Teaching English to Children in a FUN Way - English Language Games

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Lesson Plans & Worksheets for ESL Teachers

Select from 861 free downloadable PDF lesson plans and handouts, with answers and teachers' notes where needed, for all levels, including exam lessons for ESL/EFL teachers.
http://www.usingenglish.com/teachers/lesson-plans/

Hobbies, leisure and free time with young learners

From personal experience I can tell you that free time has the potential to be the best or worst of all topics with young learners – and sometimes both of those things for different students in the same lesson. For some students it can be an opportunity to enthuse about a hobby they love and even find ways of sharing that love with people in other countries. There is also the chance of introducing students to new hobbies. On the other side of the coin, there are bound to be at least some students who won’t admit to do anything but sleeping and watching TV with their free time – and depending on age and/ or nationality that could be most of the class. There is also the chance of students who start off enthused by the topic ending up disillusioned because of their classmates’ reaction to their hobby or by getting completely stuck when trying to communicate something about that hobby in English.
In a perfect world, we’d be able to use the advantages of this topic while avoiding the potential pitfalls, but the difficulty here is that both sides are connected to personalisation – the usually positive process of making the language memorable and the activity motivating by asking students to speak about themselves. One obvious solution is to allow students to both talk about their real hobbies and use their imaginations, e.g. with the use of lying games. Alternatively, you could widen the scope of the discussion by allowing them to talk about past, future and imaginary hobbies such as “If I had lots of money, I would…”
The other, perhaps safer, option is to have students speaking about hobbies generally rather than just their own, e.g. researching and presenting one hobby per group. You can also have an activity where speaking about their own leisure activities is just something to finish off the activity rather than something that must be extended for the lesson to work, e.g. designing questionnaires for most of the lesson and asking each other the questions in just the last ten minutes.
The best ways of making use of any enthusiasm students have for this topic are similar, e.g. making posters about their hobbies and Show and Tell. There are also loads of online resources for every hobby under the sun that students could read and (depending on age restrictions) take part in.
So that you can plan with your own class in mind, the activities explained below are divided into personalised, semi-personalised and non-personalised ones, with the last of those being the safest but also the least potentially rewarding. The activities include a good range of the things that students are likely to really want to say about hobbies, being:
- Where they do it
- Who they did it with
- How long they have been doing it and how they first got into it
- What materials and equipment they need
- Something about the history of the activity, e.g. what country taekwondo comes from and when it came into the Olympics
- Their degree of enthusiasm/ Their feelings about it
- Why they do it
- Their achievements
The activities also show how to tie this topic in with other language points such as:
- Adverbs of frequency/ Present Simple
- Present Continuous
- Present Perfect
- Second Conditional
- The language of likes and dislikes
In many activities below the teacher’s choice of hobbies to include are vital in making the lesson interesting and relevant to the students, with age-appropriacy being perhaps the most important factor.
Young learner practice activities for hobbies, free time and leisure
Personalised activities
Sentence completion bluff
Give students sentence stems that people often use when talking about their free time activities such as “I often play…”, “I sometimes go…”, “I… after school/ dinner” and “I can… very well”. They should fill in most of the sentences, making at least some of the things that they write false information (e.g. the ones they can’t think of anything true for). They then read out one of their sentences for the other students to guess if it is true or false, maybe after allowing other questions about that thing if they are high enough level to do so.
This activity can be a bit tricky to explain. The best way is simply for the teacher to fill in the questionnaire themselves and read out some examples for students to guess the truth of. It is best to start with obviously false ones like “I like playing with dolls” for a male teacher or “I have a pet elephant” so that they can clearly understand that they should sometimes lie.
Sentence completion guessing game
You can play something similar to the game above as a guessing game by asking students to fill in at least half of the gapped sentences and then read out just the part they have written for their group or the class to guess which sentence they wrote it in, e.g. that “cats” is “I like drawing…” rather than “I have… in my bedroom” or “I can…”. It is usually okay if the sentence can be filled with things that are grammatically different from each other as that makes it easier to guess and focuses more on the form of the language.
All around the clock
Ask students how much time they spend at school on a typical weekday and write the lengths of time on the board. They then ask each other questions like “How much time do you spend sleeping/ using a computer/ travelling on buses?” until their partner’s total reaches 24 hours. You can also do the same thing with totals for the whole week (168 hours) to bring in weekend activities.
Bigger hobby numbers
Students try to ask a question about free time activities where their number is bigger than your partner’s, e.g. “How many CDs do you have…?”, “How often do you…?”, “When did you last…?” or “How much money do you spend on…?”
When did you last play with Lego?
This is basically the same as the game above but students must try to find things they did more recently than their partner, e.g. “When did you last listen to music?” “This morning. And you?” “Ten minutes ago, just before the lesson. One point for me.”
Things in common
Students ask questions or make statements about their free time to try and find things that are true for both of them, e.g. “I like television” “Me too!” or “Do you often ride your bike?” “Yes, I do” “So do I”.
Ladder games
Give students a “ladder” of words that can be graded and are useful for talking about hobbies and free time, e.g. an adverbs of frequency one starting with “never” at the bottom and ending with “always” at the top, a similar one for expressing preferences from “hate” to “adore”, or the same for levels of skill from “terrible at” to “an expert in”. Students should ask questions to get answers from their partner that take them one step at a time from the bottom to the top without any mistakes, e.g. going from “How good are you at speaking French?” to “How good are you at speaking your own language?” via “How good are you at playing marbles?” etc for the levels of skill ladder. Any answer that their partner gives which is not the next step up on the ladder means they fall all the way back to the bottom again, but to make the task more manageable they can ask exactly the same questions when they try again. This can also be turned into a competitive game, but there is usually no need as the challenge of getting all the way to the top is enough.
Semi-personalised activities
What hobby would you have if…?
Students answer questions about hobbies starting with something like “What would you do with your free time if…?” and continuations like “if you were rich”, “if you were more sporty”, “if you had more free time” or “if you lived on a deserted tropical island”. Students can then vote on the best answer, guess who wrote which answer, try to find similarities between their answers and other people’s, or guess which answer matches which question.
Guess whose free time
Students guess who is being spoken about as someone else’s free time is described, e.g. they try to work out that I am speaking about my dad when I say “He often plays golf” and “He used to play Lego with me”. The people described can be themselves, people they know such as family members, famous people, or people with certain jobs such as “postman”.
Free time activities definitions game
Students are given a picture and/ or word representing a free time activity and must explain what it is without using any part of its name until their partner guesses what is being described, e.g. “It has four wheels. You can fall off. Boys like it. I have one.” for “skateboard”. Students who are less than a good Pre-Intermediate level and those with less imagination might need some suggested phrases, e.g. “I usually do this in the evening.”, “You need a computer to do this”, “I last did this… ago”, “I usually do this with my…”, “I used to do this when I was…” and “I don’t do this because…”
Before, after or instead of that game students can work together to write the best descriptions of free time activities, e.g. explaining local hobbies for people in another country or area who might never have heard of them.
Hobbies 20 questions
Students are even more likely to need to be given ideas about what to say, but the activity above can also be played with the person who has the hobby card just answering questions with “Yes” and “No” until the others guess what the free time activity is. Useful questions include “Can I/ you/ the teacher/ all of us/ everybody do this?”, “Do you do this every week?” and “Can we do this in a park?”
Ranking
Students choose a top five or top ten from a list of free time activities for a specific purpose, e.g. “The best brain exercise”, “The best for your health”, “The cheapest” and “The most exciting”. This is in the semi-personalised section of this article because they need opinions and knowledge but not necessarily personal experience to do the activity.
Questionnaires
Students write questionnaires to help them choose new hobbies for their classmates with questions like “Are you sporty?” and “Do you want to get more muscle?” This is semi-personalised because the question-writing stage is the main activity and no personal experience is necessary for that.
Show and tell/ Presentations
Students explain a hobby to the class, maybe using real object or picture to prompt interest and help explain. The free time activities can be their own, traditional ones from their country or area, traditional ones from another country or area, ones from history that have disappeared, ones they have been asked to speak about by the teacher and/ or ones connected to one of their classmates – hence the definition of this as semi-personalised. This works best if the teacher makes sure that some, most or all of the research can be done in English, e.g. by providing an encyclopaedia for young learners.
Posters
This is basically the same as the idea for presentations above but with students using their own knowledge and research to put together a poster rather than presenting what they have found. If you want to add speaking, then can then stand in front of their posters and describe them to people moving round the class.
Mimes/ Pictionary and discussion
Make a set of cards with usual and more unusual hobbies on them, e.g. “You are making pots” and “You are riding a bike”. Sentences can also be designed to practise can/ can’t, e.g. “I can use a yoyo” (mimed by doing so skilfully) and “I can’t swim” (mimed by pretending to drown). Students mime or draw those sentences until their partner guesses exactly what is written. When they have finished that stage they can then discuss which things they often do, have never done, think would be interesting, etc.
Non-personalised activities
Some of the activities above can have the personalisation taken out of them, e.g. by leaving the discussion stage out of the miming activity above. Others include:
Random collocations pelmanism
Make a set of cards with verbs connected to free time (e.g. “play with” and “collect”) for each group of two to four students, then an equal number of noun cards (e.g. “badges” and “soccer”) on different coloured paper. Each group spreads all their cards face down across the table. One student takes one of each kind of card, trying to make collocations like “collecting cats” and “playing TV”. If the collocation is a common one or they can explain why it might make sense (e.g. “It means collecting toy cats, not real ones”) they get a point and can keep the cards. If they can’t show that they match, they have to put the two cards back into the same places face down. As long as students have a good enough level to explain the connection between cards, you don’t have to design the pack so that there is an obvious match for each one, hence the name of this game.
Crazy combinations
You can also deliberately make the strange combinations like “He is making bicycles” and “She is dressing up a car”. Students mime or draw them until the class guess the sentence, then you can brainstorm more sensible combinations with the verb and/ or noun.
Video predictions
Students guess the hobbies of a character from a single frame of a video or some details about them (age, nationality, kind of animal, etc), then watch and check what free time activities that character does.
Storybooks about free time and hobbies
Surprisingly few books cover a good range of free time activities. Ones I have found include:
- Poems for Small Friends by Bobbi Katz and Gyo Fujikawa (catching tadpoles, taking a dog for a walk, looking after a kitten, picking fruit, walking in the countryside, dressing up, flying a kite, dancing, playing in the snow, climbing trees, reading, drawing, colouring)
- Gran and Grandpa by Helen Oxenbury (visit my grandparents, sing, dress up, do gardening, play tea parties, play doctors and nurses, watch TV)
- Titch by Pat Hutchins (ride a bike, fly a kite, play an instrument, do woodwork, grow plants)
In addition, many books which don’t focus on free time in the text have it in the illustrations, e.g. Owen by Kevin Henkes (play in the garden, play with blocks, draw, colour in, play hide and seek, play in a sandpit, have a bath, watch scary movies, camping, sewing).
Songs about free time and hobbies
Songs were also surprisingly difficult to find, with Playing in the Playground on LearnEnglishKids the only one that did actual free time activities rather than sports or other action words. You could also adapt Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush to have leisure activities like “This is the way I fix my bike (on a weekend morning)”.

