Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Stuck for ideas
So after all my links and advice on how to find useful resources, I have reached a crisis point. After having the same class for over 10 weeks I am well and truly stuck for innovative and engaging lessons. Here's the problem- not only are my students immature ,they also have no desire to learn about cultural or news events. Thinking that an article on facebook might spark their attention, I compiled a lesson dedicated to the impact of new social network sites. No luck. They just have no desire for learning about the world, which presents a problem in itself. Here are a generation of wealthy students, originating from powerful Asian families, and they would rather talk about the latest video game than actually understand about the city they are living in. Perhaps I'm too naive in my approach.. but as a teacher there is only so much boring grammar games you can endure. Lively, interesting discussion on current affairs can not only generate a large number of new words to learn but it can also help us learn different ideas. There is a wealth of resources available for a teacher who has a class who is interested in culture- the arts, news stories etc.. however, for a teacher that doesn't -it becomes so much tougher finding stimulating resources that excite and engage!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wonderful Warmers
Throughout the CELTA they teach you the importance of a 'warmer'. A 5-15 minute activity designed to lead students in to a particular topic. Of course, warmers don't just have to be related to your topic, they can be planted into any lesson just to wake your students up or get their brain working again after a rather dull grammar point, for instance. There are hundreds of warmers out there and my list is no way comprehensive. Below is a small selection of warmers that I find to be quite successful in classes...
1) Hangman- self explanatory and can be used in all settings
2) 20 questions- a simple game with card categories. 1 student picks up a card category, writes down their chosen subject and the other students must ask them 'yes' and 'no' questions to decipher the subject they have written down. This is great for practising closed questions and encouraging speaking in group situations. If you have a person category, ensure your students know to write down someone that everyone will know otherwise they could be asking questions forever!
3) Boggle- draw a 5x5 square on the board and encourage students to help you fill in the box with letters. Then give students a time limit to find as many words as they can within the box- the real rules of boggle i find to be too tricky for language learners. As long as students find words within the box, not using the same letters twice, I'm not strict about the letters touching. I choose to give points for the longest word and the person with the most words.
4)stop the bus! the classic-english-teacher favourte that involves no preparation. Simply write on the board a table with 5 categories. These categories can be as varied as you like- from vocabulary (e.g animals, food, clothes, jobs) to more specific grammatical reviews (e.g 4 letter adjectives, 4 letter verbs etc..)
5)Back slap- this is a game where post-its are stuck to students' back. This game is similar to 'yes and no', where students walk around the room asking yes and no questions in order to guess the person/thing that is stuck to their back.
6)Paper airplanes- this is one that I stole from Dave's esl cafe. Get your students to create paper airplanes and then ask students to write an adjective inside the plane. The aim is then to fly your airplane to someone else in the room- that person reads the adjective and reads aloud the superlative, comparative or even the opposite of this adjective. As a fun final activity, I get students to stand on one side of the classroom and fly their airoplanes across to the other side to see whose plane can go the furthest.
1) Hangman- self explanatory and can be used in all settings
2) 20 questions- a simple game with card categories. 1 student picks up a card category, writes down their chosen subject and the other students must ask them 'yes' and 'no' questions to decipher the subject they have written down. This is great for practising closed questions and encouraging speaking in group situations. If you have a person category, ensure your students know to write down someone that everyone will know otherwise they could be asking questions forever!
3) Boggle- draw a 5x5 square on the board and encourage students to help you fill in the box with letters. Then give students a time limit to find as many words as they can within the box- the real rules of boggle i find to be too tricky for language learners. As long as students find words within the box, not using the same letters twice, I'm not strict about the letters touching. I choose to give points for the longest word and the person with the most words.
4)stop the bus! the classic-english-teacher favourte that involves no preparation. Simply write on the board a table with 5 categories. These categories can be as varied as you like- from vocabulary (e.g animals, food, clothes, jobs) to more specific grammatical reviews (e.g 4 letter adjectives, 4 letter verbs etc..)
5)Back slap- this is a game where post-its are stuck to students' back. This game is similar to 'yes and no', where students walk around the room asking yes and no questions in order to guess the person/thing that is stuck to their back.
6)Paper airplanes- this is one that I stole from Dave's esl cafe. Get your students to create paper airplanes and then ask students to write an adjective inside the plane. The aim is then to fly your airplane to someone else in the room- that person reads the adjective and reads aloud the superlative, comparative or even the opposite of this adjective. As a fun final activity, I get students to stand on one side of the classroom and fly their airoplanes across to the other side to see whose plane can go the furthest.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Resources for students
Students often ask me after class where they can go to find extra practice activities outside the classroom. I usually send them to 2 sites which I believe are great resources for the dedicated learner. The first is the British Council website;
Through fun and interactive activites, students can practice many elements of the language. From grammar activities to podcasts- students are able to hone into particular language areas. For those students who wish to take particular assessments, such as IELTS or the Cambridge Certificate there are tips and hints to help them. There may understandably be issues with students navigating themselves around the site. It might be useful to spend 30 minutes of a lesson showing them the most useful parts of the site, allowing them to get used to the different practical components. This site is invaluable for the English teacher also. You can find some great ready made lesson plans and some thought-provoking reading and listening material to introduce into the classroom. This site is packed full of useful material and some really helpful hints for an English teaching seeking inspiration!
The second website I tell students to look at is the BBC ESL site;. The material on this site is largely targeted at your Int/ Higher Int class. With a podcast series following the lives of 4 flatmates and easy-to-read newspaper articles, this site has a good variety of resources for both the teacher and student. My favourite sections on this site are the grammar challenge page, a place where you can obtain some handy activities for problematic grammar difficulties, and the phrasal verb page.
