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September has arrived again! The summer is almost over in this part of the world and many teachers start their classes with new students. It is time to build new relationships, a relationship of confidence between our students and us, but between students...
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While we are all in thrall to the wonderful technological advances of web 2.0 ? the social media, the tools for this, that and the other, the IWBs etc, it's important to remember the stuff that doesn't necessarily need technology. In fact, most...
- Movie Trailer Esl Grammar Activity - Oblivion - Present Progressive Movie Game
Oblivion looks like a great movie with Tom Cruise. This activity uses the movie,pictures, vocab cards and a worksheet to help students to practice the present progressive tense in a fun, interactive way that is more like a game than just an exercise....
- Adverb Clause Game - Sentence Jumble
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- Great Website That Uses Movies To Teach Grammar
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Revision workstations - an old favourite
I was asked today for some examples of activities to use with an exam class tutorial, PET and KET, specifically. I must admit to not having taught PET or KET classes before, but I'm aware of the style of test and some of the activities. Something I learnt some years ago (it was an IH Braga favourite, where I used to work), was the concept of revision workstations. It's possibly quite a well known activity, but it's been a favourite of mine for a while and my students have usually enjoyed it, so I thought I'd share. You can use this activity for various things but they are ideal to make those end-of-unit, dry as a bone selection of text book revision activities come to life. A competition element helps, although I've had to abandon competition with some classes as some of them were really bad losers, or bad winners!
You need to photocopy a selection of activities, usually the gap fill, word ordering, vocabulary categorising style exercises so that you have a number of them, between 6 and 10 should do it, depending on time limits. They should be cut up to be on separate pieces of paper. It's often useful to have them on coloured paper for aesthetic value and laminated for reuse and damage protection, well, limitation anyway. However, if you don't think it'll be repeated, then don't bother. I've known some teachers like to create an organised answer sheet, but I usually just have the students write the answers in their notebooks. In terms of the exercises, they could always be created by students, rather than taken from a book, one class creating challenging activities for another class, for example.
In the class, these activities can be placed in different areas of the room, either on a table or stuck on the wall or even just on a chair at the front of the class. It depends if you want the students to move from activity to activity or just to take one at a time back to their seats/ desks.
The students complete one activity after another, in any order, but after they think they have completed each one, they must check with the teacher. If their answers are correct, the students can continue to another activity. If not, they must try again and, depending on the situation, the teacher can give them clues of some description. I tend not to give them help the first time, as their mistakes are often the product of rushing and they can correct them alone, simply by concentrating a little harder. I'd like to think this will encourage them to correct their work more when it comes to exams. Beware of activities that potentially require the students just to list letters, e.g. 1) a, 2) b etc, I tend to ask them to write full answers.
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| An example 'digital' race track |
In terms of the competition element, I like to make it a race across the whiteboard with flashcards or something representing each team. Obviously, this sort of thing can now be done cleverly with the affordances of an IWB (see example, the animals can be dragged and dropped), but there's nothing wrong with flashcards and blu-tac! Draw a race track on the board, separated into sections, enough for each activity, with a start and a finish line. The students can choose a flashcard, I usually use animal ones but they can draw their own (though it can be time-consuming), drawing a simple snail is a good plan which I've used a lot. The winners are the students who finish all the activities correctly first, therefore their team symbol/ animal reaches the finish line ahead of the others.
In terms of feedback, a good side to this activity is that the students receive instant, personal feedback on specific language items, although it can be a bit of a challenge to keep everything under control if the students are running to you at the same time with their answers. Any issues common to the class can be discussed together at the end, with a remedial language focus if necessary and it is also possible to follow up with homework specific to individual learner's problems.
Another thing that springs to mind is the opportunity to feed in incidental language during the activity. The kids love to shout 'finished' or 'first!' and this sort of language can be worked with in competition activities by feeding in phrases. Some things I've tried to introduce include: 'Get in!', 'We've finished!', 'One left!', 'runners-up' and some favourites for the 'losers' - 'the wooden spoon', 'Never mind' and 'Better luck next time!'
Right, I think that's everything and I hope it all makes sense! If you have any suggestions, similar activities you've used or ideas for adapting my instructions above, please leave a comment, all thoughts are, as always, extremely welcome.
Cheers.
- New School Year - Getting To Know You Activities For The First Day
September has arrived again! The summer is almost over in this part of the world and many teachers start their classes with new students. It is time to build new relationships, a relationship of confidence between our students and us, but between students...
- Dictation #1
While we are all in thrall to the wonderful technological advances of web 2.0 ? the social media, the tools for this, that and the other, the IWBs etc, it's important to remember the stuff that doesn't necessarily need technology. In fact, most...
- Movie Trailer Esl Grammar Activity - Oblivion - Present Progressive Movie Game
Oblivion looks like a great movie with Tom Cruise. This activity uses the movie,pictures, vocab cards and a worksheet to help students to practice the present progressive tense in a fun, interactive way that is more like a game than just an exercise....
- Adverb Clause Game - Sentence Jumble
Here is a great game that teachers can have their students use to learn adverb clause order, punctuation, and meaning. Feel free to download and distribute! If you're looking for more grammar activities, check out the Hunger Games Classroom...
- Great Website That Uses Movies To Teach Grammar
Each movie segment on this website comes with a great worksheet that focuses on some important grammar goal. I have used these many times and I can't recommend the website enough to help pep up an otherwise tedious lesson. Students love the activities,...