Archive for the ‘Teaching children/ teaching kids/ teaching young learne’ Category

Here are the links for stuff I have published here and elsewhere so far this month that you might have missed, in case the heat makes me lose the rest of my energy and I forget at the end of the month:

On Usingenglish.com (theeeeeeey’re back!)

Why does my teacher use games in an adult class?

Why does our teacher make us read difficult authentic texts?

How British is your English? Questionnaire and explaining unknown vocab speaking practice worksheets- one of my favourites!

Elsewhere on TEFLtastic

Korean speakers- common vocabulary mistakes in English

Determiners practice- starting presentations- designed to go with Market Leader, but also suitable for whoever else is unlucky enough to need to tie those two topics together…

Classroom language TEFL workshop notes- with accompanying teacher training worksheets below

Ranking classroom language- teacher training pairwork worksheets

Simplifying classroom language- teacher training worksheets, with tips on using gestures in class to give instructions etc.

Classroom language further reading and links

Teaching likes and dislikes and free time activities teacher training workshop plan

Business English pron worksheets section (the worksheets are old, but the section is new)

Intelligent Business Worksheets and Games section- also useful for other Bus Eng classes

Market Leader worksheets and games- ditto

My stuff elsewhere on TEFL.net

In the Idea Thinktank

15 games for the language of likes and dislikes

15 classroom language games

15 punishments for pre-school English classes

15 Business English games for describing your company and job

15 criteria for good kindergarten worksheets

In TEFL.net Articles

15 good reasons to write TEFL reviews

In TEFL.net reviews

A History of English Language Teaching Second Edition review

And if the heat is keeping you awake instead of making you sleepy, you can have a look at June’s links too (newly updated as I’d forgotten about the reviews):

New articles, worksheets and reviews June 2008

I’m continuing to learn from and ponder on the information in the Cambridge Grammar of English, and as before testing the matters I’ve been chewing on against your native speaker intuitions would be appreciated (sorry for the very unpleasant mental picture from that metaphor first thing on a Monday morning!)

The (modern?) name for & is “and” (not ampersand)
{ } = chain brackets (they’ve always been squiggly brackets to me!)
< > = diamond brackets
 
American English uses commas before and or but more frequently than British English
 
“Subordinate clauses can be separated by a comma from a preceding main clause, especially when the relation between them might be obscured because the clauses are long.” (pg 842), so “We can get there for around six, if there are no problems with the traffic on the motorway” is okay with or without the comma, despite being in the reverse position of the usual first conditional with a comma
 
Colons are used to indicate subtitles, and to mark a clause in which reasons are given: “We decided against it: it wasn’t lightweight enough”
 
Single quotation marks are becoming more widespread in direct speech
 
Colons may be used to introduce direct speech when it is particularly long
 
There are apostrophes (becoming optional) in “for goodness’ sake” and “for appearance’ sake”
 
In informal writing multiple dashes may be used:
 
“Just got back from Mallorca— we really loved it.”

If punctuation is your thing, or really isn’t you or your students’ thing but should be, here are some links:

Wikipedia on the ampersand

Info on Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss- a funny book on punctuation!

A whole list of punctuation books on Amazon

Punctuation worksheets on ESL Printables.com

And that is all I could find of interest. For classroom activities, one thing that works well, especially with FCE and CAE classes, is for students to take a text that is correct and add spelling and punctuation errors for another team to find.

Another good game is to put a text on the board including punctuation and get them to read out the whole text (including punctuation) over and over as you delete it one word or punctuation mark at a time until they can no longer remember it or the whole text has disappeared.

The game above works well with kids too. A more physical game for kids on the same point is to write up a sentence with one piece of punctuation missing in large letters on the board, and get them to take turns throwing a sticky ball (= sucker ball) at the place they think the punctuation mark should be.

All that TEFL International stuff below is not only depressing, I’m starting to think it is actually quite pointless. For example, if we compare the number of teachers who have paid money to TEFL International, let alone the number of people who felt unhappy afterwards, how does that compare to the number of teachers who need some new games for the Present Simple? One percent? Less? Not forgetting of course that 99% of English teachers in the world are not native speakers and have never heard of the CELTA or any of the “equivalents”.

Luckily, I have found time between training to be a TEFL boxing referee to continue writing some practical ideas that anyone should make teachers’ lives easier. You can find them here:

Usingenglish.com (which seems to be active again after going veeeeery quiet)

Business English Present Continuous Sounds and Mimes- contrasting with the Present Simple, and with loads of useful office and other Bus Eng vocab

Why does my teacher skip exercises in the textbook?- article for students, but could also help teachers answer their questions and think through their classroom activities

TEFL.net Idea Thinktank

The 15 stages of using pre-school English songs

The first 15 stages in using worksheets in pre-school English classes

15 ways to personalize your young learner classes - also suitable for very young and very low level learners

15 criteria for a good kindergarten English song- how to choose and use them

15 techniques for calming down a pre-school class

15 variations for large pre-school classes- the best games with small classes and how to make them work with 50 or more kids

15 fun sit down activities for pre-school classes- to save both your energy and theirs!

15 flashcard activities for any pre-school English class- simple, cheap and exciting!

