Teaching English is an art-form. There are many approaches and methods from which to
choose, and such a choice may be influenced by the age and level of the students, time, learning preferences, special needs, and – of course – the resources available to the instructor.
Teaching English to children, moreover, poses its own particular challenges, and imposes even more particular demands on the instructor. Instructors must take into account learners' short attention spans and/or lack of discipline and possibly underdeveloped linguistic foundations in the learners' native languages (i.e. young learners may not yet be able to read or write in their own language by the time they begin to learn English). Additionally, teachers should take an instructional approach that fosters positive experiences and provides a supportive learning environment, rather than placing emphasis on correctness or grades.
Luckily, in today's technologically-advanced world, the recent proliferation of computer-based curricula (or blended learning designs for language learning) in school systems - including for very young learners - has opened doors to English teachers all over the world.
In fact, whether we like it or not, computers are permeating every aspect of our daily lives, and children are not only embracing the technology at hand, but they would not know what to do without it. As instructors, therefore, it is our duty not only to teach the next generation what we know, but to adopt new methods of instruction which are more appropriate to the context in which we are living – and in which our students are growing up.
Now teachers have stimulating tools and rich libraries of multi-media materials available to them to better adapt educational content to the specific needs and preferences of the learner. Videos, games, speech recognition tools, and internet-based communication can all add vast depth to traditional instruction materials - such as text books. Incorporating multi-media into the language curriculum, therefore, engages students in more communicative, authentic, contextualized, and
interactive activities that practice all four skills in an integrated fashion, and even provide instant feedback.
In addition, utilizing multi-media not only provides stimulating and effective instruction in a manner to which most young students are already accustomed due to their extracurricular (i.e. non-educational) activities, but also allows teachers flexibility with course content, and provides a learning environment in which students can begin to develop autonomy.
Join the English Journey! There is a free trial here for you to check out.
Learn English the easy way.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Teaching the weather and seasons
Here's a reply to Erna asking how to teach the weather and seasons to her group of nine year olds - she does not have my book of games:
OK the free games you are receiving can be used for ANY vocab, including weather and seasons.
I would use JUMP THE LINE to teach the words first - where you put up a line on the board and put some words to the left and some to the right - actually it's much better to put up pictures or draw some rain, a cloud, some sun etc. Then you call out SUN and the children jump to the left or right, depending on whether the sun is on the left or the right of the line. When you see the children make a mistake come back to that word over and over Sun, cloud, Sun, cloud, sun, SUN!! - You say it fast - it's a speedy game - that's what makes it fun - you want to try and catch them jumping the wrong way. If you do it slowly it's dull as ditch water! Gradually add in new pictures and words.
Then play RELAY RACE
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/games/relayrace.htm
Then you could play the Blanket Game where a child who is hiding stands on one of the weather pictures. (That's the first free game that you received)
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/games/blanketgame.htm
You can do some miming games where one group mimes a season and the others have to guess which season it is.
Play a match up game where kids with a type of weather have to find each other in class by saying their type of weather or a sentence like: I love sunny weather. All the children with that sentence have to find each other - but they cannot show their sentence to the others - it has to be done by speaking only.
And so on! Lots of ideas in my book if you can afford it of course.
All the best
Shelley
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com
OK the free games you are receiving can be used for ANY vocab, including weather and seasons.
I would use JUMP THE LINE to teach the words first - where you put up a line on the board and put some words to the left and some to the right - actually it's much better to put up pictures or draw some rain, a cloud, some sun etc. Then you call out SUN and the children jump to the left or right, depending on whether the sun is on the left or the right of the line. When you see the children make a mistake come back to that word over and over Sun, cloud, Sun, cloud, sun, SUN!! - You say it fast - it's a speedy game - that's what makes it fun - you want to try and catch them jumping the wrong way. If you do it slowly it's dull as ditch water! Gradually add in new pictures and words.
