Hi,
Congratulation, people, for teaching for this long. I just wanted to post one more thing before we finish. I was thinking about how, despite the fact that I worked really hard to provide interesting lessons, the kids don't seem to have learnt much. If I had another year with these kids next year, or taught for another year, I would do the following.
Every class, learn maybe three words and a phrase. Also, almost every class, do some karaoke, and maybe a worksheet. Each 4 or five weeks, I would have them do some sort of presentation, hopefully using the vocab, like, making a recipe and then the dish.
inventing a conversation and then filming it.
The point of having a standard lesson would be so that after a fun lesson (playing hide and seek, twister, etc.), you could get them back to doing more boring things more easily.
Other things I would do is to film their introductions, if they let me, at the beginning of the year, and try and get them to make a better one at the end.
Anyway, just a few ideas. Maybe the volunteers next year can use them.
Take care, lovelies!
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Snakes and ladders
So I created a snakes and ladders board (I made three, and it was enough for our classes of up to 20), with squares of four different colours, and bought some dice. Then, I made a bunch of cards, of these four different colours, with questions on them. The students play snakes and ladders, and, after they have moved, take a card, and answer a question. If they get it right, they can move forward to spaces more. I got the kids to make up some of the questions, which was fun, and the cards got more and more ridiculous, which instructions like, "dance", "sing Katie Perry´s "Hot and cold"", "pushups" and "stand on Chair".
Photo, here
Fun Activities for the summer
An outdoor game: Los paises. A game the students knew. Everyone chooses a country (this game can be easily adapted for other categories of words. We played it with fruits and colours). Everyone stands outside in a group, with one person holding the ball. He/she throw it straight up in the air, and shouts a country of another person. that person has to catch it, and everyone else runs as far away as possible. If they catch it on the full, they can throw it back up, calling out a new country. If it bounces first, they shout "stop" when they have it. Everyone has to stop running when "stop" is called. The person with the ball takes three steps and throws it at someone. The game can then restart.
This would be better, perhaps, if played with penalties, like the person who gets hit has to sing in English. We tried that for a while but it was a bit difficult.
This would be better, perhaps, if played with penalties, like the person who gets hit has to sing in English. We tried that for a while but it was a bit difficult.
Monday, September 20, 2010
SImple activities
Everyone knows each other by now, of course, but you can still use these games in class to get them speaking and using English. http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/tefl/class-management/class-dynamics/gtky-games/
Happy deciocho!
Happy deciocho!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Tongue Twisters
Hey guys,
Found a decent resource for various Tongue Twisters. I have used them as closing activities (like warm ups but at the end) and have got really good responses from my students. Hope it proves useful for you all:)
http://www.indianchild.com/tongue_twisters.htm
Sarah
Found a decent resource for various Tongue Twisters. I have used them as closing activities (like warm ups but at the end) and have got really good responses from my students. Hope it proves useful for you all:)
http://www.indianchild.com/tongue_twisters.htm
Sarah
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
21
OK, modeled on the drinking game. Sit in a circle, count up to 21. The 21st gets to make up a rule, like saying Buzz on the primes, swap seats every fifth number, reverse counting, etc. Mistakes are penalised. First I penalised with points (the person with the least points wins), but then used a forfeit. Anybody who made a mistake had to either dance for ten seconds, sing for ten seconds, or talk English for ten. Fun times were had, and a compromising video of the teacher dancing was recorded, so I'm going to call that lesson a success.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Guess Who
"Adivinar quien" is also a game known to the students, so it's easy to put it into practice in class. You can use the faces here. Cut up one sheet so that you have 24 face cards. Give each team the sheet with the faces, and then let them pick one of the face cards, face down. (I wouldn't recommend more than 5 teams). The game works by each team asking two questions at a time (is he a man, does he have red hair), and then trying to guess the face-card of another team. Can be chaotic, can be great.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A Couple of Lessons I liked
- I showed this video, twice, to a tercero class. The first time with english subtitles, after which we just reconstructed the story, and the second time with spanish, after which we discussed it. It's good for class, because it's only 25 minutes long, but interesting (it won an oscar). The humour's quite deadpan, so for people who don't get it it's very depressing. Ask me where I downloaded it if you want, and also where I downloaded the subtitles. One class liked the film a lot, the other found it a bit boring.
