Low-Prep Speaking and Vocabulary Practice Activity for Language Lessons – Taboo
Easy To Play Vocabulary and Speaking Practice Game for the Language Classroom As usual, I am always on the hunt for useful speaking and vocabulary activities for vocabulary and speaking practice! Especially low-prep speaking tasks to help my language learners to develop confidence in speaking. Luckily, I remembered this one recently and have used it with some of my KS3 German students for general speaking practice, as well as for food & drink practice. Taboo is a very low-prep, easy to play vocabulary practice speaking game. The activity is an oldie, but definitely a goodie! This speaking game with a vocabulary focus definitely works better face to face, especially with…
Fun Speaking Activity for First Lesson in Language Classrooms
Want to get some weird looks and questions from your family when packing for a new term of college? Get some toilet roll out…! Ready for a fun speaking activity during first lessons in any language classroom. The ‘Loo’ Roll Speaking Activity For First Lessons Today, I started back at college, teaching a speaking and listening course. This ‘loo’ roll activity for speaking was the first fun speaking activity that I learnt during my teacher training course in 2009. I often use it to get students to talk about themselves from the outset of a new course or class. It works for post beginners, intermediate and advanced speakers and allows them…
Great Speaking Ideas for First German or Language Lesson Back
Start As You Mean To Go On with Any Of These 5 Amazing Speaking Activities for the First German Lesson Back (or French, English, Spanish or any other language!) How I do enjoy the first German lesson back after a summer holiday! I also love my first French lessons back and my first English lessons back too at the start of a new term! It’s a great opportunity to show your passion for the language you teach and re-enthuse your students to feel the same way. Who has ever done a ‘find someone who’ speaking activity in their first German lesson back? Me. It meets the criteria of speaking task.…
Spontaneous Speaking with Video Clips in Language Learning
How To Improve Your Speaking with Short Video Clips Short video clips are fantastic prompts for spontaneous speaking practice when it comes to learning any language. “Videos generate visual stimulants that wake up the brain cells and demand focused attention” which can be used to enhance the language learning process. This post on using video clips for spontaneous speaking practice in language learning comes mainly from personal experience. Although “most teachers regard video as useful input” (Warwick University – Video For All). So…read on to see how using short video clips helped me to overcome my fear of spontaneous speaking, and to see some great websites with excellent short video…
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…
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 Classroom (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 £7 each. I’ve managed to find this unbranded Jenga* Set on Amazon for £5.94 with free delivery for orders over £20. 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 element 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…
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…