A well-balanced use of pairwork

Although students and teachers can need some selling on the benefits of students working together in pairs, once they are convinced by the argument of the positive effects of students speaking more (lots of STT) and better classroom dynamics everyone can quickly get into the habit of working in pairs through most of the class. This, however, is a sure sign that things have gone too far the other way and that pairwork is being used as a reflex reaction or comfortable habit without thinking about the reasons why is was originally adopted. Below are some ways of spotting if you have been able to draw the fine line between too much pairwork and not enough, and ways of planning lessons that include whatever you decide is the perfect amount. 

Possible signs that you are using pairwork too much

1. Your students have complained about too much use of pairwork
2. Students have complained about working with people with much lower language levels
3. You use lots of pairwork games and students have complained about too many games
4. Student complaints (including ones that are not obviously tied to pairwork) have not changed your use of pairwork
5. Working with students who are not used to pairwork does not change how much you use it or how slowly you introduce it
6. Having a mixed level class does not change your use of pairwork
7. You use pairwork in small classes as often as you use it in larger classes
8. There is sometimes nothing for you to do when the students are doing pairwork
9. Your lesson plan doesn’t even say “pairwork” because you know that it will be used at every stage
10. You spend a lot of classroom time organising people into pairs
11. You spend a lot of classroom time explaining the rules of pairwork games
12. Students usually do most things twice – once as a pairwork stage and once as a whole class stage
13. You add lots of pairwork stages such as checking answers in pairs to the teacher’s book lesson plan without thinking too carefully about why you are doing so
14. Your use of pairwork means it takes you a lot longer to get through the textbook than the teacher’s book suggests or other teachers take
15. You have done the pairwork variations of most TEFL activities (dictation, error correction etc) but never the teacher-led version
16. You use pairwork at every stage you possibly can
17. You use pairwork when it would be quicker to do it as a whole class
18. You use pairwork when it extends an activity that would actually be better finished off quickly so you can move onto something else
19. Your students start doing everything in pairs without being asked because they know that is what you always ask them to do
20. You ask students to check their answers in pairs even when you know they all have the right answers
21. You ask students to check their answers in pairs even when you know that they have all made the same mistakes
22. When you count up the number of stages using pairwork, groupwork, team games, students working alone and whole class activities the number of pairwork stages is much bigger than that of any of the others, or even much bigger than all the others combined
23. You couldn’t answer if someone asked you why you made students work in pairs at each stage in your lesson
24. You get students working in pairs every time the textbook or teacher’s book suggests it, without thinking about alternatives
25. They always write in pairs (a somewhat unnatural activity!)
26. Students never have a minute or two just to try and get their head around the language

Possible signs that you aren’t using pairwork enough

1. You often go through a whole lesson without using any pairwork
2. Students speak for fewer than 10 minutes per class
3. There are many more stages where students work alone or as a whole class than there are pairwork stages
4. The amount of (useful) student talking time could be easily raised by adding pairwork
5. You don’t have an opportunity to stand back and monitor student errors
6. You are losing your voice by the end of the class or the end of the day
7. The students could have used another chance to look at their answers with the help of someone else before they got help from the teacher or checked their answers as a class
8. The students know everything about the teacher’s life but very little about each other
9. Most students in the class have never worked with each other
10. One student always shouts out the answers in whole class activities before other students have had a chance to think about it
11. Some students are too shy to speak out in front of the whole class
12. You have never asked students to check their answers in pairs
13. You have never used/ don’t know how to use textbook pairwork tasks like jigsaw readings
14. You have never used/ don’t know how to use photocopiable pairwork tasks like pairwork picture differences
15. You don’t know any pairwork variations on dictation, using videos etc.
16. You usually skip the parts of the textbook or the lesson plan in the teachers’ book that suggests students working in pairs
17. If students don’t respond well to pairwork when you first try it, you give up
18. If pairwork doesn’t work well with a class or students complain about it, you always stop using it rather than using it in different ways or explaining its uses to your students
19. The only reason you don’t use pairwork is because you don’t feel confident that you know how to

Ways of making sure you use the right amount of pairwork

1. Check your lesson plan for a good mix of pairwork, group work, students working on their own, team games, whole class student-led activities and whole class teacher-led activities. You can do this by number of activities or by percentage of class time.
2. Calculate an estimated average student talking time (STT) for your lesson plan, and see if you can raise the figure by using more or less pairwork, making sure you include realistic estimates for how long it will take to explain activities and rearrange the class
3. Have a space at the top of your lesson plan to list the pairwork stages, groupwork stages etc so that how many there are of each one becomes obvious
4. Find out about how much pairwork has been used in classes your students have been in before (e.g. classes with a different teacher in your school) and what kind of things they are used to doing in pairs, so that you know whether you should introduce it to them slowly or not
5. Find out how much pairwork is used in the school system your students went through
6. Find out if there are any cultural factors that could make pairwork popular or unpopular
7. Ask the school manager what the student reaction to pairwork has been in end of course feedback questionnaires
8. Ask for your school’s student feedback questionnaires to be changed to get more information on what they think about how pairwork is being used
9. At each pairwork stage, tell your students “Now I want you to work in pairs so that…”, so also making the reasons clear to yourself
10. Write the reasons for each stage on your lesson plan
11. Go through your lesson plan one more time to see if you could usefully add pairwork
12. Go through your lesson plan one more time to see if you could miss out any of the pairwork stages or usefully change them to groupwork, individual work or whole class activities

HAPPY EASTER!!!!!!!!

