Here is the second part of our activities that work well with low level adult students.
Activity: Guess the profession
Level: Foundation – Elementary
Target Language: Present simple for routines
Materials: Job cards
Procedure: Before the lesson cut up some paper to make some cards. Give the students one of the cards and ask them to write the name of a job on each piece of paper. Take the cards in and then redistribute them. The students should then hold the piece of paper on their forehead so everyone can see it. Students need to guess which card they are holding. They should do this by going round the classroom and asking questions of the other students. E.g. Do I work in an office? Do I wear a uniform?
Activity: Shopping role play
Level: Foundation - Elementary
Target Language: Can I have…?
Materials: Whiteboard, paper, pens
Procedure: Have students come up with ideas for items they could buy in a supermarket and then board these ideas. Tell the students that they can have any ...
Communicative Activities for Low Level Adult Students: pt1
Communicative activities are the bed rock of the modern language classroom. However for lower level learners it can be difficult to come up with effective freer practice activities, suitable for their level. Below, and in part two, are some ideas for activities that work well with these levels.
Activity: Celebrity Heads
Level: Elementary
Target Language: Personal Adjectives: tall, short etc.. He/she is/has got
Materials: Poster, photos or magazine
Procedure: Show students pictures of various different celebrities, and then ask each student to choose one. They should then write three sentences describing the person they choose. The students then read out their sentences and the others have to guess which celebrity they are talking about.
Alternatively students write sentences about the celebrities and then fold them up. The teacher then collects in the papers and put the students into groups. They give each group some of ...
~~Stand up/Sit Down: Young children enjoy this simple game. Give a command and the children respond as quickly as possible. Then give the wrong command i.e. stand up when they are already standing etc. This can be adapted into a Simon Say type game where the children respond only when the caller says ‘please’. Children can take the teacher’s role.
Greetings Theatre: Every lesson should begin with greeting but they can also be used as an acting/drama game. Have two or more children walking around the table in opposite directions. When they meet each other they must greet each other. This can be extended to incorporate other QAs. Note: ‘Theatre’ should be an event rather than random. Have the learners who are not participating to sit at one end of the room as an audience, they could clap in time, teacher ‘sells popcorn’ etc. Make sure all learners get a chance to perform.
Alphabet Relay: Line up the learners in two teams as far from the board as possible. The first person in each team ...
~~Whatsit: "Whatsit" uses verbs or nouns. Have one learner sit with their back to the board and another learner writes or draws a mystery word they all know on the board (word cards can be used to prompt where necessary). The guesser must then ask questions to guess the word using “whatsit” in place of the unknown word e.g. if verbs are being used: "Can you whatsit?", "When do you whatsit?" If nouns are being used: "Can you eat a whatsit?", "Can you wear a whatsit?" etc
Forbidden Words: Write three ‘forbidden’ words on the board, e.g. blue, car, night. Have one learner volunteer and the rest of the class asks questions to try and get them to use the forbidden words. E.g. S2 - What colour is my shirt? S1 – It’s the colour of the sky S2 – When do you sleep? S1 – When it is dark. Etc.
Words from Words: Write a fairly long English word on the board. Set a time limit of 3-5 min. In pairs learners make as many words as they can using only the letters of the word on the board. E.g. ...
~~Writing is a complex process that encourages thinking and learning. Once learners realize that writing is a process that does not have to be right first time they are more willing to experiment, explore, revise and edit.
Activity 1: Simple Description with Visuals
Have learners examine a picture and ask them to identify the objects in it. Then have them write a paragraph to describe the picture.
Activity 2: Completing a Description Paragraph
Have learners examine a picture and complete a description paragraph. For example: Learners look at a picture and complete the following paragraph:
Mary lives in a very nice room. In her room, there is a ——, ——, and a ——. There are also several ——. There are no ——, but Mary does have some ——. She wants to get a —— for her wall and a —— for the desk this afternoon when she goes shopping.
