Practical ideas for school teachers Novosibirsk January 2015

Practical ideas for school teachers Novosibirsk, January 2015 By Nina Bestmann

Content • • • Intro Vocabulary activities Reading ideas Story-telling tips Games and fun in class • Practice in some or all of the above areas

Find someone who… Name Extra information (details) has never attended a free seminar before (ask why) is teaching very young learners (ask where) does not teach at school (ask where) has been on maternity leave (ask how many times and how long for) has been working as a teacher for more than 15 years (ask where and how long for) has a lot of experience with teenage learners (ask to give you a tip) never teaches on Sundays (ask why) can still remember their first lesson (ask for details) doesn’t enjoy teaching adults (ask why) is planning to stop teaching (ask when and why) Question

Are young learners special? Yes, because… No, because…

Good YL materials – what is important? Jane Moon: “Children learn a foreign language through being motivated. It depends on the teacher’s style. If the teacher motivated them they would learn fast or quicker. They learn by doing and interacting with each other in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance, through a variety of interesting and fun activities for which they see the purpose. ” What does this mean for us as teachers?

Anything else? (apart from fun) • • • visual teaching materials (a lot of pictures), touching things, making things with their own hands or at least taking part in making things (e. g. colouring them) activities for young learners should exploit this. Is there a problem? a lot of books do not meet all the requirements: • no warmers to raise the students’ interest, • the reading texts are too long (or too short) • the texts / topics are irrelevant for children • texts contain no pre-, or post reading activities • there almost no listening activities • no grammar presentation or practice, in which case you have to supplement • the book is too ‘grammar-based’ or/and offers no activities that young learners see as fun • the book is fine but the class is too strong or too weak or too mixed

Dealing with language: Vocabulary (and Grammar!) • • • Brainstorming Dominoes Pelmanism (memory game) Broken sentences Crossword / Half crossword Quartett

Brainstorming • great warmer • spend some time working on the vocabulary (categorizing, spidergram, etc. ) • drill pronunciation • check the meaning where you feel necessary • play ‘board-slap’ or ‘sticky balls’ (at this stage or later)

Dominoes • practise and/or revise • vocabulary and/or structures • introduce new vocabulary Contain • words and pictures, pictures • parts of words or phrases to match, • Pictures/words to find a connection Students can • play in pairs or small groups • challenge each other (if they think someone is not right)

Dominoes Very simple dominoes to play with beginners. Can you think of samples of target language to be used?

Types of dominoes long curly wavy short to see something while sleeping to take a nap to sleep for a short time to dose off to dream to make noises while sleeping to snore to fall asleep … skeletons in the apple of… one’s closet to have… …my eye … sheep of the black… family to beat… … about the bush

Pelmanism Modify it to: • introduce vocabulary • practise it Why play it? • based on repetition, repetition • fun and competitive, competitive • encourages peer teaching, teaching • children are more likely to remember vocabulary they ‘discovered’ themselves or with the help of their friends • TTT method (test, teach, test)

Broken Sentences • matching parts of sentences, sentences • great for structure and vocabulary, as vocabulary well as collocations • encourages peer teaching Students do the activity in pairs or small groups

(Half a) crossword • popular activity with young learners, • “information gap” where students have different parts of a crossword, • used for vocabulary practice, grammar practice possible, • encourages speaking and listening, listening • very good for spelling! spelling

Half a crossword A B

Quartett is a German kids’ game that can be easily adapted for the EFL classroom to suit any topic Any ideas how?

Quartett Number of colours / sets: Depending on class size

Mix. Max Another German kids’ game Any ideas how to use it in class?

Dealing with Reading and Listening (and Speaking!) • • • Gist question The ‘human tape-recorder’ tape-recorder Running dictation / reading race Jigsaw activities Cut up story / song

Gist question • What is it? • Why do we need it? • Most books offer no gist questions for listening or reading activities, or offer a question that is actually a detail, not a gist one. • A student should be able to answer the true gist question even if he/she missed half of the text, i. e. the answer to a gist question lies in many parts of the text.

The human tape-recorder • • an interesting pre-reading activity includes a lot of speaking a chance to use classroom language encourages team work / learner autonomy

Human tape recorder: procedure 1) Take a short paragraph (first/introductory, any short 2) You are now a ‘human tape-recorder’ and have 4 buttons: play, stop, fast forward and rewind and only 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) relevant text) understand these commands. Divide students in pairs (runner + writer) writer After the whole text has been scripted, both the ‘runner’ and the ‘writer’: sit down together, together read the text, correct any inaccuracies they can spot. (Optional) give out the original text, check comprehension (e. g. a few questions), continue with the text/lesson.

