Teaching Pronunciation/Speaking

c/o Ted Powers www.btinternet.com

This is a collection of information related to teaching speaking and pronunciation, with an emphasis on the difficulties that Turkish learners experience. Most of this information is from Ted Powers' website, but I will use other sites where necessary. This is for my own conveniance and I will provide the links whenever I veer outside of Ted's site.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teaching English sounds

Priorities for phonology in the pronunciation class

Here are some of the main criteria:

• Comprehensible: are learners able to identify the sounds and are their articulations understood by native speakers?
• Social Acceptability: are learners producing sounds that are aesthetically acceptable to the ears of native speakers?
• Ease of Production: do learners have a good chance of successfully learning to produce the sounds?
• Number of familiar words (functional load): do the sounds occur frequently in essential &/or very useful words?

Likely to be a bad habit affecting other sounds: are errors getting in the way of other important targets?

Functional load, frequency and meaning

Confusing / θ / and / ð / will rarely lead to misunderstanding, but confusing /s/ and / θ / , / ð / or /z/ can. This is likely to affect learners of English from French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Russian language backgrounds. Speakers of these languages do not have separate phonemes for these English consonant sound contrasts.

The consonant contrasts affect many common English words, so poor production of these sounds will be noticeable. Teaching should focus on both recognition and production. Difficulty of production should not be too great, because the above consonant sounds are produced at the front of the mouth i.e. this motor skill is not too difficult to learn.

How much phonetics and phonology do teachers and learners of English language need to know and use?

Language is a means of communication. Differences in sound systems have a phonological basis: they depend on variation in speech organ positions or breath control. Teachers must understand the physical aspects of sound production.

Teachers will not necessarily teach these to students, but this knowledge will provide a basis for teachers to identify the physical reasons for inaccurate approximations of foreign language sounds, enabling them to give precise instructions which will help students correct faulty pronunciation. Unless teachers understand how students are using their speech organs in producing a native language sound and what they should be doing to reproduce the foreign language sound acceptably, teachers will not be able to help students beyond a certain stage of earnest but inaccurate imitation. Incorrectly articulated consonants will affect the production of vowels, as vowels will affect consonants. Students therefore require steady practice and muscle training. Pronunciation is a motor skill that needs practice.

Phonology lessons will centre on:

1. Hearing: physical demonstration. Discrimination exercises e.g. ship or sheep? / ɪ / or / i: / ?Which vowel sounds occur in: "it", "bit", "eat", "fit", "feet", "seat", "sit" ?
   
2. Production. Physically making sounds.
   
3. Expanded contexts. Phrases and sentences as well as phonemes between closed consonants

Teaching English intonation and stress patterns

Teaching intonation - the theories behind intonation

Definitions

1. Tone - the rise and fall of the voice. Tune/Pitch variation. An oscilloscope will give an oscillograph of speech. The frequency will be shown by the closeness of the waves (high frequency will be shown by waves which are closer together).

2. The volume (strength of signal) will be shown by the height of the waves. The height of the note depends on the speed of opening and closing of the vocal cords. More vibrations of the larynx (up to 800 per sec) show up more compact waves.

The first thing that people (Daniel Jones, Kindom, Pike) looked at was pitch variation. Crude rules (Wh Qs fall; Yes/No Qs rise) based on introspection (what do I say?) rather than data.

Those who have collected data come up with interesting findings:

Does intonation tell us what speech function is?
Many authors of intonation practice books [ e.g. O'Connor and Arnold in "Intonation of Colloquial English" or Cook in "Active Intonation" and "Using Intonation" ] provide exercises where speech functions such as polite requests or confirmation questions dictate the intonation patterns which listeners should expect or speakers should employ.However, the findings of some research projects - most notably the Scottish Intonation Project - are that the relationships between intonation patterns [such as the tones categorized by O'Connor & Arnold] and speech functions are not so predictable.

Clear instances of rising tune -

1. Echo questions e.g. you what?

2. Challenging e.g. on Monday?

3. Conciliation: Oh really?

ATTITUDE: O'Connor & Arnold believe that intonation goes with attitude. They list 500 different attitudes. They have 4 Main Tunes.

Attitude is not conveyed by pitch alone.There's more to context than just pitch.
Note: Paralinguistic features identified by Gillian Brown. Variables include: pitch span, placing in voice range, tempo, loudness, voice setting (unmarked, breathy, creaky) articulatory setting (unmarked/tense), articulatory precision (precise/slurred/unmarked), lip setting (pursed/smiling), direction of pitch (rise/unmarked), timing (unmarked/extended), Pause (unmarked/pause).

These features are correlated with descriptions from novels: replied/said, retorted/exclaimed, important/pompous/responsible, dadly/depressed/miserable, excited, anxious/worried/nervous, shrill/shriek/scream, warmly, coldly, thoughtfully, sexily, crossly/angrily, queried/echoed. Gillian Brown uses feature analysis (+ - or /) to make the connections. The idea of "Para-Language" is from Abacrombie. Desmond Morris has written a popular book on the subject - English people converse at 24 inches apart.

