This zero prep activity works really well to practice present simple, present perfect or past simple tenses. This is how it goes: Get all your students to form a big circle. If you have a large number of students, they can break into two or three circles. Then ask them to hold up their fingers in the air, as shown in the photo on top … Continue reading 10 fingers
Syntactic priming is the process that takes place when we make predictions upon hearing certain grammatical patterns which guide us to guess the string of words that are more likely to be uttered next based on our previous encounters with those patterns. Basically we are constantly building sentences based on what we hear, which are next confirmed or then reformulated. We hypothesise. We fill gaps. … Continue reading syntactic priming
In the book Teaching Lexically, Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkey refer to horizontal and vertical development exercises and the pay-offs they bring. By developping a sentence horizontally we are adding something that the writer or speaker might say next. By developping a sentence vertically we are adding something that someone else might say next. I’m quoting from their excellent book now. “These kinds of exercises … Continue reading vertical and horizontal development
In this short blog post I will share with you another alternative way to exploit reading passages. This time the students create questions for the text. Write on the board: what which where why when who how Then tell the students to look at the reading passage and try to write questions about the text on a piece of paper using those question words. Give … Continue reading reading frenzy 2
This morning I was watching the recorded plenary talk that Paul Seligson gave at IATEFL Chile 2016 whose title was Hooking English: using song lines to build on existing knowledge. There are many ideas in his talk that resonate with my vision and use of songs in the classroom. The novelty factor of playing a full song towards the end of the lesson as a … Continue reading articles in English
This second post on delexical verbs observes use of the students’ mother tongue in monolingual classes, as it is very much the case in most teaching situations. As Scott Thornbury puts wisely in his article T is for Translation, “with some structures (such as the future perfect) translation could be the most economical way of presenting them”. The students will be translating sentences into their … Continue reading delexical verbs 2
I have used this idea quite a few times with A1-A2 classes to practice telling time but it can be tweaked to practice other functional areas. Tell your students to stand up. They will be forming a line going from end to end of the classroom. The front will be “soon” and the back will be “late”. Then write on the board and ask: what … Continue reading staying in line