LEARN ENGLISH - Easter vocabulary

Handy Handouts for Teachers

http://www.handyhandouts.com/

Seven Teaching Strategies for Classroom Teachers of ELLs

 

 

1.Provide comprehensible input for ELLs. Language is not “soaked up.” The learner must understand the message that is conveyed. Comprehensible input is a hypothesis first proposed by Stephen Krashen. (Krashen, 1981) He purports that ELLs acquire language by hearing and understanding messages that are slightly above their current English language level. When newcomers are assigned to a mainstream classroom and spend most of their day in this environment it is especially critical for them to receive comprehensible input from their teachers and classmates. If that teacher provides information by lecturing in the front of a classroom, the English language learner will not be receiving this input. Teachers need to speak more slowly, use gestures and body language to get across the meaning to ELLs.

2.Make lessons visual. Use visual representations of new vocabulary and use graphs, maps, photographs, drawings and charts to introduce new vocabulary and concepts. Tell a story about information in the textbook using visuals. Create semantic and story maps, graphic organizers to teach students how to organize information.

3.Link new information to prior knowledge. Teachers need to consider what schema ELL students brings to the classroom and to link instruction to the students’ personal, cultural, and world experiences. Teachers also need to know what their students do not know. They must understand how culture impacts learning in their classroom.

4.Determine key concepts for the unit and define language and content objects for each lesson. Teachers write the key concept for a unit of study in student-friendly language and post it in the room. New learning should be tied to this concept. Additionally, teachers should begin each lesson by writing a content objective on the board. At the end of the lesson, students should be asked if the objective was met. Classroom teachers also need to set language objectives for the ELLs in their class. A language objective might be to learn new vocabulary, find the nouns in a lesson, or apply a grammar rule.

5.Modify vocabulary instruction for ELLs. English language learners require direct instruction of new vocabulary. Teachers should also provide practice in pronouncing new words. ELLs need much more exposure to new terms, words, idioms, and phrases than do English fluent peers. Teachers need to tie new vocabulary to prior learning and use visual to reinforce meaning. Content area teachers should teach new vocabulary words that occur in the text as well as those related to the subject matter. Word wall should be used at all grade levels.

6.Use cooperative learning strategies. Lecture style teaching excludes ELLs from the learning in a classroom We don’t want to relegate ELLs to the fringes of the classroom doing a separate lesson with a classroom aide or ESL teacher. Working in small groups is especially beneficial to ELLs who have an authentic reason to use academic vocabulary and real reasons to discuss key concepts. ELLs benefit from cooperative learning structures. Give students a job in a group. Monitor that they are participating.

7.Modify testing and homework for ELLs. Content area homework and assessments needs to be differentiated for ELLs. Teachers should allow alternative types of assessment: oral, drawings, physical response (e.g., act-it-out), and manipulatives as well as modification to the test. Homework and assessment should be directly linked to classroom instruction and students should be provided with study guides so that they know what to study. Remember that the ELLs in your class may not be able to take notes.

Writing Lesson Plans Using the Erin Condren Lesson Planner| Tina Bietler

5 Pieces of Advice for New Teachers

Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

 

The Benefits of Home Visits

Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.
— Paulo Freire (p. 72-73)

A home visit program can show that teachers, principals, and school staff are willing to "go more than halfway" to involve all parents in their children's education. These visits help teachers demonstrate their interest in students' families and they provide opportunities for teachers to understand their students better by seeing students in their home environments.
Home visits are not meant to replace parent-teacher conferences or to discuss children's progress. When done early, before any school problems might arise, home visits signal that teachers are eager to work with all families and avoid putting parents on the defensive. Teachers who have made home visits say they build stronger relationships with parents and their children and improve attendance and achievement. In this regard, Mary, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher who has been visiting the home of her students before the first day of school, writes:

…[H]ow I address my fear about the first day of school is to face it, as you suggest, I spend the week before the first day of school visiting my students' homes, meeting the students and their families. I can't wait for the first day of school, and so I go out and read the students in their neighborhoods, their homes, with their families. That way I know where my students are coming from, literally I know who their people are. I know the names their families call them. I know what they are proud of and what worries them, I begin to trust these families. My students and their families begin to trust me. (Nieto, 2009, p. 12)

Home visits are not a new concept. Head Start teachers have been using them for many years and in the last few years an increasing number of schools and districts have established successful home visit programs that have yielded many positive returns. Regardless of whether their schools have established a home visit program, many teachers of English language learners have been using home visits as a way to learn about their students and their home environments and to establish a much-needed connection with families and communities.
Several key components combine to create successful home visits: planning, arrival, departure, and post visit. These important aspects are explained below.

Planning

Prior to visiting students' homes, it is important to consider a few items. Remember that this might be an opportunity to help a parent such as Ms. Astorga feel more comfortable when visiting the school her children attend.

Este es mi cuarto año en los EE.UU. y sólo he ido a la escuela para matricular a mis hijos. No me siento a gusto en la escuela…tengo un poco de miedo de no hacer las cosas bien y de no entender lo que me dicen. Y mis hijos me dicen que mejor no vaya pues a lo mejor meto la pata.
This is my fourth year in the U.S. and I have only been to the school to register my kids. I don't feel at ease in the school—I am afraid of not doing the right thing or misunderstanding what they say. My kids tell me not to go because if I do I might make a mistake.
— Ms. Astorga, parent from Chile

Tips for success

• Determine the purpose(s) of the visit such as learning more about students and exploring ways that the school and teachers can better serve families.
• Schedule a home visit 7 to 10 days in advance.
• Communicate the purpose of your visit and approximately how long the visit will last (30 to 45 minutes).
• Follow up with a brief written note indicating the exact date and time of the meeting, preferably written in the family's home language.
• If possible, learn the names of family members.
• Learn a few words of the family's first language, even if they're only "hello" and "thank you." This shows you care enough to make an effort and may help break the ice.
• Ask another adult to accompany you to your first home visits, preferably someone who speaks the home language of the families.
• Consider that some parents may be familiar and comfortable with home visits, having experienced them in their countries of origin. Others may not be familiar or comfortable with the idea.
• If parents have difficulty scheduling a time to meet with you, it may be because some parents work 2 or more jobs.
• Begin making home visits prior to the start date of school. This may help lower the anxiety level of your students and will help you become aware of your students' English language proficiency levels.
• Know where you are going (that is, have a map or GPS device).
• Leave a schedule of home visits with the school staff.
• If possible, bring a small gift, such as a little bag of cookies, a children's book, or a notebook as a token of appreciation.
• If you will need the services of a translator/interpreter, consider asking fewer questions. Since questions and answers have to pass through the translator/interpreter, they will probably require twice the amount of time.

