Techniques to teach english

“Techniques to teach English”

At the beginning – or the end of a topic, write down one of the key terms e.g. E D U C A T I O N.

The students have to write down as many words as they can beginning with each letter that is relevant to the topic. E.g E – exam/expectations etc. D – detention, discipline.

Split the class into groups and the winning group is the one with the most correct words.

Each group’s suggestions can be written up and discussed.

Acrostics

This is a good activity for a small beginners’ group.

Use the whiteboard. Draw a line. Say, ‘This is the ground’. Call up a student and ask, or show

them, they have to add something. They may add anything -house/flower/tree/person/animal plane/sun/birds/car etc, whatever they like.

Then they have to say what it is, ‘This is a ...’

Add to the Picture

Or ask the others if they can name the object.

Each student gets a turn. At the end, they then each say a

sentence to describe the picture. Good for practising prepositions. You can make this into a longer,

writing activity by having them copy the picture and write up the sentences.

You can then have a True/false session, based on the picture they have created.

Add to the Picture Cont...

A class selects a well-known fable or folktale. The plot is simplified into a sequence of events

that can be transcribed onto cards with short sections of the tale on each.

Students hide the cards throughout the school or classroom.

A treasure map showing the exact location where all the cards are hidden, is given to another class (Or, with clues, one card can lead to the next).

Groups of students must find the cards and assemble them in correct order.

The treasure is finding the WHOLE story. Two classes can trade treasure hunts by putting

the stories on two different-coloured cards.

A Story Treasure HuntKEYSTAGES 2/3 S L R W V G P

One student comes out and stands with

his back to the board.

You then – get the rest of the class to

check that he doesn’t take a peek –

Write a word or draw a simple diagram.

The rest of the class must describe it, or

give clues, but they cannot say the word.

Split them into teams to make it a

competion.

Great for students at all levels.

Back to the Board

Pupils get in groups of three. Two of them can see the blackboard;

the other one has his/her back turned. The teacher writes or sticks a word on

the blackboard. The two children that can see the

blackboard have to give clues to the third one to be able to guess it: “It’s a kind of food”, “It’s sweet”, etc.

Back to the

BoardKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Each pupil uses his/her finger as a pencil and writes a word on his/her classmate’s back. This classmate tries to guess the word.

If he or she guesses it before the “writer” finishes, he/she get three points.

If he or she guesses it after the word has been written once, both children get two points.

If the words has to be written a second time, they only get one point.

Back WritingKEYSTAGES

1/2S L R W V G P

Beat the Clock

Students love this!!! They take turns in the hotseat. The rest of the class prepare questions – the object of the exercise is for the hotseater not to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So the students need to write questions which are the most likely to elicit a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ This can be general questions, ‘Have you got any sisters?’ etc, or it could be based on a topic you have studied ‘Do plants need light to photosynthesise?’ etc. This is an excellent way to practise tag questions, as these are the most likely to get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ‘Mr Bean went to the dentist’s, didn’t he?’

Rules 1) Students cannot prevaricate – ‘maybe’ ‘I don’t know’ ‘obviously’ etc are not allowed. I sometimes insist on a full sentence. ‘Mr Bean did go to the dentist’s.’ ‘Plants need light for photosynthesis.’ 2) No nodding or shaking of the head.3) If the hotseater answers the questions for more than 90 seconds, then he has beaten the clock! 4)If he says ‘yes’ or ‘no’, then he is out. I use my metal bin and a boardmarker at this point, but if you can get hold of a drum or a bell or something, that is great. I ask a student to do this and there are alwways plenty of volunteers. This is a great revision tool!

Beat the Clock Cont...

The teacher draws a large beetle on the blackboard and labels each part with numbers from 1 to 6.

Divide the class into groups of four/five people. Children can draw the different parts when they

obtain the corresponding number rolling the dice. Children who complete the whole drawing the first

win. The rest continue playing until the whole group completes their drawings. It can be used with other themes such as vehicles.

Two dice can be used in order to increase the number of parts

Beetle DriveALL

KEYSTAGESS L R W V G P

The teacher can give pupils the grid with the different drawings or can give them the grid where pupils have to draw six-nine pictures from some that the teacher shows them.

The teacher puts the pictures in a box and mixes them. He or she pulls out one and shows it to the children, saying: “This is a bicycle”.

Children who have the drawing cover the space with a counter. The fist child to cover all the spaces on his/her grid wins and he or she can become the caller.

