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
Another year over… In this last post of 2017 I will be highlighting the top three posts of the year according to the number of visits in reverse order. Click on the images to read the full posts. At number 3 Word Challenge 2. In Word Challenge 2 students look for words and expressions they are curious about related to a given topic and then create … Continue reading top three posts of 2017
This activity revises phrasal verbs students are familiar with. It implies a bit of imagination or drawing skills (or both) in addition to language competence. Select about 10 phrasal verbs you would like to revise with your students. I will be using this list as an example for an Upper-Intermediate class. You will be using your own. run after: chase (police running after a thief) … Continue reading phrasal verbs 1
Listening, far from being a receptive skill, is very much an active skill, an online activity. Among many other things, such as decoding the stream of sound as it happens (to be accurate and according to research in the field, at a delay of a quarter of a second behind the speaker), listening entails predicting. Say the listener hears the noun phrase “the petty criminal” … Continue reading gating
I guess I should spare you from explaining what a mannequin challenge is. Whether you love it or loathe it; whether you have ever been lured into posing for one or not, it might still be a fun thing to try in the classroom. “A mannequin challenge?”, I hear you say. Write “mannequin challenge” on the board and ask your students to generate questions they may … Continue reading mannequin challenge