Arrival

Instantly when we rang the doorbell we were greeted by four bright smiling faces—dad, mom and Rocio and Laura (ages 8 and 10). Both parents came up to us and shook our hands, and the girls curtseyed and giggled in their beautiful fancy dresses. Though I was still a bit shy and awkward at first, my fears were dismissed as soon as I realized how kind and inviting the family truly was.
— Roxana, 3rd grade teacher

Tips for success

• Be on time.
• Dress appropriately — err on the side of formal attire.
• Be aware of and look for cultural expectations in the home. For example, in some cultures it is expected that people entering the home will remove their shoes and walk about the home in socks or in special footwear provided by the host.
• Introduce yourself and the adult accompanying you.
• Begin by establishing rapport through small talk.
• Conversation starters: "Tell me about your child." "What does your child like best about school?""What are schools like in _______ (country of origin)?" "Tell me about _______ (siblings or other family members)."
• While you are encouraged to do more listening than talking, you could also talk about your school's routines, classroom curricula, or teacher expectations among other topics.
• If you're nervous, remember, the family you are visiting is also probably nervous.
• Bear in mind that in many cultures, teachers are more highly respected than in the U.S. It is a significant event to host a teacher in families' homes.
• Don't be afraid to look foolish while trying to bridge the language gap. If necessary, try drawing pictures or acting out what you mean.
• During the conversation, maintain eye contact with the family even if you are speaking through a translator/interpreter.
• Avoid taking notes or recording the conversation when visiting the family. This can be perceived as rude or threatening.
• Avoid talking about negative things.
• While in a family's home, put on your anthropologist's lens. This means trying to view the host home from the perspective of those living there.
• Show respect and empathy.
• Smile. Be aware, however, that some Eastern European families may perceive smiling as a sign of insincerity. Observe the family and adjust your behavior accordingly.

Departure

I invited the family to come to the literacy night next week at the school and asked the dad if he would read a picture book in Spanish for the kids. He agreed. Wow, was I wrong in thinking that this family was not interested in the education of their kids!
— Geoffrey, 2nd Grade teacher

Tips for success

• Lay the groundwork for future events, such as parent teacher conferences, upcoming fairs, or literacy nights.
• Invite families to participate.
• Provide families with information on how to contact you, including your telephone number, email address, and classroom or office hours.
• Share information about community and school resources.

Post Visit

I learned tons from this visit. My "Russian" student is actually Ukrainian. The family moved from a part of the Ukraine where half the people speak Russian and half speak Ukrainian. Both parents grew up there, and both were educated in schools where a few classes were taught in Ukrainian.
— Katia, 6th Grade teacher

Tips for success

• Take a few moments away from students' homes to write down a quick summary of the visit.

What to do first: Creating a welcoming ELL classroom environment

Making textbook listenings manageable and fun

Despite the attempts of some textbooks to use more stimulating listening activities like jigsaw listenings, stories in episodes that end at suspenseful moments, comic dialogues etc, turning on a tape is still the most likely action to make some of your students either sleepy or panicky. As well as adapting drier listening texts to incorporate more fun textbook activities like those just mentioned, there are plenty of things you can do to make a listening text less boring and less difficult for your students. These can be divided into things they do:
1. Before listening
2. Before class
3. While listening
4. After listening

1. Before listening
A Sense of Anticipation
Any time the students spend anticipating and thinking about what they are going to hear can help them understand when they do finally hear it, for example tasks where they predict what is going to be said and then listen and check. Such pre-listening tasks can also be extended to them doing a whole roleplay or other long speaking task and then listening to a conversation in the same situation on the CD. As words and expressions come up that they need to communicate, these stages can also often be a good natural time to pre-teach things that they will need to understand when they are listening.
Pre-teach everything
Although textbooks usually limit the language they go through before listening to vocabulary (vocabulary pre-teaching), you can pre-teach any knowledge that a native speaker is likely to know and the students not, and will therefore make understanding difficult or impossible. As well as other language stuff like the meaning of grammatical structures they have never come across before or the changes in pronunciation of words in fast natural speech, this can also include cultural knowledge such as place names, personal names, or what the usual replies to certain phrases are or what people usually say in certain settings or situations. When pre-teaching vocabulary, you will also need to make sure you drill and analyze the pronunciation, then maybe get them to use the vocabulary in communication so that they know it properly before they listen.
One minute of help
As well as the general difficulties of listening to a tape with no visual prompts etc, students can also have problems listening to specific texts due to variations in accent, speed of speech, background noise, number of speakers, length of speaking turn etc. This can be dealt with by letting them listen and read a short part at the beginning of the text before they go on and listen to the whole thing.
To make sure they are really listening to that short extract, you will need to give them one easy task to listen for, e.g. "How does the man feel?" This can then lead onto the first easy general understanding task for the first time students listen to the whole text, e.g. "Why does he feel that way?"
One easy question for you
The secret to designing an easy and useful task for the first time students listen all the way through are:
a) Make sure the question(s) can be answered from several different parts of the text, e.g. "Do they mainly agree with each other or mainly disagree with each other?" rather than "Do they agree or disagree at the end?", so that if they miss parts of what is said it doesn\'t stop them doing the task, and so that people who understand the beginning of the text perfectly still have a reason to listen through to the end to check their answer.
b) Have as few questions as possible for them to answer, preferably just one
c) Make sure they understand the question, e.g. by discussing what the answers could be before they listen
d) Do the first task with books closed, to stop them becoming distracted
e) Write the task they need to do up on the board, so they can\'t forget what it is
As well as a single general comprehension task, another easy thing students can do the first time they listen is just to pick out particular language, e.g. "Are the future forms used all ‘going to\' or all ‘will\'?" or "Count how many times they say ‘we\'"

2. Before class
Students can also be given time to prepare for a listening before the class, e.g. being given the list of pre-teach vocabulary to learn or write the phonemic symbols for, writing out a dialogue similar to the one they are going to hear, or being told to listen to a previous textbook task again or something available on the internet because it is similar to what they are going to listen to in class next week.

3. While listening
Active response
One way of simplifying the listening and make it more fun is to give the students a simpler and more active way of responding rather than just scribbling down answers, e.g. responding physically by sticking up their hand as soon as they hear something the class had predicted, slapping a card with the answer written on it, holding up a question mark if they hear a question, making the facial expression of the feeling of the person they are listening to etc. At a later stage, students could also act out (mime) the dialogue as they listen to it. Giving the students control of the stereo can also have the same effect of waking them up and getting them involved.
Slow down and let me think
Some cassette recorders have a speed control that you can use to slow down the speech a little, either when students listen to the whole text a second or third time or just for a short section that they are not catching.
If you don\'t have this speed function, pausing the tape can also help- even when you are not asking them to do anything special in that time but just letting them think. One time that it is well worth pausing the tape is after the first of a list of comprehension questions is answered on the tape, to make sure everyone understands the task and has not lost concentration during the introductionary part of the listening.

4. After listening
As well as any grammar or vocabulary work in the book that the listening leads onto, to make sure the students find listening to a similar text the next time you will need to spend some time making sure they analyze their difficulties and practice the language that comes up.
Analysis
Especially with listenings that students found difficult but will need to be able to understand (e.g. exam listenings for IELTS or TOEIC students, lectures for students who are going to study abroad) it is worth asking students why they found it difficult and giving them some self-study tips on where to find English language listening sources of the right type and level, and what to do when they are listening to them. This can then prepare the students for any further language work you do in class.
Ways of analyzing a listening text include writing the sounds you are focusing on (e.g. schwa for unstressed grammar words) in phonemic symbols on the tapescript as you listen, drawing loops between words when the sounds are linked together, putting brackets around sounds that are not pronounced or are hardly pronounced, and marking the sentence stresses or word stresses.
Practice
You will then want to make sure the students remember the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and functional language points in the listening. Although it is worth mainly concentrating on language they will actually need to produce, some drilling of linking sounds, for example, can be worthwhile if it will help them understand fast natural speech next time.
Practice activities that are interactive and fun include students testing each other\'s memory of the text, either the facts or elements of language such as the prepositions. If it is a dialogue, they can also read out the dialogue in pairs then cover it up line by line from the bottom and practice until it is all remembered. To make sure they use the right rhythm while they do pairwork tasks like this, you can first do shadow reading, where half of the class take each part and speak along exactly in time with the cassette, finishing with the cassette fading out and back in again to see if they have remained in time. Students can then be given roleplay cards to improvise similar conversations in pairs.