If you know any other sites that provide useful activities for students to practise outside the classroom- please post them!
Through fun and interactive activites, students can practice many elements of the language. From grammar activities to podcasts- students are able to hone into particular language areas. For those students who wish to take particular assessments, such as IELTS or the Cambridge Certificate there are tips and hints to help them. There may understandably be issues with students navigating themselves around the site. It might be useful to spend 30 minutes of a lesson showing them the most useful parts of the site, allowing them to get used to the different practical components. This site is invaluable for the English teacher also. You can find some great ready made lesson plans and some thought-provoking reading and listening material to introduce into the classroom. This site is packed full of useful material and some really helpful hints for an English teaching seeking inspiration!
The second website I tell students to look at is the BBC ESL site;. The material on this site is largely targeted at your Int/ Higher Int class. With a podcast series following the lives of 4 flatmates and easy-to-read newspaper articles, this site has a good variety of resources for both the teacher and student. My favourite sections on this site are the grammar challenge page, a place where you can obtain some handy activities for problematic grammar difficulties, and the phrasal verb page.
If you know any other sites that provide useful activities for students to practise outside the classroom- please post them!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Planning ahead
Like many newly qualified English teachers (I finished my CELTA course a little under a year ago), I was incredibly overwhelmed with the daunting prospect of planning and creating a 4 hour lesson plan. Having only ever planned and delivered an hour lesson on the CELTA course, I was frantic with nerves as to how I could conjure up material for the remaining 3 hours. Whilst reputable English schools often provide a textbook of some sort to act as a framework for lessons, English teachers will understand when I say that often the material in these textbooks are largely western-centred in subject matter that simply doesn't correlate with many non-Western English-learners. Furthermore, every class is different and while a textbook's approach to a certain language point can be immensly useful for one class, it does not mean it will work for every class. When an English teacher can not make a successful lesson plan from the material in front of them they must turn to something else- my saviour- the internet.
The internet is a great place for English teachers, there is an abundance of material out there and some excellent teachers that have suggested some wonderful ideas for lessons. I found that once I began teaching that I would put enormous pressure on myself to produce original, innovative and creative lesson plans to effectively engage my students. Here's the thing I;ve learnt- originality is almost impossible, 99% of the time someone's already thought of it and lessons will always be original if you simply adapt and tweek parts to make it relevant to your classroom. My biggest criticism of the internet is there is just far too much out there for a busy English teacher to find the relevant material quickly and efficiently. This is where this blog comes into play... through the miraculous medium that is the internet, I hope to provide a space for teachers to share and post their favourite activities and websites for particular language or grammar points and eventually present all this in an organised and easy- to- use site.
I am certainly not unique in my attempt to create a resource-based site for English teachers, however, I hope to be more successful in creating a site that is easy for busy teachers to navigate around and find relevant material. The site will only work effectively if teachers share their lesson ideas- teaching is essentially a learned process and the site will only produce original lesson plans with the help of your contributions. No matter how small your contribution is- it could be an effective warmer that has consistently worked well in the classroom, or even a great song that illustrates a particular grammar point, please share them with us. The point of this site is to share all types of lessons that could work in an English classroom.
I have found that some of my best lessons have come from sharing ideas in the staffroom. However, I have noticed an unwillingness amongst teachers to share their material- perhaps because they have spent hours creating it or perhaps because they are worried that it's simply not original enough. This is rubbish- we can all learn from each other and adapt and develop material to make it great for our audience. If we were all to create our own material and share it, it would cut our planning time down considerably and provide a variety of different tasks for our students- an important component for any classroom. So now you've read what this site aims to do.... help. Simply post your ideas in an concise step by step format or attach a link to a site you think is noteworthy and together we can make planning easy and breezy!
The internet is a great place for English teachers, there is an abundance of material out there and some excellent teachers that have suggested some wonderful ideas for lessons. I found that once I began teaching that I would put enormous pressure on myself to produce original, innovative and creative lesson plans to effectively engage my students. Here's the thing I;ve learnt- originality is almost impossible, 99% of the time someone's already thought of it and lessons will always be original if you simply adapt and tweek parts to make it relevant to your classroom. My biggest criticism of the internet is there is just far too much out there for a busy English teacher to find the relevant material quickly and efficiently. This is where this blog comes into play... through the miraculous medium that is the internet, I hope to provide a space for teachers to share and post their favourite activities and websites for particular language or grammar points and eventually present all this in an organised and easy- to- use site.
I am certainly not unique in my attempt to create a resource-based site for English teachers, however, I hope to be more successful in creating a site that is easy for busy teachers to navigate around and find relevant material. The site will only work effectively if teachers share their lesson ideas- teaching is essentially a learned process and the site will only produce original lesson plans with the help of your contributions. No matter how small your contribution is- it could be an effective warmer that has consistently worked well in the classroom, or even a great song that illustrates a particular grammar point, please share them with us. The point of this site is to share all types of lessons that could work in an English classroom.
I have found that some of my best lessons have come from sharing ideas in the staffroom. However, I have noticed an unwillingness amongst teachers to share their material- perhaps because they have spent hours creating it or perhaps because they are worried that it's simply not original enough. This is rubbish- we can all learn from each other and adapt and develop material to make it great for our audience. If we were all to create our own material and share it, it would cut our planning time down considerably and provide a variety of different tasks for our students- an important component for any classroom. So now you've read what this site aims to do.... help. Simply post your ideas in an concise step by step format or attach a link to a site you think is noteworthy and together we can make planning easy and breezy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)