Handy Handouts for Teachers

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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.

A good balance of stand-up and sit-down activities in a kids’ EFL class

The one overwhelming difference between teaching kids and teaching adults is that the younger the children are the more they need to move around in class, both to keep up their levels of concentration and to help them learn by getting physically involved. Teachers therefore need to know a stack of fun games where students mime, run, touch things etc. Once they have gained the ability to use such games, though, teachers often lose sight of the fact that the activities were developed not just because they were fun but mainly in order to help kids learn better. They might also lose sight of that fact that sometimes the best kind of learning can be done sitting down quietly just like adults. Here are some pointers to help you judge whether you have got the right balance of sit down and moving around activities in your classes, and then some tips on how to think about making changes.

Possible signs that you are using too many sit-down activities with kids

1. The children become more and more restless during the class
2. You have to discipline the kids more and more as the class goes on
3. The children become less and less receptive to new language as the class goes on
4. The amount of noise increases over the length of the class
5. The children become less and less responsive as the class goes on, e.g. stop responding to requests to copy movements (e.g. animal mimes or finger songs) while they are sitting down
6. There are more and more jokes and other silliness as the class goes on
7. The children starting overreacting to some of your cues, e.g. shouting extremely loudly during drilling
8. The main reason for discipline problems in your classes is the kids having too much energy
9. The only reaction you know to students getting restless is to discipline them more
10. The periods of attention and good behaviour after you discipline the kids or start a new activity become shorter and shorter as the class goes on
11. You have done songs, storybooks, flashcards and realia but no standing up or moving around the room
12. The only reason you don’t use stand up and move around action songs like Hokey Cokey or Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is that you are scared of losing control or wasting time as they get up out of their seats and into the right position
13. The only reason you don’t get students standing up and moving is that you don’t think there is room in the classroom
14. The only reason you don’t get students standing up and moving is that you are scared of disturbing neighbouring classes
15. The only reason you don’t get students standing up and moving is that the students could break something
16. When you do actions sitting down (e.g. bobbing up and down with two hands on your head for ears for “rabbit”), the children naturally move to stand up and do it but you usually stop them
17. There is no variation in energy levels in your lesson plan
18. There are two or even three quiet sit down activities in a row without something more lively and active to break them up
19. Most classes with under- tens pass without the students standing up and moving around
20. Most classes with under-sixes only have one standing up activity
21. The only standing up activity in every class is the warmer at the beginning of the lesson
22. You convert most standing up game ideas you read in the teachers’ book or in teaching magazines into sit down games
23. The only reason you reject a good game idea you find on the internet or in a teacher’s resource book is because it involves standing up and moving around
24. The more studious students win all the games and the more physically active ones never have a chance to win
25. The more physically active kids are learning much less than the more studious one
26. You have the same number of stand up and move around activities in your younger kids’ classes as in your older kids’ ones
27. The more physically active kids don’t like English class or say they are bored
28. The more physically active kids often get into trouble in your classes
29. You have difficulty making a clear transition between sit down activities
30. Students become overexcited every time there is a physical activity because they do them so rarely
31. You had problems the first time you used a stand up and move around activity and so you have never tried one again
32. Your students are looking longingly towards the wall of the neighbouring classroom, from where sounds of running around and other merriment are coming
33. Students go running out of the classroom shouting with a burst of pent up energy at the end of your class

Possible signs that you aren’t using enough sit-down activities with kids

1. The kids often do two or three stand up and move around activities in a row without a sit down activity between
2. You have tackled the same language point with several stand up and move around activities (over several classes or all in the same class) without trying a sit down activity on that point
3. You do so many more stand up than sit down games that you are running out of ideas for stand up games
4. Students who prefer more intellectual, mathematical, logical etc activities rarely win the games
5. Students who prefer more intellectual, mathematical, logical etc activities are progressing more slowly in English than in their other classes
6. Students who prefer more intellectual, mathematical, logical etc activities are progressing more slowly in English than the more physically active students
7. You reject some game ideas just because they are done sitting down or in silence
8. The kids often become overexcited
9. The kids often become physically tired
10. You have difficulty making a clear transition between two stand up and move around activities
11. You rarely use photocopiable activities
12. You rarely do craftwork (colouring, using scissors, gluing etc)
13. You rarely do project work (making posters, making picture dictionaries etc)
14. You are missing a chance to combine English development with development of other skills they need in school like learning to use scissors
15. The English classroom has far fewer posters and other student work on the walls than other classrooms because students aren’t producing them in your class
16. Students bring materials like picture dictionaries and colouring pencils to class but rarely have a chance to use them
17. Other teachers or students complain about the noise coming from your classroom
18. Other teachers complain that your students are tired or overexcited when they come to their next class
19. Students become very restless during tests because they are not used to sitting down and being still in English class
20. You have to interrupt your activities to let students cool down or drink water
21. Your students go into shock when they join Junior High School English classes next year and have to spend the whole class sitting down