Then play RELAY RACE
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/games/relayrace.htm
Then you could play the Blanket Game where a child who is hiding stands on one of the weather pictures. (That's the first free game that you received)
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/games/blanketgame.htm
You can do some miming games where one group mimes a season and the others have to guess which season it is.
Play a match up game where kids with a type of weather have to find each other in class by saying their type of weather or a sentence like: I love sunny weather. All the children with that sentence have to find each other - but they cannot show their sentence to the others - it has to be done by speaking only.
And so on! Lots of ideas in my book if you can afford it of course.
All the best
Shelley
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com
Friday, 14 December 2007
Role-Play Idea for Speaking Practise
Hello there teachers,
I just received this request from a teacher and I thought this made a really useful role-play to share with everyone:
"Thanks you very much for your games. They help me very much in my teaching. My students have been very excited.
Now I have difficulty in finding a way to give my students to the lesson of speaking. Can you suggest me some exciting activity? Here is the content of the lesson:
Plans to make life in a village better:
Widen the road
Build a medical center
Build a football ground
Grow cash crop
Build a bridge over the canal.
Build a new school
Possible results of the plan
Cars and lorries can get to the village
People's health is looked after
Young people can play sport
People can have more money
People have a shorter way to city
Children have better learning condition
Students have to use "if clause" to talk about plan and result."
My reply idea for this is to role-play a committee meeting, with a chairman, a treasurer and committee members. Each group should be only about 6 students to allow everyone a good chance to participate. Make a guess at the cost of carrying out each of the improvements mentioned above. Then allocate a total budget to the treasurer. This should be far less than the cost of carrying out all the improvements.
Students select two or three items from the above list that they will argue for at the role-play meeting. Students put forward their priorities and argue about what should be done first. The purpose of the meeting is to come up with a plan of action listing the improvements that will be made this year and those that will be made in the next few years.
You might want to modify the list to suit your own village, town or city. Other ideas are:
Work on encouraging tourism
Adopt a scheme to preserve the natural environment
Planting more trees and landscaping
Building more homes
If you use this idea with the place where your students currently live it will feel relevant to them and they might find it interesting so you will have to modify this at will and ask the students for their ideas before elaborating your list so you know what is important to them. Teenagers might be more interested in adding a nightclub and shops to the community than landscaping!!
Do try it out and let us all know how it goes, and what new ideas you can add!
More role-play ideas can be found in the esl games and activities for adults here:
www.teachingenglishgames.com/adults.htm
I just received this request from a teacher and I thought this made a really useful role-play to share with everyone:
"Thanks you very much for your games. They help me very much in my teaching. My students have been very excited.
Now I have difficulty in finding a way to give my students to the lesson of speaking. Can you suggest me some exciting activity? Here is the content of the lesson:
Plans to make life in a village better:
Widen the road
Build a medical center
Build a football ground
Grow cash crop
Build a bridge over the canal.
Build a new school
Possible results of the plan
Cars and lorries can get to the village
People's health is looked after
Young people can play sport
People can have more money
People have a shorter way to city
Children have better learning condition
Students have to use "if clause" to talk about plan and result."
My reply idea for this is to role-play a committee meeting, with a chairman, a treasurer and committee members. Each group should be only about 6 students to allow everyone a good chance to participate. Make a guess at the cost of carrying out each of the improvements mentioned above. Then allocate a total budget to the treasurer. This should be far less than the cost of carrying out all the improvements.
Students select two or three items from the above list that they will argue for at the role-play meeting. Students put forward their priorities and argue about what should be done first. The purpose of the meeting is to come up with a plan of action listing the improvements that will be made this year and those that will be made in the next few years.
You might want to modify the list to suit your own village, town or city. Other ideas are:
Work on encouraging tourism
Adopt a scheme to preserve the natural environment
Planting more trees and landscaping
Building more homes
If you use this idea with the place where your students currently live it will feel relevant to them and they might find it interesting so you will have to modify this at will and ask the students for their ideas before elaborating your list so you know what is important to them. Teenagers might be more interested in adding a nightclub and shops to the community than landscaping!!
