Teaching Tips
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Reading to speaking
After a ‘heads down’ activity such as reading, where students have been actively but quietly focused, I try to counter-balance this with a speaking activity. (See ‘meat and rice’ weeks 1 and 2). Some texts lend themselves perfectly to a discussion or personalisation task, but here are some general ideas more…
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Brainstorming: variations on a classic technique
Brainstorming is a commonly used technique in our classrooms at all levels. It focuses students and prepares them for a topic, it can enforce co-operation and thus energise students and it shows students (and you) what they already know. In addition, it can be fun if handled as a competition. more…
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Spelling 2
Last week I gave two very simple suggestions to practise spelling, and using this to either reinforce vocabulary, or to use as warmers to lead in to a topic, for example. Here are three more suggestions, which you’ll find similarly focus students’ minds.
- Spell out words to students but more… -
Spelling 1
Students at all levels need to review spelling, and here are three suggestions, which can be adapted to suit your class. Practising spelling is also a clever way to enforce taught vocabulary, although students are often not aware of this.
These three ideas are great fillers, warmers or enders. As more… -
Creative cooking – a recipe
Most students are familiar with recipes, at least in their first language. Recipes typically contain specific lexis, e.g. verbs like sprinkle, stir; linkers like first of all, then, next, finally and nouns and quantifiers such as a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, etc.
This idea might link in with more… -
How is the internet changing language today? – David Crystal
In this new video Professor David Crystal describes how the internet is changing language.
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Catering for early finishers: readings
Inevitably students read at different speeds, and some students are left twiddling their thumbs as they wait for their peers to finish. I usually have one or two generic reading tasks up my sleeve to give to those who finish before the majority. Most of these are adaptable for use more…
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Meat and rice (2): the notion of balance in your lessons
Last week I touched on the importance of balance. When planning a lesson, particularly a longer one (over 60 minutes), you might find it useful to experiment with one of the following visual annotations to your plan:
1. Add an interaction column and roughly calculate how much time is ‘you’ time more… -
Meat and rice: the notion of balance in your lessons
Lesson planning can be one of those situations where you stop seeing the wood for the trees. You can either be a slave to the coursebook, potentially neglecting to question what you do, or you get so caught up with what you do in the lesson, that you overlook more…
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Which ‘English’ should we teach – David Crystal
In this latest video Professor David Crystal talks about which ‘English’ we should be teaching our students.
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Why is English a global language – David Crystal
In this video Professor David Crystal talks about how English has become the dominant global language.
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Designing personalised worksheets
This personalisation technique can be used at any level. I find that my students simply love seeing their names in print, whatever age they are! Imagine that you want to practise the past progressive, for example. You could make a handout as follows:
X (your name) opened the door more…
