Archive for the ‘Skills’ Category

Talking of TEFL jargon (as I was two posts ago, the brief aside in between is apparently technically called an “insertion sequence”, fnaah fnaah), am I the only one to notice that since Scott Thornbury wrote “An A to Z of ELT” his other books have suddenly become full of more jargon than you can shake a dictionary at? Has he discovered a marketing method that is even better than the recent tendancy of textbooks to “just happen to mention” graded readers and dictionaries from the same publisher?

I’m presently enjoying the feast of jargon that is Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy, a book you can read a surprisingly large amount of by clicking on the top link on this Google search page.

Backwards dialogues

Students write a dialogue and then read it out starting with the last line, then the second to last line and last line, then the last three lines etc- working their way towards the beginning of the dialogue until the other students in the class guess what the situation of the conversation is, e.g. who the telephone conversation is between or which kind of shop it is taking place in.

 ”Borrowed” from Clockwise Upper Intermediate Teacher’s Resource Pack, where it is explained much more clearly than this. Not much else to recommend that book (although the textbook is okay and the lower level teacher’s resource packs seem better), so keep reading here instead as I rip off every book in my new teacher’s room library and write up all the highlights here.

I have to fly away from my Yahoo BB internet connection now, and I may be some time. So while I am gone from cyberspace, you all have a chance to read the over 200 articles I’ve written elsewhere- starting with this month’s supply:

15 easy ways to bring change into the classroom

15 ways of dealing with students who pause before they speak

15 ways of dealing with pre-experience Business English and ESP students

15 ways to boost your teaching and lesson planning creativity

15 places to start getting published

15 ways to correct spoken errors

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

Done already? Well, I’m sure you’ve all been good and read the entire list of articles etc in the September list further down this page already, so the extra homework for the keen this month will be having a look at:

TEFLtastic articles (reorganised a bit to have more links to articles elsewhere on the same topics)

and

TEFLtastic worksheets (ditto)

More making up for the fact that Dr Johnson was never lucky enough to be a TEFL teacher, this time with one of my favourite TEFL games ever, Call My Bluff. In the classroom version you get the students to make up the wrong definitions to try and fool the other student or team with, but even on my last day in my previous job I wasn’t slack enough to get my students to write my blog for me so you have to choose the real definition from Dr Johnson’s dictionary via Henry Hitchings, not being fooled by the fake definition made up very quickly by me to stop wasting any more time on the TEFL otaku topic… (answers at the bottom of the page)

1. Is an amatorcultist (a) a little insignificant lover, or (b) a lover of the art of gardening?
 
2. Is a bellygod (a) one who makes a god of his belly, or (b) a drug that calms the troubled gut?
 
3. Is deosculation (a) the art of kissing, or (b) losing an eye or part of an eye?

4. Is kissingcrust (a) a crust formed when one loaf in the oven touches another, or (b) a soreness upon the lips caused by an excess of kissing?

5. Is gazingstock (a) a person gazed at with scorn or abhorrence (related to ‘laughingstock’), or (b) cattle that stare at you as you pass?

6. Is potvaliant (a) heated with courage by a strong drink, or (b) culinary adventurousness?
 
7. Is subderisorious (a) scoffing or ridiculing with tenderness or delicacy, or (b) contemptuous of someone below you?
 
8. Is vaticide (a) a murderer of poets, or (b) a murderer of popes?
 
9. Is rhabdomancy (a) divination by a wand, or (b) Scottish witchery?
 
10. Is suppedaneous (a) placed upon the feet, (b) connected to the evening meal?
 
11. Is anatiferous (a) producing ducks, or (b) the burning of phosphor? (more…)

Even with all the things written about Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, I think I might be the first to try adding some TEFL-style pointless elicitation. And so here goes… Try to work out which word he was defining in each case then scroll down the screen to check (it’s a bit like the classroom activities The Definition Game and Taboo):
 
1. belonging to an ass
—————
—————
————–
asinine
 
2. a hog dressed whole, in the West Indian manner
—————
—————
————–
barbecue

3. a stone in the bladder
—————
—————
————– (more…)

Did you know that what you dream about can tell you what will happen in your classes? Try reading the descriptions below and in Part One to find something you have dreamed about, and then write it in the aims section of your observed lesson’s lesson plan…

What animals in your dreams tell you about your future lessons:

A dog/ a moose - you will have an exceedingly ugly student with a crush on you
 
Horses - you will be distracted from your grammar explanations etc. by a student’s extremely odd teeth

Cats- One of your students will start singing along unprompted when you do Tom’s Diner in your Present Continuous lesson

A flying bird- You will escape TEFL

Rats- The management of your school will leave as they find out about the financial problems in the company, without telling any of the teachers

Parrots - Too much drilling will make your students repeat everything you say, including questions and game instructions
 
Ants - Your boss will introduce even more paperwork aimed at standardizing lessons
 
Bees/ wasps - Your seemingly happy students will complain about too many games in the end of term feedback sheets
 
Bears- One student will be so disgusted by the chest hair showing when you wear an open collar shirt that they will ask to change classes
 
Hyenas - A student with a loud laugh that distracts the other groups will join the class

15 fun ways of using pre-school storybooks

15 ways of preparing for ELT management

15 variations on a grammar auction

15 common complaints about TEFL workshops (and how to respond to them)

15 things to find out about a TEFL certificate course

15 criteria of a good needs analysis

How’s that for a minimalist blog post! To make up for the lack of text, here are even more links:

157 articles and worksheets of mine on UsingEnglish.com

onestopenglish.com (the Macmillan website, where you usually have to pay to see most of my stuff but which has some kind of special offer on at the moment)

New stuff in August, for those who have recently joined us (welcome!)

And brand new worksheets etc actually on TEFLtastic:

Business English rotating revision board game

Complaints sentence expansion game

Dealing with complaints guess the situation

Dealing with complaints pairwork- Amusing and odd excuses

Email and internet abbreviations

Email language definitions game

Email rules business meeting

Formal and informal email errors

Telephone and email spot the difference pairwork

“Punishment“- Passive voice and tense review

Table manners Present Simple and Continuous mimes

Describing people workshop

English for Telephoning/ Negotiating double book review

Updated, expanded and with many more links here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/telephoning/

Have done a bit more tedious reorganisation so that you don’t need to do so much tedious searching, and you can now find all the links to my stuff on said topics elsewhere on the internet as well as my exclusive TEFLtastic stuff here:

Teaching exam classes-articles and tips for teachers

and here:

EFL exam worksheets, lesson plans and tips for students

Comments or tips for other good sources welcome here:

I thought so.  Try these with your classes, then:

Student A: How are you?
Student B: Old

Student A: How are you?
Student B: How am I? How should I be?

Student A: How are you?
Student B: How should I be, with my feet?

Student A: How’s your brother?
Student B: Dead

Student A: What’s doing?
Student B: Nothing
A: Nothing?
B: Nothing.

Student A: How was your weekend?
Student B: It should happen to my enemies

Student A: What time is it?
Student B: What am I, a clock?

In case you haven’t guessed they are all from Yiddish, specifically mainly from the surprisingly readable popular linguistics book Born to Kvetch. More good stuff from there coming on TEFLtastic soon.