Do try it out and let us all know how it goes, and what new ideas you can add!
More role-play ideas can be found in the esl games and activities for adults here:
www.teachingenglishgames.com/adults.htm
Friday, 23 November 2007
Putting on a little English language show
Putting on a show to parents and to the school assembly every term is really great thing to do to demonstrate what you have all been up to in class time. It motivates children during lessons and is a really fun and satisfying thing to do. If you can have someone film the show for you you can even give a copy to the children at the end. If you are teaching small groups privately this is ideal and it helps your teaching business grow as well as enhances your lessons. Parents like to see what is going on too and children love to show off so everyone wins.
Ideally you want to put on a show every term but don't panic, it doesn't have to be Broadway! A few songs, some English language games in action and perhaps a short play if you have a small group are all it takes.
If your children enjoy songs have them perform a couple of songs in English with actions. You have the children play some language games so parents can see them responding to listening games and hear them speaking. And you can also have the children act out a story while you read it. Children can also be given some lines in the story where these are simple, such as counting or naming the colours, or saying a line if it is the same each time. Then if you have a small group you can do mini-role plays, but this does not work with a large class or there is too much sitting around for everyone. A twenty minute "English" show is enough with 5 minutes beforehand for parents to arrive and sit down, and 5 minutes at the end.
If it is the first show the children may be dumb struck with nerves, daft as it seems! Therefore start the show off easily with some listening games where the children show they understand words and sentences you have taught followed by a song with actions every one sings together. Many songs have far too many words so you can always do verse 1, chorus and verse 1 again. You can also simplify the words by repeating lines 1 and 2 as lines 3 and 4, if that fits OK. Now the children are warmed up you can do some speaking games and finally any role plays and plays.
Enjoy!
Shelley
PS Wonderful ideas for preschool games and stories!
Ideally you want to put on a show every term but don't panic, it doesn't have to be Broadway! A few songs, some English language games in action and perhaps a short play if you have a small group are all it takes.
If your children enjoy songs have them perform a couple of songs in English with actions. You have the children play some language games so parents can see them responding to listening games and hear them speaking. And you can also have the children act out a story while you read it. Children can also be given some lines in the story where these are simple, such as counting or naming the colours, or saying a line if it is the same each time. Then if you have a small group you can do mini-role plays, but this does not work with a large class or there is too much sitting around for everyone. A twenty minute "English" show is enough with 5 minutes beforehand for parents to arrive and sit down, and 5 minutes at the end.
If it is the first show the children may be dumb struck with nerves, daft as it seems! Therefore start the show off easily with some listening games where the children show they understand words and sentences you have taught followed by a song with actions every one sings together. Many songs have far too many words so you can always do verse 1, chorus and verse 1 again. You can also simplify the words by repeating lines 1 and 2 as lines 3 and 4, if that fits OK. Now the children are warmed up you can do some speaking games and finally any role plays and plays.
Enjoy!
Shelley
PS Wonderful ideas for preschool games and stories!
Saturday, 17 November 2007
How to teach phrasal verbs to ESL students
I received an email last week from a teacher asking me how to practise phrasal verbs with her small class of twelve 12 year old children and I'd like to share the following idea with you.
Phrasal verbs need to be learned in the same way as any other type of verb. Students need to learn the phrasal verb as a vocabulary item and also how to use it in sentences. It can help to learn meanings in one lesson and work on integrating the language in a different session. This anyway is helpful with lower levels so students are not overwhelmed.
A fun game to use to teach the vocabulary side of phrasal verbs is Call My Bluff Definitions. Here you give each student a phrasal verb to look up in the dictionary and ask everyone to write down the true meaning plus make up two false meanings. It is good to set this for homework so as not to use precious class time. If you want to simplify have students write only two definitions, one true and one false.
At the next lesson each student reads out the phrasal verb followed by the three definitions. The class stand up and listen all three definitions once. Then on the second reading students sit down if they think a definition is false and stay standing if they think it is true.
