Young learners are so full of energy that most activities you propose are met with loads of enthuasiasm . Adult learner are focussed on meeting their language goal.but with teen cant. what do you do to atract teen to your lesson. this book solve the problem for you
Trang 26 How-To: Too Loud To Be
Heard: Handling Noise
Levels in Your ESL
12 How-To: How To Assign
Effective Homework Your
Students Will Enjoy
Tricks to Get Your
Class’s Attention (and
Hold It)
16 How-To: Keep Your
Cool: Tips for Handling
Difficult Students
17 How-To: How to Teach
the Millennial Generation
(And Get Them off of
Facebook)
PRODUCTIVITY
18 How-To: Top 5 Productivity Tips for ESL Teachers
19 How-To: ESL Teamwork:
Collaborating With Colleagues
20 How-To: 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Bond with Your Class
21-22 How-To: Top 10 Teacher Software Programs To Use On a Daily Basis
23 How-To: 5 Must-Have Technological Tools
to Increase Your ESL Productivity
TEACHING ADULTS
24 How-To: Teaching Adults How-To: Advantages and Challenges
25 How-To: Top 8 Tips
on Teaching Absolute Beginners
26 How-To: How to Teach English to Beginners
27 How-To: How To Teach Japanese Adults: Part One
28 How-To: How To Teach Japanese Adults: Part Two
29 How-To: ESL Insider Secrets about Teaching Japanese Learners
30 How-To: How to Teach the Verb “To Be” to Beginners
31 How-To: What Adult Learners Want: Know Them To Teach Them Better
32 How-To: Adult ESL Learners: Homework Assignments That Work
33 How-To: Teaching Adult Learners: How
To Handle Attendance Problems
TEACHING KIDS 34-35 How-To: Teaching Kids English: 10 Things to Consider
36 How-To: How to Teach Preschoolers: Preschool Games and Activities
37 How-To: Kids and Money: How to Teach Money Skills
38 How-To: Stickers for the Little Ones: Motivation Booster or Evil?
39 How-To: 5 Fabulous Ways to Use Total Physical Response in the ESL Classroom
40 How-To: English for Children Under 5: Fallow Land or Fertile (Kinder) garden?
41 Bonus: Classroom Management Mantra: Do’s and Dont’s
Trang 310 Best Ways to Increase
Teenage Student Motivation
AH, THE JOYS OF TEACHING!
Young learners are so full of
en-ergy that most activities you
pro-pose are met with loads of
enthusi-asm Adult learners are focused on
meeting their language goals and
have a wealth of skills and
knowl-edge to contribute to the class
However, things are not as simple
with teens Most are very clever and
insightful kids, but this is not
ex-actly the most talkative age group
Have you ever faced a class full of
blank stares where most of the
re-plies you hear are “Yes”, “No”, or
“It depends”? Have you ever felt
frustrated by their lack of interest?
Here are some strategies that should
get your teens a bit more motivated
HOW TO MOTIVATE
ESL STUDENTS
1 USE AS MANY
REFERENCES TO POP
CULTURE AS YOU CAN
Consider your teens’ interests
Imag-ine you want to discuss last week’s
events to practice the past simple
tense Will they be more interested
in what President Obama did last
week, or which outrageous outfit
Lady Gaga wore to an awards show?
If you’re not willing to discuss
Emi-nem’s latest album, or any of the
Twi-light books or films, then you won’t
connect with your teen students
2 GIVE THEM A LITTLE
FRIENDLY COMPETITION
Little kids like to compete, and teens
are no different Whether they play
sports or games on the Wii, they
al-ways try to out best each other Why
not introduce some friendly
competi-tion into the ESL classroom? Games
are easy ways to do this, but you can
also have them compete in any activity
• Give them 60 seconds to write
down as many words as they can
related to a topic, like “clothes” or
“foods”
• Tell them that whoever finishes
a written exercise first or has the most correct answers, gets to choose a video to watch or a song
to listen to in class
3 CATER TO THEIR SKILLS
AND EXPLOIT THEIR TALENTS
Most teens are talented at one thing
or another Take your time to get to know them and discover what these talents are
• Students who are clined may draw pictures, sketch-
artistically-in-es or cartoons of a story you read out loud to the class
• Do you have a student who plays the guitar? Ask him or her to bring
it to class and play a song while the class sings the lyrics in Eng-lish
4 USE PEN PALS TO MOTI VATE WRITING
If your students are not enthused about writing assignments, give them pen pals to write to At ESL Teach-ers Board, or any other message board for ESL teachers, you can post
a request for pen pals for your dents, and find another teacher with whom you can trade email address-
stu-es Writing to pen pals is a great troduction to what they may have to master later in life: business emails
in-5 MAKE READING AGE APPROPRIATE
To get students excited about a reading assignment, make sure you choose material that will pique their interest Naturally, books or stories about teens are sure to work, but you can also include celebrity biog-raphies, anything sports-related, or any topic that may interest them, but is also up to their reading level
6 PLAY SONGS TO IMPROVE
LISTENING COMPREHEN SION
If you play any of the audio that cally comes with course materials, your teens will most likely tune out and not hear a word The best way to motivate them to listen is by playing songs But you should also choose songs they like, or can relate to
typi-7 HAVE VIDEO LESSONS
Videos have great potential in the ESL class Thanks to recent ad-vances in technology, we no longer need to have a TV and DVD player in the classroom to teach a video lesson
A laptop will do for a small class, and
a speedy Internet connection is great, but not entirely necessary, as you can have video files already downloaded
to your computer To keep teens cused on the task, choose short in-terviews, movie trailers, music vid-eos, or how to videos on YouTube
fo-8 INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGY INTO THE CLASSROOM
In the previous point, we mention how easy it is to show videos on a laptop, but you can integrate tech-nology in so many other ways Most teens have excellent Web surf-ing skills, so why not assign them a WebQuest? A WebQuest is an online, inquiry-based activity where students are required to search for specific in-formation within links provided by the teacher, and then produce a report or
a PowerPoint presentation Here are some great examples of WebQuests for teens: http://www.nelliemuller.com/task2.htm, but you can also design your own to suit your students’ level
9 PLAY GAMES
ESL games motivate any
learn-er whethlearn-er they are 5 or 50 years old But with teens, it’s important to choose games that will challenge them, give them the right competitive feel, and help them effectively prac-
Trang 4tice an ESL item A guessing game or any type of quiz show game should get them motivated
1 0 USE REALIA IN THE CLASSROOM
The use of real life objects is also a great way to motivate students of all ages But it is particularly effective with teens who are already lacking in enthusiasm
• Giving directions: Choose places that teens frequently visit like malls, concert venues, or sports stadiums Use
anything from real city maps to brochures of these locations to practice giving directions
• Tell me about yourself: Instead of just telling the class about themselves, ask your teens to bring photos, as well
as some of their favorite things, like books, CDs, a skateboard, or anything that represents them
MAKE SURE THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE COURSE YOU DISCUSS WHAT THEIR LEARNING GOALS ARE
They may not have thought of this earlier, but they may come to realize that they need English to surf the Internet, understand their favorite band’s songs, or chat with foreign friends And talking about the things that interest teens is a great way to establish rapport Once you connect with them, you won’t find any more blank stares You’ll see a room full of eager, smiling faces!
Trang 55 Efective Ways to Calm Your
Students Down
It is always great to see your
stu-dents enthusiastic about learning
and the activities you so
care-fully prepared for them but once
they have gotten all riled up, it is
time to bring them back down so
that you can send them to their
parents or other teachers without
upsetting anyone.
Additionally if students are very loud
and energetic at the very beginning of
class, you will have to curb their
ex-citement a little in order to complete
the rest of the activities for your lesson
Here are some strategies for
deal-ing with students who are
bounc-ing off the walls of your classroom.