BingoALL


Make a birthday wheel at the beginning of

the year and ask students to check whose

birthdays take place each week/ month.

Make a point of playing popular games

when it is somebody’s birthday and

singing “Happy birthday to you”.

Birthday WheelALL


Get a bag or a box and put lots of words on pieces of paper in it.

Go round the class – each student has to take a word, read it and either make a sentence out of it, or give the definition.

If you like, you can write each student’s sentence on the board.

Then, the others can correct the sentences and/or make suggestions for improvement.

This can be used to practise basic English with beginners, or with key words or new vocabulary for more advanced classes.

Or, if you’ve been studying a novel or a play, your words can be based on that.

Box of Words

The teacher draws 4-6 vertical columns across the board.

Each column should represent a theme. Divide each column into five squares of

equal size that represents a question. In each theme there are five questions of

different levels that punctuate from 10 to 50.

The class is divided into pairs or trios. Each group chooses a name.

CategoriesKEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

The first group chooses a theme and number (We would like animals for 20 or Animals for 20) and the teacher makes the corresponding question.

After a short time, if they answer correctly, the teacher writes the name of the group in the square.

If not, the next group can answer it or choose another one.

Play two rounds and the teacher adds up the scores.

Categories

Cont…KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

Form a circle with chairs. Number of chairs equal to students’ number. All the pupils sit except the teacher. He writes a sentence in the blackboard as an

example: Yesterday I watched tv. He explains the children to listen to the sentences.

If they watched TV yesterday, they must change their chair.

If not, they must not move. The teacher plays with the children, and then the after the teacher’s turn the pupils begin to tell their sentences.

Chair GameKEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

He then acts it out – he mustn’t speak or mime.

The other team has to guess the word or phrase.

Put a time limit on it, then pass it over to his own team.

Divide the class into 2 teams. One member comes out and he takes

a card off the top of the pile – written on it is what you want him to act out e.g. ‘dig the garden’.

If you want to make it easy, you can get the students to prepare the cards.

Charades

Chinese Drawing

Divide your students into teams. Line them up, facing the board. Give a new or a key word to the students

at the back. They must use their finger to write the

word on the next student’s back. This continues along the lines. The winning team is the first to reach the

board and write the word correctly. They gain an extra point if they can use the

word in a sentence, or give the definition. For beginners, work with letters of the

alphabet – upper and lower case.

Two teams, each forming a circle.

Whisper the key phrase into the ears of

the first student in line.

They then whisper to each other, round

the circle.

The winning team is the one whose final

statement most resembles the original.

Good for teaching key pieces of

knowledge.

Chinese Whispers

A sentence is whispered around the circle of students.

The last student to receive the message either says it aloud or writes it on the board.

A variation of this is to get the students into two lines (team A and B) in front of the board, so the first student in both lines is really near the board and the teams are lined up behind him/her.

You whisper a sentence or a question to the two students at the end of the line and they pass it down the line until it reaches the students nearest the board who then have to write the sentence on the board.

Chinese

Whispers`ALL


The responses of the whole class are

collected to make a survey display.

Examples: What is your favourite colour/

animal? What colour eyes have you got?

How many people are there in your

family?

Collaborative Class

SurveysALL


Compare and Contrast

Give two pictures and ask the students

to make comparisons between them.

E.g. Harry Potter and Gandalph, Mona

Lisa and Medusa, 2 famous sportsmen

or women, someone from the distant

past and someone from the present.

Give each child a blank piece of paper. The four basic steps are as follows:

1. They write something, according to the question you give them.

2. They fold their paper over, so that nobody can see what they’ve written.

3. They give the paper to the person sitting next to them.

4. They repeats steps 1 to 3 with a new question.

Finally, let the children unravel their consequence sheet and read the description.

Consequences KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

The students have to count round the

class – in 3s, (or 4s, 5s etc).

Then, start from a high number

and they have to count down in threes.

Count Round

Put the students in pairs. Give each a picture. Student A describes his picture (but

mustn’t show it) to Student B, who then has to draw it.

At the end, they compare their pictures and discuss what is different.

Then they swap roles. Excellent for beginners – colours,

prepositions and for practising ‘has/have got’ etc as well as for advanced students.

Describe and Draw

You can do this as a whole class activity, with just one set of dominoes.

Give each student one or 2. On one box, there is a question, on the

other an answer. The first student reads out his

question, then the student with the right answer puts his hand up, reads it out and then reads his question etc.

