The 11 Golden Rules

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(In no particular order)

  1. Rocking Chair – if you see a student starting to rock in their chair, like a domino effect, the same is sure to happen to the others. This is when you have to spice up what you’re doing or change it altogether.
  2. 6 Months – once you play a game or activity, do not repeat it again for at least another 6 months. Keep your classes fresh and exciting.
  3. The holy trinity – use of vocab, speed of speech and TPR. Keep your speaking pace slow like Christopher Walken, keep your vocab limited to your students’ ability, and use plenty of TPR including moving around the classroom on an x, y and z-axis and of course vary your vocal tones.
  4. Review! In every class, review something the students have previously learnt. If you don’t review previous topics, the students will forget everything.
  5. Variety – vary what you use in the classroom. Mix between PowerPoints, whiteboard, game boards, toys, real objects, worksheets, computer games – use everything at your disposal.
  6. No native language – refrain from allowing students to speak in their native tongue unless they are explaining something or translating.
  7. Classroom Police – assign other students to discipline the class, including punishments such as sit-ups and a prison in the corner of the classroom, but try to include more reward systems than punishments.
  8. 4 English Skills – incorporate at least 3 of the 4 English skills in each class.
  9. 100/0 – obviously one cannot achieve a 100/0 student/teacher speaking ratio all the time. Your aim in the class is to work up to your final monologue/dialogue activity in which you say nothing but the children are doing all the work. For the rest of the class, try to maintain a 70/30 or 80/20 speaking ratio.
  10. Ensure understanding – make sure your students are able and comfortable asking and answering ‘Do you understand?’ ‘Yes, I do’ ‘No I don’t’. Even if all the students answer yes I understand, get one student to explain in their native tongue what to do. Often one student will not understand but still say they do as they are too embarrassed to speak up.
  11. Enjoy yourself – enjoy the class as the children will react to you. If you are bored and not interested, they will be bored and not interested. If you are excited, motivated and having fun – I promise you your students will be excited, having fun and motivated to learn!

Lesson Planning: Structure and Content

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This is often the most stressful and important aspect of teaching, do not underestimate how much effort should be put into lesson planning. I always believe that a class is only as good as your lesson plan. So let’s keep this as uncomplicated as possible. I will divide this into two sections:

  1. pre-school 2-6 years)
  2. 7 years and higher

The following is not the only way you can plan a class, every teacher has their own style. I’m simply giving you what has worked for me, in time you will develop your own structure and style which may work even better than the ones I will set out for you.

 

Pre-school

Know your goal, often with pre-school students, you have just a few words to teach with key sentences surrounding these words. Your first step is to know what you’re teaching, that’s most of the work done. Let’s say your three words to teach are happy, sad, and excited. Don’t be afraid to expand on those words, teach your students more common words such as ok, fine, alright. Now let’s turn these words into a dialogue:

  • How are you?
  • I am …………..

 

Note the sentence is I am and not I’m. The reason for this is that at first, it’s important to teach the students the full sentences so that later when they’re a little older, you can teach them the more common contraction: I’m. This way in the future when they speak in contractions they´ll know and understand that I’m is a shortened version of I am (always introduce contractions in this way).

Great, we now have the words and the sentences figured out, now for the execution. Let’s say for the sake of argument that your classes are 2 hours long. For younger kids, they need no more than two, ten-minute breaks (your school will often dictate how many breaks you can take, but if they insist on one break, you can easily adapt your lesson).

Let´s break the class into three structures:

  1. 35 minutes (10-minute break)
  2. 30 minutes (10-minute break)
  3. 25 minutes (the end)

 

For the younger ones, it’s vital that every class you revise with them these basic English questions:

  1. What’s your name?
  2. How old are you?
  3. How are you?

 

Take careful note of questions two and three. Many times I’ve had other teachers ask my students ‘how are you?’ and to my embarrassment, they reply ‘I’m four years old’. Use the first 5 minutes to go through these questions, change how you go through these questions every time. In one class, play a pass the parcel game, the next class do a running race.

That’s five minutes out of the way. Next, use a video or song. I would usually have a song at the beginning of class and after every break time in order to get the kids moving, confident and excited (but not too excited). Ensure you prepare TPR (total physical response) for every line of the song. Alternatively, I used videos called ‘alphablocks’. They’re nice 3 – 4-minute videos teaching phonics where the kids learn how to pronounce letters and how to group sounds and letters together (see chapter ´Further Material´ for more information).

Now we’re about 10 minutes into the class.

I often use the next 25 minutes as a chance to teach something completely unrelated to the topic of the class. Often preschool children´s books are limited in vocabulary and if you only follow the book, your students will not learn a sufficient amount of English. Use the first part to teach other things such as weather, food, emotions etc. There is a software called Genki, which I highly recommend buying. It´s an interactive animation software that is divided into different topics. Once you have chosen your topic, the software starts off by going through the keywords and sentences, then there is a flash video game and lastly, you end with a song. After completion, you should have five to ten minutes left. Use this time to review the words and sentences you taught in your previous class.

After the first break, begin as usual with a song or a phonic activity such as alphablocks. From here, go through the new words. For each word, play a quick individual game to check pronunciation. Once you have gone through all the words, play a game involving all the students and all the words.

Your next aim is to turn those words into sentences. Introduce the sentences with an individual game first to check for pronunciation and then a group game to practice the sentences.

Once you have gone through all the sentences, play a few team and group-based games to get students practising the sentences. Once you have only ten to fifteen minutes left of the class, you can move on to writing.

For really young students, start with tracing letters of the alphabet. As they get older and can begin to recognize letters more and more, move on to sentences. This should involve a worksheet where the key sentences are written down, followed by a three or four ledger line space, the students then trace the words and then write them down freehand underneath.

As the students are writing and tracing, go to each student and get them to read the sentences aloud to you so that you can once again listen for pronunciation but also to check if they can actually read what they are writing.

At the end of the class, get your students lined up. One student stands at the front and is holding the points. He or she asks each student as they leave the classroom ‘how many points do you have?’ The students must then reply ‘I have … points’.

 

Here is a summary of the above:

Past 1: 35 minutes

  • Review basic introduction questions
  • Song or phonic activity
  • Genki/unrelated vocab – introduce new words, play a game with those words and then finish with a song
  • Review topic from the previous class

 

Part 2: 30 minutes

  • Song or phonic activity
  • Introduce New Words
  • Individual games for each word to check the pronunciation
  • Group game for comprehension of new words
  • Introduce New Sentences
  • First New Sentence
  • Group game
  • Individual game
  • Second New Sentence
  • Group game
  • Individual game
  • Third New Sentence
  • Group game
  • Individual game
  • Team or group-based games to practice all the sentences

 

Part 3: 25 minutes

  • Song or phonic activity
  • Review the Sentences
  • Group game
  • Individual game
  • Group game
  • Individual game
  • Writing ( last 10-15 minutes)

 

A very important thing to keep in mind when planning your lesson is to go overboard with your preparation. Prepare for more games than you anticipate you will actually do during class. It’s very hard to predict what mood your students will be in, which games they will like and, how many students will turn up to your class. Some days you will power through all your games, other days your students will enjoy one game so much that it stretches on for 30 minutes or even an hour. It’s better to have more games and not need them then have not enough games and need more. Whichever games you don’t use in that class, you can always save it for the next class!

 

Higher-level

It’s a little harder to have a universal lesson structure for higher levels as so often your lesson structure will depend on the topic that you’re teaching. Once again, assuming you are teaching a two-hour class, the first thing to do is to identify what you’re teaching. What is your key vocab, what is your grammar point and what sentences and dialogues can be formed from your key sentences?

Let’s say your words for the class are: above, next to, under, behind, in front of and inside. Identify what are you actually teaching? What is the grammar? You are teaching prepositions.

Next, identify which sentences would best incorporate the grammar. Think to yourself: why are prepositions used? To describe where an object or place is.

The sentences you use are your choice and there will always be many variations of sentences. When I decide which sentences to teach, I base my decision by thinking about how we use this grammar in everyday life:

Question: Where’s the (noun – book)?

Answer: It’s/the noun (book) is next to/under/behind/inside/above the (noun – table)

The next thing to do is to decide what the actual context of the lesson will be. Remember the prepositions are the new words, so you don’t want to overcomplicate the lesson and introduce more words for the sentences. Analyze what your students know and ensure the context is a review for the students and not new material.