HOW TO CALM
YOUR ESL
STUDENTS DOWN
Students who are seated are
more restrained and subdued If
stu-dents are running around the
class-room or having a heated discussion,
ask everyone to go back to their
desks and sit down The physical
state of sitting in their chairs will
help them relax Standing is a great
stance for action while sitting is more
a state of rest Some students may
fidget at their desks but sitting is
al-ready a big improvement and this is
less likely to distract other students
Once learners have taken their seats,
shift their focus immediately to an
activity so that they do not become
bored or lose interest in the lesson
It is important for students to focus
their energy on learning English so
help them put it to good use by
ef-fectively managing your classroom
2 EXERCISE
An activity requiring lots of
energy that will tire students out
could make them a little more calm
during the rest of your lesson If
your young learners cannot sit still
at the beginning of class, give them the chance to use that energy dur-ing the warm up and then continue with your lesson Some simple TPR games like Head and Shoulders or Simon Says would be perfect for re-viewing body parts, writing relays would be good for slightly older stu-dents and even just simple exercises like jumping jacks or running in place should help learners settle down
For some students these types of cises will actually energize them more
exer-so experiment to see what works best with your classes Different groups of students may require different tactics
3 QUIET TIME
Active exercises can be a lot of fun, especially with young learners, but after students have gotten out of their seats and moved around a bit,
bring their heart rates down with
a quiet activity such as reading or
writing Students can take their time silently reading through an article or begin writing their individual answers
to short answer or essay questions before you turn these activities into class activities to check pronunciation, comprehension, and grammar points
These types of activities are good
for calming a class down but should
be avoided if students lack ergy as you risk them falling asleep.
Get students to really focus by conducting an activity such as a cir-cle exercise or something similar that
is fast paced This will take
advan-tage of their energy but because they never know whose turn it will be next, they have to be quiet and pay atten-tion in order to perform their part well
Another game that is exciting but quires that students remain calm and quiet is Chinese Whispers (http://busy-teacher.org/4171-9-five-minute-activ-ities-that-will-save-your.html) where students work in teams to see who can correctly pass a sentence from team
re-member to team re-member the fastest
5 TOPICS
A topic that interests your dents will also make them more atten-tive Keep your learners in mind when deciding what to talk about in class Students who are focused will not have the inclination to move around
stu-a lot nor will they be estu-asily distrstu-acted These are both likely to happen if stu-dents are overly excited or energized
If you are not sure what your students are interested in, simply ask them or take a poll of various topics to see what they are most eager to learn about
A S Y O U C A N S E E T H E S E APPROACHES ARE VERY DIFFER-ENT BUT THEY CAN ALL BE EFFEC-TIVE WHEN USED PROPERLY THE METHOD YOU CHOOSE DEPENDS ON YOUR STUDENTS AND HOW THEY REACT TO ACTIVITIES
Be sure to use the one that will be most efficient for the type of students you have in your classroom Luck-ily this becomes less of a problem
as students get older and in adult classes you will rarely have simi-lar issues If you struggle with this, change your approach to classes in order to resolve it and look on the bright side, at least no one is sleeping
Trang 6Too Loud To Be Heard: Handling
Noise Levels in Your ESL Classroom
While ESL classes should encourage
students to speak English, you also
need to maintain an environment in
which everyone can be heard
De-pending on the activities you choose
to do in class and the nature of your
students, keeping noise levels
rea-sonable can be challenging
espe-cially with younger students.
Ideally your classroom will be an area in
which everyone can participate and
stu-dents listen respectfully to one another
Let’s talk about some ways to achieve this
For activities that are being done as
a class such as checking homework, a
student wishing to speak should raise his
hand rather than call out This is a
com-mon rule in classrooms around the world
but some students easily forget this
ba-sic guideline If you reward students for
volunteering answers, simply say that
answers that are shouted out will not
count towards their participation points
and that they have to take turns and
re-spect one another This should help
en-courage students to raise their hands
If you are doing a team activity where
ev-eryone is working frantically and loudly
with their teams members, consider
hav-ing a bell or some other noisemaker so
that you can save your voice when
sig-naling the end of the activity You can only
shout “Go back to your seats!” so many
times before your voice gives out and
there is no need to strain yourself It is fun
to do these types of activities so you just
have to have a plan for dealing with
the noise Choose something and stick
with it so that students can become used
to your chosen system of communication
When doing loud activities consider the
classes around you too If you think your
students may be so loud that other
class-es will be affect make a different lclass-esson
plan, change the activity, try to meet in
another location, or at the very least ensure that those other classes will not
be taking exams and tell your students
at the beginning of the activity that they should keep it down It could be that the majority of your classes have absolutely
no problem with volume while one just goes absolutely crazy Remember this next time you want to do a similar activity
2 GROUP WORK & PAIR WORK
When students are working in groups or in pairs, they should keep their voices at a normal level You may want your students to be interested in learn-ing English but, with the exceptions of performing role plays, students are usu-ally not going to be so overly enthusi-astic that they must raise their voices
Remind students that there are other people working and that you have to
be able to hear learners who are ticing Some role plays will require more emotion and volume variation based on the situation you are working with Even your students that are enthusiastic ac-tors should keep themselves in check
prac-If you find yourself repeatedly telling a small number of students to take it down
a notch, speak with them outside of class
to address their disruptive behavior
3 INDIVIDUAL WORK
When students are working dividually they are usually not do-ing speaking exercises and therefore should be working silently Unless stu-dents are asking a question or respond-ing to feedback you have given them, the class should be relatively quiet Put your classroom management and dis-cipline skills to work if students insist
in-on being distracting during these times
4 TIPS
Set up rules From your very first
day in the classroom you should lish some ground rules If you allow stu-dents to behave a certain way for the first month you are at their school, it will
estab-be nearly impossible to change their estab-havior later From the beginning ensure that students who wish to speak raise
be-their hands and that students maintain
an appropriate volume when ing and completing activities You can even post these rules on the wall of your classroom to refer to when necessary.When a student or group of students will not stop talking to one another while you
speak-are speaking, just stop teaching for
a minute Let them see that you notice
them, ask these students if they stand the material or have questions
under-Ask them to rephrase what you were saying to see if they were listening Point
out to them that students should not be talking while you are talking and that their peers are being deprived of an educa-tion because of their disrespectful behav-ior If students do not stop after several warnings, take some disciplinary action This will vary depending on your school
If you know that your students are pecially loud, plan activities that require them to be quiet such as Chinese Whis-pers (http://busyteacher.org/4171-9-five-minute-activities-that-will-save-your.html) This will maintain a low level of noise in the classroom and prevent you from disrupting the surrounding classes.When you are showing students videos
es-or listening to music, turn the volume down to begin with and then find an ap-propriate level once the material has started playing This will keep some-thing from starting out excessively loud
IT CAN BE CHALLENGING TO KEEP A CLASSROOM FULL OF STUDENTS QUIET
Large classes are especially difficult to manage simply because so many people are contributing to the overall volume
in the room Forty people speaking at a normal volume are still going to make
a lot of noise Thinking about the ent situations and tips above can help you tackle this issue with your students
Trang 7differ-How to Encourage Student
Participation
Encouraging student participation
can be difficult.