This can be done in pairs.

Dominoes

The object is to draw crazy people or monsters and afterwards describe them.

The teacher gives each child a piece of paper. They draw a head and then fold the page back at

the base of the head and everyone passes their paper to the person on the right.

They draw the next part of the body and fold the papers back again and pass them on again.

The drawing game continues until the feet. When all the pictures are finished, unfold them to

reveal the crazy creations. In turn, the children describe the pictures using

all the phrases they know. The theme of the pictures can be changed:

vehicles, buildings, etc.

Draw, Fold and

PassALL


The teacher dictates some words that Children have to draw in a sheet of paper.

Drawing

DictationKEYSTAGES

1/2S L R W V G P

Students stand in a circle.

They count around.

The student who says 11 is out and has

to sit down.

Each student can say up to 3 numbers,

so when there are just a few left, they

can calculate how to get each other out.

Or twenty one...

Eleven

They are useful to work grammatical structures such as Subject+ Verb+ Complement.

It consists on an amount of strips stapled together that can be combined between them.

Flap books KEYSTAGES 2/3 S L R W V G P

Subject I He She It We

Verb play sing makes has do

Complement basketball a song a drawing a car a cake

I call this ‘Big Cats’ because I teach boys and they like that better.

The students must be seated in a circle, on chairs.

You need at least 12 students, I would say. Go round and allot each a cat

– tiger, lion, panther, etc (3, 4, or 5 cats, depending on group size.)

Stand in the middle. Explain: ‘When I say ‘lion’, all the lions

have to get up and swap seats. When I say ‘tiger’ all the tigers have to

swap seats. etc. When I say ‘Big cats!’, everybody has to

get up and swap seats.

Fruit Bowl

Then, do this twice. By now, the students are wondering

what the big deal is. Third time round, take away a chair! Play the game again – someone is left

without a seat. He must give a forfeit, or answer a

question. Be careful! This can be very lively,

particularly on a ‘Big Cat’ round. I only play this at the end of term. The students love it.

Fruit Bowl Cont...

You need two sets of cards. White cards for the words and another colour

(yellow?) for the questions. Put all questions in a bag or hat at the start of

the game. Give each student at least three word cards,

placed in front of them on their desks. Choose one card from the hat and read the

question. Students study their word cards. Whoever has the corresponding word can get

rid of it. The winner gets rid of all his cards first.

Get Rid of ItKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Guess the Object

Take or draw a picture. Then take 5 pieces of paper (all the same

size as the original picture.). Cut various sized holes in them. Put them all on the picture. Take one off at a time – can they guess what

the object is, or where – street scene etc. Each time, they are allowed 5 questions to

help them guess. You can do this as a whole class activity, or

put them in teams.

The teacher thinks about a number from 1 to X (depending on the level).

Pupils have to guess the number. The teacher gives as a clue: “More

than two” or “Less than 10”.

Pupil can get the role of the teacher and think about a number.

Guess the

Number KS ALL S L R WV G P

You need post-it notes , or pieces of paper and blutac.

Put the students in pairs. Write the target words on the post-it

notes. Stick one on each of the students’

foreheads – without letting the student see what is on his forehead.

The task is for each partner to guess what is on his forehead, by asking questions of his partner.. Is it an animal? Is it green? Etc.

The answer can only be ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Guess who?

Don’t forget this old favourite!

It makes a great starter activity and

can be used at any level –

E.g. for beginners – classroom objects.

For more advanced students, key

words in any subject area.

Just write on the board, with students

taking a turn, or use a generator.

Hangman

Firstly, pick a word the children know and draw a dash for each letter on the whiteboard.

Divide the class into two teams and have each team call out a letter in turn.

If the letter the students choose is in the word, write that letter above the appropriate dash on the board.

If the letter is not in the word, write that letter at a different location on the board, and draw one line of the gallows.

Continue this process until either one of the teams determines the word or until a team is "executed" (i.e. when you have completed the drawing of the gallows, including the hanging stick man).

Award points to the winning team.

HangmanKEYSTAGE

2/3S L R W V G P

Divide the class into groups of four/five students.

Give four flashcards from a single word family (animals, transports, food, etc) to each member of the group.

The students look carefully at their cards, then all the cards for the group mixed together and dealt out randomly to the students.

Students have to recompose their word family by asking in turn for the cards they need: Have you got the bus?