Review! Review! Review!

One of the key rules, always review everything your students have ever learnt. You can spend a month teaching how to tell time, but if after that month you never review it, the pupils will forget everything they learnt. This is why it’s so important to review previous material in every class. Never teach something and then never review it, learning a language is an accumulated art.

We had learnt in a previous class the names of objects in the classroom such as whiteboard, computer etc. So to review that lesson while incorporating the new vocab, I created the following dialogue:

 

Question: Where’s the whiteboard?

Answer: The whiteboard is above the computer.

Let´s take another example. Perhaps your students learnt about places in a city six months ago but you haven´t had the chance to review those words yet. This would be the perfect chance by creating the following dialogue:

Question: Where’s the hospital?

Answer: The hospital is next to the police station.

Now you have your vocab, grammar point, dialogue and lesson context (let’s use the topic: ‘places in a city’ from now on).

 

If you are teaching for two hours, this is how I would structure that class:

Part 1 (50 mins)

Break (10 mins)

Part 2 (60 mins)

 

Part 1 can be broken into three smaller parts:

  1. Starter – always have a fun 5 to 10-minute starter activity, it’s important to either get the students´ brains working or blood rushing.
  2. Unrelated material – this is a great time to expand your class’s ability to use English. Always throughout the week check the news, there’s always an interesting article that can be brought up in the class. This can take from 5 minutes to the whole 50 minutes depending on whether the students are able to talk freely about the article.
  3. Introduce new words. Focus on spelling, meaning and pronunciation of the words.

 

Part 2 focuses on using the words and sentences in a real-life scenario through dialogues and monologues. If there’s time left at the end of the class, always have a worksheet prepared which focuses on spelling and/or comprehension.

Let’s take a look at how this can be written up into a lesson plan. Usually, schools will hand teachers their own lesson plan formats. This is my style which can be adapted for any other lesson plan format. Take note that the following lesson plan is quite detailed. It’s important for new teachers to create detailed lesson plans in order to get familiar with the steps and aspects that are involved when teaching. As you become more experienced, you will need to include less and less detail until you get to the point where a few bullet points are all that is necessary. However remember, this doesn’t mean I put any less effort and time in preparing for the class.

 

 

Lesson Plan

Key vocab: next to, behind, above, under, in front of, inside

Key grammar: prepositions

Context: places in a city

Dialogue:         Q) Where’s the (place in a city).

  1. It’s (preposition) the (place in a city).

 

Classroom goal: Students will be able to ask and direct others to places in a city

Anticipated problems: Students may mix up the meaning of different prepositions

Solution: Spend more time with the prepositions and use plenty of examples to ensure comprehension

Function Description Student Activity Estimated time
Starter

(listening activity)

 Students watch a video clip from ‘A nightmare before Christmas’ and must draw a line every time they hear ‘What’s this?’ Individual 5 mins
NEWS (speaking/free talk activity) The above picture will slowly be revealed to students who must guess what today’s news is about? Use Wh questions to elicit the story if students are struggling to describe the scenario. Afterwards, look at the people’s expressions and review words to describe the emotions the people are experiencing e.g. surprised, scared, and calm. Group-based <20 mins
Key Vocab Elicit key vocab through actions. Play ‘British Bulldog’ to practice pronunciation and ensure comprehension. This will be done by presenting flashcard images depicting prepositions, the students must then say the correct preposition that follows the picture. Group activity 10 mins
Comprehension of key vocab I will create a PowerPoint presentation with images of objects in certain positions depicting a preposition. We will play the ‘buzz game’. In pairs, one student is sitting whilst the other is standing behind. One student places another object in relation to another object, if a student who is standing knows the preposition, he or she will squeeze their partner’s shoulders who will then make a buzz sound. The first student to buzz, the student standing behind can then say the answer and if correct the pair get a point. Group activity 15 mins
Break Play a Mr. Bean video so that students are entertained and remain seated and do not run around the classroom. Individual 10 mins
Starter Re-tell the story of Mr. Bean by going around the class, each student says one sentence to string the story together. Keep going until one student can no longer say a sentence (for higher levels, let them try to predict the future – what will Mr. Bean do afterwards) Group activity 5 mins
Introduce key sentences Elicit the sentence:

A)  The pen is behind the chair.

Elicit the answer:

Q) Where is the pen?

In teams of five, we will play a PowerPoint game in which there are five different coloured cars. A student will place an object in relation to another object and ask the class a question. The first team who can correctly say the sentence, their car moves forward one step. The first car to reach the finish line wins.

 Group activity 10 mins
Review places in a city In two teams, give the students 2 minutes to write down as many places in a city that they can remember. Then mind map the places on the whiteboard by doing a relay race. Each person in the team runs to the whiteboard and writes one place in a city. They have two minutes to complete the race, the team with the most places written down after two minutes wins. I will then go through the places to check for comprehension and pronunciation. Team activity 5 mins
Preparation for the main activity I will present a map on the whiteboard, we will then go through the new questions and answers:

Q) Where is the train station?

A) The train station is above the supermarket.

I will get each student to ask another student a similar question to make sure they all understand the dialogue.

 Group activity 5 mins
Main activity Students will sit in two lines facing each other, similar to a speed dating activity. One half of the class will have a pre-made map, the other will have lists of places. When I say go, students with the places will have thirty seconds to ask the opposite student with the map where these places are and write them down on their worksheet. After thirty seconds, the students with the map will move to their left so that the students are faced with a new partner. This continues until one student has successfully completed their worksheet and knows where all the places are in the city. He or she is the winner. The roles of the students are then swapped and a new pre-made map is given.   15 mins
Worksheet In pairs, students complete the given worksheet which has the keywords and pictures of a monkey in relation to a box. The students must write the correct sentence next to the image, the first pair to finish wins. Pair activity 10 mins
Filler Tinglish – a game in which we go around the classroom, each student says a number counting up from 1, however one student will say it in English, the next in their native tongue, the next in English, the next in their native tongue and so forth until one student messes up and we go back to the beginning. I will set a target of 100. If as a class we can reach 100 without anyone messing up, everyone will get 2 points. Group activity 5 mins

 

Unique materials and media to to use in the classroom.

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As a teacher, our aim again is to be engaging and provide entertainment for the students so that as a consequence, they learn English. As a teacher, everything that exists in the world is yours to utilize in the classroom – literally: magazines, CD’s, clothes, foods, drinks, books, technology, art, toys, toy weapons etc. Anything and everything can be utilized for the classroom.

This includes board games such as Monopoly, Cluedo, Jenga, Dominoes, Rummy Cube, Chopsticks, Chess and almost every other game that exists. Cards can also be used in the class, games such as ‘liar’ and ‘snap’ can be played fitted to suit your topic of the day. Ring of Fire (or King’s Cup) is one of my favourite drinking games that can easily be adapted for the classroom (see higher level games). Cards are of course not just restricted to a classic deck of playing cards, but you could also use Uno or Top Trumps.

In short, what I’m trying to convey is to never be afraid of trying something new with your students, they’ll love you for it. And if it fails – never mind, either don’t do it again or see where it went wrong and try to improve it for next time. Go to supermarkets, look in the toy and games section for your younger kids. Go to a game store, look online for games. Hell, I’ve even played solitaire on the computer in class – my excuse was that I was practising ordinal numbers: each column had an ordinal number, and students had to say the ordinal number of the columns they want to move the cards to e.g. 6th Q to 3rd K.

When it comes to the classroom – if there’s a will, there’s a way. Be creative! Even make your own board games with your own rules, the sky is the limit.  Now you’re a teacher, an entertainer, an anthropologist and a game designer!

The only strict rule however is – the students cannot speak their native tongue!! Whichever game you’re playing, if they speak their native tongue, simply punish them in accordance with the rules of that game.

NEWS: How to utilise NEWS reports into the classroom.

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News is an important medium to use in class as not only does it expose students to the affairs of the outside world, but it offers you and the students the chance to engage in free talk. Almost all classroom English revolves around a given structure, template, or a whiteboard dialogue. Unless one is a politician or an actor, people rarely ever plan what they are going to say, we are constantly improvising as we speak. This is why free talk is vital for students between 9-10 years and above. It’s a chance to practice speaking freely in a controlled environment. It’s also a chance for students to incorporate everything they have ever learnt into real-time speaking, a task that is much harder than you think for language learners.

