The Mind Boggles as does the game

Have you ever played boggle? It's a wonderful game to use in the classroom. you have a set of 16 dice each with 6 different letters on them. you shake them up and have to find as many words as you can. In the traditional games the letters have to be conected. In the classroom version I just get students to find as many words as they can. Or for the longest word they can conjure up with the letters on show in the time limit.  You can buy your own game then you can use it at home on those long cold rainy winter's nights or you can simply use an online generator.  I find the real game
engages my students more as they can be the ones in control of what letters come out and if there are 6 e's then they can blame Pablo and not just say it's impossible.
After the students have made a list or two I then ask them to use those words as the basis to a story or a dialogue between their teams. 
I tried this with my elementary adult class at the start of the year and saw they were porducing short sentences which often made very little sense. By the end of the year the students were trotting out bizarre and unique and often fairly racey stories. This game can really add to the studentes spontinaaity and helps them think on their feet about what to write. You can get students to keep a boggle folder and play the game a few times throughout the year. Your students will be able to see how much they've improved by the end of the year. Not only at writing but also at spotting hidden words within the game.

I trust you'll have as much fun with it as I have. Probably the best investment in a board game since buying Trivial Pursuit.

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

Looking Forward to the Next Class

I've often found myself wondering, whilst plannig my next class, what do the students already know. we are all well aware that before we start a class we should really take into account and think about any assumed knowledge the class have on the subject we're about to embark upon.

You'll read it in every book, you'll hear it at every training session but how often do you actually check what students know before you start teaching it?

What I like to do is check at the end of the previous class what they might know. I always review what we have done in that lesson (I check again in the next) and then using a spidergram or something of that ilk on the board I just get students to come up and write any words or phrases relating to that subject of the next class.It's a simple way to get the mind going and into gear. If unit's a grammar point simply asking a student to explain it rather than a boring diagram up on the board. All it ever sounds like to me is
 Subject +blah + bla-ing and I'm teaching it.

So for vocab. Preview known vocab with a spidergram and then in the following class open with a quick round of Categories on mini whiteboards or in Ss notebooks. Starting the class with a game is always great and students have almost always thought of a new word or two since the previous class as you've left that idea there in their heads.

I have been know on the odd occasion to tell eams it's their turn to look for new vocab on the topic and start the next class by explaining it to the other students.

These ideas are hardly revolutionary. I don't claim to have any ownership whatsoever over them. They just make classes flow a lot easier and take the subject matter from the hands of the teacher and puts it into the hands of the students.

These ideas take a a little bit of forethought. Just flick to the next page in the book before the class finishes and see what's coming up, if you're a class to class planner, like me. If you're even more organised and you plan a few classes at a time then you're already set. These ideas have helped me an awful lot and have saved time in lengthy explanations and most importantly got the students thinking about what they've learnt and what they're going to learn.

It's very rare that a class will have no idea at all about the subject matter so give them some credit and relinquish your power........ to an extent.


That's all you're getting for this week.

Enjoy your weekend.

Imagine if......

In the entire time I've been teaching Cambridge Exams; the main fear my students have had has always been around the Use of English exam. More specifically phrasal verbs and dependent prepositions.

In my never ending quest to eradicate this this fear and, more importantly, keep students talking and improving on their speaking. After all what is a language if all you can do it put the right word in a space and correctly guess a question with a 25% chance of getting it right with your eyes closed. I digress. What I came up with in the end was a simple idea which involves a lot of cutting up pieces of paper and the need for at least a sprinkle of imagination, on the student's part. 

First I put the class in pair then I get each pair to select for the four following catagories.  

1. A Name/Profession (x2 per pair)                                           
   
2. A Situation (x1)
3. Some recently studied phrasal verbs (x4)
4. Dependent prepositions (x4)

The next step is pretty simple. You hand it over to the students and get them to write a dialogue between these two people in their given situation, using all the phrasal verbs and dependent prepositions they have chosen. 

I've found this brings about a much greater understanding of the selected vocab and a good deal of laughter. 

I've added the printable version to the section at the top (just a few materials).

That's all for now peeps.

At school	On the tube, stuck in a tunnel
At church	In a bar
In an airport departure lounge	At a vegan food festival
In a bar	At a concert
At a police station	On a sinking ship
In a park	On a desert island
In the changing rooms at the gym	Stuck in a lift
In a bar	In a traffic jam
In the bus queue	In a sauna
At the supermarket	After an exam

Barak Obama	Adolf Hitler
Josef Stalin	Vincent Van Gogh
A Hairdresser	Pablo Picasso
Marilyn Monroe	Count Dracula
A computer technician	Albert Einstein
Dalai Lama	Russell Brand
Cristiano Ronaldo	Nelson Mandela
Lance Armstrong	Darth Vader
A doctor	Walter White
A teacher	Batman
Grow up	Hand out
Pick up	Think up
Stand out	Turn up
Stand up	Turn down
Look up	Get off
Think over	Get on
Come up with	Make up
Bring up	Break out
Look forward to	Work out
Drop in	Hang out

Depend on	Break from
Addicted to	Bored with
Admit to	Capable of
Think of	Successful in
Come from	Agree with
Argue about	Arrest for
Accuse of	Discuss with
Stop from…-ing	Explain to
Fear of	Congratulate on
Hope to	Rely on

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.

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.