Happy FamiliesALL


Hot Seat

There are many variations on this activity. Put one student ‘in role’ – he has to be a character in a book/film you’ve studied and the rest of the class prepare questions to ask. You could: Make question cards with the wh- question words and give them out. The students have to make questions with the word they are given. Or, allot ‘tense cards’ – past simple questions with did, present with do or does and future with will.

Or an activity you can use for a speaking lesson at any time.

Bring in some photos from your personal album, or the internet.

Include photos of people – family, friends. Photos of places/big cities/countries you have visited/food/film trailer posters/cars etc.

Tell the students ‘These are important to me’ – or ‘I have plenty to say about each of these photos, but I need the right questions.’

Give them some time to write as many questions as they can.

Or assign different photos to different students. A fun way to practise making questions.

Ice breaker

Teacher says "I spy with my little eye something that begins with B".

Students try to guess the object (e.g. "book").

Colours are a good alternative for younger students ("I spy with my little eye something that is red").

I SpyKEYSTAGE 1/2 S L R W V G P

Another old favourite. Can be used as a category game, if you’ve been learning clothes, or foods etc. The first student starts off, Then it goes round the class, with each student having to remember all the others’ answers. This can be varied. ‘I went to the zoo and I saw a ...’ or with verbs ‘I went on holiday and I ... played on the beach.’ etc

‘I Went to the Market and I Bought....’

For beginners, you can give out

individual packs of the alphabet.

For more advance students, you can

have full sentences, including adverbs

and connectives.

Jumbled Words and Jumbled Sentences

Ask some students to keep a tally of how

many times you say a certain word.

This can be a way of allowing a beginner

to participate in a more advanced lesson.

Key Words Chart Tally

The teacher shows a list of words

(three/four).

Pupils have to memorise them for one

minute.

Then, the teacher hides them and they

have to write them down.

Kim´s Game KEYSTAGE

3S L R W V G P

Place two posters at opposite ends of the classroom - TRUE and FALSE.

Read out your statements, students have to move to the position they think is correct.

Students who are wrong have to sit down.

Continue until there is a winner. Then, move onto the next statement. At the end of ther activity, ask students

to recite, or write down as many of the true statements as they can remember.

Kinaesthetic True or False

KWL

PURPOSE: The K-W-L strategy allows students to take inventory of

what they already know and what they want to know. Students can

categorize information about the topic that they expect to use.

PROCEDURE:

On the chalkboard, on a handout, or on students' individual clean

sheets, three columns should be drawn.

Label Column 1 K, Column 2 W, Column 3 L.

Before reading, students fill in the Know column with everything

they already know about the topic. This helps generate their

background knowledge.

Kwl (CONT.)

Then have students predict what they might learn about the topic, which might follow a quick glance at the topic headings, pictures, and charts that are found in the reading. This helps set their purpose for reading and focuses their attention on key ideas.

Alternatively, you might have students put in the middle column what they want to learn about the topic.

After reading, students should fill in their new knowledge gained from reading the content. They can also clear up misperceptions about the topic which might have shown up in the Know column before they actually read anything. This is the stage of metacognition: did they get it or not?

To familiarize students with names of objects found in the classroom, label everything with an index card that has the item's name on it.

The next day, remove the cards and go through them one at a time and place them on the correct item together.

The third day let them label whatever they can on their own.

I continue this for a few days.

Label ItALL


When they are able to independently label most of the items, I surprise them by having them labelled incorrectly.

Then they have to straighten out the mess.

Adapt this to any noun-based vocabulary list (e.g. types of foods, body parts, parts of a room in a house, animals, etc.) that you can post pictures of.

Label It Cont… ALL


The class is divided into pair or groups. The teacher writes some words about a topic on

the blackboard and gives each group a set of small cards where children write each letter of the words written on the blackboard.

Then they have to mix the letters and then recompose each word. The teacher walks around checking the words and asking the children to read out the words.

For older students, the teacher can write sentences better than words and pupils have to recompose the sentence word by word, stead letter by letter.

Letter JumbleALL


Throw this to the student you want to

give the answer.

They return the ball as they answer.

Makes for a good, fast question and

answer session.

Little Light Ball

After you have studied a book, make a

few slides or a worksheet with just the

main points.

Elicit a recount by asking questions,

‘What happened before..’ ‘Why did he

go there?’ ‘Who did he see?’ etc.

Main Points

Match–up

Tried and trusted; always works.

Picture-word or word-definition match

ups.

Make it kinaesthetic by giving the

cards out and asking students to

match them up.