- I played La Escondida (Hide and Seek) outside with the students, and then, afterwards asked them where they were hiding. This is not a lesson infused with learning, granted, but it's fun, and they learn words like 'behind', 'near' and 'in'.
- Divide class into groups of two or three. Give each group a sheet of paper and ask them to entitle it 'a story'. The then write two sentences, and fold the paper so only one sentence is visible, and hand it to the next group. This is then repeated and till you want to stop. At the end of the lesson, unfold the page and read the whole story. This works if you want to do storytelling but students baulk at writing a whole story by themselves.
- I played La Escondida (Hide and Seek) outside with the students, and then, afterwards asked them where they were hiding. This is not a lesson infused with learning, granted, but it's fun, and they learn words like 'behind', 'near' and 'in'.
- Divide class into groups of two or three. Give each group a sheet of paper and ask them to entitle it 'a story'. The then write two sentences, and fold the paper so only one sentence is visible, and hand it to the next group. This is then repeated and till you want to stop. At the end of the lesson, unfold the page and read the whole story. This works if you want to do storytelling but students baulk at writing a whole story by themselves.
Target Sounds
Hey guys,
this is an activity i got of www.eslcafe.com there it is called soundswatter (but I unsed paper made 2 colored balls rather than fly swatters):
Split the calss into 2 groups and have them sit in huddled groups int he back of the class. Have them send up one volunteer to be the "thrower."
The two "throwers" stand at an equal distance from the white board with small colored ball in hand.
I write two words on the baord and put a circle around the word (the targets). These two words rhyme and or start with difficlut sounds to pronounce i.e. "lice" and "rice".
with the "throwers" facing the white board and targets, i write one of the two target words on a piece of paper and show the teams (big enough so they can see it). the teams job is to shout the word as clearly as possible so their "thrower" can hit the target word first.
this activity works really well for high energy classes and pronunciation.
enjoy!
this is an activity i got of www.eslcafe.com there it is called soundswatter (but I unsed paper made 2 colored balls rather than fly swatters):
Split the calss into 2 groups and have them sit in huddled groups int he back of the class. Have them send up one volunteer to be the "thrower."
The two "throwers" stand at an equal distance from the white board with small colored ball in hand.
I write two words on the baord and put a circle around the word (the targets). These two words rhyme and or start with difficlut sounds to pronounce i.e. "lice" and "rice".
with the "throwers" facing the white board and targets, i write one of the two target words on a piece of paper and show the teams (big enough so they can see it). the teams job is to shout the word as clearly as possible so their "thrower" can hit the target word first.
this activity works really well for high energy classes and pronunciation.
enjoy!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Winter Camp Ideas
Hi peoples,
Ideas from the winter camp:
- Pictionary, in which students have to draw an action that the others have to guess. I did this in class with differing levels of difficulty. First, simple words like 'dancing' or 'crying' and then more complex, like 'studying in my room', 'waiting for the bus'. I also added a round which was describe a movie in English, which the class has to guess. This has a lot of potential, but people cheated a lot in my class (mostly by using gestures). Remember to put the actions and movies on cards beforehand, to make it better.
- Twister. Marginally to do with English, but fun. We used cardboard to make the board, and cur up erasers for the dice (spinning wheel) but I'm going to go out and by some plastic for my class here, as cardboard gets dirty quickly.
- Putting emotion into sentences. Write three-four neutral sentences on the board, and explain what they mean. Write different emotions onto cards (e.g. happy, sad, excited, afraid). Students have to convey the emotions while their team guesses. This is quite embarrassing at the start, so do a few yourself, and help them get into it.
- Who am I? - Tape signs to the back of each participant, that state a famous identity. Students have to ask questions like 'am I an actor', 'Am I old' to work out who they are. It may work better with groups of ten than whole class sizes.
Karaoke - massive hit. Here are the karoake files to download: http://www.4shared.com/dir/VPeuYChm/Karaoke.html
Jeapardy - not as much of a hit, but it looks cool, and the questions can be easilt modified. Check it out. - Download here: Download Art Jeopardy 1.ppt for free on uploading.com
Music Challenge - they have to guess the song, and for more points, sing the song. Your music - savvy students will run away with this one, but it's pretty fun, and easily adaptible. Download here: http://www.4shared.com/dir/WAdQJ8Ci/Music_Challenge.html
Ideas from the winter camp:
- Pictionary, in which students have to draw an action that the others have to guess. I did this in class with differing levels of difficulty. First, simple words like 'dancing' or 'crying' and then more complex, like 'studying in my room', 'waiting for the bus'. I also added a round which was describe a movie in English, which the class has to guess. This has a lot of potential, but people cheated a lot in my class (mostly by using gestures). Remember to put the actions and movies on cards beforehand, to make it better.