Running dictation / Reading race • can help liven up a long / boring reading activity in class, • includes a lot of speaking, speaking • a chance to use classroom language on two occasions: – asking for clarification / spelling, e. g. ‘Can you repeat spelling that? How do you spell it? ’ – and checking answers, e. g. ‘What do you think the answers answer is? I think it is …, and you? • is competitive, • promotes team work.

Running dictation / Reading race: Procedure 1) Write comprehension questions on strips of paper, 2) Place them outside the classroom, 3) Divide students in pairs (runner + writer) • The ‘runner’ runs outside, reads a question, tries to remember it (no writing allowed!), then runs back to the ‘writer’, • The ‘writer’ listens to the question and writes it down, asking to repeat and/or spell if necessary. 4) The ‘runner’ and the ‘writer’ sit down together, together read the text and try to answer the questions. 5) The team that has all correct answers first wins!

Jigsaw activities • a wonderful tool to liven up reading, listening and speaking activities • involves a lot of speaking • a chance for even very quiet students to communicate truly multi-functional, multi-functional • rather than reading / listening to a long text students get a part each and then: – have to communicate the information to each other to get the complete picture, picture – fill in a chart / graph – put the parts of the story in order

The essence of Jigsaw activities 1. Give out two (or more) different texts to different groups of students, 2. In each group they read the story / information and discuss / answer the questions 3. Re-group students so that children with different information now work with each other, 4. Get them to ask each other questions to complete the task

Cut up story / summary/ song to order the lines 1. 2. 3. Before the lesson cut up lines / small paragraphs of the story /song. Students in pairs / small groups try to put them in order (according to the meaning), Listen to (or read) the original story / song. • “Gentle” focus on grammatical structure, structure • Good for generating interest in the story / song. • Variation: give students the cut up lines to order after they have heard the song / story once, focusing on once listening skills, then let them listen to it again to check skills the order.

Reasons for using Storybooks Stories • are motivating, challenging and fun and can help develop positive attitudes towards the foreign language, culture and learning. • excite imagination… imagination • provide a way of enabling children to form links between school and home life.

Reasons for using Storybooks • Listening to stories in class is a shared social experience, experience • Children enjoy listening to stories over and over again, again • Many stories contain natural repetition of key vocabulary and structures, which helps children to remember every detail as well as provides pattern practice in a meaningful context • Listening to stories allows the teacher to introduce new vocabulary and sentence structures by exposing the children to language in varied, memorable and familiar context • Listening to stories helps children become aware of the rhythm, intonation and pronunciation of the language.

Reasons for using Storybooks • cater for individual interests and diversity by allowing children to respond at their own linguistic and cognitive level • develop the different types of ‘intelligences’ that ‘intelligences contribute to language learning, including emotional intelligence, • reflect the culture of their authors and illustrators, • develop children’s learning strategies such as listening for general meaning, predicting, guessing meaning and hypothesizing. • address universal themes which go beyond the level of basic dialogues and mundane daily activities…

Choose a story: • which will engage the children within the first few lines • which you like • which you feel is appropriate for the children • which the children will understand enough to enjoy • which does not have long descriptive passages • which is right for the occasion and in its relation with other things • which you feel you can tell well

Setting up the story telling occasions: • Try to get the children physically nearer than normal • If possible change the seating before the story starts. • Try putting some music on • Perhaps have a regular story telling time • Introduce some realia to catch the interest

Getting prepared: • Read the story beforehand get to know how to read it with some sense of drama • Don’t speak into the book… • Read more slowly with a more dramatic quality than normal speech • Stop to comment or invite comments quite often • Look up and try to make eye contact. Check that the whole group is with you • Stop to show pictures and make sure all children can see them • Have your finger ready to open the next page • Don’t read for longer than 10 minutes (even less for very young kids)

Your voice: Your voice naturally has an amazing range of tones and volume. To use your voice effectively try to: • sit or stand so that you can breathe easily, don’t hunch easily up • keep breathing while you are talking so you don’t get breathless • speak loudly enough for everyone to hear but try to avoid the ‘teacher’s voice’ • adopt different voices for each role • use pauses. Listeners have to become active in order pauses to fill it – they try to predict what you have to say. Use it at key moments