Get great resources from MES-English.

The teacher divides the class into groups of four/five people and give each group a set of ten picture pairs.

They shuffle the cards and place them face down in a grid form.

A child turns two cards face up and says “This is a shirt and this is a tracksuit”.

If the two cards match, the child keeps the pair and has another turn. If not, the child puts the cards face down again and the next child turns over two cards.

The child who collects the most pairs wins. Children have to look for opposites,

singular/plural, and cards from a common topic

Memory ALL KEYSTAGES S L R W V G P

You draw 9 boxes on the board and use some blutack to stick your flashcards/key vocabulary face down on the boxes.

Split the class into two teams. They take turns to turn a card over. If it’s a picture and they know the

word, or if it’s a word and they can give the definition, they get their nought or their cross.

The winning team is the first to get 3 noughts or 3 crosses in a line.

This can be adapted to pair work.

Noughts and Crosses

The teacher makes a 3x3 square on the blackboard.

The teacher turns nine flashcards round and sticks them on the squares.

The class is divided into two teams: Noughts and Crosses.

A team starts saying a number from 1 to 9. The teacher turns the flashcard round. If the team knows how the word is called in

English, the teacher will replace the flashcard with a nought or a cross, depending on the team.

The objective is to put three noughts or crosses in line.

Noughts and

CrossesKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Give students a list of objects and get them to draw their own pictures with all those objects in them.

The students then work in pairs. One student describes their picture to

their partner and their partner draws what they hear.

They then swap roles and afterwards they compare the pictures they drew with their original drawings pointing out the differences.

Picture Dictation in

Pairs KEYSTAGES 2/3 S L R W V G P

Draw a blank face on the board. Call out one student – he has to be

blindfolded. He has to draw the nose in the right

place and the others have to give directions.

Give each student a different coloured pen and see who gets the best results.

Good for practising prepositions and directions.

A bit of fun!

Place the Nose

When marking, instead of correcting

the student’s mistakes in his book,

write them on post –it notes,

Then the student has to correct his

own mistakes.

This way, you know the student has

taken notice.

Post it Marking

Key words or phrases in the passage you

are studying.

Pre-highlight

Strategically place your bin.

Give the students a sheet of paper and

ask them to make a paper plane.

Then ask them to discuss the odds of

them getting their plane in the bin.

You can bring in lots of language. ‘Likely’

‘No chance’ ‘Impossible’ ‘Certain’ ‘50-50’

‘6:1’ etc.

Move the bin around as they get better at

it!

Probability Plane

This can be in the form of time adverbs

for a sequence, ‘First, After that,

Suddenly.... Finally etc’

Or with specific vocabulary.

You can also give support for the answer

E.g. Instead of ‘Where did he go next?’

‘Say where he went next.’

Provide Writing Frames

Reading should be an enjoyable activity. If you have the facilities, make a reading

corner. It should be a quiet and comfortable

place where children can sit and read. When they finished the book, ask them

to write a book review that can be collected in a library file so that students can look at each other’s reviews.

Reading CornerALL


Instead of reading from a book, pin

the passages up round the classroom.

In pairs, one student reads the

passage, then reports back to his

partner, who writes it up.

Then, they go up and read the

passage to check.

This makes reading and writing fun.

Read and Report Back

This activity is a pronunciation and memory game.

Split the class into small groups and give a rhyming pairs set of cards for each group with one word on each card.

Ask each group to place all of their cards face down on the table.

Students must take it in turns to turn over two cards.

They must say the two words out loud to see if they rhyme.

Rhyming Pair

Game KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

If the two cards rhyme, they can keep them.

When there are no cards left on the table, each student counts how many cards they have to see who the winner is.

For this activity students need to recognise that some words have a similar pronunciation even though the spelling is very different.

Rhyming Pair Game

Cont… KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Skills: asking questions about people; identifying people by description

Choose a student to begin. This student steps out of the room. Hand a ring to another student. All students in the classroom should

see who receives the ring. Call student to return to class. He or she must try to guess who has

the ring by asking various classmates ten or fewer yes/no questions.

Ring, Ring, Who Has My

Ring? KEYSTAGE 2/3 S L R W V G P

Sample questions include... Does a girl have the ring? Is he/she wearing tennis shoes? Is the person who has the ring wearing something blue?

If the student guesses correctly, he or she gets another turn (limit three).

If the student guesses incorrectly, the student who has the ring becomes the next player.

Ring, Ring, Who Has My Ring?