- Twister. Marginally to do with English, but fun. We used cardboard to make the board, and cur up erasers for the dice (spinning wheel) but I'm going to go out and by some plastic for my class here, as cardboard gets dirty quickly.
- Putting emotion into sentences. Write three-four neutral sentences on the board, and explain what they mean. Write different emotions onto cards (e.g. happy, sad, excited, afraid). Students have to convey the emotions while their team guesses. This is quite embarrassing at the start, so do a few yourself, and help them get into it.
- Who am I? - Tape signs to the back of each participant, that state a famous identity. Students have to ask questions like 'am I an actor', 'Am I old' to work out who they are. It may work better with groups of ten than whole class sizes.
Karaoke - massive hit. Here are the karoake files to download: http://www.4shared.com/dir/VPeuYChm/Karaoke.html
Jeapardy - not as much of a hit, but it looks cool, and the questions can be easilt modified. Check it out. - Download here: Download Art Jeopardy 1.ppt for free on uploading.com
Music Challenge - they have to guess the song, and for more points, sing the song. Your music - savvy students will run away with this one, but it's pretty fun, and easily adaptible. Download here: http://www.4shared.com/dir/WAdQJ8Ci/Music_Challenge.html
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
World Cup Lesson
Hi,
This week all my classes are doing lessons on the countries that reached the final 16. They're discussing the countries, as found on these BBC profiles, in different levels of depth. They'll do a presentation next week on their country.
Besos,
Paul.
UPDATE:
Things I am doing with these profiles:
primero: using the facts to ask of each other: what is the (population, area, laguage etc. ) of your country? and ´What is one historical fact?´
Secundo: I did this this thing where the class had to order the countries by population, GNI and life expectancy (which is very interesting, I think). The first class fell into a farce, as this was too complicated, so I got the second class to create a table using these measures (It turns into a lesson on reading out numbers). Wasn´t too bad, and finished with ´What coutry would you like to live in? Why?
tercero: asked each other about te facts, and then prepared for the presentation (2 sentececs about history, one about politics, one about culture of the country)
This week all my classes are doing lessons on the countries that reached the final 16. They're discussing the countries, as found on these BBC profiles, in different levels of depth. They'll do a presentation next week on their country.
Besos,
Paul.
UPDATE:
Things I am doing with these profiles:
primero: using the facts to ask of each other: what is the (population, area, laguage etc. ) of your country? and ´What is one historical fact?´
Secundo: I did this this thing where the class had to order the countries by population, GNI and life expectancy (which is very interesting, I think). The first class fell into a farce, as this was too complicated, so I got the second class to create a table using these measures (It turns into a lesson on reading out numbers). Wasn´t too bad, and finished with ´What coutry would you like to live in? Why?
tercero: asked each other about te facts, and then prepared for the presentation (2 sentececs about history, one about politics, one about culture of the country)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
World Cup Lesson - Put Into Practice
I actually printed up one of the world cup themed lesson plans and ran it in my tercero and quarto classes this past week with a great deal of success.
The one I used can be found HERE.
With the terceros I first had them run through football vocab and then list as many of the countries involved as they could using their English names. Once all thirty-two are accounted for, I pass out the worksheets that have the English names of the countries on them, as well as some great vocab.
I then go on to explain the idea of "winner"and "runner-up" and how the winner of Group A will play the runner-up of Group B, and so forth. This leads into using If/Then statements to describe the Knock-out round.
My classes are only forty minutes now, so that is usually a full set right there. With the quartos, I added in the ideas of using possibility vs. probability that are suggested in the lesson plan.
Since all the kids want to talk about is the games, it really does make a lot of sense to give them these sorts of exercises so that they can express themselves in English on a subject they care about.
Buena Suerte, and viva Chile!
The one I used can be found HERE.
With the terceros I first had them run through football vocab and then list as many of the countries involved as they could using their English names. Once all thirty-two are accounted for, I pass out the worksheets that have the English names of the countries on them, as well as some great vocab.