Other possible signs that you haven’t got the balance of stand-up and sit-down activities right

1. Most classes are not a mix of the two
2. You don’t vary the number of each type of activity depending on the age of the students
3. You don’t vary the number of each type of activity depending on how physically tired or restless the students are on the day
4. You don’t vary the number of each type of activity depending on what the students have been doing before your class (e.g. sports or a sit down test)
5. You ignore pointers on how high energy games are when you read about them

Ways of making sure you use the right number of sit-down activities

1. Grade all your classes from the class that usually needs most stand up and move around activities to the class that would benefit most from and appreciate more sit down activities
2. Write an energy level next to each of the activities you have planned from your class from 10 points (running around and screaming) to 1 point (suitable for calming down overexcited or naughty kids). You can also try this with all activities you read in the teacher’s book and elsewhere.
3. Count up the number of sit down quiet activities and stand up moving around activities in your lesson plan and see if you think you have the right percentage of each for each class. You can also do the same thing for percentage of class time.
4. Check that the active stand up stages are scattered throughout the lesson, and are put in at places where students are likely to respond well to them.
5. Plan sit down and stand up variations of as many activities on your lesson plan as you can, so you can respond to their mood and energy levels on the day
6. Add other optional stand up and sit down activities to use only if the students don’t respond well to plan A due to energy levels etc.
7. Find out what classes students will have before and after yours and plan your lessons accordingly
8. Observe other people’s lessons or watch videos of lessons and judge them on the use of stand up and sit down activities
9. Brainstorm all the things that are stopping you using more stand up or sit down activities (e.g. lack of room to move around or students not using pencils well yet) and then brainstorm solutions to each one that does not involve abandoning sit down or stand up activities   

TEDx Talks. How to learn any language in six months | Chris Lonsdale

How to become a memory master

19 simple, fun and effective ESL board games

like the even more common teacher’s trick of putting things on little slips of paper, converting something into the format of a board game can be a great way of making it instantly more stimulating and fun, even if it isn’t quite Monopoly. Perhaps the two most common things that teachers put in the squares on the board are questions from language exercises (such as gaps to fill and errors to correct) and topics to speak about. Students usually move around the board by successfully doing what they are asked to in the square that they are presently on and/ or doing something with an element of chance such as rolling a dice. Other possibilities for adding luck that I have seen recommended and tried include flipping coins, spinning spinners with numbers on, and doing “janken” (rock paper scissors). 
As good as these basic TEFL board games I’ve described so far sound, I no longer use any of them. Those kinds of regular board game include at least one of these problems:

• The language activity and how you move around the board being completely separated from each other, with the latter often being down entirely to luck
  
• No need for the speaker to push their speaking performance
  
• No need for the people playing with them to pay attention to what they say
  
• Rather passive students
  
• A bit random, often including no clear language focus
  
• Quickly becoming repetitive
  
• So common that students have almost certainly done the same thing with previous teachers
  
• Not really a game (and certainly not the kind of board game that students would play by choice outside class)
  
• Too similar to other things you do in class, not really exploiting the strengths and peculiarities of board games
  

The variations below aim to deal with all these problems while adding more variety and fun. Most of the variations also need less equipment and preparation than some more complex variations, with only one game needing dice and no extra cards etc needed.
The main thing that I try to get rid of when making a new board game is the first of the problems mentioned above – the disconnect between the language activity and how students move around the board. Possibilities of bringing what they say and how they move together include, in approximate order of how simple they are to organise and explain:

1. Students moving the number of squares of the answer that they get when they ask someone who is in their group a question (e.g. three squares if their partner answers “I have three” to “How many cousins do you have?”)
   