The importance of intonation in social interaction

TURN-TAKING: Giving the floor to another person or taking your turn in a conversation: rise and fall are used as a signal for when to speak and when not. Remain at a high pitch if you want to continue talking. A fall shows completion. (See Brazil)

INFORMATION STRUCTURE (See O'Connor): Major stress items pick out the most important words in the sentence: they point to the new/unknown information in the sentence. Michael Halliday has done most work on this.

Note that one function of intonation is stress. The tonic (stressed item) is the item which has the greatest amount of pitch movement on it.

Implications for teaching English pronunciation

Many linguists and teachers suggest that teachers should focus on teaching STRESS rather than RISE & FALL since there is a massive difference between how one person and another perceives an utterance. You need a machine to determine whether it's a rise or a fall.
At higher levels - for example, pronunciation sessions for learners involved in the language of negotiation or presentation in fields such as business or education, emphasis should also be given to TOPIC STRUCTURE - also related to turn-taking. Topic Switching: Start high. When people switch tack, they mark it with their voice.

[a] CONCLUSION: Teachable items are
Sentence STRESS
Contrastive STRESS.

[b] Distinguish between production and comprehension in your teaching.

[c] Teach intonation in context. e.g. being angry - use model dialogues to represent particular functions of the voice. Some practice in linking intonation patterns to attitude will probably help in clearer communication of meaning in spite of the findings of the Scottish Intonation Project.
Use of "dialogues" as English pronunciation teaching materials

Could a prose text have been used to equal effect or does the target depend heavily on face to face communication?

Many dialogues in English coursebooks are written specifically for grammar demonstration on the one hand and conversation-facilitation on the other. In each case, useful vocabulary is also demonstrated.

Colin Mortimer's dialogues in The Cambridge Elements of Pronunciation series (e.g. "Stress Time", "Weak Forms", "Link Up" and "Clusters") include single lexical items and conversational phrases i.e. some very essential features of speaker/listener interaction.

The importance of meaningful contexts and the relevance of intonation practice
How important is it to memorize dialogues incorporating these different objectives? Remember Monsieur le Surveillant's son in Algeria who memorized the whole book. Ask him where he lives and he's very puzzled!

Remember Hasdrubel in an English Primary School. His family has moved from Spain. He has mastered phonics and look and say and his reading appears to be fluent, though he has a total lack of intonation & stress. He has no idea what the words mean!

Remember the gentleman who can impress us by instantly recalling sporting facts. Try him on international politics. His memory training permits him to recall every date associated with countless events - some trivial and some important. What he is almost totally unable to do is to link information and to evaluate what is trivial and important in relation to a further goal or greater purpose. The ability to select according to priority and to combine information in other than a chronological sequence appears to be missing.

Linking intonation practice to practice in grammatical accuracy

Although books for practising English syntax in written form such as Intermediate English Grammar have their purpose, we are failing as teachers if we do not provide learners with the phonological rehearsal and memory training needed to achieve accuracy in oral English. Many important opportunities were lost to learners when language laboratory pattern drills (of the more meaningful variety) went out of fashion. Coupled with practice in stress and intonation, these drills can contribute far more effectively to communication skills than libraries of materials described as "authentic" - which often do not require learners to produce any sounds or syntactic forms at all.

Schools and Self Access Centres which really provide language practice opportunities will possess materials providing simultaneous rehearsal of syntax and pronunciation. The best of these are:Kernel Lessons Plus Laboratory Drills and Kernel Lessons Intermediate Drills by Robert O'Neill.

Robert's drills provide rehearsal in repetition, substitution (simple, variable or progressive), transformation (e.g. Question & Answer; Tense to Tense), combination (e.g. collocation exercises). However, phonology, stress and intonation is being rehearsed all the time. Moreover, Robert's skill in relating syntax (e.g. structural forms in different verb tenses) to meaning and situation, escapes the shortcomings of drills that teach "structure speech" and offers the rehearsal and production opportunities that must be present in the curriculum if we are to have any chance of teaching oral communication.

Meaningful contexts and naturalistic settings are present throughout.Learners and teachers should be suspicious of any theory related to communicative language which ignores the essential need for active rehearsal and production of phonology (vowel & consonant sounds), stress and intonation patterns (signalling meaning and attitude) and syntax (also related to meaning via concepts such as time and completion).

Phonetics is defined as the study of sounds, while Phonology extends to the study of sounds within a language system. All spoken and written languages are systems.To deny learners rehearsal in the recognition and production of English phonemes and syntactic forms in the name of some theory of Communicative Language Teaching dependent on "authentic materials" is absolute madness and has nothing to do with teaching communication. It also portrays a mistaken notion of authenticity.