Students who generally perform
well will be more willing to volunteer
and more confident when
complet-ing exercises whereas students who
struggle in the classroom will be
more reluctant to do these things
As a teacher there are many ways
you can encourage all your
stu-dents to participate in activities
Ensuring that you maintain a
con-structive classroom environment
will help immensely It is important
that students not feel like they will be
laughed at or given negative feedback
Try to provide students with
posi-tive criticism as opposed to
reinforc-ing the fact that they have made a
mistake or performed poorly Making
mistakes is simply part of the
learn-ing process and students that make
mistakes will give you a good idea of
what you need to focus on because
there are probably other students
in your class that have the same
questions or misunderstandings
2 ACTIVITIES FOR ALL
TYPES OF LEARNERS
Planning exercises that
ap-peal to different types of
learn-ers is an essential part of getting
all your students to participate
Perhaps some students who
per-form well on tests are quite shy
while students who perform poorly
on tests are natural performers and
enjoy role play activities Giving a
range of activities that target visual,
auditory, and kinesthetic learners
will increase student participation
The more variety there is in your
lessons, the more your students will gain from them Having a com-
bination of worksheets, role-plays, games, listening exercises, etc will keep students engaged and provide them with plenty of practice
3 MOTIVATION MATTERS!
In group activities making groups
or teams and having races often gets students motivated Competition will drive students to not only be the best performing group but also work hard
to not let down their teammates
These activities should still be ducted in an encouraging and friendly environment so as to not cause your
con-students lots of stress It is important
to have students take turns when working in groups so that all stu- dents are required to participate
While working as a group to answer
a question is great, there should be
a set order that determines which student presents the answer to the class at any given point in the activ-ity By having students form groups
in a variety of ways, you can ensure that students are placed in differ-ent groups throughout the course and thus no serious rivalry can take root between groups of students
Sometimes simply the satisfaction of winning is not enough to motive stu-dents and then just as you would for motivating students at the individual level, prizes or points may help
4 INDIVIDUAL LEVEL INCENTIVES
At the individual level incentives such
as points or, if acceptable on sion, some sort of prize may lead stu-dents to participate more fully in ac-tivities Participation should always be kept in mind when grading students however besides reminding students that they are graded on participa-tion, it can be challenging for both you and them to keep a record of it
occa-A points system where students quire stickers or stamps throughout the semester by volunteering to an-swer questions or doing exceptional work in class would be a good idea Simply tell students that they need maybe ten points to get one hundred percent for their participation grade in
ac-a semester ac-and thac-at ac-additionac-al points could be considered extra credit
If a student has a little card to collect these stickers or stamps, it will serve
as a visual reminder throughout the term of how well they are doing in reaching the target number and will make calculating a student’s overall participation much easier for you as well Towards the end of the term it is a good idea to have a lesson where stu-dents place their cards on their desks
so that you can give students who have not actively participated much throughout the semester special op-portunities to raise their score some-what as opposed to giving very active students too many extra credit points
STUDENTS NEED TO PRACTICE SPEAKING ENGLISH TO IMPROVE
SO IT IS IN THEIR BEST INTEREST
TO PARTICIPATE FULLY DURING THEIR LESSONS YOU CAN PLAN LESSONS ACCORDINGLY AND START INCENTIVE PROGRAMS IN ORDER
TO ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO TRY THEIR BEST AND SPEAK MORE OFTEN IN CLASS
Trang 83 Classroom Management
Strategies Top Teachers Use
Implementing proper classroom
man-agement techniques is important
A TEACHER WHO KNOWS HOW TO
CONTROL HIS OR HER CLASSROOM
WILL HAVE FAR FEWER “CRAZY
DAYS” THAN ONE WHO DOES NOT
The majority of your classroom
atmo-sphere is contingent on how you run
it, so here are some tips to get you
started!
1 ESTABLISH YOUR AU
THORITY EARLY ON
Early in the year, ideally within the first
couple of days, you must establish
your authority Your students will learn
very quickly whether you are a serious
teacher or not You do not have to be a
drill sergeant, but show them that you
are serious and are not going to
toler-ate rude behaviors or disobedience
The easiest way to establish your
authority is by following through
with consequences and rewards
If you tell the students that a
cer-tain behavior will result in a specific
consequence, see to it that it does
Otherwise, you are just handing out
empty threats Just the same, if you
have promised a certain reward,
make sure you keep to your word
and do that thing for your students
For younger students, consider
imple-menting a weekly reward Some
ex-amples might include an opportunity
to pick from the “treasure chest,”
be-ing “invited” to a classroom party that
takes place during the lunch period or
extra time for recess
2 GET COLOR CODED!
Many teachers find it helpful to
or-ganize their classroom by color
This works whether your
class-room has tables or desks for
stu-dents, and it works whether your
students are younger or older
If you have desks, group together four to five students for each color
If you have tables, keep four to five students at each one In the cen-ter of each group, keep a colored caddy for supplies and a tray for papers in the coordinating color
For instance, the “green team” will have a green supply caddy in the cen-ter of their table or desks and a green paper tray next to the supply caddy
When it is time for students to turn in work, have them put their papers in the tray at their table When you have the time to go around the room and collect papers, you can do so and they will be neatly stacked in the paper tray This strategy saves a lot of time
You will find color-coding to be very useful throughout the day If you do centers in your class, send students
to centers by their color When it is time to line up for lunch, recess or dismissal, do it by color Just for fun, have a “team spirit” day and encour-age your students to come to school dressed in a t-shirt for their team color!
A “buddy system” is sometimes used due to school rules when it comes to sending kids out of the classroom, but why not use it in the classroom, too? If your students know ahead of time who their “buddy” is, this will save time when you need them to “find a neighbor” for various tasks throughout the day be-cause they will always have a “buddy.”
Organize your classroom seating rangements such that students are arranged in groups that are also “bud-dies,” it will help even more If you have an odd number in your groups, buddy up the two students who are closest to each other in two groups
ar-TIP:
We already have a section ‘Classroom Management and Discipline’ with nice activities to help you with your class-room management: praising cards, classroom labels, certificates and awards, and more! Refer to http://busyteacher.org/teaching_ideas_and_techniques/classroom_manage-ment_and_discipline-worksheets/ for details
And what classroom management tips do you know and use?
We will be happy to hear from you!
Trang 95 Non-Verbal Ways to Do
Error Correction
EFFECTIVE ERROR CORRECTION IS
ONE OF THE THINGS ESL TEACHERS
STRUGGLE WITH THE MOST
If you correct them too much, you
might make them feel discouraged
and compromise their fluency for the
sake of accuracy If you correct them
too little, they’ll continue making the
same mistakes Achieving the right
balance is a daunting task, although
not an impossible one And when
do-ing on the spot correctdo-ing, do you
simply supply the right answer?
Al-though it is certainly an option, you
should sometimes give your students
the chance to correct themselves
There are several verbal
strate-gies you may use, like asking them
to repeat what they’ve just said,
or repeating the sentence
your-self but pausing to let the
stu-dent fill in the “blank” correctly
However, here are the 5 best
non-verbal ways to do error correction.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 USE A GRAMMAR FLAG
Once you have your students
actively engaged in some drilling
ex-ercises, use a little red flag to “flag”
their mistakes The flag goes up if
they make a mistake and students
in-stantly know they should go back and
say it again You may also use the flag
in others types of activities, or
when-ever you wish to work on accuracy
2 USE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
Students are sometimes
self-conscious enough without
having to endure constant
cor-rections So, how can you
effec-tively correct them and not stomp
on their confidence in the process?
When a student makes a mistake, like
saying a verb in the past tense
incor-rectly, use an exaggerated facial
ex-pression to signal the mistake Give
them an open-mouthed, wide-eyed stare Or arch an eyebrow The more
“theatrical” the facial expression is, the funnier it’ll be You’ll be effectively sig-nalling that a mistake has been made, but students won’t take it so seriously
3 USE GESTURES
Another very effective way to show students they’ve made a mistake
is through gestures, some of which
may be specific to the kind of mistake
Teachers typically gesture
back-wards with their hands or point
to the back to show students they haven’t used the verb in the past
Students often use the wrong nouns - it’s quite common to hear a student say, “She went to the mov- ies with your boyfriend.” To which you simply reply by pointing to your-self with a look of shock or surprise
pro-You may also implement a gesture to indicate that students should repeat something, or say it again, and if they repeat the mistake, you can raise a
finger to show them where in the
sen-tence the mistake is, though they have
to figure out what they are doing wrong
4 USE VISUAL REMINDERS
Very often students forget the final “-s” in the simple present, third
person singular You may have a big S
stuck on a wall that you can point to on such occasions, or point to something that will trigger the right response, like the picture of an S-shaped snake
Visual reminders are also great for cabulary-related mistakes A student may say “childs” instead of “chil- dren” You point to a picture of a group
vo-of children to indicate that something
is wrong: the student has to figure out he or she used the wrong plural
5 USE FINGER COUNTING
How can you correct mistakes in word order in a non-verbal way? Fin-ger counting is simply perfect for this!