2. Students moving the number of squares of the number of linguistically correct things that they say in the category given in the square that they are on (e.g. uncountable nouns which are “liquids” when they are on that square)
   
3. Students moving the number of squares of the number of linguistically correct things they can say in order in the category given in the square (e.g. expressions of certainty and uncertainty in order of how sure they mean someone is)
   
4. Students moving the number of squares of the number of factually and linguistically correct things that they say (e.g. making true sentences about their partner with Present Perfect and the verb in the square that they are on)
   
5. Students moving by the number of linguistically correct statements that they make which the other people in the team agree with (e.g. predictions about the future that everyone thinks are true)
   
6. Students moving by how long they can speak (e.g. one point for each thirty seconds that they can speak, up to six points for speaking for three minutes, with points off for things like silent pausing)
   
7. Students moving by a ranking by the other people in the team of how well they did something (e.g. from five squares for perfect communication down to one square for barely achieving their aim in a roleplay in the situation given in the square)
   
8. Students moving by the number of criteria which their speaking matches (e.g. one point for few pauses, one point for using language that the class have studied, etc, up to maybe six criteria)
   
9. Students moving by the number of words or phrases on an accompanying worksheet that they can use while they are speaking (with the other people in the group looking at the worksheet and ticking them off, perhaps with the person speaking being able to see hints such as names of functions or key words)
   
10. Students moving by the number of phrases they can use that have the functions given on the side of the board game (as long as no one else has used the same phrases during the game)
    
11. Students moving by the number that they get on the dice, but only if they can overcome the challenge that one of the other people in the group have given to that number (e.g. for the square “In the post office” their partners decide that “Six equals you don’t have any foreign currency and five equals you don’t know exact address you are posting it to” with the other numbers being “No problem”)
    
12. Students moving by the number of levels of formality/ politeness that they can come up with beyond what is in the square (e.g. moving four squares for coming up with “just a mo’”, “Just a moment”, “Just a moment, please” and “Can you give me just a moment, please?” in response to a square saying “Please wait”)
    
13. Students moving by the number of longer and longer phrases they can come up with (e.g. “It’s a long ruler”, “It’s a long clear ruler”, “It’s a long clear 30cm ruler” etc, with the adjectives in the right order)
    
14. Students moving round square by square with only one counter for the whole group, with something else such as who has which role being decided by their speaking performances etc
    
15. Students moving by the number of times that they can obtain the response that is written in the square from the other people in the group (such as “Yes, I did” for one square, “I don’t remember” for another square, “That’s a bit personal” for another, and “I envy you” for another)
    
16. Students moving by the number of a single kind of response (for the whole game) that they can get from other people in the group by asking questions on the topic in the squares (e.g. squares that say “toys” and “kindergarten” for a game which is meant to practise versions of “I don’t remember”)
    
17. Students moving by the number of questions that they can answer or reject for being off topic or already answered after speaking about the topic in the square (with points also for their partners running out of questions)
    
18. Students moving by the number of lines that there are in a dialogue which they take part in (with the other people taking part in the roleplay trying to keep the conversation as short as possible by politely making their excuses etc)
    
19. Students trying the challenges on as many squares after the one that they are on as they like, but going back to their original square if they mess anything up before they settle on a new square and let play pass to the next person
    

All of these variations are looked at in more detail below.
For the ones where students try to come up with as many correct examples of the thing in the square as possible to get points and so be able to move that many squares (like most of the games above), there are several possible policies on wrong answers:

• Students can continue to attempt the challenge in the square until they make a mistake, with the number of points (and so number of squares that they move) the number of correct answers that they had said before they messed up. For example, if their fourth attempt at doing what the square which they are on asks them to is wrong, they move three squares. If their first attempt is wrong, play passes straight to the next person and they have to try the same square again when play comes back to them. If the tasks are quite easy, you might want to set a maximum number of points per square, e.g. students stopping when they get to six correct attempts, even if they haven’t made a mistake.
  
• Students continue trying to do what the square tells them to until they aren’t sure about their next attempt. They then move the number of squares of their (correct) attempts before that point. If they have misplaced confidence in their next answer and so make a mistake, their points go back down to zero and they have to try again from the same square the next time that it is their turn. Progress will obviously be much slower this way, both in terms of number of squares moved and thinking time.
  
• Students are allowed a certain number of attempts (e.g. six) and get one point for each correct attempt out of that number, with no particular punishment for making mistakes early on. This should make progress round the board quicker than the two versions above.
  
• Students have a fixed time limit to make attempts and get one point for each correct answer in that time. This can be combined with stopping when they make a mistake or stopping and losing all your points when you make a mistake as just described above.
  

