JG posted this writing activity suitable for teens and adults:
First lesson ESO and BACH SFN
I think I will put the students in pairs and ask them to interview each other. Then we´ll have a whole class brainstorm about ways they can learn in and out of the classroom and any useful websites they know. I will also note down exams students have done and are preparing for, to get more of an idea of levels within each class. Quite a basic first lesson activity but I think it is worth spending a bit of time on this so students can identify their own strengths and weaknesses and think about where they are and where they want to be regarding their studies in English. 🙂
THANKS!
Huge thanks to everyone on a successful start to the term! Thanks for being flexible with last minute changes and new students – there were lots of happy faces leaving classes throughout the week.
The Great Homework Debate
There is a lot of debate in Spain at the moment surrounding the incredible amount of homework which learners throughout their education are given – it’s even got to the point where a mother has started a petition on Change.org to raise awareness of the disparity in the amount of homework which different students have – you can read more about her rationale behind in this article in El Pais in English.
Here are a few links from facebook on the topic:
Changing Homework Habits and Perceptions
Italy: Students given ‘alternative’ holiday homework
Ideas for Speaking Classes
Oooops! Perhaps a little late in the day, but I just came across this – it was a brainstorming session during a PDM one day. Not only valid for the SFN Speaking Classes though, lots of ideas here for any class.
Grabbing their Attention
Thanks to Simon for posting this image on the facebook page – some ideas on how to grab students’ attention when they’re not engaged. It comes from this page, which has lots of ideas on teaching and using technology in class.
PET Speaking Practice
Claire posted a link to a site which provides learners with sample answers for the PET Speaking Part 2. The student chooses a picture and talks about it and afterwards can scroll over the picture to see some sample sentences.
Dealing with Tiny Teens – ACEIA 2014
This is Tips for teaching the tiny teens, Claire Potter’s talk about tiny teens or the “tweenies” as some of us refer to them (younger teens). Like her handout the talk was clear, well structured with a bit of theory and some ideas. For me Claire’s main point of the talk was personalisation for motivation. Tiny teens are motivated by what they’re interested in or relevant for them (she also said they are actually interested in the teacher although we don’t think so at times). Knowing or being interested in hearing about the latest pop groups or TV programmes for this age group is important, as is getting to know your students’ personal likes and dislikes and interests. A good way of motivating these tiny teens are student-made quizzes and stories. The way she did the story was good, she modelled it by having sentences about an event (the first time she met a celebrity). The students had to guess what the event was. Then she read the story and showed them a picture of her aged 13 meeting a celebrity.
She also showed us other activities she got from teachers at her school. Tok’s future game was a grid of will questions and answers e.g ´Will I have any children?´ ´you will have 10 children´ ´you won´t have any´ etc, and it was based on a dice or spinner random luck format. She also highlighted the ´yes or no´ game used by Tez. This was one of my personal favourites. It was based on the old and popular yes or no game where students are asked questions, but they can’t say yes or no. Tez’s idea had a twist. To motivate a group of football loving tweens he asked them if they thought a Liverpool football player would be good at the game and then he showed a clip of the Liverpool football player playing it. Very funny. This motivated the students to want to play it.
Anyway check out the handout… any questions just ask Nat 🙂
Telepathy….Oooooooooh!
During MACEIA (Mini-ACEIA), Lucy spoke about the session she attended by Nikki Unsworth (cue song!). Carmen handily posted a pic of the half-sentences which she mentioned. And she asked, “What sentences might appeal to teens?”
I also used half-sentences earlier this week with my B2 group to practise verb patterns, but rather than just writing about one other person in the class, they had to complete each sentence with a classmate:
….. often refuses ………….
….. dreads ………….
….. fancies ………..
Viral ELT
This is a great site where you can find short clips with lessons planned around them. It’s similar to Film English, but works with YouTube videos…perhaps ones which your students have already seen and shared with as many friends as possible.