Getting to know your students a little better.

How do you get students to pay attention in class? Well, preparation is one of the big things. If you're ready for a class and don't just go in and throw a class together ad hoc it'll generally run an awful lot smoother.
Other than that making the class relevant to the students will always spark interest. Small things like writing their names in examples and mentioning their names out of context tend to help.
That's why I devised this questionnaire. I wanted to know more about my students to enable me to tailor the classes to their needs and, perhaps more importantly, their interests.

A fully editable version is available here Questionnaire and my sample answers here my answers. I've updated this blog with a sample of one of my students answers. It restored my faith in humanity just check out Iñigo's answers

Print it off, hand it out and obviously change your answers so they're appropriate to your classes level. If you're feeling imaginative why not try in your student's mother tongue.

Now I've got my students answers I can change parts of my classes to make sure at least one person in the class is giving me their undivided attention or even getting others to give their attention to them.

If you were an animal, what animal would you be? Why?

What is the best book you’ve ever read? Tell me a something about it.

What is your biggest strength when using English? Speaking, listening etc

What area do you need/want to work on the most?

If you could have been alive in any place during any era, when and where would it have been?

What do you do to improve your English outside of the classroom?

What is your favourite English word? Why?

What do you know more about than most people?

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

In an Ideal class what would you learn?

Who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Batman? Why?

What is your superpower? What real superpower would you change it for?

Just another commentator

Whilst teaching in an all boys school I realised I was missing something. How could I get these boys to really go crazy with their English. How could I show them that English really is a beautiful language full of nuance and some unforgettable adjectives.

This idea came to me whilst watching England Vs Spain in a recent Friendly international.Most boys like football, most boys like watching goals. As do a number of girls as well. Let's not be sexist about this.

The Spanish right-back, Mario Gaspar, Scored an absolute scorcher of a scissor kick from the edge of Englad's 18 yard box and all the commentator could come up with was the same as every other goal ever scored in the history of Spanish football the extended Gooooooool. No matter the beauty of the goal or the glory of the build up to it the end result is always met with the same sence of enthusiasm. While every goal counts equally the language used to describe them should, in my humble opinion, reflect the beauty of the goal.

If you look in the links to the right (a few materials) you'll find a vocabulary list of football words. Materials

I've chosen six examples

Maradona. Best goal ever?
Zlatan Vs England
Iniesta Vs The Netherlands
Sir Geoff Hurst Vs Wast Germany
Bergkamp vs Newcastle
King Thierry Vs Man utd

There are thousands of examples you can use. I used these as they were a variety of different styles  of goals and I could watch each one about a million times. Feel free to go crazy and select your own.

I show the students the goals and play them the commentry three or four times. I let them take notes of useful phrases, I give them the vocabulary list attached then I let them work together in pairs to create the perfect commentry.

If you have a class where students aren't interested in football. Perhaps set the final task as a project at home and let other students provide commentry. You can then record them over the video footage and see which pair come up with the best NEW commentary.

This has been a huge hit in recent classes. I hope it works the same for you too.

Enjoy.

@EFLuencyfella