Hi English Teachers, great to see you here!
My name is Kinga and this is my blog for all the great teachers of teens and adults who also believe that ‘sharing is caring’. I’m going to share a couple of teaching ideas and materials with you every now and then. I’d appreciate all your comments and opinions. I do hope you’ll have as much fun using those materials in class as I usually have.
So why don’t you just Drop Everything And… Teach?
We all have one of those days from time to time. We don’t feel like doing anything, have a sore throat, a splitting headache, feel blue, spent the whole night with a teething child, whatever. However, we have to go to work and teach the best we can. After all, we are the teachers, right?
This is an activity which will let you relax while your students will be creating tasks, writing, speaking, and correcting one another. All you need to do is to prepare a photo (take the one I enclosed or ask the students to choose one from their phones) and recall what you want them to revise.
Once they have a photo, ask them to:
When they finish, ask the students to check each other’s works. Monitor and help, enjoying a sip of hot coffee every now and again.
An old activity which can be used in class as a warm-up or revision exercise. It has a lot of different possibilities, not only practising vocabulary. Actually, you can revise anything you want with your students. You may ask them to give definitions, to make sentences, dialogues, or stories, to give one or five examples, to speak, or to write. You can practise all sorts of vocabulary or grammar, but also language functions or different skills. There are no limits here. And the best option is to ask your students to prepare their own games. Have fun.
Another activity which can serve as a warm-up or the whole revision lesson. It’s all up to you. You can revise both vocabulary and grammar with your students at the same time.
First, show your students some examples (easier and more difficult ones are included in the presentation below) of definitions of words or phrases you want to revise – let the students guess them.
Secondly, ask your students to make definitions themselves and let their peers guess. You may ask them to make just one or two definitions if you want it to be just a warm-up; or more if it is to be a longer revision.
Then show the students these words in context and ask them to paraphrase the sentences, translate, fill in the gaps, whatever you want.
Finally, students are supposed to prepare their own paraphrases, translations, gap-filling tasks, etc with the words and phrases they prepared in stage one. Quite a challenge even for advanced learners.
Do you find this idea useful? Let me know in the comments.
It is a short activity which can serve as a warm-up, energiser, a short task for fast finishers or the basis for the whole lesson. It is suitable for both teens and adults on absolutely all levels.
Show your students a set of photos presenting different emotions. Identify and discuss them. Ask your students to choose one photo.
Now, the first task is to describe a situation in which their parent, partner, boss, a shop-assistant, hotel receptionist, friend, bus passenger, etc reacted in this way.
The second idea is to ask your students to make a dialogue with the prevailing emotion from one of the photos at the party, during a romantic walk, negotiating a contract with an important client, at the dentist, etc.
You can also ask your students to write a few sentences the people from the photos could be saying using a particular grammar structure you want to revise, or just change the sentences into Reported Speech.
Your students could also make sentences, dialogues, short stories based on the photos using a set of vocabulary you would like to revise.
You can also ask your students to choose two photos and tell a story which led from one kind of emotion to another one. Or even use all the emotions presented in the photos in one story.
Your students could also think of some pieces of advice they could give to the people from the photos to feel better or worse 😉
I am sure you will come up with a thousand more ideas how to use the photos showing different emotions. Let me know in the comments whether you like this kind of tasks.
This is a presentation on the revision of the following tenses: Future Simple, Future Intention and both Present Simple and Present Continuous in reference to the future. It is in the form of Mind Maps to be completed by your students. The students have to think about the usage, structure and characteristic words of each tense. Then there is some speaking practice.
This is the third part of the series. The first part is entitled Present Tenses, and the second one is called Past Tenses. You can find both parts on my blog. Hope you’ll like the whole pack.
Are you the High School Final Matura Exam or E8 examiner? Are you thinking about becoming one but you have no idea what it is actually like to be one? Are you wondering whether it is worth it or not? Well, here is my very subjective opinion on the work of the examiner. And I do have a long and rich experience working as an examiner of both matura (basic and extended) and E8 (also Junior High School) exams.
First of all, you have to be aware that in order to become an examiner you have to take part in a workshop that lasts the whole day or two and to pass the exam at the end of it. The exam is very practical and checks if you can grade the students’ writing tasks objectively and according to the rules and requirements. If you pass the exam, you become an outright examiner, with a beautiful certificate and your own CKE number. Isn’t it wonderful?
But if you think it means that the CKE will trust you and assume you are a good examiner (after all they taught you, checked your skills and knowledge and gave you this honourable title, right?), you may be slightly disappointed. Actually, you will have to prove a couple of times every single year that you are worth the privilege by writing additional quizzes. So don’t be surprised or shocked. Enjoy every chance to show your real worth and don’t give up.
If you are persistent enough and willing to take part in the Exam Marathon after all, this is what you should remember about in May:
And now, the most important thing of all is that you MUSTN’T forget it’s a student who is your priority. While checking every single work, keep it in mind. If you have any doubts whether you understand what the student has written, whether it is even in English or whether you should give any points for it or not, follow the following universal piece of advice. Make it your mantra from now on:
‘If you have a titchy suspicion that a student was just considering attempting to convey the embryo of his thought, do not hesitate – give them a point. Such efforts have to be awarded.’
The third Monday of January is considered to be the most depressing day of the year. But does it really have to be so blue?
This is a lesson that involves a lot of speaking, a reading on different colour idioms and some tips on how to beat the blue Monday blues. Hope you’ll enjoy it and make blue Monday a little more colourful.
Ho Ho Ho, Christmas is coming. And because it’s 6th December tomorrow, I have a little Mikołajki present for you. I know oral matura exam is not compulsory this year but isn’t teaching a language about practising communication skills after all (no matter the exam structure and requirements)? I prepared a version for a teacher and student so your students can actually work in pairs. I hope you will have a lot of fun, I mean ‘Christmas is coming’ fun.
This is a presentation on the revision of the following Past Tenses: Past Simple, Past Continuous and Past Perfect. It’s in the form of Mind Maps to be completed by your students. The students have to think about the usage, structure and characteristic words of each tense. Then there is some speaking practice after each tense.
This is the second part of the series. The first part is entitled Present Tenses and it’s already on my blog. The last part on Future Tenses is about to be published soon. Hope you’ll like the whole pack.
This is a presentation on the revision of the following Present Tenses: Present Simple, Present Continuous and Present Perfect. It’s in the form of Mind Maps to be completed by your students. The students have to think about the usage, structure and characteristic words of each tense. Then there is some speaking practice after each tense.
I hope you will like it cause I’m preparing (with my students) the next parts on Past and Future tenses. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to share the other parts with you too.