You could also tell students to stop their turn if they can’t come up with another idea and/ or are silent for more than a certain time limit, e.g. 20 seconds.
1. Moving the number of squares of the answer they get
This can be played with a whole board game for just “have”/ “have got” or “there is/ there are”, perhaps including things in the classroom with questions like “How many tables are there in this room?”
Students could also use Present Simple (“How many sausages do you eat?”), “can” (“How many times can you head a ball?”), Present Perfect (“How many times have you…?”), or Past Simple (“How many… did you yesterday?” or “How many years ago did you last…?”), although this would probably be for a freer/ more mixed game as it would be a struggle to make up a whole game from just one of these structures.
This game doesn’t necessarily have to have anything written in the squares, or you could put in pictures and/ or words to tell them what kinds of categories to ask about such as toys, media, furniture, family, cutlery, crockery, and clothes. You could also include categories of language or phrases mentioned such as “can” and “Present Perfect”.
You have to design the game very carefully to make sure that students don’t get answers like “300” and have to count round and round the board, or you could just set a maximum number of 10 at how many squares they can move. To make them think more carefully about their questions, you could also say that any answer over 10 means that they actually can’t move that turn and have to wait for the next one.
2. Moving the number of squares of the linguistically correct things they say in the category given
This can be used with so many language points, e.g. examples of particular categories of countable and/ or uncountable nouns (“liquids”, “abstract nouns”, etc), particular kinds of comparative adjectives (“ending with –ier”, “positive”, “four syllables” etc), Past Simple verbs (“with –ed pronounced /t/”, “irregular with the vowel pronounced ‘or’”, “three syllables” etc), and words with a particular spelling and/ or pronunciation. For a few of those language points you could make a whole board game for one language point, e.g. by putting a different phoneme or a different category of uncountable noun in each square. However, this generally works best as a revision board game, with different things from the course which you want them to remember in each square. I often use this version in the penultimate lesson of a course, before an end of term test.
3. Moving the number of squares of the linguistically correct things they say in order in the category given
This is basically the same as the game above, but students must also get the things that they say in the right order. This works for anything that you can rank the meaning of, e.g. phrases explaining how similar and different things are like “very different” and “slightly different”, phrases explaining how often something happens like “very rarely”, phrases explaining (approximately) how many or much something is like “a couple”, phrases explaining how sure you are like “fairly likely” and phrases explaining positive and negative feelings like “absolutely disgusting”, “a bit irritating” or “can’t stand”. For enough squares to make a whole board game, you’ll need to repeat squares and/ or have students doing the same thing backwards sometimes, e.g. going down from “always”. You can also have a mix of some squares with words that they should go up or down from and some squares with just descriptions of the kinds of language they need to come up with in order (e.g. “adverbs of frequency”). You could also have whole sentences that they should make more and more sure, make about more and more people, etc.
The levels of politeness game below is a version of this.
4. Moving the number of squares of the factually and linguistically correct things they say
This is perhaps the most flexible of all the games in this article, being possible with just about any language point and again being great for a review game at the end of term. If possible, it’s best to add some personalisation by telling them to make most or all of the statements things which are true about the other people in their group such as “You have never been to Iceland” and “You detest heavy metal”.
Some of the many possible points to practise with this game include (with suggestions of what to put in the squares in brackets):

• Present Perfect (topics such as “work” and times such as “this year”)
  
• Likes and dislikes (words to use such as “adore” and topics such as “food”)
  
• Second Conditional (words to use and topics such as “lottery”)
  
• Simple Past (times such as “the day before yesterday” and “last”, and topics such as “daily routine”)
  
• Present Simple (adverbs of frequency, other frequency expressions, verbs and topics)
  
• Comparative and superlative (things to compare to the other people in their group or their possessions, topics, and adjectives to use)
  