If a language learner wants to say something, it’s easy if you give them time to think how to say it – but when speaking one does not have the whole day to wait for someone to get their thoughts across to you.  That´s why it’s important to practice free and improvised talking as much as you can because, as they say: practice makes perfect.

Free talk is also useful for the teacher to analyze where the students excel at, where they are weak at, who is stronger at speaking naturally and who is less confident. In free talk, grammar points come up that you may never officially teach such as conditionals, but if you see it’s something important and the students can’t use it effectively, take note of that and incorporate conditionals in the next class.

In China, the students are very closed-minded and ignorant of the world (a ploy of the Chinese government to control their population). Students have limited to no knowledge of geography. They know certain countries exist, but from there they’re hopeless. I once did an activity where students had to figure out, on a globe, where certain countries where. I promise I’m not lying, they genuinely thought that US borders with Iraq. Later in the class, I began to ask them about distances and how far away they think places are from China. Needless to say, their answers were not correct. I eventually moved on from distances between China and other countries and began expanding upon the universe. I asked them how far they thought Alpha Centauri is (after our Sun, it’s the closest star to us). At first, they thought it is just a few days away!

Using the news in your class allows you to touch and expand upon subjects that may otherwise never be mentioned in the school syllabus or even ever in your students’ lives. It’s also important for students to be aware of which countries speak English, their different accents and the differences in cultures. You’re not just teaching your students English, you’re teaching them the culture and traditions that come with English.

It’s vital however to be aware that religion and politics are best (or always) avoided. Not just because of the government, but also because they’re still children and too young to be interested in or really understand such topics.

I usually spend around 5 – 15 minutes (depending on how well the students are reacting) on the news at the beginning of every class. As a teacher, every day you browse through the net, searching for the perfect news article for that week. Try to vary between international, national and local news.

When first introducing news to your students, a nice little thing I like to do is pretending ‘NEWS’ is an acronym:

N = North

E = East

W = West

S = South

Even though this is not true (at least I don’t think so), it works well for the students to remember the spelling and also to memorize these directions. When teaching, there will be many aspects where one must create their own little rule or way of explaining something so that students can remember. It doesn’t need to be true, just memorable.

For example, I once had a class that could never remember to add an ‘and’ before the last object in a list.

It’s all very well teaching students that when listing things, we use commas between each word or phrase, however, English adds an  ‘and’ before the last object on a list. It’s important to explain this to the students, but it’s also important to accept that they will easily forget this as you have not made it stick to their minds. What I did for this, as an example, was, I got the students to start saying a list quietly, and (like a teapot boiling or an orchestral performance of  ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’) as they progressed through the list they started to get louder and louder until they reach the last word object in the list and like a clash of symbols, they shouted ‘AND  …….’! Now they all remember to add an ‘and’ before the last object in a list.

 

Now back to the topic of news, here is a step by step guide on how to present news to your class, there are of course infinite ways of doing anything when teaching, this is simply a method that has proven fruitful for me.

 

  1. Choose the article – Choose the perfect article, there is no strict guideline as to what a good article may be. Simply put, if you think the students will enjoy reading the article and that there will be plenty to discuss about it, then that should be enough. Remember not to choose anything that deals with religion or politics.
  2. Re-write – Often the article will have tons of hard vocab that the students won’t know. The article will be overloaded with unnecessary information and will be too long and tedious to read in class. This is why it’s important to re-write the article so that you can control what language is used in the article. Don’t be afraid to include new words for your students, just limit it to about 5 new words and always prepare a way to explain the meanings of the words to your students.
  3. Present a picture – make sure a picture is included with the article, a picture that either sums up the whole article or is a bit of a cliff-hanger intriguing the students to want to know more. Before exposing your students to the article, first show them the picture. I often use a ‘reveal the boxes’ style PowerPoint presentation. This way a part of the picture is slowly revealed and the students can try to guess what is happening and what today’s news is about.
  4. Story Chart – now the picture is revealed you can create a story chart to figure out what they think the news is going to be about.
  5. Read the article – just like your first read in a reading class, get one student to read one sentence and then pick another student to continue reading another sentence.
  6. Questions & Free Talk – if possible get students to ask each other questions about the article. However, as this could be quite challenging, this is the one time the teacher can be excused for creating and asking the students questions which aim to boost the students’ confidence and naturally leads to free talk.
  7. Comprehension & Writing (optional) – include a comprehension worksheet. The best thing though would be to give your students the worksheet for homework as you don’t want to eat too much of your class time.

 

Whilst I have spent two hours sometimes doing the news, you should aim to keep it up to 10 – 15 minutes long. However, if it is going well and the students are interested, learning and are peaking constructively: then why stop them?

Using Film and Music

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I have never been a huge fan of using music during class. When it comes to singing songs, they’re great with little pre-school students but with older students, all they’re doing is repeating and memorizing words. There’s no creativity involved.

Despite saying that, music is perfect for listening activities: students can either listen to a song whilst listening for keywords or, try to write down as many words as they can understand. For higher-level students, they can even have to try to figure out the story that is being told in the song.

Music can also be a great way to focus on syntax by giving students pieces of paper with the lyrics on them and students must listen to the song and put the lyrics in the correct order.

Film, on the other hand, is my favourite use of media in class – so much can be done using film and with so many ages.

Even with your pre-school students, films can be a useful tool for eliciting vocab and sentences. To give an example: once I was teaching my 3-year-olds the following vocab: cars, road, toys, toy shop, person, people, sky, clouds and the sun.

So I threw on Toy Story 2. There is a scene where the toys try to cross the road in order to get to the toy shop on the other side, meanwhile they unknowingly creating chaos on the road. This is a perfect clip to show to the students as it has every word I needed to teach. Every second or so I would pause the clip and get a student to tell me what they can see.

Movie clips are also great for eliciting descriptions and getting students to give a descriptive speech. In a different higher level class, I was teaching animals and the focus was to get students to be able to describe the animals. So I threw on the opening scene of ‘The Lion King’.

Before the film started I got one of the students to the front of the class and told the class this student was a panda. They all laughed and I asked the students how we can describe a panda. The whiteboard looked something like this:

A Panda

It has (colour) (type of skin):          It has black and white fur

It has (number) (body parts):        It has four legs

It is (size):                                          It is big

It is (adjective):                                 It is lazy

It eats:                                              It eats bamboo

It can (verb):                                   It can sleep all day

 

Then I played the clip of Lion King and once again I would pause every other second or so when a new animal would appear on screen and get a student to describe that animal using the description template on the whiteboard.

 

Films can also be a great way to practice grammar. Let’s say I’m teaching the present continuous (pronoun + to be verb + verb ing). What activity could I do to teach this grammar that also incorporates using a film? How about this game:

 

Storyboard         

Present the class with a short storyboard consisting of 6 – 10 pictures. They can be still shots from a film, cartoon, comic book etc. Then set the class the challenge of eliciting the story from those pictures by writing a sentence or two about each picture.

Let me explain in more detail how I would exactly execute this game:

Firstly, I will find a film with an interesting 2-3 minute clip and then print screen 6 – 10 frames from that clip. Choose the perfect screenshots that best describe the clip and paste them onto a PowerPoint presentation or into a word doc.

Once, when I was teaching present continuous, I used a clip from Christopher Reeve´s Superman film where Louis Lane falls from a helicopter that is stuck on the top of a skyscraper and superman makes his first public appearance by flying to Louise Lane’s rescue:

 

As each picture is presented to the class, the students must write a sentence or two about what is happening in the picture using the grammar that is being taught i.e.

The helicopter is on fire, it is leaning over the building.

The italic section shows where the student has included the present continuous tense in their sentence.

After each picture frame, the students each read their sentences and the student with the most interesting sentence gets a point.

For higher levels, films can be used as the center point for an entire class. The aim of using films in class is to focus on listening, comprehension and storytelling.

