SENSATIONAL BEGINNINGS
verb lists
Tell the class that a very special competition is about to take place. Give them a few minutes to re-read the verbs list. Then make two teams of 5 (A and B, Boys and Girls...) Choose a Secretary and an Assistant within each group. Let's call the remaining players 1, 2 and 3. Find two more students to act as Supervisor and Score Keeper, respectively. The rest of the class act as the audience at a TV show. Place each team with their secretary and assistant together in front of the audience.
Give the Secretaries two different lists of 10 verbs in the students' own language. The Supervisor needs the full irregular verbs list, and the Score Keeper a piece of paper and a pen. And that's that!
The Secretary of the A Team reads the first verb from his/her list. Player 1 from the same team should say the Infinitive of the verb (in English), Player 2 says the Simple Past Form and Player 3 The Past Participle. If they can't remember their forms or are in doubt, their Secretary can always help them.
When the three forms have been said out and aloud, the Supervisor checks whether they are right or not. If the 3 forms are correct, the team gets 1 point, which is conveniently recorded by the Score Keeper. Should any of the forms be wrong, the Supervisor reads the correct ones and the team loses 1 point. Then The Secretary of the B Team tries his/her first verb and so on. The Secretaries read all the verbs in their lists.
The team with the most points wins the game. Be prepared to organize an Irregular Verbs League and who knows... you may wish to record the final on video!
Student Autonomy
Learner Awareness
Good Habits Acquisition
Class Management
To make students aware of their responsibility for their own learning and the need to acquire a number of good habits to improve their performance.
Personal V.I.P. Card
Do you feel you are doing good at school? Why? Why not?
Are you doing your best? Do you think you could do better?
Is there anything you could do to improve your performance and achieve better grades?
What is the best / the worst about school?
Think of a few adjectives to describe your personality.Describe your performance as a student. Be honest!
Give each std a copy of the card. They need a red fluorescent marker too (warn them 2 weeks in advance or they won’t bring it, take my word!) The students are to draw a line in the appropriate section whenever they do not meet different requirements. That is: if they have played truant more often than not, if they have been looking out of the window instead of paying attention to more substantial things, if they have not taken an active part in the lessons (asking or answering questions, for instance), if they intentionally have not done their homework, if they have not rewritten their classnotes somewhat nicely or studied their lessons, if it is obvious that they have not behaved themselves, if they have not done their bit of extra reading or set research, if...
Checking things once a week is enough (or you’ll get lots of red cards in no time!)When obnoxious students find that their cards have "brightened" up, they should hand them to you. What next? That certainly requires another article... Think hard and use your intuition and good senses in the meantime! Why not start a SRP (Student Recovery Program) whatever that means? (Just dreamed up the term for you!) Anyway, my students solemnly swear that they´ll do better next term. I keep my fingers crossed.
Seriously...Students may be naughty at times, but they are not stupid. Some will get the message and eventually make some efforts in the right direction. You’ll see!
*** PS I believe we teachers should always emphasize what students do WELL and must NEVER put the kids down. The activity works fine with a pinch of humour. That way, the students will be motivated to achieve the set goals.
School and school life
Adjectives to describe character
Write a composition about the good things you can learn at school and the importance of achieving a good education.
I believe that story writing is a useful and challenging activity. Lower level students, however, usually find it too difficult. So we have devised a number of strategies to make the task easier and the effort worthwhile.
Warming up activity
Dictate the following words and ask students to guess what the relationship is: pen, pencil, rubber, time, comfortable chair, paper, imagination, inspiration. Students should realize they are things a writer needs.
Stage One
Elicit "author" and ask the following questions:
Has anybody got a favourite author?
Have you got a favourite book?
In pairs, students talk to each other about their favourite book/story or about the last one they read.
Stage Two
Elicit "genre" or story type. Then, stick up cards with the names of different genres printed on them around the room (i.e. Love Story, Detective Story, Adventure, Historical, Science Fiction, Horror.) Ask students to stand up, walk around, and stand under their favourite genre. Tell the students that they are going to write a story of the genre they are standing under, and as they are grouped. New groups sit together.
Elicit elements of a story (i.e. Protagonist, Plot, Background.) Give out a grid to each group to fill in. This should contain the following boxes: GENRE / PROTAGONIST (with the following data to fill in: Sex/Name/Age/Nationality/Job/Physical Description/Character Description)/ BACKGROUND (stds. should choose a Time and a Place for their story) and PLOT SUMMARY. At this point you could give out dictionaries and allow groups to work independently.
Students begin writing their stories as a group. The teacher monitors and helps where necessary. Then, students take their stories home and each member of the group finishes it in his/her own way.
Stage Three
Group members read each others´ stories and comment on any mistakes they see. Then they agree/vote on the best. This could mean taking the best parts out of more than one story and putting them together.
Students could be given dictionaries at this stage and be allowed to "polish up" the chosen story. The teacher goes round the different groups to make sure, discreetly, that the most obvious errors are corrected.
When the final version is decided on, the teacher takes them in and for the next class photocopies them, making a "booklet" for each student to take away and read at home. If the school has a magazine, the stories could be printed in it, or stories could be displayed on a noticeboard for other classes to admire.
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