Say a student used the wrong word order to ask a question: “You are a teacher?” Ask the student to repeat the question and then show him or her how you count the words on your fin-gers Show the student how the first two fingers are in the wrong order,
so that the student understands the question should start with “Are you ”
YOU CAN GET AS CREATIVE AS YOU LIKE WITH YOUR FACIAL EXPRES-SIONS, GESTURES, AND VISUAL REMINDERS
Remember here that the ultimate goal
is to help students learn from their takes, and if you simply supply the right answer, they may not fully internalize it.Some teachers have even been
mis-known to hum well-mis-known songs
to trigger the correct response, like Depeche Mode’s “People are People” when students make the classic mistake, “people is”
Do you have any suggestions for verbal error correction? We would like
non-to hear from you!
Trang 10How to Teach Using Games
A WIDE VARIETY OF GAMES CAN BE
USED WHEN TEACHING ENGLISH
The key is to ensure that everyone
fully participates and has enough
practice with the lesson material to
play If students are not confident, they
will struggle and not get the most out of
the activity
HOW TO USE
GAMES
1 WHOLE CLASS GAMES
Some games such as interview
activities, bingo, jeopardy, and board
games can be played by the entire
class
• An interview activity to practice
the “Where are you from?” and
“I’m from ~.” structures might start
by handing out slips of paper with
eight to ten different country names
Students can then be given a
work-sheet with all the country names
written on the left and told that their
goal is to get a student signature
for each country by mingling with
their classmates and asking the
target question When asked the
target question, a student should
respond based on the slip of paper
he received
• Bingo can be played with
num-bers, letters, vocabulary words, or
many other topics you may want to
practice
• Jeopardy is more of a review
ac-tivity because it focuses on
listen-ing and does not give students lots
of speaking practice The easiest
thing to do is have students make
groups of four to five, write
catego-ries and stars for each answer on
the board, and explain that groups
will get three points for a correct
answer after the first clue, two
points after the second clue, and
only one point after the last clue
You will need five or six categories and
perhaps five answers per category
If you would like to focus on a
par-ticular tense, simply use that tense for at least one clue per answer
You can choose the first category but after that, the group who pro-vides the correct answer first should choose the category This activity could take a whole forty-five minute lesson and the group with the most points at the end of class wins
• Board games are often best
played in small groups but if ducing a very challenging game, it may be a good idea to play as a class first A group of students can
intro-be represented by a game piece and students can work together to answer questions In the class fol-lowing this, students can play the game in groups for further practice
2 GAMES IN SMALL GROUPS
There are also lots of games that can be played in groups of about four students
• Board games where students
move pieces and answer questions
or form sentences based on ages make for good practice activi-ties For practicing the “If ~, then
im-~.” structure a Chutes and Ladders layout may be fun for students
• Card games such as Go Fish,
Memory, and many more can
be adapted for classroom use
When you are teaching tives, card games can be an invalu-able tool You can also use simple card games to test comprehension
compara-by making up decks of cards with letters for example Have students spread all the cards face up on their desks, you then say a let-ter aloud, and the first student to slap the correct card gets to keep
it Repeat until all the cards are gone and the student with the most cards at the end of the game wins
To make this more challenging, you can tell students that if they slap the wrong card, they have to take one card out of their pile
3 PAIWORK GAMES
There are many of pair activities students can do to practice English but very few of them take the form of
prac-a twenty to thirty minute prac-activity Battleship is best used to practice tenses The worksheet consists of two identical seven by seven grids, one above the other The first box
in the upper left is kept blank, the first row is filled in with phrases such as “play soccer” and “study English”, and the first column is filled in with words such as “I, You,
He, We, They, The students.”
Students should secretly draw their
“boats” on the grid Typically one boat should have five squares, one boat should have four squares, two boats should have three squares, and one boat should have two squares Boats can only
be drawn vertically or horizontally
On the board practice the structure that students will use for the activ-ity for example “I played soccer You studied English.” until every row and column has been prac-ticed and then instruct students to say “Hit”, “Miss”, or “You sank
my ship!” when appropriate just like in the original game Students can usually play two or three times before moving on to another activ-ity
AGAIN, THERE ARE LOTS OF ENT GAMES OUT THERE THAT CAN BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM BE CRE-ATIVE AND HAVE FUN! ENSURING YOUR STUDENTS HAVE THE NEC-ESSARY INSTRUCTIONS AND PRAC-TICE BEFORE STARTING ANY ACTIVITY WILL MAKE IT MORE ENJOYABLE AND BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR STUDENTS
Trang 11DIFFER-5 Most Creative Homework
Assignments
Most ESL teachers agree that
homework assignments are an
absolute must in an ESL course.
But ESL students, on the other hand,
may disagree Adult learners will argue
that they have busy schedules and a
life outside the classroom, which
trans-lates into “no time for homework”
Young learners and teens may come
to terms with the fact that they have to
do homework, but do we want them to
do it because they are compelled to
do it or do we want them to do it
be-cause they are excited to do it? Which
would you prefer?
The only way to get young students
excited about doing homework, and
get adults to set aside some time for
it, is through highly creative and
thoroughly engaging homework
as-signments And here are 5 examples:
HOMEWORK
ASSIGNMENTS
THAT WORK
A Word Book or Vocabulary
Jour-nal is a classic among teachers of
very young learners who are not
ad-ept at using dictionaries - here they
have a chance to make their own
Help them design their very own Word
Book from scratch, out of
construc-tion paper, cardboard, or any
materi-als you have on hand At the end of a
reading task or activity, make a list of
the words they have learned for the
day Their homework assignment is to
enter each of the new words in their
Word Book The littlest ones simply
copy the word and draw a picture of
it, older students can use the word in
a sentence that illustrates its meaning
There is no need to copy “dictionary”
definitions They may also cut out
pictures from magazines or
news-papers and get as creative as they
like But one thing is certain: these
will be words they won’t easily forget!
to Oscar.go.com and give them a list of questions they must answer:
• Which of the nominees for Best Picture is the longest film? Which
is the shortest? The most popular?
Earned the most money at the box office?
• Which film has the most tions?
nomina-• Which in your opinion is the best film?
• Compare two of the actresses nominated for Best Actress Who
is older? Younger? Taller? tier?
Pret-• Etc
You may assign any number of research tasks: ideal places for a family vacation (LonelyPlanet.com), best restaurants
in the city (Zagat.com), or anything based on local information Just make sure you give them a website to go to,
a set of questions to answer or a task
to complete, and above all don’t forget
to plan the assignment with a mar point or learning objective in mind
gram-3 IN THE NEWS
This is an ideal ment for adult students Most read the newspaper anyway, right? Or watch the evening news Ask them
assign-to choose a news sassign-tory that has piqued their interest, and have them:
• Write a report on the news story
• Write a dialogue in which a ist interviews someone involved in the story
journal-• Answer a question like, “What could have gone differently?”, thus prompting them to use con-ditionals, for example If the truck driver had not answered his cell phone, he would not have caused the accident.
4 EMAIL WRITING
This is clearly one of the work assignments that works best with adult learners or those who specifically study Business English Give them an email to read and ask them to write
home-an appropriate reply Or give them
a situation that would require them
to compose a message, like a plaint over a bad service experience
com-or an inquiry into vacation rentals
5 WATCH IT!
Choose a TV series that is shown
in English, either with or without tles (you may ask students to cover the subtitles) Choose a show that is suit-able to your students’ ages Tell your students that their homework for that night will be to watch an episode of Modern Family, whether they usually watch the show or not Give them a task
subti-to complete after viewing the episode:
a synopsis of the episode, a character description, or a questionnaire (Do you usually watch this show? If not, would you start watching it? Why/why not?)Another great way to get students ac-tively engaged in their homework as-signments is to ask them to come up with some ideas for creative assign-ments on their own and share them with the class They may surprise you!
AND IF YOU’RE STILL STUMPED AS
TO WHICH WORKSHEETS TO ASSIGN
TO PRACTICE GRAMMAR, LARY, OR READING, BUSYTEACHER.ORG IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO HELP, 24/7, WITH WONDERFUL IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES AND GREAT READY-TO-PRINT WORKSHEETS
VOCABU-If you have any ideas for other fully creative homework assignments, share them with us!