One must first find a good clip with plenty of dialogue that is also appropriate to the students’ English capabilities. Below is a step by step guide of how to use film to accomplish these above goals:

 

  1. Watch the clip yourself at home and jot down any vocab that your students will not know.
  2. At the beginning of the class before you show the clip of the film, elicit and introduce the words you think the students won’t know.
  3. The first time you play the clip from the movie, turn the monitor off and play the clip so that only the sound is present. Students jot down as many words/sentences as they can hear. Mind map on the whiteboard all the words/sentences the students heard.
  4. Afterwards, turn the monitor on and play the clip without Students meanwhile jot down any words or sentences they can hear excluding the words/sentences already mind-mapped on the whiteboard. At the end of the clip, add any new words or sentences the students have heard, to the whiteboard.
  5. Next, either as a class or in pairs, create a story chart.
  6. Once finished with the story chart, play the clip again but, add English subtitles this time. Hopefully, the students will now have a complete grasp of what is happening in the clip. Go through the story chart and see how accurate they were.
  7. Questions – In teams, students write up to five questions for each other team about the clip. They then swap questions and answer each other’s questions. The first team to answer all the questions correctly wins.
  8. Storytelling – Students create a new story as to what they think might happens next.
  9. (optional) If time, give students a comprehension worksheet relating to the clip. Whilst you may find some worksheets online for the movie you are showing, it’s always better to write your own worksheet for your students, as only you know your students’ ability and can therefore adjust the questions appropriately.
  10. As homework, ask the students to watch the entire film at home (there are so many websites that can buffer movies or even download them). Next class, you can start with a discussion about what they thought about the film.

Speaking is but storytelling: how to use storytelling in the classroom.

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Once students are familiar with the past tense or even once they are able to speak in connected sentences, storytelling becomes an integral part of learning English. When people speak, we generally don’t speak in dialogues; you don’t ask your friend a question, then he replies and asks you a question, you reply then ask him a question and so forth. Usually, we tell each other stories. This can simply be what you did yesterday, how your last holiday went, what you’re going to do next weekend etc. This is why storytelling is so vital to learning a language and often under-appreciated by so many teachers.

But how do you get students to speak and tell each other stories, to use their imagination and to use every aspect of English they’ve learnt to create intricate and interesting tales?

The first thing to do is to provide students with a backdrop. If you just throw students into the deep water and tell them to write, think or tell a story; they will drown in the struggle to create the background for a story and will henceforth struggle to get their thoughts out into words.

You can prevent this by providing them with a foundation by either creating a story chart as a class, or you can use an already existing story chart from a movie, cartoon, book, or comic book etc. Let´s say we use the first Indiana Jones film as an example to create a story chart; this is how it would look like:

 

Characters (who): Indiana Jones, his girlfriend, his friend, bad soldiers.

Setting (where): Egypt – a desert.

Time (when): 50 years ago.

Problem (what): Indiana wants to find the arc before the soldiers find it.

 

Now you have your characters, setting, time and dilemma. Now the students have the background to be able to begin creating a story from, which is much easier for them than starting from scratch. Alternatively, you can create your own story chart from scratch. The key point to understand here is to never dive into making a story with your students before you have created a clear story chart.

At this point, as a teacher, you must use everything you have at your disposal. Like a formula one car: it is equipped with a powerful engine; an aerodynamic carbon-fibre framework; a state of the art computer system and top range tires. But simply having all these amazing aspects is not enough; the true art is to be able to successfully utilize everything available to the driver during the race in order to win.

This is not so different when teaching: you have games, activities, PowerPoints, films, music, cards, books, pictures, comic books and so much more in your arsenal. However, when you are getting students to tell stories, you must successfully utilize all these teaching weapons in order to get students speaking and writing creatively and confidently.

Below are a few games and activities that work really well for storytelling.

 

New from Old

Students replace words within an already written story to make a new story. Students can change the people, the actions or the settings.

E.g. Mr Alex went swimming in the ocean but suddenly saw something that scared him.

A student can change this sentence to something like: An elephant went swimming in a public swimming pool but suddenly saw something that excited him.

Get each student to read a sentence one by one, and each student must change at least one word in the story. Have an electronic copy of the story on the whiteboard for the students to read from and change it as the students change the words. In the end, read the new story with the class. This is guaranteed to generate laughter in the classroom.

 

Replaceable Parts

Get a student to lie on the ground and then draw an outline of their body on the floor so that you are left with a body outline on the classroom floor. Then give students three separate pieces of paper in which they must write the beginning of a story, the middle and the end (for lower levels, the students can write one or two sentences for each part of the story). Afterwards, place all the pieces of paper with the beginnings of the students’ stories at the feet section of the body outline, all the middle parts in the middle of the body and all the pieces of paper with the ends of the stories at the head of the body. Students then come one by one and choose a piece of paper from each section and read it aloud. By mixing parts of different stories up, the outcome is usually quite hilarious and it’s a good way to practice writing, reading, speaking, listening and storytelling.

 

Verb Story

Divide the class into two or three teams and get each team to write 5 – 10 verbs. The teams then pass their list of verbs to the other team. The teams must then use their new list of verbs to write a short story incorporating all the verbs (in the appropriate tense) into their story. The team with the most interesting story wins – however they must have used every verb on their list in their story.

 

Object Story

Fill a bag with random objects. Students sit in a circle. One student starts with the bag, takes out one of the objects and must create a sentence that could be developed into a story; the object they have taken out must be mentioned in their sentence. That student passes the bag to the next student who also picks out a random object and then must continue the story with one or two sentences which must also mention their object. Keep going until the bag is empty and there are no more objects left.

 

Verb Cards Story

Students sit in a circle and each holds four to ten pieces of paper with a verb written on each one. The students, one by one, create a sentence that fits within the story being told. Each time they use one of the verbs on their pieces of paper in a sentence, they can discard that piece of paper. The winner is the first player to have no more pieces of paper.

 

One Word Stories

Students sit in a circle and go one by one around the class, each saying one word that enables a story to be told. If a student says a word that finishes the story or says a word that clearly doesn’t make sense or doesn´t fit in with the story, that student loses a point. Once the story has gone around the circle two or three times, you can then let the students finish the story.

 

One Sentence Stories

Students sit in a circle and go one by one around the class, each saying one sentence that enables a story to be told. If a student creates a sentence that finishes the story or says a sentence that clearly doesn’t make sense or fits in with the story, that student loses a point. Once the story has gone around the circle two or three times, you can then let the students finish the story.

 

Comic Book

Prepare enough photocopies of a page from a comic book for every student. Also, prepare another photocopy of the comic book page for every student, however this time, make sure that there is no writing on the page, this means that all the speech bubbles and descriptions should be erased.

There are two ways to play this: Either, You can first allow the students to read the original page of the comic book to get an idea of what is happening and then hand out the erased version. You then set the students the task of filling the blank speech bubbles in, but with their own story. Or, you can give the students the erased version first, let them fill it in with their own stories and then hand them the original copy to compare their stories. I prefer the second version as it allows students to think more creatively and for themselves.

 

Storyboard         

Present the class with a short storyboard of 6 – 10 pictures. They can be snapshots from a film, cartoon, comic book etc. Then set the class the challenge to elicit the story from those pictures by writing a sentence or two about each picture.

 

So…But                                 

The class sits in a circle and the teacher begins by saying the first sentence of a story, the teacher ends the sentence by exaggerating the word ‘so…’. The next student says another sentence that continues the story, but they must start the sentence with an exaggerated ‘so…’, and they must finish their sentence with an exaggerated ‘but…’. The next student says a sentence that continues the story, however, they will start the sentence with an exaggerated ‘but…’, and end their sentence with an exaggerated ‘so…’.

Continue the activity until it comes to a natural end or after a period of time (no more than five-ten minutes) you can tell the next student to create a sentence that finishes the story.

It should resemble something along the lines of:

Teacher: A dragon was flying in the air when he saw another dragon so….

Student 1: so he wanted to say hi, but…

Student 3: but the other dragon was very angry and wanted to eat him so….

Student 4: so the dragon flew down to the ground but…

 

When Suddenly

This game is played in the exact same way as the previous game ‘So…but’. The only difference is that instead of students saying ‘so’ and ‘but’, replace these two words with ‘when suddenly’ i.e.

Teacher: A dragon was flying in the air when he saw another dragon when suddenly….

Student 1: when suddenly the dragon flew towards him, when suddenly…

Student 3: when suddenly the other dragon was very angry and wanted to eat him when suddenly….

Student 4: when suddenly the dragon flew down to the ground when suddenly…

 

***

 

 

Stories are the oldest form of communication between humans. Before the printing press, films and the internet developed; our ancestors had to think creatively how to tell stories other than by the word of mouth.