Alternatively focus the learners on function words by having them complete the paragraph by supplying prepositions and/or expressions required by the context. ...
Learning English as a Second Language can be a battle. Sometimes, it is difficult to stimulate students to remain motivated, due to the challenges they face, perhaps balancing work and study, or feeling daunted by the complicated nature of the English Language.
As teachers of ESL, there are ways of making ESL learning fun. Here are some suggestions:
*Play interactive games, whether in a classroom, or one-on-one tutoring environment. Ideas can include scrabble, or lucky dip, using a bag containing spelling words, or conversation or writing topics. Or you can use a shoe-box for "Pick a Box", so students can choose a lucky envelope with a spelling word, or writing or discussion topic.
* You can virtually adapt any board or TV game to enable learning English skills. For games such as Jeopardy, you can use play money as a motivator. Determine how much each student can 'win', by answering questions or spelling words correctly. Even 'hangman' is a good fun interactive way of learning new ...
Jun 16, 2018
Teaching Methodology 4831 Views
Constructivism is simply an idea -- based upon scientific study and observation -- about just how folks learn. It claims that individuals construct their very own knowledge and understanding of the planet, through having small things and reflecting on all those experiences. When something brand new is encountered by us, we've to reconcile it with our prior experience and ideas, perhaps changing what we think, and perhaps discarding the brand new info as irrelevant. At any rate, we're active makers of the own knowledge of ours. To get this done, we should ask assess, explore, and question what we know.
In the classroom, the constructivist perspective of learning might point towards a variety of different coaching practices. In probably the most basic sense, it would mean encouraging pupils to work with established techniques (experiments, real world problem solving) to produce additional information and after that to focus on and discuss what they're engaging in and the way their ...
Educational benefits of using poetry
Poetry could be used as a medium to teach language as it shows a path to teach basic language skills. Some of the educational benefits of using poetry are explained by Sarac:
Different viewpoint for language:
It broadens the seeing perspective of learner, as they begin to use language in a completely different way. The grammar used in poetry is different (it does not follow typical grammar rules) for example, incomplete sentences. The syntax is also different for example, in this verse "women and men both little and small; cared of anyone not at all" the structure of sentence does not follow typical grammar use. The vocabulary used is also different for example a word "no one" used in a poem does not belong to standard English vocabulary, but in the poem it gives the meaning poet wants to explain. A poet might use slangs and jargons in order to make his poetry more meaningful In this way learner catches a different viewpoint towards language by ...
Jun 16, 2018
Writing 1904 Views
"True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own." � Nikos Kazantzakis
As a recurring experience for several years in language education, effective writing instruction to English as a Second Language (ESL) learners could be probably attained through the constant incorporation of knowledge, language and organization (KLO) where information is obtained through guided reading reinforced by understanding vocabularies and grammar points for them to be able to assimilate and convey authentic ideas. To ensure the acquisition of this written proficiency, it is advised that teachers should have systematized methods of instructions instead of directly and confidently tasking the students to write without preliminary instructive- conditioning measures.
This proposed strategy attempts to organize and immerse students to garner enough knowledge on ...
Jun 16, 2018
Classroom Management 3348 Views
Effective classroom teachers tend to have strengths in classroom management efforts. Teachers who know how to manage their classrooms create an effective environment that is conducive to educating students. The challenge for some teachers is knowing how to organize their classrooms so they have minimal behavior problems. In college, teachers are generally taught how to put together a discipline plan for their classrooms; this plan is supposed to resolve any behavior problems in their classrooms. We know that effective classrooms require more, and teachers who are successful end up creating a classroom environment that is caring, thought-provoking, challenging, and exciting. These classrooms serve as examples of how effective teachers run their classes.
One strategy these teachers use begins on the first day of school. Veteran teachers have learned that how they start the year off will determine the success of their classes for the entire school year. Initiating classroom procedures on ...