Cont… KEYSTAGE 2/3 S L R W V G P

It is a very useful activity because it develops the four skills.

Children are divided into groups of four/five people.

The teacher sits down on a chair in the centre of the classroom with some sheets of paper that contain some written information in them.

A child of each group has to run from their seat to teacher’s seat to read the information and then, he/she has to come back his/her seat and dictate what she/he has read in the sheet of paper.

Then, other child goes to look for some more information.

Running

Dictation KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Write the alphabet on the board with numbers underneath each letter.

Tell the students to write their names on card in the number code with a slash between each number.

Collect all the cards and give one to each student at random.

The students work out whose name card they have and stand up when they know those it is.

Other activities: Make different codes (numbers from 26 to 1/

shapes and colours instead of numbers) Write names of objects in code. Students work out

the name and touch or say the name of the object.

Secret CodesKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

At intermediate or advanced levels. Take a story or report and cut it into sections

for the students to put in the right order. Also, take out all the time connectives and

substitute ‘then’. When the students have reassembled the

passage correctly, say, ‘I am going to read it out loud. How could it be improved?’

Split them into pairs or groups, and see which group can substitute ‘then’ with the best connectives.

Give out a list of suitable connectives if you need to.

Let the students read out their versions and discuss who has done the best job.

Sequencing and Practising Connectives

Write the words of a sentence on the board in random order.

Uses structures that reflect the language you are covering.

Show the children how to decipher the sentences.

Remind them about capital letters and full stops.

Sentence

Anagrams KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

The teacher gives a set of cards with a picture or word using several minimal pairs for each pupil.

For example: sheep/ship, but/boot, bed/bad, why/way, bean/bin, sleep/slip, pig/big, live/life, tree/three…

The teacher says a word and the students rise up the appropriated card.

Show the Card KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

The teacher gives an order by saying “Simon says touch your head”.

Pupils have to imitate the order only if the order is told after “Simon says”.

If not, they have to rest without doing anything. If children do the action, they are out.

The last child left in the game becomes the new caller.

Simon Says

KEYSTAGE

1S L R W V G P

It’s an activity to review topics. Pupils make a big circle. The teacher throws the ball saying a

topic; the pupil who catches the ball has to say

a word that belongs to this topic and throw the ball again.

Soft ballsALL

KEYSTAGES S L R W V G P

To associate pictures with sounds The teacher asks the children to make a sound picture with sounds which are more difficult for the classThe children draw an object that has this sound such as 'chair'. Inside the picture of the chair they can write other words with the same sound such as hair, wear, scared. This can be an ongoing activity with posters on the walls which they can add to. It's a useful way of familiarizing children with some of the sound / spelling rules. This game also helps students who have a visual learning style

Sound PicturesKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Students have their books and pens

ready.

Start spelling the word letter by letter.

The object of this exercise is for them

to guess the word before you finish

spelling it.

A fun way to present a spelling test!

Spell it Out

The teacher dictates a word letter by letter.

Pupils have to guess the word before the teacher had told all the letters of the word.

For example: E-L-E-P…. (“Elephant!”)

Spelling Race

KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Divide the class into teams and give each team a set of Scrabble letters (You always get more of the most common letters and not so many of the least common).

Get them to spread out the letters on the table so they’re all facing up.

Then give clues for words you want to test them on, e.g. ‘the day before Wednesday’, students ‘write’ TUESDAY on the table by selecting the scrabble letters. ‘What’s this in English?’ – point to things in the classroom, draw on the board etc.

Once students get the idea, ask one of them to lead the game and give the clues instead of you.

Spelling TestsKEYSTAGES 2/3 S L R W V G P

Nice and simple, great activiity. Good for revising vocabulary. Wipeout. Write or draw your items on the board (about 12 is good.) For beginners, a simple vocabulary item or letters of the alpahabet. For mainstream, key words, or main characters, etc. Invite two students to the board. Say the word, or give the definition.The winner is the first to hit the item. He then wipes it out. Call another student and repeat the exercise.

Splat/Wipeout

Splat

You can prepare the items in advance on a slide,

with picture.

The same activity, except students just hit the

item.

For more advanced students, give the definition,

or some clues.

You can also have a student to give the clues.

They love the competition.

Splat/Wipeout Cont...

Put the students into teams of three or four.

Draw on the board a table like the ones below and get each team to copy it onto a piece of paper.

Students simply have to think of one item to go in each category beginning with the set letter.

