if it just fell off a cliff

Cup your hands over your mouth and “echo” the word

November 22

No Blu-tac? Use the students!

My young primary students love running around the class and they really like a game that we’ve played in the past in which the flashcards are stuck to the walls and, competing in pairs, they have to touch the card which I or another student names.  Today they requested to play the game again, but I suddenly realised I didn’t have any Blu-tac so had no way of sticking the cards up around the room.   Instead, I asked seven of the class to hold the flashcards and then invited another two up to play.  The first one to touch the correct flashcard was then swapped into holding it and the other student sat down.  This way of playing meant that more students were involved in the game throughout and they all really enjoyed this new way of playing.

November 19

From word to phrase

My boss is really keen on “big language” – moving away from students, young learners especially, giving single word answers to producing phrases.  And the fact is, it’s really easy to do and whilst it’s true that at the start you often stand at the front saying, “Can you give me a full sentence?”, once students realise that you expect more than a single word answer, they’ll freely offer one – it’s all about training and habits.

It’s also important for teachers to ask the right question, so rather than saying, “What’s this?” perhaps we should say, “Tell me about the picture.”

And so language grows…

pencil

It’s a pencil.

It’s a red pencil.

                                             It’s next to a book.

                                                 There’s a red pencil next to a red book.

July 22

Do you know someone who…

Find someone who...Here’s a really simple speaking activity to finish the class when you’ve been looking at a specific grammar or vocabulary point.  Draw a simple board like the one above and then fill each square with a suitable question.  For example one of the trainees is doing the topic of work with our Pre-Intermediate class on Monday, so she’ll have squares such as:

…works in an office?

…works with children?

…works as a journalist?

…works for the government?

If you don’t have a Start or Finish square, students can keep going round and answer questions.  Although they are closed questions and students could simply answer Yes or No, they will probably offer more information in their first answer and then you can encourage the other players to ask follow-up questions.

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