Tefl.NET Forums

I have been teaching English for about 4 years in my own English School. I have not trained as a teacher; I fell into this job by pure chance. In spite of this I have been rather successful. However, this year I am having problems motivating my students. I have a group of 6, 12 year old kids that have been learning English since they were 5. Last year I used Adult's Beginners activities and they enjoyed them. This year I find that the vocabulary in pre-intermediate activities is a bit too high for them and I am not sure what kind of activities I should do. If I use the book too much they get bored as they come to class in their free time and they want to have fun.
Any ideas of what type of material I could use? or any WebPages? I have spent hours surfing the web and I have an overdose!!!
Karina

Dear Karina,

This is a really difficult one and I fully sympathise with you.

I think the problem is due to a combination of these children being pre-teens; coming to English lessons during out of school hours and because they might be getting blasé after 5 years of studying English.

I have a few suggestions: continue playing games they enjoyed last year but use different language. Take any games / activities books and adapt them to their age and level.

Try doing some project work with these students. As a first idea for a project: put them in groups and give them a topic to research; you can choose one linked to something you've studied recently. Ask students to prepare a poster that they will show (or present) to their classmates. I have answered other questions in this forum on project work; if you don't find what you're looking for, please feel free to write in again.

Best wishes,

Lucy