Nearly all speeches and texts that can be found in the world are produced with some purpose in mind. There is nothing culpable about creating written or spoken material designed especially to help people learn English. If material developed to practise phonology &/or syntax completely ignores function, attitude and meaning, then it is probably not very good material. Authenticity is not an issue. Texts or dialogues tailored to the phonology or grammar problems of learners from specific language backgrounds can be perfectly authentic as teaching material. Why choose texts designed to help or appeal to people with needs and interests which bear no relevance to learners' problems and goals?

Intonation has various functions in different world languages
On this page, we have been concerned with the functions of intonation in spoken English. In world languages, intonation is used to mark:

• gender
• number
• quantity
• tense or time
• modality
• pace (in some languages)
• word order
• punctuation and
• boundary features

Teaching English rhythm and stress patterns - use of weak forms, stress placement & timing
As movement of pitch is heard on stressed syllables in the English language, practice of English intonation and stress patterns are closely linked. However, it can be beneficial to focus specifically on word and sentence stress. A Pronouncing Dictionary is recommended as a reference source to check where syllable stress occurs within words. Practising placement of stress within sentences is also essential if learners are to become good listeners and communicators, since the same sentence can take on different meanings depending on where the speaker chooses to place the primary stress:

EXAMPLE SENTENCE [A]: "I'm not going".
"I'm not going": meaning [1] = Not "ME", but perhaps "YOU", "SHE" or "HE".
"I'm not going": meaning [2] = I reFUSE to go.
"I'm not going": meaning [3] = I'm not GOing... I'm COMing BACK!

Sentence stress can also be illustrated and practised by writing a long sentence on the board, which can be made to carry many different meanings or points of emphasis.

EXAMPLE SENTENCE [B]: "Janet's going to Brighton tomorrow afternoon to buy herself a pair of red, leather shoes."

Practice of sentence stress is achieved by cueing the learners with questions while requiring them to use the whole sentence in reply. The second time this is done, the learners can discard the parts of the sentence which do not contain the important element of the answer in order to form a more natural response.

The teacher provides cues such as: "Is John going to Brighton...?", "Is Janet going to London..?", "Is Janet going away from Brighton...?", "Is Janet coming from Brighton...? Is Janet going to sell her mother a pair of red, leather shoes?", "Is Janet going to buy herself three pairs...?" "Is Janet going to buy herself a pair of blue, suede shoes / red, leather sandels?"

It will become clear to learners that there are many variations of sentence stress, which will decide the meaning of their responses.

A practice session on stress could also be included in a lesson aimed at improving listening comprehension. Learners who listen to utterances in a linear way, giving equal importance to each word in sequence, are exhibiting very poor listening strategies. Learners who do this are usually the ones who complain that it is too fast and ask for sluggishly slow colloquial.

What they are missing is the fact that in the English language, the words carrying the important meaning are often located at or towards the end of an utterance or sentence. Words such as "I" (and more difficult items than subject pronouns placed near the beginning of sentences) are often fairly redundant in terms of meaning since they refer to known territory: i.e. the listener already knows that it is "you" who is speaking. Try the following technique to make your learners more relaxed about rapidly spoken utterances:

EXAMPLE SENTENCE [C]: "I don't know whether you're wondering who I am, but may I introduce myself. I'm Tarzan."

Having deliberately recited the unimportant parts of this utterance at breakneck speed, reassure your learners by asking them just to listen to the important components near the end of the utterance, especially the words and syllables carrying the main stress. Make the point that native speakers only listen out for one or two propositions in an utterance and all that this one really communicates is "ME...TARZAN".

Learning what parts of an utterance to discard (not even to assign to "the recycle bin") is a very important listening strategy. Native speakers would find listening comprehension impossible if they did not know how to process utterances in this way. It may be worth mentioning that the keys and tunes used at the beginning of sentences can communicate attitudes i.e. they can tell you if the speaker is angry or trying to be friendly, polite, formal or cold.

Without understanding any of the words, it is still possible to detect the speaker's attitude.Nonsense words (just "pure noises"!) can even be used to practise conveying attitude. In multilingual classes, this can form the basis of an interesting contrastive linguistics project on differences and common ground in the use of tunes and keys to communicate feelings and attitudes.

Leo Jones includes activities of this kind in "Notions of English" [Cambridge]. Ask your learners to utter a nonsense sentence such as "I love you" several times, telling them what attitude [e.g. warmth, indifference, pride, hostility, boredom, interest] you wish them to communicate on each occasion. Fame Academy teachers try to get learners to sing with expression. The challenge for language teachers is to get learners to speak with expression.

