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?

Shoehorn ˈʃuːhɔːn

This is an activity I use with students of all ages and a wide range of abilities.
I saw it on Jimmy Fallon and thought it would be a marvelous idea for the ESL classroom.
Shoehorn is a game whereby you have to make words you have in your hand somehow fit into the conversation you are having. Each time you use one you get rid of it. when you're done with your cards you win.
As the levels advance the difficulty of the vocabulary increases. Each word does also have to fit the patterne of the conversation. I had one student who got would just say "and then I saw a........"


I tend to use vocabulary that cropped up in previous classes to see if they have retained the new vocab and also to recycle it. I have also been using words from the three readings I have recently posted.

You can use any words. I like to make a nice big mix.

For example partner A might have their six words to the tune of:

Elephant  /'elɪfənt/
Breeze   /'bri:z/
Reputation /ˌrepjʊ'teɪʃən/
Umbrella /ʌm'brelə/
Slow-dance /'sləʊ'dɑ:ns/
Reserved /rɪ'zɜ:vd/

While B would have the words below printed and individually cut:

Operation
Desktop
Unreliable
Dilly-dally
Employable
Back-stabber

I give each student their cards face down. I then get another student to elect what the topic of the conversation is. Then the students go at it for a minute or until their cards have run out.
I also put another student in with the pairs to ensure there is no improper use of the words and to settle any disputes. Then the winning student takes on the judge with a new set of words. The topic of conversation changes and we continue. The students level dictates to me as to whether I should use phonemes instead of words. In all but one of my classes classic script wins out.

If you don't want to prepare, cut, think about and laminate your words then just get your students to write down six words at the end of the class. Then use this activity as a warmer. I've found my students have become much more spontanious and they now really look forward to playing this game.

Movies and Emoticons. What more could a teenager ask for?

Whilst trawling the endless breadths and depths of this here internet for something a little more exciting in class, I came across this little gem.
As we all know teenagers, well everyone really, are utterly obsessed with the wonders of mobile technology. I like to harness this excitement rather than crush it at first sight like many educators nowadays.
Before I had happened upon the soon to be revealed super wonder site. I was sitting in my office trying to make emoticon clues to various riddles and such. I then hit upon the idea of doing moive titles. At that very moment. It dawned on me. "someone will have done this... for sure." Within about four strokes of the keyboard I found myself immerced in a glorious array of crypitic movie titles. I printed them out and shoved them in front of my class of 32, 15 year old boys. I paird them up and told them to figure them out in English. the quickest one to get 30 correct could then take out their phone and start creating some titles for themselves.
Just have a look here. a huge thanks goes out to Memolition.com for this one. It has been an absolute life saver and the students just can't get enough of it.

 Next stop book titles. Or is that a little bit too optimistic.

Here's the link
50 film titles

Writing outside the box

Yes, write on that. Why? Because you can

While most of my posts are aimed at speaking and trying to get your students to open up as much as possible.
Today  I want to go down the writing road. I'm not going to try and pretend these ideas are mine, they're mostly from the weird wonderful mind the ELTgenius that is Chris Roland.http://chrisroland.net/ I've used them this year and they've really worked well on getting kids interested in writing and making sure teens actually give a damn about what comes from their pen.

Much like my recent potato post for speaking I've found writing on things that aren't there to be written on can really spark students' interest.

It's a fairly simple four step plan I implement each time I use something strange.
 I go through how to do said writing. Be it kids, exam students or adults.
 I do a quick plan and/or in class to make sure the students are all on the right track.
 Next I set the writing as homework and tell them in the next class, after correcting their work, they'll be writning their letter, essay, review on something a bit different, which is then put up around the room.

Some of the things I've used this year have been, tin foil/aluminium paper wrapped around an A4 sheet of paper, balloons, paper plates, napkins and latex gloves. Before I give any of the students their blank canvas I get the student to write me a letter of request to ask to use the object and to promise not to abuse it. They then in turn have to take great care and attention so as not to rip, burst or destroy their work. If they do, It's time to start again.

What this has done is made my students really focus on their work. They also end up having an almost perfect example of whatever piece of writing you have set and it sticks in their mind because it was somewhat out of the ordinary.

Making writing fun is the key to success and also giving students something fun to write on will really encourage them to do their homework. Can you imagine being in a class where all of your classmates are blowing up balloons and you'e stuck there doing the homework you "left at home."

Give it a shot. It realy livened up my writing session.

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.

Detective

A game I absolutely love to play with all my students is Detective. It's amazing for helping the formation of questions and is always a good laugh. What I've recently done, in conjunction with a game from the intonation section of STRIP, is combine it with question tags to add a bit of drilling and some much needed engagement with the grammar topic.

What I found with twenty question tags was it could get a bit stale when throwing this game into the mix it really livens things up. 

Before starting the activity you should obviously give. The students some target language. Some questions to ask, some responses to give. If you're doing this activity with question tags then really give a good review of those that could be used. O r perhaps just give students the statements and let them form the correct question tag. Eg. You took the rubber..... And You don't have any f&$#*£g evidence.......

To start the game I tend to build a story to get the students involved. I usually use something inane like a rubber or a pencil sharpener and tell the class that it holds the key to the very existence of the planet. If that rubber were to fall into the wrong hands all hell could and, most likely, would break loose.

Once the students are fully immersed in the tale I tell them that the item was, in fact, stolen the night before and two of the students, working as good cop and bad cop, would have to find the culprit in the class. 

I then send the two students out of the class and get them to decide who is the good cop and who is the bad cop, I also give them three or four minutes to prepare their questions. I give the rubber to a particularly angelic looking students and then, the two detective then re enter the class and set about questioning half of the class each. After five or six minutes the students should have a fair idea of who has taken the rubber of power. If they can retrieve the rubber they win the game and can throw it into the mount doom. 

Right I'm off to do some parenting.

Until the next time.

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

TESOL Spain

So it looks like I'll be speaking at TESOL Spail on Sunday the 9th of March. Get thee down there for some fun and learning; all at the same time. http://www.tesol-spain.org/en/pages/1/convention-2014.html

'til later.

H

Riddle me this

Whilst puzzling out interesting ways to spice up my classes I popped onto eslprintables.com in search of ideas. I was reminded by an ESL veteran about the joy of riddles. Making students think outside the box to get them focused on class and not just throwing them in with a grammar exercise or speaking exam part jazzed up as a game. I found students used lots of the speculation language we went over last week without using the prompt sheet.

I'd done a riddle of the day a few years ago with an intensive FCE class and it had worked wondrfully well and by the end of the four week course the riddles were taking less and less time because students had started to think so far out of the box that the box had become a dot on the horizon. 

I started with this little one yesterday as we've been working on stereotypes this week.

Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is John and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a lorry driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How did they know they'd arrested the right person?

I reminded the students we were working on stereotypes and that the carpenter, lorry driver and mechanic all had something in common. Then after stressing that HIS name was John a bright spark finally clicked and pointed out that the three former occupations were not gender specific and that they could as easily be women as men. Whereas the fireman by definition had to be a man. 

The class are now eagerly anticipating next week's riddle. I think I'll go with this little classic. 

How could a baby fall out of a twenty-story building onto the ground and live?

'til next time