One of the keys to successful teaching is the ability to provide ample opportunities for recycling language in varied, original and engaging ways. A substantial number of activities from this blog deal with recycling language. In fact, speaking a language is nothing but reusing language. Here is one activity that you may enjoy trying out to kick off your lesson. Identify interesting bits of language … Continue reading mini dialogues
My approach to working with listening, as a skill many language students struggle with -and more especially so students whose primary language is syllable timed (as opposed to stress timed)- has been gradually shifting towards focusing more on the process rather than on the product. In other words, prioritising teaching listening over testing listening. I find that a lot of useful classroom time seems to … Continue reading working with listening transcripts 2
Today I would like to share a couple of ideas on one of the most overlooked -and useful- things we can do in the classroom: working with listening transcripts. They tend to be considered as reference material for the students to check -if anything- at home to, perhaps, look up words they may not know from it. However, they are very useful not just as … Continue reading working with listening transcripts 1
At which point in a Beginner or even Elementary course do you introduce and teach the past simple? Here’s a guide. It has always bugged me that Beginner textbooks do not introduce the past simple until half way through the book. So it sadly transpires that students will not start using the past simple tense until a few months into their English course. This is … Continue reading past simple for beginners ( a matter of common sense)
This is one of my favourite song activities ever. It focuses on having a look at relevant vocabulary from a song by means of a dictation (again, with a twist), on having the students mingle and help each other with meaning and then doing your typical fill-in-gaps. Finally you may decide to allow time for some speaking interaction with the target vocabulary. Select 10-15 key … Continue reading songs: fill-in-gaps with a twist
About a year ago I discovered a nice collection of one minute videos recorded by Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley. Each video recording features an English expression which is clearly explained and presented with examples from real life conversations. You can find this collection housed in their Youtube Channel Lexical Lab. I shared a generic way of exploiting these videos for all language levels in … Continue reading one-minute videos 2
Wrapping up the summer, this is the last post for the summer series before I start blogging again with new content. This time the focus is on reading activities. Once again, click on the links for the full posts. In from reading passage to interview, students turn a reading passage into an interview. They read -and understand- a text and then get into pairs and … Continue reading summer series: three reading activities