Our ancient civilizations told stories using paintings, tattoos, cave art, sarcophaguses, stone carvings, writing on leaves, sheepskin, smoke, dancing, music, singing, papyrus and much more. Like our ancestors, when practising storytelling with your students, you have to be imaginative and create exciting new methods for getting students to tell stories to each other – as your ancient ancestors did.  At this point, you have progressed from being a teacher and an entertainer – you are also now an anthropologist!

PowerPoint Presentations (PPTs)

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If whiteboards are the bread and butter of teaching, then power points are surely your knife and fork. If you are unfamiliar with PowerPoint, I suggest you go on YouTube and spend a little time researching how to use simple functions of PowerPoint such as creating transition, animation, adding sound and pictures etc. PowerPoints offer infinite uses and are fun, interactive and informative for pupils.

Firstly, PowerPoints can help you to elicit vocab. I once sat in on a teacher who had prepared a fun class in which the students would learn how to make a cake. But first, he wanted them to write the recipe and in order to do that, he tried to explain the ingredients. Now imagine trying to explain words like vanilla flavouring, baking soda, cocoa powder etc. He spent the entire class trying to go through the ingredients and explain what they meant, the kids sat there for an hour and were utterly confused and bored out of their minds. This was a shame as he had prepared a fun class, but had completely lost the students at the beginning and had wasted the entire class explaining these food products.

The best thing he could have done was to have brought the actual products into class, however for whatever reason, sometimes you cannot always bring the real object into class (especially if your keywords are things like landmarks such as the Eiffel tower). Instead, the teacher could have created a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of the ingredients. In less than a second, the students would have understood what he was talking about and he would have had plenty of time to get the student to write the recipe and bake the cake.

An additional and brilliant use of a PowerPoint is to play games. Below I will present some screenshots of several different PowerPoint games I use in class and I will, of course, explain how to use them. All of the PowerPoints below are included in the TEFL Survival Kit (see TEFL Survival Kit chapter), including many many more!

 

 

 

For lower-level students (3-7 years), PowerPoints not only serve as a great way to elicit and show pictures of the key vocab being taught but can also be used to create cool and interactive animation games. Below is one of my favourite PPT animation games I would use with lower-level students:

 

A student will first choose a letter. Once they select the letter the PowerPoint takes them to a slide where you can either have typed a question before the class, ask a question or simply show your students a flashcard and they must say the appropriate word or sentence. The student then clicks on the red man which will cause the screen to divert to an animation clip where students receive a certain amount of points. There are a variety of slides with other animations where Mario performs stunts and is awarded additional points.

This is a great way to kill an hour of the class while keeping the students civilized and yet excited and once again – tricked into learning English.

 

Here’s another great PowerPoint game for younger students (all these PowerPoints are included in the TEFL Survival Kit):

 

Students listen to the princess singing the name of a colour, one student then runs to the whiteboard and clicks on the colour that is being sung. The catapult then swings a rock at the door cracking it a bit. This repeats for about 10-15 slides until the door is fully broken and the prince saves the damsel in distress.

 

For higher-level students, PowerPoints are a great way to get students to complete dialogues, monologues, review topics, create and ask each other questions. The most important function for PowerPoints for both younger and older students is that they provide motivation to learn English.

Below is a game that reviews several topics based on the television game Jeopardy.

 

Remember that once you teach students something you have to constantly review it and incorporate it into your new classes otherwise your students will forget everything you’ve taught them and simply won’t learn anything!

In this game you divide the students into teams, one student comes up and chooses a category and then for how many points (represented by dollars), the higher the points the harder the questions. Let’s say a student chooses body for 100 points. They will be diverted to this screen:

 

 

If the student can answer the question, their team receives 100 points. These particular questions are best suited for lower-level students. But just as with everything in teaching, you can adapt any PPT to match the level of your students. Below is an example of the same game but adapted for higher levels:

 

Let’s say a student chooses the category describing for 200 points, they may be faced with a slide such as:

 

For a reading class, once you have reached the point in the class when students have written their questions based on the text (see Reading chapter) and are ready to ask the other team their questions, a PowerPoint such as the following one can be used:

This PowerPoint game is based on the popular TV show ‘Deal or No Deal’. A student asks the other team member a question if they get it right that student can choose a number; let’s say they choose the number 12. They would then be presented with the following slide:

 

For lower-level students, the $7 would indicate how many points their team receives. For higher-level students, I would play it in the same way the show does: the $7 means that the team cannot win 7 points. The two teams keep going until they end up at the last two boxes which represent how many points the teams receive.

Watching TV shows can be argued as doing homework for teachers as practically any game show can be adapted and created using PowerPoint for the purpose of teaching. One of my favourite game shows to watch was ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’, so I created a PowerPoint game of the show in which I used it to review the Ocean with one of my higher-level classes:

 

 

Remember this golden rule: your job is to trick the students into learning English by entertaining them. PowerPoints can help you do this.

If you’re teaching a few simple prepositions such as above, under, beside, in front of, and behind; all you have to do is get the students to be able to say the correct preposition in relation to an object. Now how can you get the students to enjoy doing that? Here’s when a PowerPoint will swoop in and save you valuable lesson planning time and stop you from pulling your hair out, trying to think of how to get students to recite and learn these prepositions. Below is a screenshot from a PowerPoint game that I love to use when having to make students practice and recite simple sentences/dialogues:

 

 

To play this PowerPoint first divide the class into five teams, one team for each colour. Then get a student to come to the front, he or she holds two objects in relation to each other such as a pencil and a sharpener, then asks, ‘Where is the pencil?’ The first team that says the correct sentence can move their team’s car one step forward. The first team to cross the finish line wins. It’s always important to rig games and to allow every child equal opportunity to answer (so it’s not always the first person to put their hand up who gets to answer) so that one team does not thrash all the other teams. As with every game, ensure you create classroom atmosphere and drama (such as how a TV game host does). At the end of this PowerPoint game, once a team has won (in this case the yellow team has won), it should end up looking something like this:

 

Remember one of the goals for the first class with your students was to be able to get them to be comfortable answering questions with you. We do this by teaching and practising the following dialogue:

  1. Q) Do you know?
  2. Yes, I know/No I don’t know.

 

Another way to practice this dialogue other than switching between asking simple questions and speaking gibberish to your students; is to use a PowerPoint game called ‘Reveal the Boxes’. This game can also be used as a starter/filler or to review topic vocab.

To play this PowerPoint game, one student comes up to the front of the class, asks the others if they know what the picture behind the boxes is. At first, the students should answer that they don´t know. Each team the student reveals a part of the picture he or she asks the class whether they know what the picture is. Eventually, as more and more boxes are revealed, someone in the class will eventually be able to guess correctly what the picture is. This is an example of how the game could pan out (can you guess what the picture behind the box is?):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The answer is: a monkey.

 

A further use for a PowerPoint in class is to create an interesting timer. So many games, activities, writing, worksheets and even simply undertaking tasks such as cleaning the classroom can involve giving the students a set period of time to accomplish them by. Rather than keeping track of the time with your watch or phone, you make the tasks more exciting by using a PowerPoint as a timer. It adds colour and excitement to the classroom and the children themselves can all keep track of the time they have left to finish their task. It also provides children, who are more fidgety and unable to calmly complete tasks, with a visual stimulant. Below is an example screenshot of a timer countdown PowerPoint that I sometimes use:

A vital rule to learn, that is included in the Golden Rules list, is called the 6 Month Rule. This means that once you have played a game or activity, do not play it again for at least six months. Each class you should present the students with new games and activities in order to create variety which in turn keeps the students excited and engaged.

This rule applies also to PowerPoint games, including to some degree with timer countdowns. Now, this you should use a timer countdown once every 6 months. On the contrary, I encourage you to always use this PowerPoint in every class whenever need be. Instead, what you must change, every week, month or so, is the design. Keep the background picture fresh and possibly related to animated films or whatever the students are interested in.

The 4 Language skills: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing.

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Speaking, listening, writing and reading are the four language skills that determine a person’s capability at utilizing a language. When writing a lesson plan and preparing for a class, always keep in mind that you should aim to incorporate at least 3 of the 4 language skills in that class.

 

Speaking

Speaking is our primary way of communicating. This language skill is the most important of the four. It´s vital to ensure that every student if offered an equal amount of time to speak in each class. Speaking can be utilized through monologues, dialogues, describing, creating and answering questions. Speaking should be allocated the most amount of time within the class. Just always make sure that the students are doing most of the speaking and not you! Throughout the class, you should aim for at least a 60-40 student-teacher speaking ratio. Towards the end of your class when you undertake monologues and dialogues, you should aim for a 100-0 student-teacher speaking ratio.