Conclusion
While most of the tasks above are useable with all kinds of listenings, before choosing which one you will need to analyze the text and the tasks in your textbook and decide what the students are likely to find difficult. One way of analyzing this is to first think about what problems students might have if they read the text, and then think about what problems will be added when they listen to it. Tasks like those above can then be used to limit and deal with those difficulties as they come up- as well as, of course, making the class fun!

A well-balanced use of warmers and fillers: A well-balanced use of warmers and fillers

 

A well-balanced use of warmers and fillers

Using short two to ten minute energising activities as warmers at the beginning of a lesson is a basic technique of language teaching that can make a huge difference to the atmosphere of a class, and therefore to how much students learn and how happy they are to come back to class next week. The same is true of using exercises in the middle of the class to give students a break and reenergise them. Like everything in life, though, you can have too much of a good thing. Below are some tips on checking if you have got the use of warmers and fillers just right, and what you can do about it if you haven’t.

Signs that you are using warmers too much

If any of the things below are true for you, you might want to think about cutting down the number of warmers you use or using them differently:

1. Absolutely every lesson starts with a warmer
2. Most of your warmers aren’t linked to the content of the rest of the lesson
3. Warming students up is the only justification for most of your warmers
4. You try the same warmer in every class in your schedule without thinking about the characteristics of each class
5. You try new warmers because “This is something I really want to try” rather than “This would be really good with my (Thursday afternoon) class”
6. You automatically use the warmer you have planned even when the class is already filled with energy when you walk into the room
7. There are other stages in your lesson that are more linked to the rest of the lesson that could work just as well as a warmer as the separate warmer stage you have put in
8. The students know that extending the warmer is a great way of avoiding the real work they will have to do in the rest of the lesson
9. You can’t answer if someone asks you what the warmer was for in that lesson
10. You can’t answer if someone asks you why you used the warmer or filler at that point
11. Students have got so used to warmers that they aren’t really energised by them any more
12. You have to desperately search around for new warmer ideas because your students have already used every one you know
13. Students don’t switch their brains on for the first 10 minutes of every class because they think what they do then is just a bit of irrelevant fun
14. Students have complained about too many games
15. When you are planning your lesson you decide to leave out a useful stage without thinking about whether you could take out the warmer or filler instead

Signs that you aren’t using warmers and fillers enough

1. There is no space on your lesson plan for an (optional) warmer
2. You have no idea what to do when students’ energy drops
3. The first activity of every lesson is checking the homework
4. The first activity of every lesson is at least 15 minutes long
5. The students only warm up by the midpoint of each lesson
6. Students are never surprised in your lessons
7. Your usual responses to having five minutes left are to extend the last activity or chat
8. You only have one or two warmers and fillers in your entire repertoire
9. You haven’t learnt any new warmers and fillers since your initial training course
10. The only thing stopping you from using a warmer or filler is not knowing one which will fit in with the lesson, group of students or time available that you haven’t used before
11. You just got out of the habit of using warmers and fillers, but you can’t remember why
12. You are just too nervous to try them in case students think they are stupid
13. You have never tried to use a warmer or filler
14. You have tried every other way to cope with a class with bad dynamics
15. There are no plan Bs on your lesson plan

Ways of making sure you use the right number of warmers and fillers

1. Have a space on your lesson plan for your optional fillers and warmers, and write down or think about under what circumstances you will or will not use them. Then check the rest of your lesson plan to see if any other stages that are already there could be used as a warmer or filler instead, e.g. testing each other on the answers to the homework.
2. Have a collection of at least five warmers that are on your list of things to try (but with no rush in which to do so)
3. Ask an observer or someone checking your lesson plan to concentrate on your use of warmers and fillers
4. Explain to the students why you are using each warmer or filler, therefore making its clear purpose obvious to yourself too
5. Collect lots of warmer and filler ideas and then classify them with things like “no good for teenagers”, “ties in with functional language classes” etc, perhaps writing those comments next to the ideas.
6. Add warmer ideas to your supplementary files or the ones in your teachers’ room, e.g. under each grammar point or each area of ESP.
7. Give a workshop on warmer and filler ideas, making sure people discuss how and when to use each idea rather than just saying “This is a good one”, and/ or have a notice board where people pin up their ideas with comments on each one.

Boosting students’ confidence in the teacher. Ways of helping students learn by helping them learn to trust the teacher.

Students’ confidence in their language ability and its impact on speaking and learning is a common topic in TEFL articles, teachers’ room conversations and student progress reports. There are also two other kinds of student confidence that have a serious impact on student progress: their confidence in the teacher and their confidence in the techniques that are being used in class. These two kinds of confidence can perhaps have the biggest impact of all on how much students get out of education generally, and this is even more important in TEFL because:
- The youth and lack of qualifications of some teachers is often talked about, including in the press and online.
- Ditto for the lack of government standards, e.g. for the private language learning sector or for the recruitment of native English speaking Assistant Language Teachers.
- The standard qualifications in the profession are often unknown by students.
- Techniques are often very different in adult classes to what they experienced in school, but without students necessarily showing sudden huge leaps ahead in progress.
- The profession’s idea of an expert teacher and students’ idea of one can often vary, e.g. in the emphasis on knowing prescriptive grammar rules.
The easiest way of thinking about the impact of this kind of confidence on learning is to imagine examples of trying to study in a class where you have no confidence in the teacher and/ or the approach, for example:
- Listening to the grammar explanation of a teacher whose language knowledge you generally believe to be unreliable.
- Doing a mingle activity for learning collocations with “Why do I have to stand up? This is so childish and such a waste of time” running through your head from start to finish.
- Being given language learning tips by a teacher who you know has only picked up a few sentences in their two years in your country.
Reasons why students might have confidence in their teacher:
- Qualifications and experience
- Other professional recognition
- Other people’s confidence (e.g. they have seen that the school has confidence in them or they have heard good things about the teacher)
- Language level (e.g. in English, in the students’ L1 or in other foreign languages)
- Knowledge (e.g. they have seen that the teacher knows the language, the materials, etc and the teacher is honest the few times when they don’t know something)
- General professionalism (e.g. appearance, time keeping and organisation)
- Other behaviour (e.g. outside class)
I will give tips on how teachers and schools can boost students’ confidence in each of these ways. These ideas are aimed at both teachers themselves and the management of schools. Please note that in general there is a thin line between the tips below and plain boasting, and that too much trying to give them confidence in the teacher might make them wonder why so much effort needs to be made!
Qualifications and experience
Schools can publicise teachers’ qualifications and experience, either as a general statement (“All of our teachers have a qualification in teaching and a qualification in a foreign language”) or (with their agreement) with information on individual teachers. As qualifications like “CELTA” and “Cambridge Delta” are likely to mean little to students, it is worth explaining them with phrases like “The world’s first and most popular qualification in teaching English as a foreign language, offered by part of Cambridge University” and “One of the highest level practical qualifications in teaching English as a foreign language”.
Teachers can also find subtle ways of mentioning their own qualifications and/ or experience. One is to use your own CV in classroom activities. I use an edited version of my CV for a pairwork speaking task by putting different gaps into the Student A and Student B versions, and we go on to discuss similar interview questions and writing a CV. I originally used my own CV simply because it was easier than writing a fake one, but student comments have since convinced me that letting them know how long I’ve been teaching and in which countries doesn’t hurt.
Teachers can also mention their training and length of experience in Getting to Know You activities.
The most common way of doing this is with the game where the teacher writes true short answers such as “Ten years” and “Seven countries” on the board. Students must try to get those answers from the teacher by asking questions like “How long have you been teaching?” and “How many places have you lived?”
Other professional recognition
As there are usually at least a few people studying English who are also teaching English at some level, there is no reason why a school or teacher shouldn’t publicise their articles or conference presentations about teaching, e.g. on the school noticeboard. If the teacher has produced photocopiable material that is published (on paper or online), it is also well worth using those materials in class with the copyright message and the teacher’s name still on them. If the teacher is asking the students to do something to help their research for an article they hope will be published it is also worth mentioning that and maybe also telling them when it does go in the publication, with appropriate thanks for their help.
Other people’s confidence
This is a difficult one to plan but there is one specific example is that is worth subtly mentioning. If a group of people (e.g. CELTA trainees) are observing the lesson to see how it should be done rather than to check if the teacher is doing their job properly, there are non-boastful ways of making students aware of that. If you are involved in online communication on TEFL matters, you could also mention when people have agreed with you on the best way to learn English etc.
Language level
If the teacher speaks a foreign language well or many foreign languages (however poorly), that can be mentioned in Getting to Know You games like those mentioned above. Students might also be interested and impressed if the teacher knows which language English words come from or where words in their own language that they assume are English actually come from.
Knowledge
Knowledge which is likely to impress students includes:
- Use of phonemic symbols
- Ability to answer student questions, e.g. when asking them to correct their own mistakes
- Typical student mistakes
- Reasons for language being that way, e.g. origins of sayings or Latin roots of words
- Knowledge of Second Language Acquisition
A mention of the final point above can easily be justified during discussion of self-study tips.
A particularly complicated situation is when your knowledge contradicts what students have been told before, particularly if your explanation goes against that of a favourite teacher or traditional prescriptive grammar. Being able to show that your version is better than the previous one is obviously one of the best reasons for students to trust you, but be prepared to justify your version a lot.
General professionalism
A good general rule on appearance is to dress one level above the smartest student, e.g. in a tie if they are in a shirt and in a jacket if they are in a tie. Students may also have views on which colours are considered professional.
The teacher should obviously be in class on the dot at the very latest, and definitely come early if something needs setting up, e.g. the IWB needs to be turned on or chairs need to be moved. Alternatively, it is worth coming in briefly ten or so minutes before the class to check the whiteboard pens are all there, put the air conditioning on, etc. It is perhaps less obvious that it is at least as important to finish the class on time.
You can also show your organisation in the class by:
- Having the pages you need suitably marked with a post-it or paperclip so you don’t have to search for the right place
- Cueing recordings before they are needed and being able to quickly skip back to the right place (e.g. by use of the counter)
- Dividing the whiteboard into sections
- Explaining the plan for the class (e.g. by writing the plan on the board)
- Having any worksheets divided up ready to hand out, e.g. by using a folder with pockets
- Having a backup plan if the technology doesn’t work
- Being able to cope with unexpected changes, e.g. late or extra students
Giving out business cards can make a good impression in some situations.
I would personally ban teachers from taking hot drinks into class, even if students are doing that.
Other behaviour
If any students or parents are likely to disapprove of teachers smoking, it is worth having a smoking area well out view of people coming into the school.
Teachers need to be careful what personal information they give students, e.g. to be cautious about mentioning their love life, drinking habits, number of jobs, rebellious youth, etc.
Other tips
As confidence is something it is very difficult to get back, teachers should try to achieve as much confidence boosting as they can in the first couple of lessons, e.g. using phonemics very early on, and wearing a tie and conservatively-coloured clothes for the first few classes.
It is worth trying to brainstorm reasons why your students might lack confidence and things that are likely to make that worse, including culturally-specific factors. Getting students to talk about their previous good and bad educational experiences, e.g. as part of needs analysis, can help with this.