Phonology, stress patterns and tunes are all interrelated. To achieve the correct rhythm, it is necessary to know when to use weak forms [this frequently involves the neutral vowel "schwa"], which is under-deployed by many second language learners. Learners whose native languages have many consonant sounds, but relatively few vowel sounds, especially long vowels and diphthongs [e.g. native speakers of Arabic languages and dialects], are likely to have poor stress timing and to make insufficient use of pitch variation (i.e. intonation).

Good material to practise expression (i.e. rhythm, stress and intonation) includes situational-based texts designed for role play where utterances are short (but dramatic!). Some of the best role play texts I have used were provided by Doug Case and Ken Wilson and the English Language Teaching Theatre. The two best titles were: "Off Stage" 1979 Heinemann [15 sketches + accompanying audio-cassette] and "Further Off Stage" 1984 [10 sketches + accompanying audio &/or video cassette].

Unfortunately, these materials are no longer in print. As smaller publishers are taken over by larger ones, editors who may not have had much classroom teaching experience are sometimes too involved in the promotion of new material of questionable value and overlook older "jewels in the crown". Doug Case and Ken Wilson's excellent material is in no way dated.

Ken Wilson is also remembered for his key participation in the Solid British Hat Band, which produced "Mister Monday & other songs for the teaching of English" [Longman 1973]. These songs are also landmark material and could still be successfully used to practise syntax aurally / orally instead of reading through landmark material such as Raymond Murphy's "English Grammar in Use", which will itself be 20 years old soon!

Listening practice can also take the form of discrimination exercises where the same utterance is recited using different sentence stress patterns. The learners do not even have to see the sentence written down, but it is helpful if they have an Answer Grid where they have to choose between three possible meanings for each utterance: meaning [A], [B] or [C].

The same utterance can be used in successive discrimination test questions applying different stress patterns until each of the alternative meanings [A] [B] and [C] have been exhausted, though the learner will need to mark their answers in the correct sequence. Thus, seven different utterances, each presented three times, would require a ready-made Answer Grid offering twenty-one different meanings.

The best published material I have used of this kind was Donn Byrne and Gordon Walsh's "Listening Comprehension 1 Teacher's Book" [Longman 1973] containing sample utterances to practise phonology [Units 1-11], stress, rhythm and intonation [Units 12-16]. The Answer Grids were contained in an accompanying student's workbook entitled "Pronunciation Practice". These materials have long been out of print, though it is quite easy for native speakers of English to produce their own.

The best published material, still available, for practice of stress timing and placement is "Stress Time" and "Weak Forms" contained in Colin Mortimer's "Elements of English" listed below:

LESSON PLANS: Simple Present VS. Present Progressive

AIM: To teach the positive and negative forms of the present progressive and to give written and spoken practice; additionally to provide ss with practice using yes/no questions with short answers


STAGE 1: Intro/Context
AIM: To establish ss interest and prior knowledge of target language (review of present simple)PROCEDURE:

• discussion with ss. re their habits and daily routines
• teacher describes her usual day "I wake up at 5:45 every morning. I take the GO Bus at 7:00...)
• elicit similar daily stories from students; focusing on simple present

INTERACTION: Teacher to Class: Class to Teacher: Time: 3-5 minutes

STAGE 2: Review Activity
AIM: To review form and meaning of the simple present

PROCEDURE:

• either produce handouts or write on the board "Find Someone Who..."
• ss interact with each other asking yes/no questions
• ss read aloud their answers
• teacher monitors and provides corrections when necessary

INTERACTION: pair work; then teacher to class: Time: 3 minutes

STAGE 3: Focus on Target Language
AIM: To explain the progressive tense to that ss can distinguish btw 2 tenses and correectly spell the 'ing' form of the verb

PROCEDURE:

• timelines are written out on the board to visually represent the simple present and the present progressive
• show ss a picture of a crowded activity scene with a lot happening (the beach scene) and ask ss to describe the pictures
• elicit present progressive ("a child is flying a kite" "a man is lying on the beach")
• elicit correct forms and write on the board

INTERACTION: Teacher to Class Time: 5 minutes

STAGE 4. Boardwork
AIM: To provde ss with a written record of the target language

PROCEDURE:

• timelines are written on the board
• subject+ am/is/are + ing form of the verb
• spelling rules of the 'ing form of the verb in Azar p. 86; give ss handout after rules are explained
• positive, negative and yes/no questions with short answers are written on the board
• concept questions to make sure that ss know how to answer a short answer correctly
• concept questions to check ss know the difference btw simple present and present progressive (ex. Does he do "x" everyday? Is it a habit or routine? Is he/she doing it right now?")

INTERACTION: Teacher to Class: Class to Teacher: Time: 5 minutes

STAGE 5: Controlled Practice
AIM: To give ss practice writing the correct form of 'ing' for the present progressive verb tenses.

