2019 - Tailor-Made Teaching

The Life Game

NOTE: This ‘game’ has grown organically over the years as various teachers have made observations & contributions (I don’t claim sole authorship).

The Life Game is my favourite ‘getting to know you’ type activity because it:

requires few resources
is easy to set up
is based on students’ real experiences
is actually interesting
is genuinely ‘bonding’ & establishes a nice class atmosphere
gives me a good idea of the students’ speaking level/ability to communicate
gives me a good idea of the students’ interests
with adjustments can be made to work with any level post beginner.
works well with one-to-one classes as well as larger groups.
can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 1/2 hours with pre & post activities.

The Word Box

in Vocabulary acquisition

What is a word box?

It is class specific. You will need a different box for each class. During, or at the end of each class, someone needs to transfer each new item of vocabulary (word, collocation, phrase) onto a slip of paper and put it in the word box. You can either transfer the words yourself or ask a student to take responsibility for it.

Each word or phrase should have number of syllables, stress, phonemic transcription, and word class marked on one side of the paper. On the other you will need to write a definition, an example sentence and, if you’re teaching a monolingual class, a translation.

Teaching Teenagers

in Teaching, Teenagers

I’ve recently been working with a non-native English speaking English teacher from Spain on a home stay English refresher course. She’s taught English to adults for many years in a language college but in September will be teaching High School students. Like most of us who’ve become comfortable with a certain age group, she’s feeling some trepidation. We had a lot of conversations about teaching teenagers.