I then go on to explain the idea of "winner"and "runner-up" and how the winner of Group A will play the runner-up of Group B, and so forth. This leads into using If/Then statements to describe the Knock-out round.
My classes are only forty minutes now, so that is usually a full set right there. With the quartos, I added in the ideas of using possibility vs. probability that are suggested in the lesson plan.
Since all the kids want to talk about is the games, it really does make a lot of sense to give them these sorts of exercises so that they can express themselves in English on a subject they care about.
Buena Suerte, and viva Chile!
Monday, June 21, 2010
World Cup Lesson 3: Chile-Honduras
The highlights of the Chile-Honduras game, with English commentary, and the transcript here. It was quite difficult for the students (Quarto), and I feel this could be done better.
World Cup Lesson 2: Wavin' Flag
World Cup Lesson 1: Waka Waka
The video for the English version is here:
The lesson is here. It includes lyrics, a google translation of the lyrics, a vocabulary matching exercise, and a more open expressive exercise (only useful for tercero, I found). The other thing I did was get the students to Write "because this is Africa" in the middle of a sheet of paper, and then words to do with Africa around it.
The lesson is here. It includes lyrics, a google translation of the lyrics, a vocabulary matching exercise, and a more open expressive exercise (only useful for tercero, I found). The other thing I did was get the students to Write "because this is Africa" in the middle of a sheet of paper, and then words to do with Africa around it.
Friday, June 11, 2010
World Cup lessons
For the next month or so it is going to be very difficult to teach anything. This guy has compiled a list of websites you can use as part of teaching English with the World Cup. It includes lesson plans, if you scroll down a bit.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Chatteando
I set up 11 accounts with MSN messenger. and linked them all too each other (englishabg1@live.cl, for example). This is easy to do, but messenger won't let you set up more than 3 a day, so watch out for that. I just came back from a class in which the students had conversations with each other using these accounts. It worked well, I had to keep them from surfing the net too much, and writing in Spanish, but they can be monitored easily. The computer room at my school only has 11 functioning computers, otherwise I wold have set up more. The benefit of having a class like this is that all the students can chat at the same time and be monitored while doing it (and also, some enjoyed it quite a lot, and kept asking me how to say different things.
The argument sketch
Transcript and
I did this with a good secundo class and it was pretty good. Each pair took a section and then we acted out end to end. It has a very limited vocabulary and a good rhythm to it, so is enjoyable to say.
I did this with a good secundo class and it was pretty good. Each pair took a section and then we acted out end to end. It has a very limited vocabulary and a good rhythm to it, so is enjoyable to say.
Monday, May 24, 2010
8th Basico - Past Simple
We were going over Past Simple in my 8th grade class. This was the last period of a long school day that ends at 5:40pm, and this class is generally too cool for school anyways. At least with this activity they were listening to English, even if most of them were less than interested in participating.
I found a song by the French singer Yodelice called Sunday With A Flu. It has a lot of examples of Past Simple, so I would play the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aerg3LphvbE) and have the students fill in the missing Past Simple verb. We would go over new vocab. words and I would try and point out the irregular verbs. It's a nice, simple, repetitive song that a few kids started singing along with. I played the song all the way through the first time, then we went verse by verse filling in the verbs, then we listened to the whole song again.
Yodelice - Sunday With A Flu
___________ my door, __________ my key
__________ my bus in the pouring rain
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
________ my toast and __________ your number
_________ my finger, __________ my beer
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
________ a chat and _______ my hat
________ my dog and __________ my cat
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
__________ a cabbage, _________ the garbage
____________ for help and ________ some kelp
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
I found a song by the French singer Yodelice called Sunday With A Flu. It has a lot of examples of Past Simple, so I would play the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aerg3LphvbE) and have the students fill in the missing Past Simple verb. We would go over new vocab. words and I would try and point out the irregular verbs. It's a nice, simple, repetitive song that a few kids started singing along with. I played the song all the way through the first time, then we went verse by verse filling in the verbs, then we listened to the whole song again.
Yodelice - Sunday With A Flu
___________ my door, __________ my key
__________ my bus in the pouring rain
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
________ my toast and __________ your number
_________ my finger, __________ my beer
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
________ a chat and _______ my hat
________ my dog and __________ my cat
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
__________ a cabbage, _________ the garbage
____________ for help and ________ some kelp
It's been the usual Sunday with a flu
And I just can't get over you
I ________ your stockings in my purple boots
What if I don't get over you ?
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