Let's say the first definition is false and half the students sit down. All those sitting down are still in the game so those standing put their hands on the heads and sit down. They are out for this round. Those still in stand up again and the student reads out definition two. Those who have it wrong are out again and sit down with their hands on their heads. Those that are in continue until all three definitions have been read out. You then let those students award themselves a point. Now everyone is back in again for the next phrasal verb.
If playing with adults you can leave out putting hands on heads. That is just a mechanism to prevent cheating, which children are possibly more likely to do than adults!
So now the students understand the phrasal verbs you can proceed with some listening, speaking and writing drills to practise them as you would any grammatical structure and for ideas you can sign up to the free games if you haven't already on ESL Games and Activities
Feel free to go ahead and add your comment on this game and give your own ideas on teaching phrasal verbs.
Happy teaching
Shelley
Phrasal verbs need to be learned in the same way as any other type of verb. Students need to learn the phrasal verb as a vocabulary item and also how to use it in sentences. It can help to learn meanings in one lesson and work on integrating the language in a different session. This anyway is helpful with lower levels so students are not overwhelmed.
A fun game to use to teach the vocabulary side of phrasal verbs is Call My Bluff Definitions. Here you give each student a phrasal verb to look up in the dictionary and ask everyone to write down the true meaning plus make up two false meanings. It is good to set this for homework so as not to use precious class time. If you want to simplify have students write only two definitions, one true and one false.
At the next lesson each student reads out the phrasal verb followed by the three definitions. The class stand up and listen all three definitions once. Then on the second reading students sit down if they think a definition is false and stay standing if they think it is true.
Let's say the first definition is false and half the students sit down. All those sitting down are still in the game so those standing put their hands on the heads and sit down. They are out for this round. Those still in stand up again and the student reads out definition two. Those who have it wrong are out again and sit down with their hands on their heads. Those that are in continue until all three definitions have been read out. You then let those students award themselves a point. Now everyone is back in again for the next phrasal verb.
If playing with adults you can leave out putting hands on heads. That is just a mechanism to prevent cheating, which children are possibly more likely to do than adults!
So now the students understand the phrasal verbs you can proceed with some listening, speaking and writing drills to practise them as you would any grammatical structure and for ideas you can sign up to the free games if you haven't already on ESL Games and Activities
Feel free to go ahead and add your comment on this game and give your own ideas on teaching phrasal verbs.
Happy teaching
Shelley
Friday, 16 November 2007
Welcome to Teaching English Games Blog
Hello there,
Thank you very much for coming to this blog on teaching English games. I hope you enjoy the teaching tips you read here and that they give you renewed enthusiasm for being a teacher. If you are new to teaching English the fun games and tips are sure to be a big help.
I created this blog because I have seen just how badly English as a second language is taught. Children come out of YEARS of ESL lessons and cannot say a WORD! Apart perhaps from "Hello." and "My name is Shelley." This is so ridiculous but many teachers are doing their best with the resources that they have and yet these are not working effectively.
There are so many reasons why using games in class help ESL students learn better there is not room to list them all here right now, but think about these for starters:
ESL Games give a meaningful context to the language
Speaking games allow students to practise what they are learning
ESL Games tap into all the different learning styles which aids retention
English Games allow for language to be drilled in fun ways
ESL Games can diffuse tension between students
They can be used to usefully fill a gap if you finish a class early
ESL Games are ideal to usefully use the time if not all of your students have arrived to class yet
English Games are very effective for learning large amounts of vocabulary quickly
ESL Games are fantastic for revising vocabulary and grammar effectively
Language Games make students appreciate you more and feel closer to you
A good selection of games cuts your prep time right down
So stay tuned by signing up to receive my posts and bring more joy to your ESL or EFL classroom, whether you are teaching preschool children, primary age or adults, because as a teacher you can make such a difference in the world if you go about teaching the right way.
Visit also the full website on teaching english games
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