This is the 2nd part of my post on lesson planning. If you haven’t read through part 1 yet, there do that first. Click here for part 1. In this part we’ll start with some of the unanswered questions in Part One. Concerning possible problems that may occur in some of the activities that you [...]
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When I was training for the RSA Dip (currently the DELTA Diploma), the most useful lesson, the one that fundamentally changed the way that I had taught up to that point was ‘lesson planning’. Lesson planning gives direction and ultimately makes lessons more productive, interesting and professional. What follows are a number of exercises which [...]
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As a follow-up to my last post on using correction codes, I thought it was appropriate to look at little deeper into the whole task of correcting students’ work, especially in terms of how teachers relate to doing this ‘chore’. Having spoken to many teachers over the years, not just EFL teachers, I get the fact [...]
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How often has this happened to you? You sit down with your one of your students (read: certificate exam candidates in Greece ) and review an essay he or she has produced, and you have subsequently corrected. At one point, you come to a bit of text that you had previously underlined, and perhaps had inserted [...]
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In my previous post, I discussed how and why to use songs in the classroom, but my main focus was how the lyrics in a song can be exploited. However, there are, as the old saying goes, many ways to skin to a cat. If we go beyond the words a song contains and think [...]
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AIM: Vocabulary for character traits LEVEL: Intermediate and above TIME: 45 minutes MATERIALS: Photos of people (emphasis on facial features/ langauge), Dictionaries PREPARATION: Photo Sources: Photos may be cut from old magazines or found on the internet. Search Google.com. Type in ‘faces’ and click on images. You will find many to choose from. If a coursebook [...]
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The aim of this article is to get you thinking. That is, thinking about the use of songs in the teaching of English. To start with, the first thing to think about is you and music. How often have you used songs? Why is this so? Are songs a regular part of your teaching repertoire? [...]
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AIMS: – To foster creative writing – To help student brainstorm and write elements of plot, character profiles, settings, mood, etc. – To brainstorm adjectives or other word forms LEVEL: Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced TIME: At least 20 minutes (depending on the amount of music played) MATERIALS: Recorded pieces of music in a variety of musical [...]
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Most people love choices: left or right, onwards or homewards, yes or no, combined with the trepidation of ‘what if…?’ or ‘have I made the right decision?’ This task suggestion is loosely based on a series of novels published in the UK in the mid-1980s; novels in which the reader could decide the fate of the [...]
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AIM: Question forming, Brainstorming, Narrative Work LEVEL: Intermediate – Advanced TIME: 10-15 minutes MATERIALS / PREPARATION: None PROCEDURE: – Tell the students that you have a story in mind and that they are to guess the storyline by asking yes / no questions. Give them a general theme for the story such by telling them [...]
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