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?
This is a perfect game for revising any vocabulary which can be put into categories. So you can use it at the end of the year with all your students reviewing all topics from the school year or with your examination students reviewing exam topics. It can be used as a warm-up, energiser, or even the whole lesson activity.
You give students categories, draw a letter and students write down the words beginning with this letter. Here is the 'matura’ or E8 exam revision template for you to use in class. And a wheel to pick a letter. Once you generate a lot of lexical items, you have a great range of possibilities to use them on in speaking or writing. Have fun with your students.
This is a popular warm-up task. There is a strange situation presented and students’ task is to explain themselves. To tweak a little bit, you may ask your students to use a particular grammar structure, to include an idiom or two, or you may set a time limit. However, for lower levels, no tweaks are necessary cause the task itself is quite challenging.
https://wordwall.net/resource/55293816
It is a well-known game which can be used as a warm-up, filler, end-of-the-lesson activity or energiser. The aim is to talk for a minute without any pauses, hesitations, or repetitions. Students’ task is to be creative and witty whenever possible. So, let the students choose the topic, talk for one minute and have lots of fun, focusing on fluency rather than accuracy.
https://wordwall.net/resource/55243619
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.
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.’
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.
It’s almost the beginning of the school year. I hope you are relaxed and enthusiastic about new challenges. I do love the first lessons – making new relationships, students revealing secrets about their passions, observing different personality types in one group, a little bit of stress but also new opportunities. There is some mystery and promise in the first days of September.
In order to make the whole year successful, you need to get to know your students and let them learn a little bit about one another and you. Here are a couple of activities I’d like to share with you today which you can use during the first lessons with your teens and adults. I love those exercises because they are simple, they are fun, they make your students speak English from the very first minutes of the lesson and they demand little or no preparation. They are perfect icebreakers that can lead to or follow the needs analysis.
THIS IS ME…/THIS IS NOT ME… – THE POWER OF PICTURES
All you need is a set of photos. I love using Dixit or Imaginarium cards because they are less obvious, more abstract, and thus more fun. But if you have an elementary group or teach smaller children, you may use less mysterious photos. Each student chooses two cards: one which says 'This is me’ and the other one which says 'This is definitely not me’. And then he/she explains how the cards are connected with their personality or passions or the other students have to find out the connections by asking the student questions about the chosen cards. You probably already know this exercise but have a look at my variation of this activity below.
THIS IS ME…/THIS IS NOT ME… – THE POWER OF THINGS
This time the students bring two items to school. The idea is exactly the same as in the previous activity. The students’ task is to prepare a short story or description connected with those items. You may also ask the other students to predict what those items could mean and which one completes the phrase 'This is me’ and which one is an example of the phrase 'This is not me’. Encourage your students to bring less obvious objects so that it was not so easy to guess the meaning. Once I brought a needle and some thread to class. On the one hand, it meant I am not an artistic kind of a person, I can’t embroider, knit, crochet, sew, etc. But on the other hand, it meant I’m not a very patient kind of a person, I hate waiting, I make up my mind very quickly. And I told my students a story illustrating this personality trait of mine.
THIS OR THAT?
This is a well-known activity but I love it because it makes your students move, it is a lot of fun and students always look backwards to see who is similar to or different from them. You ask your students to stand one behind the other facing you. And then you ask them questions such as: Tea (pointing to the left) or coffee (pointing to the right)? Mountains (pointing to the left) or sea (pointing to the right)? And the students (and you) move one step to the right or left (or stay in the middle cause they love or hate both). You may also ask more serious questions in order to analyse the students’ needs such as: Homework or no homework? Book or authentic materials? Speaking or writing (with a scared face)? Listening or reading (with a happy face)? I usually end this activity with: Stay at school or go home? The bafflement on my students’ faces – priceless!
LIE, LIE, LIE
This is a variation of the game 'Two truths and a lie’. Students pick a question or topic. Their task is to answer it in 1-2 minutes but they can only lie, nothing they say can be true. Although it seems quite easy, in fact it is not because in 2 minutes they have to give many details. Give it a try, I’m sure your students will have a lot of fun.
WHAT QUESTION DO I HAVE ON MY BACK?
It is a task for definitely more advanced students because they will have to try to answer the questions not revealing much information, not answering them directly. You will need one question per one student in class or group. You attach one question to each student’s back so that they couldn’t see it. The students walk in class and answer the questions on their friends’ backs not mentioning the key words. The task of each student is to guess their own question on the basis of the answers given to him or her by a couple of students. You could ask questions such as:’ Would you like to have your tattoo made, why, what kind and where?’ The answer could be: 'Black because it’s classic. The place is not so important but I’m afraid of pain so it can’t be a very sensitive area. I’m not interested in any quotations, that’s for sure. So maybe the face of Hemingway? I love his books.’ The other questions could be: Who is the most difficult person to buy a Christmas present for in your opinion and why? Do you agree that a real man should never cry? Why/Why not? What book would you take to the desert island and why?, etc.
LET ME SEE…
This is a variation of the game 'Personality test’ that you can find in one of the books with the 'Recipes for tired teachers’. You show your students the following or similar table (slide 1), you ask them to draw 9 separate pictures not connected with each other but including the given elements in their notebooks. The pictures don’t have to be beautiful or very detailed but they must present something that can be identified. Once every student has finished, put them in pairs, tell them that one of them (in each pair) is going to be a psychologist and interpret the personality of the other one on the basis of their pictures. Only then do you show them slide 2. Tell the students their task is to interpret, so if someone draws a flower in the space 'This is how you see yourself’ it’s not enough to say 'You are like a flower’ – they have to think what it could mean – maybe you are cute, gentle, it’s easy to hurt you or you are full of energy when it’s hot and sunny. Then students swap roles – the other one is a psychologist. At the end you ask your students to share one idea with the rest of the class about what they have learnt about themselves from their psychologists. They may choose the interpretation they totally agree or disagree with, the one which was the most surprising or the most freaky one or the one they would like to be true. In this way the students decide what and how much they want to reveal about themselves. I’ve tried this activity with teens and adults, with different level groups and with new and old classes. Always had a lot of fun!
No matter what activities you choose to start your new year with, I do hope you will succeed in making and developing strong and friendly relationships with your students. Because that’s what the first lessons are all about – not teaching, giving homework, testing or assessing but getting to know each other, having fun and tightening bonds. Have a great year everyone!