Trang 12How To Assign Efective work Your Students Will Enjoy
Home-HOMEWORK IS A GOOD TEACHING
TOOL IN ORDER TO BE USED
EFFEC-TIVELY YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE IT
IS HELPING YOUR STUDENTS AND
THAT THE EXERCISES YOU ASSIGN
ARE NOT JUST BUSY WORK
Students will know if homework is
re-ally benefiting them or not so be sure
to make it worth their while or they will
be less willing to complete
assign-ments in the future Let’s take a look
at the different steps you can take
when it comes to using homework
Homework should be a
re-view or further practice of something
learned in class so ensure that
what-ever homework you have assigned
can be completed by students
inde-pendently and with ease To do this,
conduct several comprehension tests
and practice activities in class so that
students feel confident enough with
the material to work on their own
Encourage students to ask
ques-tions about anything they are
un-clear on Indicate what pages of the
textbook you are using so that students
can find key information later on when
you are not available to help them
2 GIVING IT
Think about the objective of
each homework assignment before
giving it to students to make sure that
it will actually benefit them Also, try to
use a variety of exercises rather than
the same ones over and over again
When handing out homework, go
over the directions in class to check
that students understand what
they are expected to do at home
Have students read the instructions
aloud and ask them if they have
any questions about the exercises
Do not assign new material as homework as students will not under-
stand it and only become frustrated with the exercises as well as less open
to discussing the topic in class times you might want to give students the opportunity to think about a topic before you introduce it in class but in this case you should assign some-thing very general for example tell stu-dents to try to think of three directions related words for the next class This
Some-is not something you would collect so students do not have to give it a lot of thought or get stressed about it In this case, you can spend some time at the
beginning of the next class eliciting
words from students about directions
If some of your students find work assignments too challenging, arrange a tutorial once or twice a week either before or after school
home-so that students can get extra help
3 CHECKING IT
Once students have pleted homework, you have to check it This can be done a num-ber of ways and depends a lot on the type of activity you assigned
com-You should check most writing
ex-ercises thoroughly for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors
before asking students to present their work to the class This will help them practice the right material rather than repeating mistakes If the work-sheet consists of fill in the blank or short answer type questions, check answers as a class before collect-ing the sheets from your students
This may mean that students who did not complete the homework will fill in the answers as they come up in class but if you notice a student doing this, you can mark him down for not doing the work at home and should take some time to talk to the student individually
4 GRADING IT
Not all homework has to be
grad-ed but this encourages students to tually do the work Be sure to collect all homework assignments even if all you do is ensure that they have been completed Other activities, such as the writing exercise mentioned above, you may consider giving grades on It
ac-is up to you how many points the cise is worth When grading subjective material try to create a rubric which you can use to help you grade all the work the same way Breaking down points into different categories such
exer-as spelling, content, and grammar will certainly help you with grading fairly
5 RETURNING IT
When you return the homework assignments to your students give them another opportunity to ask ques-
tions about the material and
encour-age students with questions about their grades to meet with you after class to discuss their concerns
Students who consistently perform
at a low level might need a second opportunity to complete the exercise once they have a better understand-ing of what you are looking for This will give them the chance to earn more points towards a higher overall grade In this situation, it is still bet-ter to be proactive and give these stu-dents special attention to begin with but a combination of both approaches may be the most successful
HOMEWORK IS A VALUABLE TOOL THAT CAN ASSIST STUDENTS BY GIVING THEM EXTRA PRACTICE USING COURSE MATERIAL
By reserving larger reading and ing assignments for homework as-signments, you can maximize your class time by conducting lots of speaking and listening activities Homework also gives you more
writ-material to better evaluate
indi-vidual student performance so it
is very helpful when used correctly
Trang 13Classroom Conlicts: How to
Smooth Over a Cultural Clash
WHEN YOU ARE TEACHING A CLASS
OF STUDENTS FROM ALL OVER THE
WORLD, YOU ARE BOUND TO RUN
INTO CULTURAL CLASHES FROM
TIME TO TIME
A clash may come because one
na-tionality has a bad historical
relation-ship with another culture A clash
can come because of differences
in cultural values: what is culturally
appropriate in one culture may be
highly inappropriate in another You
may even end up with classroom
conflict because your students have
misunderstood each other through
the common barrier of the English
language Whatever the reason, you
can overcome cultural clashes if you
remain calm and address the
situa-tion in a sensitive and careful manner
HOW TO PROCEED
1 HAVE A CHAT
The first thing you will need to
do when overcoming a cultural clash
between students is to understand
why each of your students is
up-set Have a short sit down with each
of the people involved, the offended
and the offender, separately Discuss
what happened or did not and what
offended the student Try to see the
situation from each person’s
perspec-tive Because you are an ESL teacher
and have worked with
internation-als, you are probably able to look at
a given situation through the eyes
of another’s culture You know that
values differ among different people
groups and that certain innocent
be-haviors may be offensive to a
particu-lar group of people (For example,
it is offensive for either a man or
a woman to cross his or her legs
in Thailand because pointing,
even with the foot, is offensive.)
With the person who offended the
oth-er, you may want to try to understand
her intentions behind her actions This
may be especially important if the
clash came about because of a
lan-guage difficulty If you can understand
your student first, you may be able
to explain that to the other student
When you are having these one on one discussions with your students, take a warning You may initially have
a difficult time getting your students to open up and be honest with you In some cultures, it is inappropriate for
a student to have that type of sation with a teacher, especially if the student thinks he may be criticizing his teacher Help your students know from the beginning that is it okay for them to share with you their honest thoughts and feelings, and that this type of honesty will not affect their grades
conver-2 TAKE IT TO THE CLASS
Once you have had individual conversations with your students in-volved in the conflict, your next step
is to take a more generalized
ver-sion of the issue to the class
For example, if the conflict arose from one person crossing her legs and pointing at another, you may want to bring the topic of body language to your class for discussion Set aside some time, or integrate it into what you have already planned, to give a lesson on culture Help your students understand the value differences be-tween cultures Be careful not to bring unnecessary attention to the specific students involved in the initial conflict, but address the issue from a global per-spective Look at it from many different angles and many different viewpoints
Keep your classroom open and nonthreatening by allowing all of
your students to weigh in on whatever topic you are discussing You can do this by preparing some discussion questions on the topic or issue that caused the conflict Allowing your stu-dents to discuss the situation among themselves in a friendly manner will be even more effective than having the teacher up front lecturing on the issue
Though it may be risky, you can even group students by nationality for the discussion, and then ask each group
to share with the class what they learned or could articulate about their home culture Culture is such an in-grained part of who each individual is that we are often not even aware of
our cultural values Think of culture
like an iceberg – you can only see a small portion of it above the water, but the largest part is hidden un- der the water Grouping students by
nationality can help them understand themselves as well as one another Remember, throughout the class discussion and activities, you should not bring up the incident that caused the initial conflict or the students who were involved in it
You will have to judge at this point whether you will have to further ad-dress the conflict through a combined discussion with the involved individu-als If this is necessary, schedule a time completely separate from class for the three of you to sit and talk together During this discussion, you should
take the role as facilitator of the discussion Part of this job is to
make sure each of the students derstands what the other means and not just the words he or she says You may need to give your students permission to agree to disagree if no resolution can be achieved In the best of circumstances, your students will walk away having resolved their conflict and increased their under-standing of one another’s culture
un-YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PANIC THE NEXT TIME A CULTURAL CLASH STORMS ITS WAY INTO YOUR CLASSROOM
If you have open communication with your students helping them understand one another, you will
be surprised at the good that can come from a problematic situa-tion Keep your cool, be honest and patient, and a cultural clash may end up being a cultural class
Trang 1415 Little Tricks to Get Your
Class’s Attention (and Hold It)
BEGINNINGS ARE ALWAYS THE
HARDEST ASK ANY TEACHER WHO
WALKS IN AT THE BEGINNING OF
THE CLASS SESSION AND FINDS
CASY TEXT-MESSAGING SOMEONE,
KATIE AND SAM CHATTING, AND
TOM SNOOZING
This behavior isn’t limited to children,
either: inattention is endemic in our
fast-paced culture with so much
competing media and information
dis-tracting us However, it is necessary
to get the class’s attention at the
beginning of the session to establish
order, the plan for the day, and begin
instruction But it’s not always so easy
What can you do to get the class’s
at-tention riveted on you?