PROCEDURE: provide handouts from Azar p. 86; have ss complete exercise 12.; take up answers in class

INTERACTION: Students alone or in pairs TIME: 5 minutes

STAGE 6: Activity
AIM: for ss to have practice speaking and correctly pronouncing the target language PROCEDURE: ss are given action pictures and must describe them to their partner; teacher monitors and assists where necessary.

INTERACTION: PAIR WORK Time: 3-5 minutes

STAGE 7: Controlled Practice
AIM: for ss to have practice writing the target language

PROCEDURE: ss are given a handout (Azar p. 93) and must choose btw. the present simple and present progressive tenses

INTERACTION: Students alone: TIME: 5 minutes

STAGE 8: Check Answers

AIM: for ss to have correct record of written assignment

PROCEDURE: ss take turns reading their answers to the assignment

INTERACTION: Teacher to Class: Time: 2 minutes

STAGE 9: Follow Up Activity
AIM: For ss to have authentic practice with target language

PROCEDURE:

• CHARADES!!
• 2 teams are formed; and a representative from each must go to the board: They are the "Writers"
• 1 student is picked to be the actor (each student will get a turn)
• the actor mimes the action and the writers, taking hints and cues from his team, writes the action in a full sentence (He is swimming.)
• The first "Writer" to have the sentence written down on the board correctly wins the point for the team.
• For bonus points, the sentence is then written in the negative form. First correct response gets the point.
• also use concept questions to elicit correct form of the short answer

INTERACTION: Group/Teamwork Time: 5 minutes

TOTAL TIME:

• Stage1: 3-5 min
• Stage 2: 3 min
• Stage 3: 5 min
• Stage 4: 5 min
• Stage 5: 5 min
• Stage 6: 3 min
• Stage 7: 5 min
• Stage 8: 2 min
• Stage 9: 5 min

TOTAL: 38-40 minutes

ANTICPATED PROBLEMS:

• yes/no questions: ss may try to say "yes, he's."
• spelling of 'ing'; ss may be confused over the various spelling rules
• ss may be confused as to when to use the present simple vs. the present progressive

SOLUTIONS

• for the yes/no questions, provide lots of written practice and explain the rules; ask yes no questions and listen for pronunciation
• for 'ing' spelling problems, provide guided practice via an Azar gapfill
• ask concept questions such as "Is this a habit or routine? Is it happening now?"

FUTURE PERFECT

USE 1 Completed Action Before Something in the Future


The Future Perfect expresses the idea that something will occur before another action in the future. It can also show that something will happen before a specific time in the future



USE 2 Duration Before Something in the Future (Non-continuous Verbs)

With Non-continuous Verbs and some non-continuous uses of Mixed Verbs, we use the Future Perfect to show that something will continue up until another action in the future.

Present Perfect

USE 1 Unspecified Time Before Now

We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact time is not important. You CANNOT use the Present Perfect with time expressions such as "yesterday," "one year ago," "last week," "when I was a boy," "when I lived in Japan," "at that moment," "that day" or "one day." We CAN use the Present Perfect with expressions like "ever," "never," "once," "many times," "several times," "before," "so far," "already" and "yet."

USE 2 Duration From Past Until Now (Non-continuous Verbs)

With Non-continuous Verbs and some non-continuous uses of Mixed Verbs, we use the Present Perfect to show that something started in the past and has continued up until now. "For five minutes," "for two weeks" and "since Tuesday" are all durations which can be used with the Present Perfect.


Present Perfect Rules

1. Putting emphasis on the result
2. Action that is still going on
3. Action that stopped recently
4. Finished action that has an influence on the present
5. Action that has taken place once, never or several times before the moment of speaking

past perfect - more uses

USE 2 Duration Before Something in the Past (Non-continuous Verbs)

With Non-progressive Verbs and some non-progressive uses of Mixed Verbs, we use the Past Perfect to show that something started in the past and continued up until another action in the past.

IMPORTANT Specific Times with the Past Perfect

Unlike the Present Perfect, it is possible to use specific time words or phrases with the Past Perfect. Although this is possible, it is usually not necessary.

Past Perfect

The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.

Past Perfect

future simple

The Simple Future has two different forms in English, "will" and "be going to." Although the two forms can sometimes be used interchangeably, they often express two very different meanings. These different meanings might seem too abstract at first, but with time and practice the differences will become clear. Both "will" and "be going to" refer to a specific time in the future

USE 1 "Will" to Express a Voluntary Action "Will" often suggests that a speaker will do something voluntarily. A voluntary action is one the speaker offers to do for someone else. Often we use "will" to respond to someone else's complaint or request for help.

USE 2 "Will" to Express a Promise"Will" is usually used in promises.

USE 3 "Be going to" to Express a Plan"Be going to" expresses that something is a plan. It expresses the idea that a person intends to do something in the future.

