Archive for the ‘past tenses’ Category

… are exactly the same as Xmas ESL ideas 2007 (haven’t written any special lessons on seasonal shopping in a worldwide depression yet, although I could use my grandfather’s story about his pet rabbit being served up for an East End Xmas lunch if I did), but at least that means this year I can get all the links out of the way in one post and so not repeat the TEFL equivalent of 6 weeks of nonstop Xmas carols like we had here in 2007. And here all the articles, teaching ideas and photocopiable worksheets are- a veritable Xmas feast, stuffed stocking etc etc to bring seasonal cheer to the last few weeks before the holiday without the need for sipping brandy between classes:

Articles and teaching ideas

Christmas vocabulary you can mime

Combining Xmas with a young learner syllabus

Doing something with Xmas songs

Putting the grammar back into Christmas

Games and other photocopiable worksheets

Future Perfect New Year predictions

New Year action and state verbs

New Year resolutions adverbs of frequency - going to for plans and learner training

Xmas first conditional superstitions bluff game - a classic, hopefully not ruined in my version

Christmas Adverbs of Frequency- Present Simple and lots of lovely (not stereotyped) cultural information

Christmas traditions passives bluff game

Xmas guess the country modals of deduction

Christmas Present Simple and Continuous mimes- contrasting routines and things happening now, with lots of nice Chrimbo vocab

Christmas Past Tense mimes - Past continuous when they finish miming and then tense review as they talk about their own experiences of those things

Will for future predictions Xmas

Xmas trivia number pairwork - good for Business English, Technical English and other ESP classes

Business English Christmas cards Do’s and Don’ts - imperatives and important cultural information

Describing Xmas foods bluff game - good for students who want to explain food from their own country to foreign guests, e.g. Business English students who often entertain clients

Going to Xmas mimes - for predictions with present evidence

Xmas party negotiations - the best ever game for the language of meetings and negotiations, as there is a clear winner, and some good Xmas vocab

Video Worksheets

Friends Series One New Year episode

Edward Scissor Hands- cute, seasonal, the easiest film in the English language, and full of lots of lovely reference expressions

The Life of Brian - as mentioned on a recent Dave’s ESL Cafe thread, only for veeeery high level and open-minded students

Xmas Song worksheets

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

The Christmas Song (”Chesnuts roasting on an open fire” etc)

White Xmas song correct the mistakes

As I haven’t said for a while, the real purpose of this blog isn’t pontificating on all things TEFL (not sure how I started doing that, maybe Wordpress is haunted by a malevolent spirit?) but to give links to my articles and worksheets. And here are some more:

15 more ways to bring lucky chances into your classroom and lesson planning

Yet another 15 ways of boosting your teaching confidence

And there is so much new stuff on my worksheet pages that I can’t even remember what it all is, but I seem to remember most of it is in my grammar games and worksheets section, mainly about reported speech, Present Perfect Continuous and modal verbs.

Might I also suggest New Stuff November 08 Part One, which was obviously written when Xmas was much further away as I actually got round to tracking down individual worksheets and putting links to them.

I’ve been very busy deep in the dark chaotic depths of the TEFLtastic Worksheets pages, and have also found time for a few of the usual articles. If useful stuff that makes your life easier is not your thing, will be back to the usual trivia here on the main page soon…

Articles

15 ways to start an adult lesson

15 ways to finish a preschool English lesson

15 more ways to boost your teaching confidence (as promised- not often I actually write something I planned to…)

Worksheets and lesson plans

A much expanded Market Leader worksheets and lesson plans page

Business Past Continuous and Personality Accusations game (THE classic Past Continuous game- not my original idea, but don’t know any other online or Business English versions)

Business English Needs Analysis ranking task

Crime Vocabulary storytelling game

Complaints roleplays

Pingu Will for predictions video worksheet 1 (3 more available on the Video Worksheets page, but can’t be bothered giving each link)

Passives guess the country game

Active/ Passive True/ False quiz

Trends and conditionals discussion and grammar presentation

Rules and regulations pictionary (mainly passive forms)

Second conditional chain writing (consequences) game

Passives disasters storytelling

Second conditional supernatural error correction and discussion

Supernatural modals of possibility discussion

Special occasions reported speech cultural differences guessing game and discussion

Full details of this shocking story here.

More Xmas links, should you be a glutton for merriment (including one that says “Focus: Fluency speaking, advanced vocab, conversation, destroying students’ enjoyment of Christmas”, which is nice)

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Sorry there hasn’t been a lot going on the blog page of my blog. It’s all going on elsewhere though: (more…)

I don’t know if anyone has coined the term “desperation googling” yet, but that is the only description for what I have just been doing. My (fairly typical in Japan) Business English class that don’t really want to study Business English had been told that they were going to get the book this week (International Express Intermediate New Edition- yuck!) because I couldn’t think of a single other practice speaking activity for the Past Perfect and Past Continuous. And then I realised that I’d left the textbook at head office… (more…)

After rather a long break, the Alternative TEFL Jargon Dictionary is back!