 

Listening

Using film and music during class is a great way to practice the students’ listening skills, but we shall go into more detail on how to use film and music in a later chapter. Listening is best utilized whilst one student is speaking or completing an activity so that the other students have something to do.

 

Reading

We already looked into why reading is so important and how to teach a reading class. However, there is another reason why reading is very important. A teacher is only as good as their students’ parents believe they are. When a parent who doesn’t speak English wants to analyze their child’s ability and progress, all they can do is open an English book and ask their child to read a passage from it. Depending on how well they read, the parent will judge your teaching ability – and depending on how the parents judge and regard you, your school will also base their judgement of your teaching skills. If your students are amazing at listening and speaking but can’t read very well, the parents who don´t speak English will believe that you’re a bad teacher and their student simply isn’t progressing well enough. They will inevitably complain to the managers about you and then you will certainly have a problem. So for this reason if you have four classes a month with your students, allocate at least one of these classes to reading; if you have 8 classes a month then allocate two classes a month to reading etc.

 

Writing

With young beginners and little pre-school students, start with the basics. Focus on the alphabet and getting the students to progress from tracing letters to freestyle handwriting. Get little children to practice recognizing letters. This can be done by filling out worksheets such as connect the dots or a maze/labyrinth style worksheet where students must connect the letters of the alphabet in order to get out of the maze. Once students are familiar with letters, progress to words and sentences. Follow the same procedure as letters: first, get them to trace the words and sentences and then progressively in time get them to write sentences free hand.

Use the last 10 to 15 minutes to do writing because this is the point in the class where children are the most restless. By using this time of the lesson to write, the children are seated and calm. While your students are working, go to each student and get them to practice reading what it is they’re tracing/writing.

It’s important to add that even if your students haven’t progressed to writing and reading words, you should always ensure that they can write their name. Start this from day 1 with them by just helping them to spell their name and say it. By doing this at the start of every class, the students will begin to recognize the letters used to spell their name and the order in which they appear; and after a month or so they will be able to spell their own name.

For higher-level students, writing becomes a far more integral part of their learning. Similarly to younger students, writing can be focused on by using a worksheet towards the end of the class that reflects and summarizes the content you have taught during that class.

In addition, whilst you should still incorporate writing by using worksheets (in class and/or as homework), you should start to condition your students to write throughout the class. For example, if you need to quickly elicit a few verbs, firstly put the students into teams and challenge the teams to write as many verbs as they can. Alternatively, you can get your pupils to do a relay race in which one by one they run to the whiteboard, write a verb, run back to their team and high five the next person who runs to the whiteboard writes a verb and runs back to the team – the first team to finish wins. By doing these little exercises, the students are constantly practising their writing skills.

For really advanced students, you should begin to get them to write short length stories incorporating a beginning, middle and end. We shall look into this in more detail in the storytelling chapter.

Games and activities: Starters and Fillers to begin and end the class.

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Often at the beginning of the class, you and your students may feel a little groggy, sleepy or not quite ready for class time. Starters serve to help you and your students wake up, get in a great mood and have some fun before the class begins.

Fillers are just as important as starters, they are vital to prepare as it’s difficult to calculate how much of your lesson plan you will get done in your class. More often than not, you will usually finish and have only completed 2 thirds or even half of your lesson plan. However, on some days, your students are either powering through your activities or some of your activities just aren’t working well so you have to skip these activities. By doing this, you will power through your lesson plan and have ten or even twenty minutes left until the end of the class, with nothing prepared. What do you do in those ten minutes? If you haven’t prepared fillers than these moments can be incredibly awkward for yourself and your students. Some teachers can improvise on the spot, but I was never one of them.

Additionally, you may have finished two-thirds of your class and the next activity would take a good half an hour but you only have time minutes left. It´s not enough time to start your next activity, this is the perfect time to have a filler prepared. My suggestion to you is to always have two or three fillers prepared; if you don’t use them that class, you have them already prepared for your next class.

Below is a list of some starters and fillers, they are divided into two sections. The first section is to make the brain’s juices flow. These type of games are best used when students have energy but just can’t switch on their thinking caps. These activities do exactly that, they lower the students’ hyperactive levels and increase their thinking and sends more blood to their brain.

The second section lists starters and fillers that get the students up, moving and their blood flowing. These games are best used for those Monday mornings when the rain is pouring and all anyone wants to do is get back into bed.

 

Section 1: Making the brain think

 

Left or Right                          /counting/   

This is a counting activity, the faster the game is, the better it is. It can be done in many different ways such as:

  • counting up i.e. 1,2,3,4
  • counting down i.e. 100,99,98 etc
  • counting in multiples i.e. 5,10,15,20

Students stand in a circle and begin counting, each student saying the correct number as they go around in a circle. However each time a student says a number, they must immediately use their left or right hand to show which student will continue counting – the student on their left or the student on their right. If the student they chose hesitates or says the wrong number, they are out.

 

Scramble                                /spelling/

Write a list of words on the whiteboard (appropriate to your subject matter), scramble the letters within the words i.e. rpepa, grniaed, rtolhepeic (paper, reading, helicopter).

The students must race to figure out the correct word, the first student to write all the correct words win a point.

 

Odd One Out                         /vocab, thinking/

Write three or four words on the whiteboard, these words must have a connection or be part of the same category except for one random word. Students must circle the odd word out:

Horse Cake Bird

Five to ten of these examples will suffice for the students and give them a time limit to complete the task.

 

Make Words                          /spelling/

Allow the students to choose ten random letters (they must have at least one vowel) and write them on the whiteboard. Students have three to five minutes to make as many words as they can from those letters. Reward two students at the end – the one with the most words and the one with the longest word.

 

Last & First Letter                  /spelling, vocab/

Students sit or stand in a circle. The teacher starts by saying a word, the next student in the circle must make a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word e.g. bus, sand, dice. If a student cannot think of a word or takes too long, they must pay a penalty fee.

 

Associates                                /vocab/       

Students sit or stand in a circle. The teacher starts by saying a word, the next student in the circle must think of a word that associates with the previous word e.g. pink, pig, bird, flying, superman, alien etc. If a student cannot think of a word or takes too long, they must pay a penalty fee.

 

Riddles                                    /thinking/   

Before class, write a riddle on the whiteboard so that when students enter the class they will clearly see the riddle and even before class begins, the students will begin talking amongst themselves about the riddle. The first student to get the answer to the riddle wins. I won’t list any riddles as the internet is overfilled with English riddles and you can easily find many just by searching online.

 

Air Writing                                      /spelling, letters/

A student writes a word in the air, the other students must try to guess what the word is. The first student to guess correctly gets a point and comes to the front of the class and writes a new word in the air for the other students to guess. Make sure that the student who is writing has their back faced to the students, that way they will write left to right.

 

Mixed Sentences                     /syntax, writing/

Before class, write a few mixed-up sentences on the whiteboard, be sure to separate each word and punctuation mark with a slash.

For example: rainy/it’s/today/a/day/./

This becomes: It’s a rainy day today.

Do not allow students to see the words until they begin the task (so cover up the sentences on the whiteboard). Set the students the task of writing the sentences correctly under a time limit (three to five minutes). They must include proper capitalization and punctuation when writing the correct sentences. The first student to write all the sentences correctly wins.

 

21                                            /counting/

Students stand in a circle and begin counting up from 1 in a circle. Each student can say up to three numbers on each turn. When a student is forced to say 21, they lose and must sit out. Continue the game until only one student is left standing.

 

So…But                                  /story/

The class sits in a circle and the teacher begins by saying the first sentence of a story, the teacher ends the sentence by exaggerating the word ‘so…’. The next student says another sentence that continues the story, but they must start the sentence with an exaggerated ‘so…’, and they must finish their sentence with an exaggerated ‘but…’. The next student says a sentence that continues the story, however, they will start the sentence with an exaggerated ‘but…’, and end their sentence with an exaggerated ‘so…’.

Continue the activity until it comes to a natural end or after a period of time (no more than five-ten minutes) you can tell the next student to create a sentence that finishes the story.

It should resemble something along the lines of:

Teacher: A dragon was flying in the air when he saw another dragon so….