TEFL.net TEFL Articles

15 criteria for a good TEFL workshop

TEFL.net Reviews

Teacher Language Awareness book review

Telephone English (Macmillan) book review

Lessons from good language learners book review

If that ain’t enough for you, here is the same for new stuff in May:

New Worksheets and Articles May 2008

I found the top one of this page of Langwich scool quite funny. That fact that I didn’t laugh at all of them was almost a relief- means I haven’t turned into a complete TEFL otaku yet… I would, however, 100% recommend the Puzzle Time books by the same guy (Jon Marks), and a look at the other links on the page.

This post might just seem like a list of links, but actually this is the good stuff- TEFLtastic was started as a way of linking to my much more serious and useful stuff elsewhere on the web, and to be honest the actual blog entries just remain a bit of padding between the links. So, click away and see if you agree that I am capable of more than vaguely funny attempts at satire and self-indulgent musings on the meaning of TEFL:

On Usingenglish.com

Worksheets

Business English- Words that can and can’t be shortened

Articles for students (but hopefully of interest to teachers too)

Why does my teacher make me use an English-English dictionary?

Why does my teacher make me learn English grammar words?

On TEFL.net

Games and other practical teaching ideas in the Idea Thinktank

15 uses for guessing games in any pre-school English class

15 problems and solutions for large pre-school classes

15 variations on TPR for little kids

The 15 stages of teaching numbers- for everyone from 2 year olds to financial analysts

15 ways to simplify reading texts

15 ways to reproduce exam conditions

15 ways to make EFL exam tasks fun

15 ways to make EFL exam tasks easier

15 fun ways to score points

Slightly more general and theoretical stuff in the TEFL articles section

15 problems and solutions for large pre-school classes

15 ways to judge an EFL textbook for adults

15 criteria for a good pre-school English class

15 reasons why PPP is so unfashionable

And if all that ain’t enough for yer, here’s the link to all my publications on the Net since 1874.

Might just be the physics graduate in me coming out, but I seem to find myself teaching numbers in my classes all the time- be it shouting “seven Eight NIne TEEEEEEN!” at the top of my voice in my kindy classes or bringing my tape measure into my Technical English classes to liven things up by measuring the table and people’s noses.

Here’s a selection of games ideas and worksheets on teaching everything from “How old are you?” “I am three” to kids who are actually two but have been trained to say “I am three” by overambitious Thai parents to get them into class to “one billion seven hundred and two million point one” and the difference between “zero”, “nought”, “nil” and “oh” to Financial English students who need to learn something from you for once rather than teaching you about the weaknesses in your financial portfolio as usual.

So here they are, starting with a brand new article on the TEFL.net Idea Thinktank page:

The fifteen stages of teaching numbers with possible problems and game ideas for each stage

Business and ESP first lesson lesson plans with a number review including pairwork 

Fun for all the family 1- 22 games for teaching numbers

Numbers practice idioms and proverbs

Xmas trivia numbers pairwork

On the TEFLtastic worksheets page (easy to rip off, difficult to print out)

Technical English Japan by numbers pairwork game

Japan numbers trivia Elementary team game

And stuff you have to pay for on Onestopenglish.com:

Medical English numbers trivia

Business English numbers trivia

IELTS Writing- describing graphs

To make up for all the navel gazing recently, have decided to give the public what it wants for once. And what the public wants is TEFL sex!

That first paragraph should get some nice bizarre Google searches coming my way, but actually I’ve already done that topic to death (really!), so I’ll instead be expanding on the most popular recent post, which was on writing the perfect CV and cover letter for a TEFL teacher. Now we have, for your delight and delectation:

The perfect CV and cover letter for an EFL exam class teacher

The perfect CV and cover letter for a TEFL young learners teacher

The perfect CV and cover letter for an EFL manager

The perfect CV and cover letter for a teacher trainer

And last and (possibly) least:

The perfect CV and cover letter for a Business English teacher

In answer to my own question, I’m actually quite happy being a TEFL pleb again after trying teacher training and what have you, which is perhaps why I am the only person who will give advice to others on how to get into it as I’m not competing with you for the jobs…

“I appear to be regarded as something similar to flat-pack furniture: cheap, does the job and aside from initial construction, can be left to own devices without much attention.” (more…)

“During the speech both old and new students had become extremely restless, and thirteen children were out of their seats and moving around the room. The obscenities accompanying another tussle between two four-year-old boys- bakayaro and aho (fool)- had started a wave of obscenity calling from various parts of the room. As parents and teachers listened to the director’s speech apparently undisturbed, children tried to outdo one another in demonstrating their knowledge of elicit words. One particularly daring five-year-old topped the list with unko (feces) and chinpoko (penis).Completely ignored by teachers and parents, the contest died down as the audience rose to leave. The director’s remark ‘It is good to see that many children have already begun to make friends’ was a veiled reference to the general commotion” (more…)

Somewhere along the way I have come up with idea of looking at games in the classroom in a completely different way, by brainstorming games for language points that absolutely all kinds of students need and so not dividing them up by age or level. The idea behind this is:

􀁺 it can free you up to brainstorm a similar broad range of activities for the classes and language points you need to prepare for

􀁺 it can help you bring a range of learning styles into classes where they are usually neglected, e.g. logic puzzles with younger students or physical activities with advanced adults

􀁺 it can illustrate how cross-fertilization of ideas across different areas of teaching and from outside teaching can be a great source of ideas (more…)