Defective modals- This somewhat negative expression for modals that do not have a seperate past or future form (e.g. must) is now being replaced by the expression “modal with special future and past needs”

Mixed abilities- Strictly speaking, this means classes where students have a differing ability to pick up the language or differing prefered ways of doing so, although it is often used to mean classes where students have a different starting level. Recent test have shown that teachers who mix their sandwich ingredients, especially those that add crisps and/ or peanut butter to everything, or more likely to be able to deal with and enjoy mixed ability classes.

Morpheme- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language and a morpheme cannot be broken down further. It can however change shape at will, jump through a solid table and pester you when you are trying to draw something on “Take Hart“.

Perfect- Perfect tenses are made from the verb have plus the past participle. The names of the “Present Perfect” etc. come from a groundbreaking psychological study of student errors that show that students who overuse the Past Perfect tend to idiolise the past etc.

Person- In linguistics, this refers to the use of the “first person” (me), “second person” (you) and “third person” (he/ she etc.). However, some American university Liberal Arts academics believe that these terms perpetuate the selfish individualistic tendancies of right wing society and propose the alternative terms “equal first person”, “also equal first person” and “just as equal as all the others first person”.

Phatic language- Language used for social purposes such as chit chat rather than to acheive a particular task. Derived from the street word “phat“.

Phoneme- This is the technical linguistic term for the gesture of holding your hand up to the side of your head with thumb and little finger extended while you wave at someone in a train that is pulling away from the platform.

Polyseme- Something with many semes.

Polysemy- Many semies.

Portfolio- A portfolio is a method of testing where students are given marks for a selection of work they have put together rather than/ as well as a final test. The difference between a project and a portfolio is that with a portfolio the teachers give more credit for being in a nice leather binder.

PPP- Presentation Practice and Production. This is a natural form of language learning that was based on how babies naturally learn. For example, presenting the language is like showing a baby a lovely Playdoh model of a banana you have just made and handing it over to them. Students practicing that language is like when the baby randomly massages the yellow Playdoh, occassionally coming up with something that looks vaguely like a banana but then mangling it again straight after. When students are given the chance to produce that language in free communication is like when the baby hands you back 10% of the yellow plasticine (the rest being all over the floor and their clothes) in a random shape with a proud look on their faces, and you try your best to look pleased and say “What a nice banana!”

Prediction- When you make a prediction about something in the future you are talking about something that, unlike an arrangement (Present Continuous) or a plan (Going to), is somehow out of your hands. Language used to give predictions include the verbs “will” (e.g. “If I teach ‘will’ for the future first, all the students will talk about things which should be used with ‘going to’”).

Present Simple- The tense used in English to talk about routines, habits etc. It is called “simple”, because it is very easy for students to understand that you only time you change it is when you add the “third person s” with “he”, “she” or “it”. Anyone who fails to use this correctly in the first few weeks of English instruction can therefore safely be told to give up.

Priming- The way in which words are stored in the mind by forming associations with other words. The word comes from how watching a student trying to trace back through their memory to find a word they studied in week one until it finally dawns on them looks just like watching a fuse on one of those comedy bombs burning down until it sets off the flash of an explosion.

Process writing- Teaching students to enjoy the process of writing so much that they never actually want to finish a piece of writing, because that would mean they have to stop.

Word class- A word class is a group of words that act in the same way, for example eat peas in the same way or buy the same kinds of things in Marks and Spencers.

You can see some older entries below or on the “the Alternative TEFL jargon dictionary” article on the Articles page.

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/100

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/130

Sorry that it’s all worksheets worksheets worksheets recently, but what can I say- that’s exactly how I’m starting to feel writing them all…

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-sports-verbs-play-do-go-go-to/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-subject-questions/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-tense-review/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-work-prepostions-nounprep-collocations/

As well as practising the exam, the worksheets are all designed to fit in with the syllabus of Face2Face Pre-Intermediate, which is a textbook I hate much less than any other I’ve used recently!

Mondays are not a day for pontificating, and anyway Im a bit ponficated out at the moment, so here are some fun and games instead-

This is one that fits into my ultimate TEFL desert island survival game kit. It is personalised, it produces lots of language, it is controlled practice of the focus point but free in other ways, it is loads of fun, it practices a range of skills and it is adaptable for a whole lot of other grammar and vocab points. And here it is-

 Guess me!

Before the lesson, write a whole bunch of sentence stems or sentences with gaps including the target language (see below for examples). After a warmer that links in with the grammar, topic or exercise type (e.g. tell each other things about your weekend but with gaps and give hints until they guess the missing information- I ate _____ for breakfast on Sunday etc.), give out one photocopy per student and get them to fill in at least half of the sentences to make true sentences about themselves. When the first one or two students have finished all the sentences, stop everyone and get them to take turns reading out only the parts they have written and guessing which sentences it has been written in.

Example- Verb Pattern Guess Me!

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