Student 1: so he wanted to say hi, but…

Student 3: but the other dragon was very angry and wanted to eat him so….

Student 4: so the dragon flew down to the ground but…

 

When Suddenly                      /stories/

This game is played in the exact same way as the previous game ‘So…but’. The only difference is that instead of students saying ‘so’ and ‘but’, replace these two words with ‘when suddenly’ i.e.

Teacher: A dragon was flying in the air when he saw another dragon when suddenly….

Student 1: when suddenly the dragon flew towards him, when suddenly…

Student 3: when suddenly the other dragon was very angry and wanted to eat him when suddenly….

Student 4: when suddenly the dragon flew down to the ground when suddenly…

 

No Yes No                               /questions/           

Students sit in a circle and one by one they ask each other questions; but no one can reply with a yes or no, or any other sound or word that resembles yes or no, such as ‘yeah’. If a student answers with a yes or no, that student is out or must pay a penalty fee. To motivate students to think of really good questions, offer a point to the student who asks a question and manages to get a yes or no response.

 

You’re Fired                           /instructions, verbs/

One student stands at the front of the class. Whilst being timed, he or she gives all the other students a series of commands, e.g. sit down, clap your hands, spin around etc. The other students must do the actions. The moment the student giving commands pauses to think of a command for more than five seconds, the other students shout “You’re fired!” and the timer comes to a stop.

The student who was able to give commands for the longest before pausing for more than five seconds is the winner.

 

Chinese Feeling                      /spelling, letters/

I call it Chinese feeling because it’s very similar to Chinese whispers, but instead of whispering a word, the students write the word on each other’s backs.

Firstly, divide the class into two teams and have them sit or stand in lines facing forward so that, apart from the first student, each student should see the next student’s back. The two last students in both teams are given a word that they must then write on the back of the next student in their team´s line. Those two students then try to figure out the word and write it on the back of the student in front of them. This continues until the students standing at the front have had the word written on their back; they must then run to the whiteboard and write the word they think was written on their backs. The first team to write the correct word on the whiteboard wins a point. Continue until everyone has had a chance to be at the front and back of the line.

 

Clap On Multiples Of                      /counting/

Firstly choose your desired multiple such as multiples of five.

Students stand or sit in a circle and begin counting up from 1, each time a student gets to a number that is a multiple of five, they should not say the number but instead, clap. If a student doesn’t clap or claps on the wrong number, the whole class must start again from 1.

Set a goal such as 50, if the students can successfully go around the circle and count up to 50 without making any mistakes than everyone gets point.

 

Semi-English                                    /maths, numbers/

Students stand in a circle and begin counting up from 1. However, one student will say the number in English, the next student will say the number in their native tongue.

If you are teaching Spanish children, then it should be like this:

One, dos, three, quatro, five, seis, seven, ocho, nine, dias etc.

If a student says the number in the wrong language, the whole class must start again from 1. Set a goal for the students to reach such as 50, if they can get to 50 without making any mistakes, everyone gets point.

This game must be played as quickly as possible.

 

 

Section 2: Making the blood flow

 

Pass the Ball Lexis                            /vocab review/

This game can work for any type of vocab, let’s use jobs as an example.

Students sit in a circle, one student has a ball. The moment he gives the ball to the next student, he has until the ball returns to him to say 10 different jobs (depending on the level of the students, vary the amount of vocab they must say). If the student can say 10 jobs before the ball goes around once in the circle, he or she gets a point. If they can’t say 10 jobs before the ball returns to them, they don’t get a point.

 

Alphabet Game                                /spelling/

Students stand in line. Give the student at the front a marker to write on the whiteboard. Then, to the student standing at the back of the line, draw a letter of the alphabet on their back. They must do the same with the student in front of them and so on until the student at the front has felt the letter on their back. That student then runs to the whiteboard and writes any word beginning with that letter. Each letter in that word equals a point for the student. Of course, if they got the first letter wrong, they have no points, but if they got the first letter right, then everyone gets a point.

Divide the class into teams for a more competitive atmosphere.

 

ABC Words                                     /alphabet, vocab/

Students stand in a large circle, one student starts with a ball. He or she must say a word beginning with A i.e. astronaut, then they must say the name of a student and throw the ball to the student (they must throw the ball well if they throw the ball badly everyone must start again from A). The student must first catch the ball, say a word beginning with B, call out another student’s name and throw the ball to them. This should be done quickly without too much hesitation. If the student fails in any of these stages, the whole class must start again at A. The aim of the game is to be able to get to the letter Z, if this is achieved, everyone gets a point. If the students find it easy to get to z, then you can time them and challenge them to complete the game as fast as they can.

 

Spot the Difference                           /thinking/

Ask a volunteer to go out of the classroom. While the student is out of the room, the other students change something about themselves and/or the classroom i.e. they change their sweaters, shoes, coats, move a chair, draw something on the whiteboard and so on. The students should not change more than two or three things. Once the class is ready, bring the student who went out of the classroom back inside. He or she has 1 minute to guess what the differences are. For each difference the students manage to pinpoint, they receive a point.

 

How Many Steps?                            /numbers, thinking, sentences/

The students all come to the middle of the class; one student will shout “run!” All the students must run (sensibly) around the classroom. After a few seconds, the same student shouts “stop!” All the students must immediately freeze. The student who shouted the commands then asks student A “How many steps are there to student B?” Student A must then guess how many steps it will take them to get to student B. Once student A has guessed, they walk to Student B whilst the rest of the class counts how many steps it takes. If the student is correct they get a point, if not then the student who asked them the question gets the point.

After a few rounds, get the children to run around the classroom again to change places and repeat the previous steps.

 

Number Groups                               /numbers/

Students walk/jog around the classroom chanting the key lexis or vocab. A student will randomly shout out a number i.e. three;+. The students walking around must quickly get into groups of three. The first students to get into a group of three each win a point.

 

Do as I say, Not as I do                             /body/

One student comes to the front of the class and begins to show and tell students to touch areas of their body i.e. touch your nose (the student also touches their nose). The other students must repeat the command and also touch their noses. However, if the student in the front says ‘touch your ears’ but actually touches their mouth, the other students must repeat the command ‘touch your ears’ but must also correctly touch their ears. If everyone in the class touches the correct part of their body, everyone gets a point. But if only one student doesn’t, then the student standing gets a point.

 

Please…                                             /verbs/

One student stands at the front of the class and begins to say please (followed by a verb). For example, the student could say, “Please stand up, please jump, please dance, please shout”. The other students must do the actions. If however, the student at the front doesn’t say please, the students shouldn´t do the action.  If everyone in the class refrains from doing the action when they were not asked please, everyone gets a point. But if only one student does the action, then the student standing gets a point.

 

Connect Body Parts                         /body parts/

Students run (sensibly) around the classroom. One student will shout a random body part, such as elbow. The running students must immediately stop, get into pairs and connect their bodies using their elbows. The first pair to do this each get a point.

 

Shuffle Chairs

Students sit in a very small circle with one student sitting in the middle. The circle should be so small that the other students are practically on top of the student in the middle. There should be one more chair in the circle than there are students.

When the teacher shouts go, the students quickly shuffle to their right very quickly, trying to always sit down in the next seat. The student in the middle’s aim is to sit down in the empty chair. The other students´ aim is to stop the student in the middle from sitting down by quickly by moving from the next seat to the next seat. If the students can withstand the invasion for 30 seconds they all get a point, if however the student in the middle manages to find a gap in the chair and sits down, he or she gets a point.

 

Don’t Touch

Students stand in a circle holding hands, in the middle, there is a chair. When the teacher says go, students (sensibly) try to make each other touch the chair, the first student to touch the chair is out. Continue until there are about three to five students left standing, these students each get a point.

Games & Activities for utilising real life scenario in the classroom: Monologues and Dialogues

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Your ultimate classroom goal should be to use everything the students have learnt in the lesson to be able to create a monologue or dialogue as your main and final activity.

Now, a monologue does not mean a student stands in the front of the class and recites a Shakespearean speech. I always found monologues are a great way to describe: this could mean describing people, describing oneself or describing your topic material. Remember to make sure all your other students are doing something in the meantime and not just sitting and waiting for their turn.