STARTING OFF STRONG
Often students goof off because they
just don’t know what else to do You
can start strong every day by
es-tablishing a clear routine and
ex-pectations for starting off: that they
come to attention, be in their seats,
and ready to work Hold to this
rou-tine to establish order in the class
Having a clear plan for the day
also gets student’s attention
5 TIPS TO GET
THE CLASS’S
ATTENTION
1 CHANGE THE LEVEL AND
TONE OF YOUR VOICE
Often just changing the level and tone
of your voice, lowering it or raising it,
will signal to the students it’s time to
pay attention
2 USE PROPS LIKE A BELL OR
WHISTLE
Better for lower level or younger
learners, props like these
clear-ly mark beginnings, endings, and
other transitions within the class ’
3 USE A VISUAL RELATED TO THE INSTRUCTION
Holding up a striking picture related
to the session, such as tal debris if the class topic is related
environmen-to the environment, is sure environmen-to get all eyes on you Don’t comment on it, al-low students to start the dialogue
4 MAKE A STARTLING STATE MENT OR GIVE A QUOTE
Writing a surprising statement or quote related to the content on the board has a similar effect: for example
“More than half of children in fornia speak some language other than English at home” if the topic is language acquisition
Cali-5 WRITE A POP QUIZ QUESTION ON THE BOARD
Write a basic comprehension tion related to the reading on the board Students have to answer it on slips of paper and turn them in This gets students focused right away on course material The question can then lead to discussion after the quiz
ques-10 TIPS FOR HOLDING ATTENTION
Now you have your students’ tion Holding it is another story
atten-1 RELEVANT TASKS
Know your students and relate content to them, and relate the content
to the course objectives For example,
if the content is the Vietnam War, ing out what they already know about the Vietnam War and how it relates to their lives is important
find-2 TEACH AT APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY
Material too hard or too difficult can result in student inattention Check for understanding or boredom at the be-
ginning Then tailor the material to the class: for example, if you are teaching the past tense and find students al-ready have control over the simple past and past progressive, find out what they know about the past perfect Or if you’ve given all three tenses at them, assuming it’s just review, but they ap-pear lost, focus on just one tense
3 USE CHORAL CHANTS OF MATERIAL
Better for lower-level students, having students chant together key phrases
or sentences from the material gets them focused on the material This also provides practice in the rhythm and intonation of English
4 MAKE PRESENTATIONS CLEAR
Use of clear charts and visuals hold students’ attention and make the con-tent clear
5 INVOLVE STUDENTS IN LECTURE
Don’t just lecture on the past tense with charts and board work - this will surely put everyone to sleep During the lecture, stop to ask students about last weekend, summer, etc., to keep them involved in the content and prac-ticing the material
Use of humor related to the tent is another attention-getter: stu-dents appreciate teachers who know how to use humor appropriately related
con-to the material For example, relating a brief humorous anecdote about what
a bad day you had yesterday to onstrate past tense verbs will get stu-dents’ attention and lighten the mood
dem-7 ESTABLISH THE ROUTINE, TASK, AND TIME LIMIT
If students are to work in groups, for example, they should know which group they belong in, what they will be
Trang 15doing, and for how long.
8 PLAN CAREFULLY AND FULLY; MAKE THE PLAN APPARENT TO STUDENTS
Students will lose focus if the objectives and plan for the lesson are not clear to them Writing what the class will be doing on the board helps keep focus
9 DIVIDE TASKS INTO MANAGEABLE SUBSKILLS
If students are going to be participating in a class debate, telling them to “Debate the issue” may result in a lot
of students wandering around confused Outline what is involved in a debate on the board and break it down: today decide the issue and our sides, tomorrow establish the roles within our teams, the next day research, and so forth
1 0 ESTABLISH CLEAR ROLES
In doing the debate, to continue the example, everyone within the group should have a task: either
prepar-ing some research for the debate, outlinprepar-ing the debate, preparprepar-ing a counterargument, etc If everyone’s role is clear, and everyone has a job to do, this results in less web-surfing and updating Facebook profiles during class (Yes, adults and ESL students do it, too.)
FOLLOWING THESE GUIDELINES OF STARTING STRONG AND PLANNING FOR HOLDING THE CLASS’S ATTENTION WILL RESULT IN A LESSON THAT ALL STUDENTS WILL PARTICIPATE IN FULLY
Trang 16Keep Your Cool: Tips for
Handling Diicult Students
IMAGINE THIS: YOU ARE TRYING TO
GIVE A LESSON ON THE PAST
PRO-GRESSIVE TENSE
You stand up at the white board talking
about agreement between the subject
and the helping verb and that this tense
is used to describe a continuous action
that was happening at a specific point in
the past While most students are
listen-ing and concentratlisten-ing, a child in the back
taps his pencil, kicks his feet against the
desk, leans back in his chair and then
falls over on to the ground With the
clatter from the back come laughs from
the front of the classroom, an end zone
style dance from the student in
ques-tion and a complete loss of
concentra-tion about any facet of English
gram-mar What is an ESL teacher to do?
Almost every teacher has had a
difficult student in one class or
another, and some of us are lucky
enough to have one in every class.
Though we want to be good teachers
and be sensitive to our students, having
a difficult student in class is
confus-ing and frustratconfus-ing for us We want to
give our student the best education that
we can, but we do not want to condone
misbehavior and disruption If you find
yourself in this situation now or in the
future, take heart Here are some tips
for handling difficult students that
will help you teach better and enable
them learn better at the same time.
I T’S NOT ABOUT YOU
Though it may be a tough thing to
hear, the first step is to remember it is
not about you As a teacher, you are
there to educate, guide and help your
students You are not there to have a
captive audience hanging on your every
word We teachers sometimes have to
shift our focus and remember why we
started teaching in the first place It is
so easy to be caught up in our natural
patterns as a teacher, especially when
they have been effective up until this
point Having difficult students reminds
us that we, too, need challenges and
changes in our teaching style If you can
germinate the attitude in yourself that
you can always improve, always learn,
always find some way to be a better teacher, teaching a challenging student becomes an opportunity rather than
a chore Use the situation to your vantage to refine and deepen your craft
ad-as a teacher All of your students, both current and future, will benefit from it
T AKE A CLOSER LOOK
Ann, a special education teacher, gives this advice when dealing with a difficult student “Read your students.”
What she means is to pay attention to facial expression and body language as you teach Challenge yourself to spend more time facing your students than you do the white board Look at them
and notice the difficulty coming
be-fore it hits you and your classroom
in full force As you do this, pay
atten-tion to why the misbehavior is ning Sometimes students are not chal-lenged They may be a quick learner and find themselves bored before the lesson is over They may be a struggling student who has not understood previ-ous lessons and is giving up on this one
begin-as well There may be a learning ity coming into play If you suspect this, talk to an expert on the signs of and so-lutions for different learning disabilities
disabil-Another reason they may be acting up is because of a cultural issue of which you may not be aware All of these situations and more can make class hard to han-dle for both you and your student Take heart, teacher There are things you can
do to make things easier on you both
C HANGE IT UP
Group work can be the most fective way of engaging under and over performing students Pair your most advanced students with those who are struggling In this, your advanced stu-dent will become more of a teacher, challenging her to explain and learn the material better Your struggling student gets individual attention and, perhaps,
ef-a different explef-anef-ation of the concept being taught Sometimes, too, a stu-dent with the same native language
as the one who is challenging may be able to explain something in way in which it is easier for the challenging student to understand Though you are
the teacher, you do not have to make all the learning happen solely by your
hand Use the resources you have
in other students to reach the ones you are having difficulty reaching
You can also change things up by
breaking out of your curriculum
when necessary to challenge dents who are beyond what today’s schedule says to teach There is noth-ing wrong with assigning special proj-ects to advanced students or letting them work at their own pace even if it
stu-is beyond where the class stu-is When a student is not challenged in class, it is not uncommon for that student to ex-hibit behavioral problems A student who is challenged, on the other hand, will be more cooperative and tolerant when the class is studying something
he understood long before that time.Getting physical is another great way to help students who have difficulty sitting and paying attention to a whole lesson When a student starts fidgeting, it is time to get your students up and mov-ing If you can, relate some physical ac-tion to whatever you are teaching Use
Simon Says to teach the grammar of
commands Have a student follow your instructions and move about the room
Do partnering activities where students must move their desks or walk to anoth-
er area of the room Anything you can
do to engage the body with the mind will help these students be more attentive and absorbent to what you are teach-ing Even if you cannot relate something physical to what you are teaching, take
a seventh inning stretch to make the nal part of the lesson more accessible
fi-There are many ways to help engage students who may have behavior is- sues The most important thing to remember is not to take it personally.