The first team to finish shouts “Stop the Bus!” .

Stop the BusKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Check their answers and write them up on the board and if they are all okay that team wins a point.

If there are any mistakes in their words, let the game continue for another few minutes.

If it gets too difficult with certain letters (and you can’t think of one for each category) reduce the amount of words they have to get.

You can say. “Ok. For this round you can Stop the Bus with 4

columns”.

Stop the Bus

Cont…KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Animals Colours Food Clothes Countries Sports T Tiger Turquoise Tuna Trousers Tunisia Tennis

You have been teaching, now it’s time for

the students to show they have learned!

They have to divide a sheet of plain A4

into 4 or 6 squares.

They need to recount, in sequential

order, with diagrams, the story you have

studied, or the topic.

As well as narrative, they may include

speech bubbles, or fact file boxes.

Storyboard

Put the learners into pairs. Organise pairs of chairs back to back. If not, ask learners to stand back to back. This means they cannot see their partners'

faces or gestures. Hand out pairs of role cards, e.g. 1a and 1b, to

each pair. Demonstrate one situation with two volunteers

if you wish. Ask your learners to role-play each situation. As they finish one situation, take the cards back

and give them another. If you are using these cards as practice, you will

need to have prepared your students with some common telephone expressions

Telephone Role-

PlaysKEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

The pyramid shows the letters of the alphabet in ‘sound’groups:

BCDEGPTV FLMNSXZ AHJK QUW O R

The Alphabet

PyramidKEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Activities: Draw the pyramid on the blackboard and erase

some of the letters. Write the letters you have erased around the

pyramid. Ask the class to place them correctly in the

pyramid. Draw the pyramid with some of the letters

wrongly placed. Ask the class to identify them and place them

correctly.

The Alphabet Pyramid

Cont…KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Write a word on the board. Then elicit a word beginning with each

of the letters. Ask the children to take a piece of

paper and write words on the board for the children to copy.

Then let the children work in pairs to see how many of the word puzzles they can complete.

Check the answers with the whole class.

The “Pen” GameKEYSTAGES 2/3 S L R W V G P

The teacher uses a vocabulary box. This box must mainly comprise of words on

pieces of paper (either verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc..) all said by the learners themselves in previous lessons.

The box with all the words is circulated around the class.

Each learner is given a chance to pick a word from which he / she will have to construct a short and grammatical sentence.

Each sentence said is written on the board just as the speaker said it.

The Revision BoxKEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

After 12 to 20 sentences the sentences are analysed to see if they are grammatically correct with the emphasis placed mainly on the word from the vocabulary box.

Correction of the sentences can then be done and learners, again depending on time available, prompted to produce the correct sentences with the same word from the box.

The Revision Box

Cont …KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

Give out the sweets or lollipops wrapped

with the slips of paper.

This paper will have a hidden message which

will have to be worked out by students if

they want to eat their sweets or lollipops.

Tell students that each letter used

represents the previous letter in the

alphabet ( Note: Z comes before A).

The Secret Code

Game KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

Once students understand, allow them two minutes to work out their messages individually.

The first one to find out the hidden message should read it out to the rest of the class and carry out the instructions on it.

Continue around the class until everyone has deciphered their messages. Give help as needed.

The Secret Code Game

Cont… KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

To practice the pronunciation of difficult sounds.

The teacher writes some English tongue twisters on the board or on pieces of paper to distribute to students.

The teacher asks them to read the tongue twisters aloud.

Then faster. Then three times in a row. Here are some examples: - She sells sea shells on the sea shore- A proper copper coffee pot

The Tongue Twister

GameKEYSTAGES 2/3 S L R W V G P

The teacher chooses a picture and does not let children see it.

The teacher places five sheets of paper with holes of different sizes over the picture (the sheet with the largest hole on the bottom and the smallest on the top).

Children have to guess which picture is only by looking at a small section. They have to ask “Is it….?” and the teacher answers:” No, it is not” or “Yes, it is!”.

If anybody does not guess the picture, the teacher removes the top sheet and the hole is bigger now.

Through the

PeepholeALL


A player chooses a secret word. The player must then create a sentence

which uses the word correctly. In place of the chosen word, however,

the player says, "thwibbledy-thwap." For example, if the student chose the

word "car," he or she would then say the following: "I rode to school today in my father's thwibbledy-thwap."

Thwibbledy-

Thwop KEYSTAGE

2/3S L R W V G P

Any student who believes that he or she knows what word "thwibbledy-thwap" represents should raise his or her hand.