5. Moving by the number of linguistically correct statements that the other people in the team agree with
This is a variation on the game above which allows students to make statements about other topics such as comparisons (comparisons between the thing written in the square such as “this town” and other things), adjectives (describing things and people in the squares that they all know), recommendations, (strong and weak positive and negative) opinions, and Third Conditional (about the historical topics in the squares like “inventions” and/ or decisions in their own lives like “different study after high school”). In each case, their partner must agree with their opinion for them to get a point. Note that this doesn’t work with very competitive groups as they will just disagree with everything that the other people say in order to stop them winning (whatever their real opinion).
6. Moving by how long they speak
This is another very flexible game which I often use for revision by adding topics from the course book like “a holiday” and “my health recommendations” to the squares on the board. This can also be good preparation for giving presentations in English, as well as more informal extended speaking – for exams such as FCE Speaking Part Two and IELTS Speaking Part Two, but also as a vital skill for higher level students.
7. Moving by a ranking by the other people in the team of how well they did
This is another one which is good for revision, especially as you can include roleplays such as “In the post office” and “Respond to a complaint”. You can also do telephoning and emailing roleplays, in the latter case with them saying what they would include in such an email (word for word) and their partners doing the same for the original email which that person has to deal with and/ or the response after they send the email that they come up with. Business English students could also roleplay meetings for particular challenges such as “Negotiate a pay rise” and “Explain to your boss why you haven’t finished your project yet”.
8. Moving by the number of criteria which their speaking matches
This can be used for any of the uses of the game just above, and this variation is usually better than that game as this one makes students think more about what successful communication in English is. Possible criteria include “achieved what the square asked you to do”, “smooth communication”, “friendly”, “good stress and intonation”, “good active listening”, “polite”, “few pauses”, “fluent”, “language that you have studied in class”, “few mistakes”, “high level language”, “speaking for a long time” and “avoiding repetition”. You could also let students decide what the criteria will be, maybe changing it (a little) for each square.
9. Moving by the number of words or phrases on a worksheet that they can use while they are speaking
Students roleplay the situation of the square that they are on now while the other people in the group look at a list of useful words and phrases for that situation, probably ones that have already been studied in class. The students who are listening tick off anything they hear and when the person whose turn it is has finished speaking they can move one square for each one that was ticked. Those phrases stay crossed off, meaning other people must use different ones when it comes to their turn. The person speaking can’t look at the list, but they will be able to see it when it is other people’s turns, giving them a chance to memorise them somewhat at that time.
This works best if the words and phrases are divided by function, e.g. “apologise” and “give reasons” as the categories for a board game with lots of different situations for dealing with complaints in the different squares, in which case the key words etc that they must use can be things like “afraid” and “due to”.
10. Moving by the number of new phrases they can use that have the functions given on the side of the board game
This is the same as the divided by functions version of the game just above, but with an extra blank space with each category of language that they are asked to use. As well as ticking the phrases that the person speaking uses, students can also give them a tick in the blank space for each other suitable phrase with that function they use that hadn’t been used before. This means that the person who is speaking doesn’t have to use exactly the words and phrases which are on the suggested phrases list as long as they say something original and with the right function.
The functions that you give will need to be ones which can be used with almost every square, e.g. “checking/ clarifying”, “starting conversations” and “thanking”. I mainly use this game with exam preparation classes, e.g. typical topics for FCE Speaking Part One in the squares and typical interactional language that can come up in the exam like “vague answers” and “commenting on your partner’s answer” as they categories that they should come up with as they are speaking. It can also be used for business meetings/ negotiations, as long as you push them to keep each meeting very short.
11. Moving by the number on the dice, but only if they can overcome the challenge given to that number
When it is someone’s go, the other people in the group try to think of a challenge for each number on the dice connected to what is written in the square that they are presently on. For example, if they are on the “telephoning” square, their partners can decide that “Six means that you can’t contact the person you want to speak to” and “Five means that you have a bad line”. If they run out of ideas, the other numbers on the dice have no problem attached to them. As the other students want to stop their partner going too far, it’s best for them to give the challenges to the highest numbers on the dice, leaving low numbers like one as “no problem”.
The person whose turn it is then throws the dice and roleplays the situation, including the problem if they get one of those numbers. If they find some way of having a successful outcome, they can move the number that was on the dice, with the new square being what they will have to do next time.
This game works for all kinds of situations and functions.
12. Moving by the number of levels of formality/ politeness that they can come up with
Students must make more and more polite versions of the basic or rude phrases that are written in the squares like “Please write back soon” and “No idea”, getting one point for each additional level of politeness that they can come up with (in order). You will need a mix of functions to fill a whole board game, but you can make them all connected to one situation such as emailing (with squares for opening, requesting, etc), telephoning, giving presentations and business meetings. As well as sentences to improve on, students can also just be given just the name of the function that they should try many levels of formality for (e.g. “apologising”).
13. Students moving by the number of longer and longer phrases they can come up with