Students do not refuse to engage cause they do not want to learn If you can find the underlying issue be-hind the disruptive behavior, you can tailor your lessons or assignments to best meet your students’ needs As a teacher, you do not always have to do things by the book In fact, the best teachers are often the ones who do not
Trang 17be-How to Teach the Millennial
Generation
The Millennial Generation, or
Generation Y, is that generation
born 1980-2000 They have never
known a world without computers,
so they are sometimes also called
the “Net Generation” and “digital
natives.” Speaking generally of
the generation rather than of
ev-ery individual within it, some of the
positive aspects of its members are
that they tend to be global in
out-look and accepting of differences.
However, they are also used to instant
gratification, multitasking, and can
present some challenges to classroom
instruction, such as inattentiveness
and overuse of technological
devic-es Given that a major component of
teaching is connecting with learners,
what are some methods that
teach-ers can use to connect with the
mil-lennial generation and keep their
The lecture does not have to be
dis-pensed with completely, and
some-times it is a necessary, efficient, and
even powerful method to relate
in-formation But the lecture alone only
reaches a select number of students
Instead of just lecturing, make the
lec-ture interactive Ask students
ques-tions or offer examples, and make use
of Powerpoint, which students are
ac-customed to, to support the lecture in
the class It is easy to load slides and
text into Powerpoint to create a lecture
on the Holocaust, for example Or give
students an outline of the lecture for
them to fill in to keep them involved
Finally, make the lecture as short as
possible, just enough time to relate
the necessary information before
mov-ing into a different mode of instruction
2 INCORPORATE VISUALS
Incorporating visuals will also aid
a lecture Learners respond more to
a presentation if it is contextualized
For example, when explaining verb tense, a handout graphically display-ing the different tenses is helpful Or a quick search on YouTube before class can yield some impressive results For example, if the presentation is about urban decay and pollution, pictures of
a major landfill can spark a discussion
Reproductions of famous paintings, such as those by Picasso, can also serve as a starting place for discussion and writing Finally, having students bring in their own visuals to represent something the class has just read and explain the connection also works well
3 INCORPORATE GROUP WORK
Group work can also be highly cessful with Generation Y because they have worked in groups all of their lives After a brief lecture on a topic such as global warming, move stu-dents into groups and have them dis-cuss it and come up with causes and possible solutions Every member of the group should have a role within that group, such as the researcher to review the text or writer to take notes
suc-There should also be a leader to keep everyone on task It is also effective
to vary the group structure within
a class period, going from whole class to small group to pair work in- struction.
4 TEACH BY DISCOVERY
Another alternative to the lecture
format is to teach by discovery
In-stead of telling students the tion, have them discover it themselves
informa-If students have just read a short story, for example, have them work together
to determine the major message or theme of the story, or present them with a dilemma, and have them come
up with the solution Or when ing a new reading, present students with a series of vocabulary words relat-
introduc-ed to the reading and have them mine what the words have in common and group them accordingly This will have the additional affect of preparing students for the reading’s topic and vo-cabulary
technologi-ple as having students type, research, and illustrate their own papers as part
of class Or make use of YouTube’s resources: for example, when teach-ing an article on the alleged “Stupid- ity Epidemic” in the U.S., include a clip from YouTube of Jay Leno’s “Jay- walking”, in which he walks the street and asks passersby seemingly easy questions (and doesn’t always get the correct answer): “What color is the White House?” When students are reading a novel, set up a class blog and have students blog about it so that it is an interactive rather than the more traditional and personal journal
If students are text-messaging each other all the time, make that a class assignment Having students translate text messages into standard or formal English can raise awareness on regis-ter differences Or design a lecture in podcast format, post it on a class web-site, and have students download and listen to it at home Some instructors have also used simulations and video-games effectively in their classes Oth-
er instructors have exploited the use of Digital Gaming, interactive games in which students work online, assume a role, and work toward some common goal Other instructors use social net-working sites where students can col-laborate on projects These sites are
of particular help to more introverted individuals, who are more likely than extraverts to locate their authentic
“selves” in cyberspace
HOLDING THE ATTENTION OF GENERATION Y IS NOT EASY AS THEY ARE USED TO HAVING INFORMA-TION COME AT THEM FROM VARIOUS SOURCES
But with careful planning and being flexible, turning Generation Y from passive learners text messaging their friends in the back of the room into ac-tive learners is possible
Trang 18Top 5 Productivity Tips
for ESL Teachers
DO YOU OFTEN FIND YOURSELF
STRAPPED FOR TIME? EVER GET
THE FEELING YOU HAVE SPENT
WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON
SOME-THING THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
EASIER AND FASTER TO DO?
Have you ever thought “there has
to be another way, a better, more
productive way to get this done”?
Do you wish you had more free time
to spend on a hobby or with your
family? If you have answered any of
these questions with a resounding
“yes!”, then what you need are ways
to improve your productivity,
strate-gies that will help you make the most
of your time and allow you to enjoy
your classes, free from last-minute
rushes and stress Here are our top
productivity tips for ESL teachers:
HOW TO INCREASE
YOUR ESL
PRODUCTIVITY
1 PLAN IN ADVANCE
Do you sometimes find
your-self making flashcards, printing
work-sheets, or finishing posters the night
before a class? Wouldn’t it be great
if you could wake up in the morning
and have your lesson and
materi-als ready, so that all you have to do
is grab your stuff and go to class?
Well, this is not hard at all to achieve!
Take 2-3 hours once a week to plan
the week ahead Pick one day, say,
Sunday evening, and schedule your
planning session Plan your lessons
for the week AND gather the materials
you will need Find a way to organize
these materials that works best for you
Perhaps you can use a file cabinet,
and file your lesson plan and
materi-als for each day, including ESL
work-sheets, flashcards, a book you plan
to read, even special props or realia
If you need to use the school
pho-tocopier, try to schedule one day in
which you can copy everything you’ll
need for the week Try to leave nothing
for the last minute or the night before
As soon as you’re ready to head for school, all you need to do is grab your materials for the day We guarantee your week will go by much smoother!
2 ELIMINATE ALL DISTRAC TIONS
If you only set aside two hours on day to plan a whole week’s worth of ESL lessons, you need to make those
Sun-two hours count Imagine these Sun-two
hours are sacred and essential to your weekly planning If possible,
put your phone on mute, and if you’re
at the computer disable all incoming email alerts Try to resist the tempta-tion to see what’s up on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site
The energy and effort you put into these two hours of planning will pay off later on in the week, when you have the chance to go out with some friends for dinner or to a movie
3 POOL YOUR RESOURCES
When you plan a special day lesson, chances are most of the other ESL teachers will be planning one as well Whenever you teach the past simple or the present perfect, chances are another teacher has used a great lesson plan Schedule
holi-a meeting with the other teholi-achers in your school once a month to discuss any special events, celebrations or lessons There are plenty of web-sites that sell posters and stickers in bulk, so why not make a big order for everyone? As a group you could come up with a system to share great ESL lesson plan ideas, maybe keep them on file in the teacher’s lounge
No man is an island, and neither
is a classroom No teacher should
have to work alone when he or she has the possibility of gaining from oth-ers’ experience
4 GET TO SCHOOL EARLY
“The early bird catches the worm”, and if you get to school early
enough you might just get the tocopier’s undivided attention Also,
pho-if you need to set up props, posters, decorate the classroom, or get video
or audio material set up, it’s best to get it all done before your students start to arrive You may even have enough time to enjoy a good cup of coffee in the peace and tranquility of your empty classroom There’s no better way to start a productive day!
