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TEACHING TIPS - Activities
It's no Mystery!
Hello and welcome to our inaugural issue!
The goal of this newsletter is threefold:
** to present different approaches to teaching ESL, including
new or interesting websites
** to encourage a dialog with ESL teachers around the
world.
** to inform you of developments on the Learning English
with Laughter website.
Our Newsletter is posted online if you prefer to read it on
our site -- browse
http://www.efl-esl.com/esl-newsletter/
This Newsletter is for you and so don't hesitate to let us
know what you think. Email brian@efl-esl.com anytime with
comments, suggestions, articles, sites or just say hi!
I hope that you enjoy our coming issues and I look forward to
hearing from you soon.
My Best,
Brian Stocker
brian@efl-esl.com
1.Find 10 Newspapers where the headline contains an obvious word.
2. Cross out the obvious word with a large felt pen.
3. Divide the class into teams and have them write down their guesses.
Give each team a point for the exact word half a point for reasonable alternatives. The team with the most points wins!
Includes:
Caribbean Mystery Cruise -- A who done it on the high seas gets students talking!
More >>>
Idioms and the Mystery of the Stolen Funds -- A super way to practice Idioms while learning Idioms. Now only $9.71!
MORE >>>
Idioms -- What's Going on? A Mystery.
What's going on in the neighborhood? Students work in pairs or groups to find out! Now only 5.25!
MORE >>>
How can ‘particularly unfortunate' and ‘equally important' be the subject of a sentence? Jose Carillo's column English Plain and Simple explains.
Full Story >>>
China's schools give Canadian English top marks
MORE >>>
Full Story >>>
BINGO is a long time
favorite of ESL students and teachers. If you haven't tried
it, here is your chance for FREE!
For a limited time, we are offering on of our NEW products FREE to Newsletter.
You receive:
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Summary:
- Exercises using comparatives such as the slowest, the hungriest, faster than
-
Variations
include Question and Answer Bingo
Bonuses (included at no extra charge)
- Bonus written exercise using comparatives
-
Bonus word order exercise
MORE>>>
Help
they don't speak English! The Help! They Don't Speak
English Starter Kit was produced by a task force of
Virginia educators who were getting an increasing number of
requests from classroom teachers for information about and
assistance with their limited English proficient (LEP)
students. Although not an ESL textbook as such, this site has
a number of interesting resources including free lesson plans
and activities.
Pedagog Teachers Search
Engine -- Search Engine for Teachers with a database of 10
million sites.
Global English
-- Comprehensive TEFL courses of 150 study
hours giving you the expertise to teach confidently. Your
final appraisal lists course content & duration for
employers.
Tutorial Support second to none. An
interactive course with full, individual feedback on your
work & phone/email support throughout the course &
beyond.
Unique options: Courses by post or email,
TEFL certificate with business course option with free Train
to Teach English CD-ROM and study notes.
Quality assurance as we are ISO9000
accredited
Got a favorite site? Let
us know!
The House -- a full Unit on ESL vocabulary and exercises for all the rooms in the house.
MORE Mysteries!
Our mysteries are overwhelmingly popular so we are creating more!
ESL Teachers Forum
ONline Forum for exchanging ideas with other ESL teachers.
The ideal solution, which is not always possible, is to make corrections an activity or a lesson. This can be done several ways.
1. Use any role play or discussion activity.
2. Divide students into groups of 3 instead of 2.
3. Have 2 students participate in the activity and the
3rd student monitors the English, making
corrections where necessary.
4. Every 15 minutes or so, rotate students, so that each
students has a chance to participate in the discussion
activity or role play and also make corrections.
Another option for involving the class in the correction process is to make notes of errors and then ask the class of the correction and the rule. Correction style also depends on the focus of the class. If the objective of the lesson is fluency, then correcting less often is appropriate. If the objective of the class is accuracy, then correcting often is appropriate. Other considerations for what correction style you should use are the amount of time available and how successful you think students will be in finding the mistake.
Here are a few things to watch out for:
- Don’t get mad or intimidate.
- Don’t embarrass students in front of the class.
- Don’t jump in. Students may realize their error and correct themselves if given a few minutes.
If you find yourself correcting the same mistake more than a few times then either stop, and go over the correct way, or make a note and discuss the error at the end of the activity.
Another option, particularly when teaching grammar, is to only correct the specific grammar point being taught, and ignore the others. I hear that many teachers use this approach, however I feel there is a very real danger of reinforcing errors by allowing students go repeat errors.
Talking to teachers, I found quite a variety of opinion, and no real hard and fast rules, although a few things did emerge. Most teachers agree students should always be corrected in the following circumstances:
- When the sentence cannot be understood because of the (pronunciation or grammar) error.
- When a number of students are making the same error, it should be corrected and/or discussed in detail.
- ‘Global’ errors are more important than ‘local’ errors.
- Errors should be distinguished from mistakes. Mistakes are a momentary lapses.
Resources
ESL TUTORING HANDBOOK
Elizabeth
Pandolfo
Written for The Virginia Tech Writing Center
Catherine Dennison, director
Learning English with Laughter opens a new site!
August
marked the opening of a new site -- www.esl-storybooks.com.
Featuring 5 Storybooks suitable for ages 6 through 12, each
book includes a students workbook, teachers guide and
creative writing storybook.
New Titles
Jambo Series
Two Sets of books
featuring Jambo the Chimp and his various adventures. - Jambo
Goes to the Moon, and Jambo meets the Robots.
MORE >>>
Trixie's Secret
Suitable for students aged 7 to 10 years.
Mara has moved to the city with her dog, Trixie. After
several months Trixie disappears. Mara and her friends have
many adventures before they discover Trixie's secret.
MORE >>>
Mystery of the Stolen Money
Suitable for students aged 8 to 12 years.
Two teens go to their aunt and uncle's dude ranch for a
holiday. The first day there, they witness a bank robbery.
They spend their holiday trying to find the stolen money,
with some surprising results.
MORE >>>
Mystery of the Secret Code
Interest level suitable for students aged 8 to 12 years. On
a visit to Gold Island, two teens learn about the romantic
history of the island, reputed to be a pirate hideout.
MORE >>>
What do YOU think?
Let us know
here