20 Question.......Tags

Well, it's been a while hasn't it. Too long some might say. How on earth have we gone on with our lives without your frequent updates Harry? I don't know, but it seems you have and so have I.

I recently took my ESL presenter train, well bus,  off to Madrid for TESOL Spain 2014. Despite speaking at 09:30 on a balmy Sunday morning I got a pretty decent turn out, so thanks to everyone for showing your faces. Upon my return I've jumped right back into work and a mere three weeks later here I am, posting again.

There'll be a few more posts over the next few days because my brain has been simply overflowing with ideas.

This first one came about due to my students, who are all Spanish, constant use of the word No as a question tag. Try as I might I couldn't get through to them that, while English speakers do use no as a question tag, they really aren't "supposed" to. I also explained that in an exam situation they'd be looked upon in a much better light if they used the correct question tag. Or at the very least. Right?

The question tag unit in the book came at just the right time. I started by playing question tag dominoes. Which you can see below. I just cut them up and handed them around. It's a great introduction. (I'll add the downloadable doc to my the useful links above)

aren’t we?	You’re name’s Harry	isn’t it?	You’ve been here before
haven’t you?	Let’s make a move	shall we?	You didn’t see the film
did you?	She’ll be at the party	won’t she?	You couldn’t lend me five euros
could you?	You can speak Spanish	can’t you?	You haven’t seen Gavin anywhere
have you?	He’s bringing Barbara	isn’t he?	She won’t tell anyone
will she?	Give us a hand with this	will you?	We are all agreed

Next I did simple matching exercise. I used this one here:
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/questions/question_tags.htm

Finally I got students to select the most obscure thing they could find in the room and played 20 questions with them. However, this time with tag questions. I started by giving them examples so they didn't get stuck on isn't it?

When the students felt they were getting closer I told them to change their intonation to a falling intonation to show they pretty much knew what it was but just wanted confirmation.

Here were a few of my examples.

We use it every day, don't we?

Marco has one in his bag, doesn't he?

It starts with a letter from the first half of the alphabet, doesn't it?


So that's all for now folks.

I'll be back in a couple of days with my newest activity Imagine if.... a great way to practice phrasal verbs and dependent propositions. Not to mention an imagination booster.

'til then.

H
Follow me on twitter for regular updates: @sirhofthebomb

Could you Put the Pet in a Pot of Peat

Good afternoon. I realise it's been a while, again. Alas the perils of working and it being the new year I have been dragged into doing an awful lot of stuff. Whilst doing said stuff though my creative juices began to trickle.
I came up with a fun little game that I have found to be useful with my Spanish learners. It also adds a bit of a giggle to the class, which is always nice.

So what I do is: Using the super fun animations function on PowerPoint I make lists ten of 1 syllable words appear at 3 minute intervals. The first one I use to explain the activity.
Each of the words has to start and end in the same consenent sound or one, in Spain's case V and B, that frequently get confused.  Change the vowel sound.
Next up write numbers 0 -9 underneath the words. Make sure they understand and can pronounce the words.
Then tell them your phone number, passport number, inmate number (or something similar) using only the words. They have to then see if they got your number right.
The next step you should bring the next list of words up onto the screen. Do the same with the numbers underneath. then get the students to tell their partners their number.
Continue until everyone has had a turn and you've used all the lists of words. It took me about 20 minutes in total and was a great laugh

Until the next time my friends.

H

Just a Quick One

One of my favourite fillers is the YES/NO/MAYBE game. It's pretty simple really. Ask students some simple YES/NO questions and try and make them say YES, NO or MAYBE. If they do, they're out. At the end of a few rounds get the students to ask you questions and see if they can trip you up.
It's a great filler and really good for question formation and answer building.

Odd One Out

do you ever find yourself drowning in a sea of exam papers marking practice exam after practice exam? I do. What's most upsetting, as I've said a great number of times before, is the fact that speaking practice in class has now drifted so far away from teaching English and deep into the rhelms of teaching exam technique.
One thing that is too often forgotten is pronunciation. Which itself is a huge part of speaking exams. Every nationality has its own little quirks when pronouncing English. Here in Spain there are a great number of them. I'll go into more detail in future posts about specific Spanish problems. With the help and input of the deeply knowledgeable font of information that is the great www.watersdw30.wordpress.com 
Today, however, I'm going to start with a universal activity that a colleage of mine, Beth Smith, introduced me to last week. It´s a great warmer or cooler and really helps students differentiate between different sounds. It's similar to the minimal pairs activity below but with a slightly more advanced twist.

As always with my classes I put students into pairs or groups and get them to read aloud the word groups below, one at a time. Students have to decide which word is the odd one out.
simple, effective and fun.

If you want more ideas or you want to tell me what I'm doing wrong. You can follow me on twitter @sirhofthebomb

Until the next time.

Parts of a Picture

Here I am then, back from the dead and ready to share more love with everyone.
I always use this picture at the start of a course. Especially with B1 whereby they have to describe a picture. I've found it useful with B2 classes as well as it gives students areas of a picture to compare and contrast. Most importantly though I actually find it useful language for students and not just exam bashing.

downlaods available above as always. (Just a few materials)

'Til tomorrow.

Language Grab - Speculation

Something I always find amazing is how unwilling students are to speculate. Rather than take a guess at what something might be they tend to say they don't know. Be it a picture in an exam, how people are feeling, an answer to a question or just what they're going to do at the weekend.  I use the below activity in the same way I do with my previous two posts.
Laminate, cut and pass them to your students.

I like to use them to help students describe pictures like the one below.

Ask students how the tree got like that? How long it's been there? Which animals it may have effected?

I can´t be sure but I think…	Obviously
I imagine	Probably/Perhaps….
Without a doubt	I´m pretty sure that
There’s no doubt in my mind that	It’s clearly
I guess	It must be
I don’t really know but if I had to I would choose…….	If I had to hazard a guess
It might be	It could be
To my mind	I reckon