5 TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS
There are lots of tools and tions out there that are HUGE time-savers, and will do wonders for your productivity Digital calendars, timers, and to-do lists allow you to have ev-erything you need, a mere click away You may read more about these tools
applica-in one of our articles from this book, 5 Must-have Technological Tools to Increase Productivity.
AS SOON AS YOU START MENTING THESE STRATEGIES, YOU WILL NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE FOLLOW THESE TIPS, AND YOU WILL
IMPLE-BE ABLE TO SCHEDULE SOME TIME FOR YOU, TO SPEND WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, OR ENJOYING YOUR FAVORITE HOBBY IT DOESN’T TAKE
A WHOLE LOT OF WORK TO BECOME
A HAPPIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE TEACHER IT JUST TAKES SOME PLANNING AND ORGANIZATION
If you have any productivity tips that work for you, by all means share them with us!
And when it comes to timesavers, don’t forget that BusyTeacher org is here for you as well, always available to supply you with great teaching tips, worksheets, and easy-to-use puzzle creators!
Trang 19ESL Teamwork: Collaborating
With Colleagues
COLLABORATING WITH YOUR
COL-LEAGUES IN ANY WORK
ENVI-RONMENT CAN HELP
GUARAN-TEE SUCCESS FOR EVERYONE
INVOLVED
When working together, people can
contribute their unique skills for a
bet-ter overall result This is the same
when it comes to teaching and can
be even more beneficial than in other
work places because the students
ultimately get more out of their
edu-cational experiences when teachers
work together
Here are some ways you can
collabo-rate with others at your school
If you are not the only teacher in
charge of a particular course, for
ex-ample English I, take the
opportu-nity to collaborate with teachers of
other sections of the class During
exams work together to develop a
test that will provide a good baseline
for all students The results will
al-low you to see how classes compare
to one another Creating exams can
also be a lot of work so breaking up
the responsibilities will lessen your
workload
Additionally, having multiple people
review the test will lead to better
ac-curacy which is really important when
it comes to test sheets as students
may become confused if questions or
directions are unclear
Another thing you can do is create
a project that all the classes can
participate in It may be
challeng-ing to work together if classes meet
at different times but one thing you
could consider doing is putting on a
performance Each class could have
its own presentation or skit to perform
for other students and even parents
This could be a lot of fun and you may even choose to turn it into a competi-tion to see which class performance the audience liked best
By talking to other teachers, you can help one another reinforce themes common in both classes This will also benefit students because they will be able to examine various things related
to a single topic in different classes
3 OTHER TEACHERS
It would make sense for art classes to focus on Asian art while students are studying Asia in their geography or history class right? The same thing can be done with English lessons if you are willing and able to
coordinate themes with another instructor Consider approaching
art, history, and geography teachers
to get some ideas Especially with younger students incorporating top-ics from other classes should be very easy and enjoyable The material at this level is not too challenging First grade geography is pretty straightfor-ward while calculus might be a stretch for some ESL teachers and also hard-
er to link to the English language
Where possible, consider tying things together and let students
teach you what they have been ing in other classes by using English and learning the related vocabulary along the way
learn-4 PRINCIPAL
You can also present ideas to
the principal about how to get your
ESL students involved in other activities around the school Per-
haps you can set up a display in lish about the class, school, town, or country By approaching the principal with ideas like this one, you are show-ing that you are interested in English being part of the school’s identity and are thinking about how students can use their knowledge in practical ways not just theoretical ones
Students should be able to use lish in real life situations and design-ing displays or booths for school fairs
Eng-is a great way to encourage thEng-is A display like the one suggested would
be something students could be
proud of For students with a special
interest in English, you can even
cre-ate an optional English club that
meets after school once or twice a week Working with the principal will ensure that you are allowed to do cer-tain activities and also have space either to display work or to meet with students
You want to be able to work well with everyone in your school.
WHILE THIS IS NOT ALWAYS BLE, IT IS AN ADMIRABLE GOAL AND COLLABORATING WITH OTHERS WILL OFTEN HELP YOU FORM BETTER WORKING RELATION-SHIPS WITH TEACHERS ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOUR PRIMARY FOCUS IS TEACHING STUDENTS ENGLISH AND WHILE COLLABO-RATING, BE SURE TO SHARE IN THE WORK AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF EACH PROJECT SO THAT YOUR COL-LEAGUES DO NOT START TO RESENT YOU
Trang 205 Sure-Fire Ways to Bond
with Your Class
BONDING WITH YOUR STUDENTS
IS ESSENTIAL NOT ONLY TO THE
SUCCESS OF YOUR CLASS, BUT ALSO
TO YOUR STUDENTS’ LEARNING
When you effectively bond with them,
you create a unique connection
be-tween you and your students, and
this connection pretty much
guaran-tees they’ll be more motivated, more
willing to participate, and more
recep-tive to the activities you propose
Here are some sure-fire ways to bond
with your ESL class:
HOW TO PROCEED
1 BREAK THE ICE
To start the school year off on
the right foot, it is imperative that you
try to bond with them from the start
On the first day of class, adult ESL
students in particular, are often
self-conscious or insecure about their
English level, so the best way to bond
with them is to break the ice in ways
that will help them relax
Try this for a very original icebreaker
Tell students that you’ll begin with a
pop quiz (and ignore their
panic-strick-en faces) Give each of them a sheet
with quiz questions about you: what
your favorite color is, favorite movie,
favorite music, how long you’ve been
a teacher, even your age Of course,
they won’t know the right answers -
tell them to guess! Afterwards, they
share their guesses, and you can see
who was right It’s a fun,
non-conven-tional way to tell them a little bit about
yourself
2 SHOW INTEREST IN THEM
If you really want to bond with
your students you must show them
you are genuinely interested in them
Ask them about their hobbies,
after-school activities, and families Talk
to them before class, after class, or
during lunch hour, but make sure you
know a little bit about each of your
stu-dents
3 GET PERSONAL
Throughout the course, don’t forget to share with your students little tidbits about your life, particularly if they are things they can relate to Are they excited about the upcoming Bon Jovi concert? Hey, you bought tickets weeks ago! Is there a movie they’re dying to see? Tell them you saw it and what you thought about it
If you start the class by asking them what they did over the weekend, tell them what you did, too Teachers of-ten ask students about their families, activities, and interests, but some ne-glect to share their own things, for fear
of it being too personal Stick to topics that anyone can talk about and show them you’re a real person, who has a life outside of school
Once they become familiar with your cat and the antics he pulls, he’ll be more popular than Garfield with you class! And don’t forget to show pic-tures!
4 TAKE SOME TIME
TO CELEBRATE!
Learning is not only about serious study time and targeted activities To avoid falling into the “all work and no play” mindset, one that will not help you bond with your students, schedule some special days for celebrations, like Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and make these days all about the fun!
Of course, there’s still plenty they can learn about American customs and traditions, but they’ll be too busy having fun to realize they’re actually learning too Don’t forget to include birthday celebrations
5 SHOW THEM YOU CARE
Bad things happen - that’s a part
of life, and your students are not empt from heartbreak, sadness, or worries If one of your students has just lost a grandparent, or other family
ex-member, tell him or her how sorry you are for their loss If one of them seems
to be having a hard time, if you sense there’s something going on, don’t be afraid to talk to the student in question
to find out what’s wrong It’s not your job to offer solutions or any type of counseling, but you can at least show your concern and point them in the right direction
NO MATTER WHAT STRATEGY YOU USE TO BOND WITH YOUR STU-DENTS, ABOVE ALL ELSE, KEEP IT REAL AND KEEP IT GENUINE
If you care enough to want to bond with them, then you care enough to want to genuinely get to know them, and let them get to know you And this
is the best, most effective way to bond
with them: showing genuine
inter-est and the desire to form a bond that
will help you work together towards achieving all of your ESL goals