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How to teach advantages and disadvantages- looking at both sides.

Asking students to look at both sides and then come to a conclusion is perhaps the most common kind of essay question in EFL, including in IELTS and Cambridge exams. It can also be a good structure for presentations and more informal extended speaking activities. In addition, for debates and discussions students can try to brainstorm both advantages and disadvantages in order to be able to pick a side, predict the other side’s arguments and/ or prepare counterarguments. A lesson on advantages and disadvantages can also be a good way of getting students to look at things from other points of view, something that is a vital intercultural communication skill. The structure of looking at pros and cons can also be a good way into the topic of supporting your arguments, looking at cause and effect, etc, and good practice of brainstorming in small groups. You can also use some of the practice activities below as a way of practising or presenting vocabulary.
Despite all these uses and how common it is to set the task of looking at both sides, very few EFL books have sections specifically on the language of advantages and disadvantages. This article will look at issues involved in having specific lessons on this point, then give presentation and practice activities, with most of the ideas adaptable for both speaking and writing classes.
What students need to know to explain both sides of an argument/ Typical students problems with giving advantages and disadvantages
The first thing students will need to be able to do is to understand what exactly they are being asked to do. For example, most students are unaware that “discuss” in a writing question means that they have to look at both sides of the issue. Others miss the “s” at the end of questions asking them to “Look at the advantageS and disadvantageS”, instead often giving a detailed justification of just one of each. There can also be times when students assume they have to look at both sides but could have got away with just looking at one side and might have been better off doing so, for example if the question simply asks “What do you think about…?”
After having made sure they understand the tasks, students will often need to be able to brainstorm at least three or four points on either side. If brainstorming will be done in groups of two or three students, it might be useful to give them phrases for this interaction like “Any more ideas?” and “I think that’s enough. Shall we choose the most important ones/ cross off the least important ones?”
Problems when explaining those positive and negative sides to other people tend to include overusing the same few words or expressions and using simple and rather information-free expressions like “One advantage is…” Other possible expressions that are worth teaching include “pros and cons”, “arguments for and against”, “good and bad points”, “positive and negative aspects”, “benefits and drawbacks”, “pluses and minuses”, “selling points”, “arguments in support” and “merit”. The last three have no obvious opposites (“demerit” only really being used to talk about school punishments). There are slight differences between those expressions in terms of formality, topics they are used with, and sometimes meaning. There are also other slightly different but still useful phrases like “positive consequence”.
Putting the expressions above into longer, more complex, more creative and more informative phrases can lead to expressions like “a comparatively minor drawback”, “by far the greatest selling point”, “the main argument in support”, “a great/ major/ big disadvantage”, “a possible/ potential minus”, “the overwhelming merit” and “a significant plus”, with some restrictions on which words collocate with which. These kinds of collocations are less common with “pros and cons”, as the two parts of that expression tend to stay quite close to each other, usually in the same sentence. “Pros and cons” also don’t have singular forms, “a con” being instead a fraud or an ex-prisoner, and “a pro” being a professional.
The distinction between “the” for “the only/ aforementioned/ greatest advantage” and “a” for “one of the…” is also often a difficulty for students, and a useful grammar point that is well worth bringing up as part of a lesson on advantages and disadvantages.
Students will also need more general phrases for continuing their arguments on one side or switching to the other side of the argument such as “Moreover”, “Furthermore”, “In addition” and “On the other hand”, “On the other side of the coin”, “Turning to the other side of the argument”, “We can balance against”, “As for…”, “Moving onto…”, “Looking at…”. Students can have problems distinguishing between these, e.g. that “whereas” is more general than “On the other hand”, that “but” is very informal at the start of a sentence, or that “On the contrary” actually means the last thing isn’t true (rather than just can be argued against). They can also have issues with telling the difference between these kinds of phrases and ones that show what the conclusion is coming such as “Despite all of this,…”, “Even though all that is true,…”, “Nevertheless” and “Nonetheless”.
At the conclusion stage students particularly have problems with not providing a clear link between the arguments on both sides that they have listed and the final conclusion, or with not having a clear conclusion at all. The latter is often a cultural difference, with totally sitting on the fence rarely being acceptable in the UK and US – if only because it makes reading or listening to both sides seem utterly pointless! Culture can also be a factor in “As we have seen, there are several advantages and disadvantages, but in my opinion it is a good idea”, but native speakers are certainly not immune to such logical jumps. As with English-speaking teenagers who create those kinds of essays, students will need to be taught to eliminate less important factors they have talked about, pick the most important, and/ or weigh up both sides, probably after briefly summarising what they have said. Given that students are in class to practise their language at least as much as sharing their actual opinions, they can help themselves with this by expressing the conclusion that comes naturally out of what they have written or said, even if that contradicts their opinion before they started writing or speaking.
There can also be issues with their first stage of their speaking or writing (mentioned at this point of this article because it should usually be the last part of an essay or presentation that they plan). I generally advise against students giving their conclusion away in their introduction, as it can make it seem like giving the ridiculous and annoying response “I definitely want to go for a picnic. There are both advantages and disadvantages to going on a picnic” when your friends asks “What shall we do on Sunday?” It can also make it difficult to put anything new or interesting in the conclusion. Longer academic writing might need some kind of abstract with a description of their conclusions, but they will still need to try to design that abstract to make people read further rather than to tell them all they need to know before they do so.
Classroom presentation of looking at both sides
My students are usually in the position I have mentioned above of often having been asked to look at both sides but never having been taught how to do so. I therefore tend to take a Test Teach Test/ Task-based Learning approach – asking them to do look at both sides of a debate, testing them on language they know or can think up to do so, then expanding their knowledge before asking them to do so again. The initial task can also be done with a list of suggested phrases for them to use, in which case they can also try to remember those at the next stage.
My usual way of testing and expanding what language they know or remember tends to be getting them to brainstorm words into the gapped phrases “A/ An _________________________ advantage” and “The ____________________ advantage”, plus the same for disadvantages. After then putting suggested words into the right gaps, they brainstorm other words meaning “advantage” and “disadvantage”, and match suggested words to those two meanings.