USE 4 "Will" or "Be Going to" to Express a PredictionBoth "will" and "be going to" can express the idea of a general prediction about the future. Predictions are guesses about what might happen in the future. In "prediction" sentences, the subject usually has little control over the future and therefore USES 1-3 do not apply. In the following examples there is no difference in meaning.

future simple

past simple website

http://www.past-simple.com/

simple present

Use the Present Simple to express the idea that an action is repeated or usual.The action can be a habit, a hobby, a daily event, a scheduled event or something that often happens.It can also be something a person often forgets or usually does not do.

present simple

past simple

Use the Past Simple to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes the speaker may not actually mention the specific time, but they do have one specific time in mind.

We use the Past Simple to list a series of completed actions in the past. These actions happen 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th...

The Past Simple can be used with a duration which starts and stops in the past. A duration is a long action often used with expressions like "for two years," "for five minutes," "all day" or "all year."

The Past Simple can also be used to describe a habit which stopped in the past. It can have the same meaning as "used to". To make it clear that we are talking about a habit we often use expressions such as "always," "often," "usually," "never," "...when I was a child" or "...when I was younger" in the sentence.

past simple

Verb Tenses

Gap Fills

http://www.onestopenglish.com/ProfessionalSupport/Tips/scrivener_gapFill.htm
Teacher's Tips
For teachers of English
By Jim Scrivener author of the best-selling Learning Teaching and teacher trainer at International House in Budapest. New tips every month.

Glorious gaps

There seem to be an awful lot of gap-fill exercises in course books nowadays. And sometimes they can be rather dreary for students and teacher alike. Except for saying "Do exercise two" and then checking it when they finish, what on earth can you do with them?

Well, you could do this…100 metres sprintWith books closed, announce that students have exactly one minute to do the whole task. Say go and then stop after 60 seconds – when students have to close their books.

Gather student reactions to doing it quickly then ask them to look through more carefully, without a time limit, and see if they want to change any of their original answers. Only then, go through the answers together.Books shut task Do the task with books closed and you reading the text aloud.

Whenever there is a gap, make a beep noise instead and ask students to write down a word for each blank. At the end let them look at the text and see if they think their first answers were good, before you go through answers together.

Partial answers

When checking gap-fills that require students to choose between a number of possible words, at first only give partial answers. For example, tell them only how many of each choice there are e.g. There are 3 answers with “going to”.

This will make students re-check their answers to see if theirs fit this information – and it may cause them to rethink some choices.Teacher studentInstead of getting students to do it, do the task yourself on the board.

Ask students to check if you get all the answers right. Make two or three errors and see if people spot them. Get students to teach you how to correct your sentences.Mark the teacher!

Similarly, you could do the task on paper before class and hand out copies in class for students to mark.

Student teacher

At the end of a task ask a student to come to the front and be the teacher to check the task. Hand the student the answers and let them go through the class’s answers. Encourage them to ask people for reasons.

Dictated answers

Give students a chance to read through the gapped text then tell them that you’ll dictate all the answers to them – but in the wrong order. Students have to quickly find the right space for the words you read out.

Unreliable information

After they’ve finished a task pretend to be giving answers as normal, but without warning, tell them some right and some wrong answers. If a student challenges or questions you, argue fiercely for your answer. Give just enough encouragement to your critic to keep them challenging.

Finally give in – and congratulate them (and change your own answer)! Once students have the idea that you may not be an entirely reliable informant they will be more motivated to listen much more carefully – and think rather than just accepting your answers.

Vocabulary Games

I'm not sure if this game is on the list under a different name but I thought I'd give it a whirl. The teacher divides the room into four corners: agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, and disagree.

Then the teacher makes a statement like "Movie stars deserve to be paid huge sums of money for what they do." The students move to the corner that best depicts how they feel about the statement. The students in each corner have a few minutes to discuss why they feel this way and then their group presents. Depending on the type of statement made by the teacher, this game can be very serious, very funny, very political etc...

Cultural differences among students are highlighted in this game and debate can get intense.

Questions Activity

My students love this game; i always use it as a stadby if things are lagging, or if we finish the lesson early.
You need a stack of small post-it notes. On each one (one for each student), write the name of a famous person or character. Get the students to sit in small groups (for a shorter game) or one big circle (for a longer and funnier game).

Then go round and stick a post-it note to everyone's forehead. When they have finished laughing at the names on everyone else's heads, and the fact that their calssmates all now look silly, they have to guess the name on their own note using a 20 Questions format (yes/no questions, a yes answer gets you another question, a no answer means the next person starts asking).

Use a variety of names: Disney characters, famous politicians, movie & pop stars, international sports gods (i.e. Beckahm, Ronaldo) and religious figures are all good.

Vocabulary Games

I did this with an adult intermediate ESL class. I had three colors of index cards, and each color had a different activity on it for students to pantomime for other students in front of the class. Each color was worth either 1, 2 or 3 points, depending on how difficult the activity was to describe. For instance, a 1 card might be "brushing your teeth" and a 3 might be "seeing a mouse in your house (eek!)".