Let’s say you’re teaching animals, a great way to incorporate a monologue is by playing bingo. While one student comes up to the front and describes an animal (this is your monologue!), the others have to listen and decide which animal is being described so that if they have it, they can tick it off getting closer to bingo (in this way you not only have one student doing a monologue, the other students are participating in a listening activity).

And that´s your monologue, easy right?

Moving on to dialogues, new teachers can once again believe dialogues have to be something boring as in two students standing in front of the class reciting A and B sentences from the whiteboard. Your thinking should be to make the class entertaining, useful and relative to life itself; thus as a consequence, your students learn. Always try to think: “How can I make a dialogue that is relatable to the real world; that is fun and engaging?”

Let’s say your topic of the class is food. This is an example of what most new teachers would consider a satisfactory dialogue:

A – What’s your favourite food?

B – My favourite food is……..

What’s your favourite food?

A – My favourite food is ……., see you later.

Your students will find this dull and pointless. The two students doing the dialogue won’t be interested, while the other children in the classroom won’t be paying attention or learning anything.

Instead, think food…what dialogue can I do that will be fun and relatable to the real world? What could this scenario be? Going to a restaurant.

Now you have the most important part ready – the scenario.

The next part is to set the scene – create a restaurant in the class by putting on some restaurant music in the background or if you have a student who can play an instrument get them to play their instrument to create a restaurant atmosphere. Get a background picture on the whiteboard of a restaurant, create a menu, and bring in cutlery, crockery, food and drinks. Make it as fun and as realistic as possible.

During the dialogue, get one student to be the waiter and one to be the customer; get some of the students to play as extras in the restaurant.  Set the mood, make the students excited to participate in the dialogue. Whilst the two or three students are acting out a restaurant scene, get the others to listen and watch; at the end of the dialogue they can judge them on their performance by awarding points out of 10.

 

Some may say it´s easy to create a fun dialogue if the topic is food, but what about grammar. How can one create a fun dialogue when practising a grammar point? Let´s say you are teaching the modal verb ‘can’, getting students to express ability such as:

I can …….

He can …..

I can’t …..

She can’t ……..

Most inexperienced teachers would get a student or two to come up to the front of the class and ask them to tell each other what they can or can’t do – this is boring and pointless.

Remember step one? Set an exciting scene, create a scenario for them in order to be excited about coming up the front.

One good example of creating a fun scenario to play out a dialogue using the sentences I can, he can; is to create a rap battle. Show your students an example of what a rap battle is, such as a YouTube clip, so that they understand what you want from them. Get them to write their rap speech beforehand, don´t ask them to try to improvise like real rappers or you will be in the class for the rest of your life (depending on their level, give them a template to fill, otherwise they may spend the entire class writing their speech and then you have no time to do the rap battle). A sample structure of a rap battle using the modal verb can, could be:

I can …, but he can´t ……….. I can …, but he can´t.

Next, create the scene! Turn the lights down, get the students making cool hip-hop dance moves and put on some rap instrumental music. I always put on an instrumental version of Dr Dre’s album 2001. Choose names from a bag and get those students to battle each other. Meanwhile, the other students listen and at the end, they judge who won the round.

Hopefully, you can now see that monologues and dialogues don’t have to be tedious or boring but are a great opportunity to experiment and have fun using English in real-life situations. When preparing a mono/dialogue, if you follow the below checklist, it will be a guaranteed success in the classroom.

  1. Create a real life scenario e.g.
  • food = market
  • animals = farm/auction
  • hobbies = speed dating
  • present continuous = sports commentary

 

  1. Set the scene
  • the more effort you put into making the scene, the more effort your students will put in

 

  1. Get everyone involved
  • even if only two people are speaking make sure the other students have a reason to listen e.g. they are judging

 

Below are a few examples of other games and activities that help trick students into making speeches or practising dialogues whilst having lots of fun in the process:

 

 

Ultimate Fridge                      /foods/

Students draw a fridge filled with their favourite foods, they must also write how much they think their fridge would cost.  Give them a time limit of 10 minutes to complete their drawing. They then show and tell the class about their fridge. The other students must listen so that they can guess how much the fridge costs. The student who guesses the closest to the actual price gets a point.

 

Uhm Game                                      /fluency, accuracy/

One by one, students are timed as they talk about a certain subject for as long as they can without pausing or saying ‘Uhm’, as soon as they do one of these forbidden actions, the timer stops and they are out. The student who manages to speak for the longest wins.

 

Airport Security                      /I have, classroom objects/

Students act out an airport security scenario. Two students come up to the front of the class, one student is a security guard and the other is a passenger. The passenger comes up to the security guard with their school bag and must take all their items out of the school bag, present them to the security guard and tell the guard what they have in their bag e.g. I have a pencil, I have two notebooks etc. After, the security guard can pat the student down, checking to see if they have anything in their pockets. If they have something in their pockets, the passenger must explain what they have. Afterwards, the passenger can become the security guard and the next student becomes the passenger. This a great game for learning classroom objects and for practising the ‘to have’ verb.

 

Weather Forecast                             /weather, present continuous/

Draw, on the whiteboard, an outline map of the country you are teaching in with a few main cities pointed out on the map. One by one, a student comes up to the map and presents a (improvised or pre-prepared depending on their level) weather forecast speech including the temperature, clothes one should wear in this temperature and some activities one can do (It´s always important to find ways of getting students to review topics they have done in previous classes otherwise they will forget what they have learnt a month ago, a year ago and will never actually learn English). Meanwhile, the other students quickly draw the map on the whiteboard and must listen to the weather forecast and draw the type of weather they hear and write the clothes and actions mentioned. If their drawings are accurate, they receive a point.

Try to make it more exciting and real by dimming the lights and getting a student to be the ‘cameraman’ by giving him a phone and allowing them to video the forecast. After each person has finished their weather report, let them be the cameraman, this gives a little more motivation for the student to do the speech.

 

Bomb Squad                           /accuracy/

This game can be played with any subject, all the students need to do is prepare a speech on their given subject.

Draw a TNT style bomb on the whiteboard with five or six separate lines in a row coming out of the bomb – this is the fuse. Set a time limit of anything from one to five minutes depending on the level of your class and how many students you have. As a student is doing their speech, the class must listen for any mistakes he or she makes. If a student hears a mistake they must yell stop and tell us what mistake the student made. If it is a genuine mistake, erase one line from the fuse and give a point to the student who heard the mistake, if however, the student accusing is wrong, that student loses a point. If all five or six lines are erased before the speaking student finishes their speech, the bomb explodes and that student must pay the penalty fee. If the student can finish their speech without the bomb exploding, they get a point.

 

Trial                                        /accuracy/

This game can be played with any subject, all the students need to do is prepare a speech on their given subject.

One by one a student comes up to the front of the class and gives a speech, make sure the speeches are given a time limit suitable to their ability. Meanwhile, the other students must listen carefully and write any mistakes they hear including grammar, syntax, pronunciation and coherence. Then the student that gave the speech sits in front of the class and the other students begin to accuse that student of whatever mistakes they heard him or her say. You, the teacher, are the judge and must listen to the students’ accusations and judge whether they are false or true. If an accusation is false, the judge takes a point away from the student who made the accusation. If the student gives a true accusation, the student who gave the speech losses a point whilst the student who made the accusation gains a point. However, if the student who made the mistake can explain what is wrong and how to correct their mistake, they are pardoned and their point is returned to them.

 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Game              /discipline/

This is a great activity to defuse a problematic situation in the class but also helps students to bond more with each other and learn how to solve each other’s problems.

If a student does something majorly wrong during the lesson and you didn’t see what happened e.g. if a student pushes another student or bullies another student etc., Ask both students to write their opinion of what happened and then read them to the class. The other students listen as they are the jury and must decide who the guilty party is and what their punishment should be.

 

How many can you name?              /vocab, this, that, these, those/

A student has one minute to name as many things that they can see in the classroom using correct this, that, these and those sentences. The other students must listen and keep track of how many objects the student has said, the students who have kept track accurately gain a point. The winner is the student who has named as many objects as they can.

This activity doesn’t have to be limited to classroom objects but to any subject. If, for instance, you are teaching animals; then you can show your students a picture with many different animals and they have one minute to name all the animals they can see etc.

 

How long can you go?                     /describing/

Present students with a picture (that focuses on the subject being taught or reviewed). One by one, students are timed as they describe the picture for as long as they can until another student hears that they have made a mistake. The winner is the student who managed to speak for the longest without making a mistake.

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