Stronger groups can also be thrown straight into these brainstorming and matching tasks before any speaking practice. There is also a way of getting straight to the phrases while demanding less of them than brainstorming, a game which I call The Longer Phrases Card Game. Students match beginnings and endings of shortish phrases like “Even though” + “that is true,…” or “There are” + “pros and cons”. Then, perhaps after brainstorming words which could go in the gaps between the two cards, they put other cards (e.g. “all” and “both” for these examples) in those gaps.
The TTT/ TBL approach described above means that most of the practice activities below can also be used in the first stage.
The other alternative is to get students guessing from language in context whether the phrases with these functions mean advantages, disadvantages, changing sides, sticking to the same side, or coming to a conclusion. This guessing from context is easier than with most other language points, as long as there are a few expressions in there with those functions that they already know or can easily guess such as “but” and “arguments against”. For example, the simple rule “expression meaning advantage” + “expression meaning and” leads to “expression meaning advantage” (plus the opposites with “disadvantage” and “but”) can help them guess most of the useful language without even needing to work out which side each specific argument in supporting - although that is also of course useful. Model answers for IELTS and similar exams for native speakers can provide lots of lovely examples with enough context to guess from, although you might want to edit the model texts in order to add even more useful phrases.
Classroom practice of looking at both sides
As mentioned above, getting students to prepare for a debate with another group is great practice of this language, particularly if you let groups choose which side of the debate they want to take after some thought on the topic, then ask them to predict the other side’s arguments and think of how to defeat them. The actual debate itself, however, is likely to lead to far less of the language of looking at both sides than you might like, given how one person or group will be mainly looking at one side.
Instead of a debate, you might want to set up the discussion as a kind of brainstorming competition, with students allowed to continue giving more ideas on the same side of the argument or the other side, as long as they use new phrases with every statement they make. This can also be played with cards that have phrases and/ or single words they must use (“Turning to…”, “also”, “despite”, etc), or functions that they must express differently to how has been done so far (“change sides”, “conclude”, etc). Students are allowed to discard cards if they use the phrases correctly, as long as those phrases haven’t been heard so far in the game. The person with the fewest cards remaining at the end is the winner. These cards can also be used with many of the other activities explained in this article.
A more amusing kind of coming up with arguments on both sides challenge is for students to mention things that they think only have one side and for their partner to see if they can come up with something on the other side of the coin, e.g. “Falling poverty only has advantages”. “That does seem to be the case, but in fact falling levels of poverty cause people to appreciate the little things in life less.” This activity can also be played for points, with one point for each argument they can come up with on the other side or each thing they can think of that no one can think of anything on their other side for.
A simpler version of this is for students to work in groups of three or four. One student chooses a topic that they think is overwhelmingly one-sided and argue that side, with all the other people in the group attempting to take the other side. The side which comes up with most arguments wins.
There are several activities which aim to improve their ability to link their arguments to their conclusions. One is for students to read or listen to someone looking at both sides of something and then predict their conclusion before they actually hear it.
Students can also be forced to use one of the phrases they have been given such as “Eliminating the two least important factors,…” and “As we have seen, there are more… than… and therefore…” to come to a conclusion at their end of their brainstorming and/ or discussion. They can then discuss if that conclusion makes sense and matches their own ideas. This is more fun if they phrases are chosen randomly in some way, e.g. taken from the top of a pack of cards face down on table or chosen by someone closing their eyes and pointing at a worksheet.
Partly in order to solve this problem of random conclusions, students can also work in turn to write pieces looking at both sides in a consequences/ chain writing kind of way. Each student writes an introduction to the essay, then passes that piece of paper to their right. They then write one side of the argument on the paper they have received, passing it two more times for the other side and the conclusion to be added. They then receive one more and see if the four parts of the essay match or not. The essays can all be on the same topic or different topics.
A more intensive way of making the point is to give students an essay as a Word document on a computer and ask them to change it as little as they can while making the opposite conclusion make sense. This could also be done with paper and pencil, as long as you give them the essay printed with a blank between each line to give them room to edit. They could also be asked to edit an essay down while leaving the same conclusion – the main point being made by doing so is that it should be difficult or impossible if the essay is well written.
There are enough common errors and confusions with this language point to be able to do a whole activity where students have to work out if expressions have the same or different meanings, or correct errors. The first can be played as a kind of game by getting them to lift “The same” or “Different” cards depending on what they think about the meanings of the expressions they hear, with more than two expressions being all the same or all different. For error correction, language to correct can be given as phrases or sentences, or as part of a whole text. If it’s a whole text, as well as mistakes with phrases, students could be given a text with bad paragraphing, no paragraphing, mixed formality, answers that don’t match the question, overlong justifications of single advantages or disadvantages, advantages or disadvantages stated with no support, etc.
Error correction can also be used at the presentation stage if you add less typical and/ or more common language errors to other useful phrases like “A additional advantage”, asking them to use the phrases in some speaking or writing once they have corrected them.

Fun classroom practice of collocations

I don’t think anyone could argue with the need to learn collocations such as “extremely (not fabulously) sorry”, “go (not do) jogging” and “a bird (not chicken) in the hand is worth two in the bush” at every stage of language learning. However, there are all kinds of theoretical and practical problems with actually using class time to help students learn such things.
Perhaps the biggest problem in class is that the activities which are usually put in textbooks (e.g. two rows of words which you must link with lines and multiple choice gapfills) are boring, uncommunicative and could just as easily be done at home alone. It is of course worth spending some lesson time on things students need to do outside class to really learn collocations, but sooner or later students are going to need some fun to keep them from giving up the rather daunting task of learning collocations. There also doesn’t seem to be any reason to drop our emphasis on communication only for this language point. This article gives a few suggestions on how to retain fun and genuine communication when tacking collocations. The games are roughly arranged to start with ones that practise collocations with simple pairs of words like “fail”/ “lose”. The article then moves onto collocations with larger groups of words, and ends with games suitable for dealing with collocations with potentially very large groups of words such as all dependent prepositions. However, most of the games can be used with all those three kinds of collocation.