If three students fail to guess the word, the player creates another sentence using the same word. ("Our new thwibbledy-thwap has four doors.")

Up to three more students may guess, and so on, until someone guesses the correct word.

The student who guesses correctly chooses the next word.

Thwibbledy-Thwop

Cont… KEYSTAGE

2/3S L R W V G P

Draw three time zones on your line – Past / Now / Future.

Students take turns to come out. Read out a sentence, e.g. ‘He saw his

friend last month.’ The student has to position himself on

the line /in the zone he thinks appropriate.

This is a great kinaesthetic way to practise tenses and expressions of time

Timeline

TPS (Think-Pair-Share)

PURPOSE: Think-Pair-Share is a cooperative learning strategy that can promote and support

higher level thinking. The teacher asks students to think about a specific topic,

pair with another student to discuss their own thinking, and then share their ideas

with the group.

PROCEDURE:

• Decide on how to organize students into pairs.

• Pose a discussion topic or pose a question.

• Give students at least 10 seconds to think on their own. (“think time”).

• Ask students to pair with a partner and share their thinking.

• Call on a few students to share their ideas with the rest of the class.

Additional Resources

Instead of a straightforward T or F,

put a mistake, or a piece of false

information in each sentence which

the students must find and correct.

Or produce a report on something the

class has studied, with mistakes in it.

Very adaptable and can be used at

every level.

True or false ?- Variation

To practice rhythm, stress and intonation. Choose a song that has lots of rhyming

words in it at the ends of its lines. Take the rhyming words out of the song

and put them on a worksheet or on the board.

Then talk about how songs often have rhyming words at the ends of lines.

The students listen and attempt to put the words back into the song.

This can be attempted before they listen with more advance learners.

Using Songs ALL


Cloze exercises are a great way of testing

comprehension – but also, spelling.

Try leaving all the vowels and ‘y’ out.

Students do enjoy this exercise.

Vary your Close Exercises

Prepare a colourful piece of paper which can be used as a background for the wall dictionary.

Sew 26 pockets on it (or use glue/sticky tape) and label each pocket with a letter of the alphabet.

Ask the children to prepare sets of letter cards by writing the 26 letters on some small pieces of paper.

They put their letters into the pockets.

Wall Dictionary KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

We can use this wall dictionary at any time to practise spelling.

For example, divide the class into three or four groups.

They listen to words and then choose letters from the pockets to spell the words

Wall Dictionary

Cont… KEYSTAGES

2/3S L R W V G P

Paste pictures of popular characters on 4 x 6 or larger cardstock.

Call one student away from group. Show the student a card. (Make sure

that the student recognizes the individual on the card.)

The student then stands in front of the class and his or her classmates ask questions in order to guess who the student is.

Who Am I?KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

Students may ask questions like . . . Are you male or female? Are you a child or an adult? How old are you?

When a student correctly guesses who the student is, he or she becomes the next mystery person.

Variations: Ask each student to bring a picture of him or herself to class.

Make cards for each class using photographs of students in that class.

Who Am I? Cont…KEYSTAGE 3 S L R W V G P

To practice intonation Give out a paper sheet for each student (In

one of the sheets it is written “you’ve got the rubber” in the rest of sheets other classroom objects “you’ve got the pencil-case”, “…. the ruler”).

Explain that someone has stolen your rubber and they are going to help him to find it.

Who’s Got the

Rubber?KEYSTAGE 2/3 S L R W V G P

Ask (exaggerating intonation) one of the pupils “Have you got the rubber?”

and he answers offended and with indignation: “Meeeeee? I haven’t got the rubber. I’ve got the ruler” (or whatever object).

Then you ask another classmate “Anna, have you got the rubber?”

and she answers “Meeeee? I haven’t got….” And so on this dialogue pattern is repeated

till the pupil who’s got the rubber is asked for it.

Who’s Got the Rubber?

Cont…KEYSTAGE 2/3 S L R W V G P

To practice vowel sounds. Divide the students into groups. For each sound under study, provide a cut-

out of a large tree. Write or paint the sound/letter on the trunk

of the tree. Ask the students to “hang” words on slips of

paper containing the sound from the branches of the tree.

Display the accumulated trees on the classroom wall as the term progresses.

Use them for periodic pronunciation review.

Word Trees KEYSTAGE 2/3 S L R W V G P

Education

Techniques to teach english