You can adjust these to your class level. Break them into groups of three, and they can choose to have one person give all three clues to the class, or each person can give one...whatever they want. I give them one minute to describe all three things, and you score each team on the board. If teams tie, you can do playoffs with the more difficult questions.

I gave prizes to all for their participation, but the winning team got some extra goodies. This provides lots of laughs, and is best done at the end of class! (It is also important to do "word banks" if necessary before this activity in order to make sure the students know what the words in the clues mean. I did a word bank the class before I did the actual activity).

Bingo

I think most people know the game bingo, and I am sure that there is a recipe for word bingo here. Just in case there is not I will quickly run through it. Each student gets a bingo grid 4x4 squares.

I write about 20 words on the board and ask them to choose 16 words and put one word in each square. As I call the words out the cross them off in order to make 4 in a row across, down or diagnal.

Ok so my Bingo with a twist is to use opposite words. I use this game after teaching about opposites to reinforce the ideas. So for example they write hot, fast, easy etc but I call out cold, slow, difficult etc. I have found it works well as they think about it more than they otherwise would and they find it more challenging than ordinary bingo. I played this with Junior 2 (age 12-14) and it worked very well!

Vocabulary

I don't believe that no-one has thought of this game! What is wrong with a variation on the simple "I Went Shopping and I bought .........."?

Divide the class into groups. Then the teacher starts by saying "I Went to ...... and I bought........." (adapt it to suit your town). Then go around group by group and see how much your students remember.

I tried this with a junior middle school class and they surprisingly needed very little prompting. You just need to make sure that no-one in the class writes the list down as it is going around. You just need to make sure that the same students don't speak over and over again. Encourage everyone to participate.

verb tenses activity

Here is a short activity that you can use for practising the past form of "to be"

Step 1:
Teacher sticks some pictures of object on board with blu tack. E.g., a picture of a house, a picture of a toothbrush etc.Firstly, teacher revises the vocabulary by saying: “Look at the board. There is a picture of a house. There are two pictures of toothbrush etc.

Step 2:
Teacher asks students to close their eyes. Meanwhile s/he removes one picture on the board. After this, teacher asks students whether they can remember what picture is missing. If they say:” Yes, the picture of the house is missing, teacher says: “Yeas, there was a picture of a house on the board but is gone now. Teacher repeats this procedure.

Step 3:
Lastly, teacher removes all the sentences and asks students to repeat some of the sentences that were presented and writes them on board. Teacher asks students what all the sentences have in common. “Forms of to be” has to be the answer. Teacher continues by asking questions like: “Why did we use “was, were” in all the sentences? “ to raise their awareness.

Variations:
This activity could also be done as a group activity. Groups write down the sentences like as follows: “There was a picture of a house on the board. If they have correct sentences, teacher gives one point for each correct sentence.

Vocabulary

A good chain speaking game to get your reticent students talking and let you take a breather. It also makes students listen to each other better and gives them more confidence in their speaking ability. Good for high beginner onwards (students that can form coherent sentences).

1) Write some interesting, open-ended situation on the board. Keep it simple, but full of possibilities for development. Use your imagination. For example, "I was walking downtown. It was dark, and very late at night. The street was empty. It was really scary. Suddenly a rough voice from behind me shouted, 'Gimme all your money!'"

2) Have one student read the sentence aloud, and then it's that student's turn to go first.

3) He or she has to make a (only one!) sentence that logically connects to yours. For example, "I turned around and saw a fierce-looking mugger with a long knife." Then another student goes next, etc.

4) Students take turns building on each others' sentences to make a vivid, compelling story that is all their own.

5) Sit back and correct their grammar if you feel like it, or give them some help, and/or contribute yourself to the story formation.

Tips:
a) encourage students to spin out long, not short, stories
b) have advanced students bring to class their own open-ended story starters

Vocabulary Battleship

This is an exciting game for all students where they must simply find random words on a printed page. First make a photocopy of a page of text, maybe from a novel or text book. It should be fairly dense with words for advanced students and a lot less dense for beginners.

Then paste that photocopy on a larger blank sheet of paper. Just above the pasted on photocopy evenly write A,B,C,D to about J and along the side write numbers from one to about twelve. That way when a student finds a word he can pinpoint the location and like in Battleships announce F-6 or B-12 to prove he found it.

Now make enough copies for all the students in your class. Your preparation is done. In class hand out the prints and on the blackboard draw an elongated grid that should resemble straight race track with one lane for each row in the class. Number the lanes so row one is team one, etc.

Then break up the horizontal lanes by evenly drawing eight vertical lines. Write the word GOAL or FINISH at the end and lets play. Call out a word from anywhere on the page. Try an easy word like HAVE or THIS at first to let the slower kids know they can play too. Use it in a sentence if you want. The students must scan the print and the first student to find the word you called out should raise his hand.