Collocations with two words
Textbooks have been teaching things like “do”/ “make” (“do homework” but “make breakfast”), “have”/ “take” and “go”/ “play” sports since long before the word “collocations” made its way into the students’ book, perhaps because with these kinds of pairs there are loads of obvious games where students race to show their knowledge of which of the two it must be. The most fun of all is Stations, in which students race to touch one of two opposite walls depending on whether they think the word they heard goes with “do” or “make”, but this is only really suitable for young learners. Young learners can also throw things (e.g. screwed up paper, paper aeroplanes or sticky balls) at one of the two words on the board, raise different body parts to represent each word (e.g. foot up for “have” and elbow up for “take”), or pretending to shoot one for the two words on flashcards in different parts of the room. Adults can also join in by raising one hand for each word or raising cards with the two words (e.g. “make” and “do”) written on them.
You can also play matching games such as Snap and Pelmanism with paired up collocations, but these tend to work better with larger groups of words such as “do”, “play” and “go” for sports, dealt with below.
Collocations with three or four words
For collocations with three or four words like “have”/ “take”/ “get” and “go”/ “go to”/ “do”/ “play”, it is possible to give students more than two things to hold up, touch etc as described above, but it is generally better to get them matching expressions that take the same words, e.g. “your time” with “a while” because they both go with “take” (rather than “get” or “have”). The simplest activity is to give them cut up pieces of paper with the expressions without the three or four words they collate with, then ask them to work in groups to put them into columns. If they get stuck, you can give them a clue such as that all of the columns should be the same length.
I then often move onto playing the popular memory game pelmanism with the same pack of cards. Students spread the cards face down across the table and take turns trying to find pairs of cards that take the same word, e.g. “judo” and “aerobics” because they both take “do” rather than “play”, “go to” or “go”. Any pairs of cards that collate with different words must be placed back down in exactly the same place, making this a test of memory in two different ways. This version works better than the more common form of collocations pelmanism in which students should find the two parts of the collocation (e.g. they have to find the “do” card and the “judo” card) as it is closer to the original card game and takes less time to play.
The next stage for me is getting them to remember the collocations more quickly, as they will need to in real life. This can be practised with the matching game Snap. Students have a pack of cards each which they can’t look at. They take turns placing their top card face up on one of the two packs of cards on the table, racing to shout “Snap” if the two packs show matching cards at any point. The person who shouts “Snap” fastest when the cards match can take all the cards put on the table up to that point. Anyone who shouts “Snap” when they don’t match must pay some kind of penalty, e.g. giving two cards to the other player(s). The person with the most cards when the game stops (or the person with all the cards while their partner has none) wins.
Other games such as personalised sentence completion guessing games also work with this number of words, but are easier with the larger number of words dealt with below.
Collocations with a larger number of words
There are also examples of large lists of words students have to mentally choose from to find the right collocation, perhaps the most famous of which are dependent prepositions (good + at, depend + on, etc) and adverb collocations (highly + dependent, crucially + important, etc). It is these kinds of words which are invariably given in textbooks as two columns of words that must be joined up with lines, which is a shame when it is very easy to add communication to exactly that exercise. With young learners, you can put the two columns of words up on the board and get the whole class to shout out instructions for a blindfolded student so that they can draw lines to make the collocations. With adults and higher level young learners working in pairs you can simply give the left hand column to one student and the right hand column to the other and get them to match up “tall” and “story” without looking at each other’s worksheets. This works best if they also have halves of a complete sentence that they can use to check their match, e.g. “I think you are telling me a tall” plus “story. I know you don’t have a girlfriend, let alone two”. Similar games can be played as a mingle activity or a shouting dictation, although you will need individual slips of paper rather than worksheets for this.
Another possibility with the last suggestion above is to make the example sentences questions which they can ask each other after the matching exercise is finished, e.g. “Do any of your friends tell tall” plus “stories? Does that make them popular?” As with any list of vocabulary, students can also create their own discussion questions, stories or dialogues using the collocations.
A general vocabulary game that can work with collocations is the Definitions Game. Students are given collocations such as “have a picnic” and must explain what is written without using any of the words included in the collocation (e.g. “It means eat in an outdoor place. The verb has a similar meaning to take.”) until their partners guess exactly the words that are in the collocation. This game can be made more intensive practice by getting them to prepare cards to play Taboo, in which each collocation comes with three words that the person defining cannot say.
There is also a TEFL game that is most well known with exactly this language point, being dominoes. Cards are created with just collocations or whole sentences with collocations in them, split where the collocations occur. The rules of the game are exactly the same as real dominoes. Unlike the version given in many photocopiable TEFL books, this works best if each word collates with more than one other card, making it more like the original dominoes game. This can mean that the game finishes before all the cards are used, but they can simply play again and then maybe work together to link all the words together in a big circle.
The idea of cards which you put together by their collocations can also be used to make a kind of jigsaw. Take any text and split it where there are strong collocations, putting the different sections of the story onto different slips of paper, e.g. by pasting them section by section into a one-column table in a word processing program. Give each group of students one cut up text. The students try to reconstruct the text using meanings, collocations and their ideas of how the information might be organised, then you can test them on their memory of the collocations they saw.
Students can also use collocations to reconstruct texts in other ways. Write a text full of useful collocations (or rewrite a text to have more), then get the students to reconstruct it word by word. One way of doing this is a bit like Hangman but with each gap being a word rather than a letter. The second game is similar, but you give students the first word of the text and they try to guess the next word each time, with the real word being given after three wrong guesses.
You can also do another kind of jigsaw task, one that is more similar to actual jigsaws. Make a table with collocations split up and put into neighbouring boxes, e.g. the top left box says “have” and the next one says “breakfast”, then the box to the right of that has “take” with “a shower” in the fourth column. Cut up the finished table so that the collocations are all split up but all the cards are connected to at least one other next to, above or below it. This means that students can use the overall rectangular shape of the table and neighbouring words needing to both match up if to help them put together all the collocations – plus it is a lot more fun than just simple matching!
Another puzzle-style activity is a collocations maze. Make a table with collocations with the same word missing tracing a path through from the top left corner to the bottom right one. For example, you could have “He’s the ________ of my eye” in the top left corner, “An _____ a day keeps the doctor away” under it, “Adam’s ___________” to the right of that etc, until you reach the bottom right corner. The size of the table will depend on how many useful collocations with one word you can think of, and if that isn’t enough to make a decent-sized table you could also allow diagonal movements. All the other squares in the table should be filled with similar distractors, meaning phrases that can’t be filled with that one word but people might think you could like “Wow, your new girlfriend is a _________”. As with these examples, it is best if the words in the gaps are similar to each other, e.g. all simple verbs or all prepositions. Once you’ve filled the table with collocations and distractors, give it to students to try and trace a route across. You could then elicit the missing words from the other squares and/ or give them blank grids to make similar puzzles to test other groups.
A game that I’m pretty sure I made up (although I’m sure many other people have too) is something I call Collocations List Dictation. The students are given a list of words which have many collocations, with each word being given with at least seven examples of collocations they should know or at least understand, e.g. “hand – give me a hand, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, many hands make light work, etc”. A student reads out collocations with the key word missing until their partners guess what the missing word is.
A game that I came up with more recently but haven’t tried yet is Collocations Uno/ Collocations Blackjack. Students are dealt around ten cards with common words with lots of collocations such as “get”, “hand” and “in” each (some of the words can be repeated in the pack). They can look at their cards but shouldn’t show them to each other. The first student lays down any card and the next student should lay down a word that collocates with it. This continues round and round the group of three to five students until one person can’t go. That person takes three extra cards from the pack and lays down any one and the game continues in the same way. The person with least cards left when the teacher stops the game is the winner.
The students will need the help of the teacher or a dictionary to check their answers in many of the games above, e.g. Collocations Blackjack and Collocations Dominoes. There are also games specifically for prompting use of dictionaries. One is a version of the old TEFL classic Call My Bluff. Students are given a list of words and must write down a list of real collocations and wrong ones that they have made up (or perhaps directly translated from L1), all with their meanings. They read one set of real and false collocations and the other teams try to guess which are really used in English.
Another good source of collocations is obviously texts that they read. This can be made more fun by getting them to scan texts as quickly as possible for collocations, guess the story from the collocations and then read and check, try to remember the collocations and hence the whole text from it, etc.
Collocations are very difficult to personalise, but this can be done by giving them sentence stems that end with words which have many collocations, e.g. "I often have ___________", "My mother makes ______________ for me" and "I _________________ bed". Students can read out just the part that they have written for their partner to guess which sentence, or they can mix up their true sentences with false ones for the partner to work out which is which.