If it will be difficult for students to judge whether the sentences which someone is coming up with are really getting more and more polite as in the game just above, it might be easier for them to come up with longer and longer correct sentences (which are also usually more polite). This game can also be used for longer and longer descriptions, or longer and therefore more specific and higher level functional language phrases (“bigger”, “a lot bigger”, “quite a lot bigger” etc).
14. Moving round square by square with only one counter for the whole group
In this game there is no skipping squares/ jumping ahead, so there must be another reward for doing well. Students who do well could give someone else the more difficult role in the situation on the next square, sit out the next round, make problems to be solved, choose the criteria for doing well, etc. Doing well could be defined as doing better than the other people taking part or other ideas from above such as meeting criteria or using phrases on a worksheet.
15. Moving by the number of times they can get the response that is written in the square from the other people in the group
This is another one for which is quite difficult but just about possible to make a whole board for one language point. Possibilities include all the short answers (“Yes, I did”, “No I haven’t” etc in the different squares), typical short social responses (“That’s a shame”, “I don’t believe it” etc in the different squares), names of different people and relationships (with questions like “Who do you…?” and “Who… you?”) and frequency expressions (“Once every two weeks”, “Often” etc, with “How often do you…?” questions).
16. Moving by the number of a single kind of response they get by asking questions on the topic in the squares
This is similar to the game just above but with the responses for all the boxes being basically the same (although different phrases meaning the same thing should obviously be encouraged). Possibilities for what they have to get their partners to say include versions of “I don’t remember” (with topics like “primary school” and “celebrations”), versions of one level of agreement or disagreement (e.g. variations on “I totally agree”), phrases for accepting advice, and phrases for turning down requests.
To make sure that the language which you are focussing on gets some practice, you’ll need to ask students to use a different phrase each time they respond, being able to repeat only when it becomes the next person’s turn. Note that unlike most of the games in this article, this rather unusually makes it as much of a challenge for the people waiting as it does for the person whose counter is on the square.
17. Moving by the number of questions that they can answer or reject for being off topic or answered already
This more complex version of an extended speaking game is for students who might not really listen when their partners are speaking or for students who need to practise dealing with questions (e.g. Q&A sessions in real presentations). Students try to say as much as they possibly can about a topic while they are speaking, then their partner(s) must ask (say) six questions. The person who spoke gets points for successfully answering questions, but also for any questions that their partner(s) can’t come up with (e.g. two points if their partners only come up with four questions) and any questions that they can reject (e.g. for being off topic or already answered when they were originally speaking on the topic). You’ll need to decide if answers such as “I’m afraid I didn’t research that but I’ll check and email you tomorrow” count as a successful answer or not. You could also give points to the other people in the group for asking questions that other people can’t answer.
18. Moving by the number of lines in a dialogue that they take part in
This is useful for politely and smoothly ending conversations, although actually it is the people who are waiting for their turn who mainly use that language. The squares on the board can have topics of conversation or (probably) situations in which you might meet someone such as “the lift” and “a conference”. It’s probably best to have groups of at least three people so someone can count the number of exchanges in the conversation while the two people speaking try to extend the conversation (the person whose turn it is) or quickly but politely end it (the other person).
19. Students trying the challenges on as many squares after the one that they are on as they like
This means that, unlike most of the games here, students only need one correct answer for each square. Even more than the games above, for this game to work it must be obvious if a student has successfully managed to do the thing on each square. Possibilities include difficult roleplays (“negotiate a pay rise” etc), a certain number of correct things to brainstorm (“six uncountable nouns in this classroom” etc) or single things to come up with (“A food that your partner can’t stand” etc). If their partners decide any of those are not successful, the person whose turn it is goes back to the square which they started that turn on.
Creating your own board games
It is incredibly easy to make your own simple board games such as those described in this article with just any ordinary word-processing program. Make a normal table like you would if you were making cards or a substitution table, maybe one with five columns and ten or so rows. Combine (= merge) the middle boxes of the table to make one big space in the middle, leaving just a rectangle of boxes round the outside that will be the squares that students will put their counters on and move around. In Microsoft Word merging boxes in a table can be done by simply holding down the left button on your mouse while you drag the cursor over the boxes that you want to merge, right clicking on those highlighted boxes, then pressing “M” for “merge”.
Write “START” in one of the remaining squares, e.g. the top right one. You can then add a circular ClipArt image to the middle space to show students which way to move, or some straight arrows to some of the boxes round the edge with the same purpose. Then add words and/ or ClipArt images to the remaining boxes around the outside of the table as you would to any other table.
You’ll need to decide which of the games you are going to play above, and how wrong guesses are treated. You’ll also need to decide on how the game will end. Possibilities include:

• The first person to pass the START square again after one complete rotation of the board wins
  
• Students continue going round and round the board until you tell them to stop, with the person who has progressed furthest at that point the winner
  
• Students play for a fixed amount of time, with the person who has progressed furthest at that point being the winner
  
• Don’t tell students which of those systems you are planning to use, only deciding when you see how useful the game is and how your timing is going