First Lesson After Christmas Break – Top 5 Activities for the Language Classroom
Get the new year off to a fantastic and productive start with my TOP 5 ACTIVITIES FOR THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM below, which are absolutely perfect to get students in the right frame of mind for learning from the first lesson back, after the well-deserved Christmas break. Despite loving the last couple of weeks of term in December, I seriously used to dread the first week back in January after a wonderful two-week break. Students (and teachers!) seem to be lethargic and it can often be really difficult to get everyone motivated to get back into the swing of learning. So, I’ve put together my TOP 5 ACTIVITIES FOR THE FIRST…
Useful Time Fillers for All Language Classes
Use Time Wisely with These Time Fillers for Every Language Classroom From my experience of teaching French and German GCSE and A Levels, I know there is not a lot of need for time fillers. Mainly, because there is so much content to get through! Nevertheless, I believe the time fillers below would be useful for any language classroom, either as a filler activity, or to use as a teaching activity to practise speaking, listening and writing, as well as revision of vocabulary, and translation skills, for example. 1. Chinese Whispers Aim:ย To communicate a word, sentence or chunk of speech from person to person and see how much of the…
Revision Activities – Language Tip of The Week 10
Revision Activities for the Language Classroomย Teaching Tip of The Week I know I promised that my language teaching tips of the week would be practical, low-prep teaching ideas that could be used in every language class. However, whilst this activity does fit that bill, it works best at the end of each topic to help students with revision, which I am sure is not too far away and still useful. This teaching activity is pretty much no-prep for the teacher, apart from getting a few resources together. Try it out! EDITION 10 – Teaching Tip Of The Week Revision Activities for the Language Classroom Title:ย Revision Activities for the Language…
Jenga Activity for Spontaneous Speaking – Language Tip of the Week
Jenga Activity for Spontaneous Speaking Language Classroom Teaching Tip of the Week This week’s language classroom teaching activity of the week is an add-on to my recent post, Low-Prep Spontanous Speaking Activities for the Language Classroomย (go and check it out later if you haven’t seen it yet). Here, you will find a brilliant, fairly low-prep ‘Jenga’* activity for spontaneous speaking, perfect for your French, German, Spanish or English language teaching classroom. I bought some Jenga* sets from Tesco a few years ago for ยฃ7 each. I’ve managed to find this unbrandedย Jenga* Set on Amazon for ยฃ5.94 with free delivery for orders over ยฃ20. If you haven’t got any yet, I’d…
Low Prep Speaking Activities for The Language Classroom
What low-prep speaking activities do you use in your classroom to practise spontaneous speaking? As you might know, I teach French, German and English which keeps me very busy! Although I teach many different groups of students, one common elementย is that the majority of students want to improve their spoken production of the language. This is a skill I have always found tricky to guide in the classroom, as I get carried away with teaching and practising all of the other skills. However, this year’s target was to develop this and it’s going well so far. In the past, I used lists of questions as speaking activities with one…
Vocabulary Revision Challenge Dominoes – Tip Of The Week 7
No-Prep Dominoes Revision Vocabulary Challenge Could you use a no-prep vocabulary activity to help Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4 or Key Stage 5 students of French, German, Spanish or other modern language to develop vocabulary through synonyms or antonyms? If so, then use thisย dominoes vocabulary revision challenge anytime with all of your classes next week! It works considerably well at the beginning of a new term, at the end of a topic or at the end of the year to revise vocabulary for speaking, writing, as well as reading, listening and translations! Teaching Tip Of The Week – Edition 7 –ย DOMINOES VOCABULARY REVISION CHALLENGE Title: Dominoes Vocabulary Revision Challenge…
Spontaneous Speaking Activity – Tip of the Week – Edition 6
Who loves speaking in another languages? Me! However, when it comes to speaking in a different language, finding enough opportunity in the classroom can be quite tricky.ย This week’s Teaching Tip of The Week is a fun, low-prep and low-cost spontaneous speaking activity. It can be adapted for all levels, languages (I’ve used it with French, German and English) and groups. It has been tried and tested, but I have added my own spin to it. This particular spontaneous speaking resource was created for French and German GCSE level groups but it can, very easily, be adapted for other groups. COLOURFUL SPONTANEOUS SPEAKING CHALLENGE Teaching Tip Of The Week – Edition…
Teaching Activity Of The Week – Edition 5
TEACHING IDEA OF THE WEEK – EDITION 5 – SYNONYMS AND ANTONYMS CHALLENGE This week, I used a really good starter in my English lessons (adaptable to French, German and Spanish etc). The teachingย activity got my students thinking as soon as they came in to the classroom. If you are looking for a low prep teaching activity, which can be adapted and used in all of your classes this week, then try this synonyms and antonyms vocab challenge out! Teaching Tip Of The Week – Edition 5 Title: Synonym and Antonym Vocab Challenge Aim:ย Re-call previously learnt vocabulary and develop it further Level: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Resources: ,ย paper, pen and…
Using Target Language for Progress in the Classroom
Using Target Language in the classroom can be somewhat of a minefield. Should I use it? Shouldn’t I use it? How much should I use? The students don’t understand, the students aren’t using it…. This is a struggle for many teachers and so, in this post, I will be sharing my teaching experience of using of target language in the classroom. You will read about professionalย research carried out on the topic and I will offer some practical ideas and useful resources on how to use target language effectively in the Modern Foreign Language (MFL) or English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom. What Is Target Language? I started teaching English To Speakers…
Teaching Tips of The Week For The Language Classroom
Teaching Tips and Ideas To Use In The Classroom Each Week I come across brilliant teaching ideas and teaching tips that would be fantastic to use in the modern language classroom or English Language classroom daily. Unfortunately, I don’t do anything with the majority of them; mainly, because there are so many and they are hard to keep track of! Whilst there are many teaching ideas which are gimmicky, there are many that could be used to break away from monotonous lessons with the same activities week in, week out. For this reason, I am challenging myself to collect lots of these teaching tips in one place; here, for myself…