This is a very curious question that will surely prompt interest and participation amongst your learners. You may use this as an icebreaker to kick off your lesson or as part of a more elaborate plan by introducing useful expressions for the task. Ask your class if they have ever met a famous person. Then ask them if they ever exchanged any words with them. … Continue reading who’s the most famous person on your phone?
Today I want to share one of my favourite vocabulary consolidation leading to speaking practice routines because of basically three primary reasons: firstly, it really is a zero-preparation activity. Secondly, it is dead simple to perform. Thirdly, the pay-offs are fantastic, as it gets the students on task right away and addresses a key element in language teaching, which is getting learners to do things … Continue reading give me three reasons
I am sure you are familiar with the card game Taboo. You may have the game at home or you may have even brought it to your classroom for the students to play. As we all know, the goal in a game of Taboo is to get your teammates to guess the word you are describing, but there is a list of taboo words you … Continue reading taboo cards
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
Delexical verbs are verbs that need nouns to take true meaning. Verbs like run, study or know can carry meaning on their own… He runs very fast. It’s time to study. – Hurry up! It’s late. – I know. … or they can accompany a noun or noun phrase. to run a race to study a lesson to know the answer In most cases verbs … Continue reading delexical verbs 1
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
