Unfill and Fill it yourself

Something all teachers understand is how much work goes into the preperation of classes. With a little bit of experience planning time is reduced massively but when it comes to prep we`re all accutley aware of how much time it takes. That's why we all love the internet so much. Ideas can be shared, used, reused abused adapeted and so on. For those quick ideas I love the internet.

One thing I love even more, however, is learner autonomy. Students taking charge of their own learning. I, like a great number of you out there, also like to take this one step further. Rather than the students simply being in charge of their own learning why not let them take charge of their fellow students learning. The best source of information, support and materials is obviously the students themselves.

A week or so ago I posted a blog with a questionnaire about my students so I could tailor the class to their needs, likes and desires. I've used this in my classes to get my students more involved in class.

Added to this I've always been keen on students taking control of the class and teachers sitting back and shutting up. The esl classroom is a place for students to learn and use the language they're learnt. Not a place for teachers to fulfil their unacheived ambitions of becoming an actor and hogging the entire class.

The first small step towards this, as I've found, is asking students to create their own gap fill exercises. First for a song they like (as you can see here.) Then for a part of the Use of English exam from an article they have read.

Here is a very basic lesson plan for this kind of actvity.

1. After using the questionnaire here to find out some of the things your students are interested in, suggest a few different websites or blogs they could read to improve their English. A number of my students love football, I tell them to read BBC sport or I trawl back through the archives of the joy of six from The Guardian news paper. Here's a great one about Hipsters' favourite football clubs.

2. Next I ask students to read their text.
If they're making a part 1 reading activity I then ask them to write 5 or six multiple choice activities for the text.

3. For reading part two simply take out a few seperate sentences and invent a few new ones.

4. If they're making a Use of English part one I ask them to select two paragraphs and remove words they can then find synonyms for. Particularly those which are parts of phrasal verbs or have a strong collocation or a dependent preposition.

5. If they are making a Use of English Part 2, again just two paragraphs this time removing the function words like prepositions, pronouns, relative pronouns and so on.

6. The final exam part I usually ask students to do is the UOE part three where they remove words from the text and place a root word as a hint. The word formation activity. I try and make sure they find at least one negative within their text.

You can do this next part in a couple of different ways.

7. I tend to use these examparts as a quick review in class and i get the students who has prepared it to correct the work and then explain to the group why each answer is what it is.

An alternative option here is to get all of your students to do one part then in the class do each others work, then mark them together. I find this good as a fun way to do it but far less productive than the other option. With option one there is real ownership of the work and you're provided with a wider variety of exam practice.

This activity can take a little while to get into production but once it gets going you'll see some remarkable results and the constant search for past exam papers can slowly come to an end.

It also takes the fear away from the exams as they see just how easy it can be when you know what you're doing.