ELI Conference

Thanks to those of you who came to my talks today. As I said all of the materials are on the tab just over there -------------> plus a whole bunch more I've just uploaded the short version of the talk from today. Feel free to take it, use it, abuse it, change it or ignore it.
I hope you found it useful today and your classes enjoy the activities as much as mine.

Thanks again

H

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

Don´t Talk To Me In That Tone Of Voice

Well hello there. Happy New Year. I trust you all had a wonderful break over the festive period. I most certainly did.  This year I'm going to start by looking more at tone, stress and pronuncian. 

I popped back to the UK for a wedding and to see some family. It finally dawned on me while I was there that English people, or perhaps it´s just my family, use sarcasm to such an extent that a non-native speaker would obviously struggle to even get the jist of a conversation. 
It was at this point I decided to have a look at some ideas as to how we could convey such a vital part of our language to those learning it. 
To respond properly to a native speaker, an EFL learner has to pay attention. 
One of the easiest ways to get this across to non-native speakers is to give a list of 5-10 comments that could be sarcastic or sincere, and change their meaning with your tone. Have your students work in pairs to replicate your tone, and have them practice responding to each other in turns based on their tone. Examples include:

• I just love your outfit today. Are those blue sneakers?
• I can’t wait for my workout today at the gym!
• Eating healthy just makes me feel so good. I really don’t miss cake.

Get students to write a few of their own and then let each students read them aloud in either tone and ask the other students to guess if it´s Sarcastic or sincere. 

So there we go, the first blog of the year. Have fun with it. 

Until the next time.

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.

Another Fun Filler - Would you Rather....

There is almost always a time when you've got 5 minutes left at the end, in the middle, at the start of your class where you just want the students to let their hair down and have fun. Rather than just turning on yourtube and watching a students favourite video, which can have little or no language pay off, why not have try this little activity.
I love playing Would you rather..... I like to start by giving a few examples. I sometimes use http://yourather.com/ to get students going. Giving students really imaginative silly options always brings out the best answers and the best questions from your students.
Would you rather have glitterball hair or a glow in the dark tongue?
I like to get my students to give a reason for their decision and make sure they choose one.
Next I get the students to write two or three of their own and go around asking their classmates.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not video bashing. I love using videos in class, rather than a filler though I prefer to use them as a planned activity and that usually takes a great deal more work than just throwing in a game.

I love this game, it never fails to make people laugh and almost always brings about lively debates on more serious subjects.

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.