You ask him where the word is and he should say F-6 or something like that. If he is right draw a chalk circle on his team's grid in the first section on the track. Make sure you cross out the word on your copy so you don't call it again.

Call out another word, maybe a more difficult one to make it challenging for the better students. Each time a student finds the right word draw a circle on their team's lane, erasing the previous circle until one team completes the course. At the end give the winning team a hand of applause. My kids liked this game a lot.

Vocabulary/Drawing Game

I don't know if this game has been mentioned yet, but I find it to work effectively with my Korean students.

First, I divide the class into two teams and I draw a line down the center of the board. I have a student from each team come to me and I secretly show them a picture. These two students then go to the board and after I count to 3, they draw the picture as fast as they can. The first team to guess the picture gets a point. Then I choose two different students to draw. The team with the most points wins! This game is obviously very similar to Pictionairy.

Upper Intermediate Games

This isn't my idea, but it's an activity that deserves to be on Dave's site as it's adaptable and fun, and so here's the version I've used. It's useable with pre-intermediate students (as long as they are confident) to advanced students, and requires at least forty minutes.

Firstly, you need to set the scene for your students, and create a little atmosphere, as you are going to strand them on a desert island.Start with drawing a picture of the sea, and then add a ship. Tell them that they are on the ship, and then get them to name it and give the destination... Elicit a story!

Then draw a giant rock or iceberg, and sink the boat just like in "Titanic". Tell them that just as the ship goes down they spot an island on the horizon, and so they start to swim for it. As they are swimming they come across a box floating in the sea, and they open it up to discover several items.....

At this point, what you really want is a bag full of objects that you've kept under you desk, some should be obviously useful for life on a desert island, and some should require more imagination to use. Now, reveal them one by one.I use:
a pencil, a radio, a knife and fork, a metal bowl, a towel, a sewing kit, a camera, a minature bottle of whiskey, a map of the world, a box of matches, a toothbrush, a mirror, a novel, some antiseptic ointment, a compass, and a magnifying glass. I also use an axe and a rope, but as I don't have either of these I have to draw them on the board.Why not throw in a cuddly toy, jar of chillis, etc?

Get the students to name them as you reveal them, and teach any unknown vocabulary.Ask the students how each item could be useful. I do this as a class. Then tell the students they can only carry five items to the island, and that they must choose which five.

This usually stimulates questions about the island, such as, "are there any dangerous animals on the island?" "Are there any mountains, trees, etc?"You can decide on these details.Get each student to write their list of five items individually, and then place them in groups and get them to compare, and write a new list together.

Finally, the lists can be written on the board, and similarities and differences discussed. My students are not always the most willing to speak or the most able, but they got into this activity, and came out with some imaginative uses for objects, eg using some physics to turn the radio into an SOS transmitter.

Adapt the items, and the number of items as you wish. If you wanted you could get them to rank order them, or possibley the "stranded students" could discover Ben Gunn's Shop on the island and have to bid for them. Remember, at all times, be an enthusiastic storyteller and creater!

speaking games

For intermediate level students or above. I have used this with adults and teenagers. The teenagers really get into the characters, even cheering for their favourite singer. Students have to activate all tenses: present, past and present perfect, even future, in a more real life situation (i.e. they have to resond on the spot). They make lots of mistakes, but appreciate the practice and really enjoy themselves.

Divide the class in two - famous people and television interviewers. If there is an odd number, then one extra famous person. The famous people have to choose and state who they will be. For the odd number, two people are a famous couple. I write their names on the board with their chosen personality beside it.

Then I assign one journalist to each personality, and note this also on the board. The journalists work together in one group to prepare questions for their famous person, helping each other with ideas. I explain that they are responsible for the running of the interview.

They have to introduce their person, keep the questioning going, encourage the person to expand, and end it when they realise it is over. I go around and check that their questions are correct grammatically and offer ideas. I insist on not just boring questions, but more juicy ones based on their knowledge of this personality.

The other group is the famous people who have to dredge up all the information they know or the others in the group know of their personality. They can ad lib information if needed, but must keep in character. They must discuss this in English to prepare themselves for the questioning. They do not know what the questions will be, so are the ones with the hardest task. Usually it is the students who are most outgoing or strongest in the class.

Then the next stage is one pair after the other of interviewer and famous person sitting in front of the class and talking to us, the TV audience.

It takes from one to one and a half hours in total. I take notes but do not interrupt the interview. At the end of each interview we applaud. At the very end I ask for feedback and offer general comments on their performances and groups of gramatical or vocabulary errors. It's a very popular game.

Upper Intermediate Games

I have used this game to get my upper-intermediate class talking. They get very competitive and forget about making mistakes. This is a very simple game, but I've written down the directions in excruciating detail since sometimes I find simple directions can be confusing--so bear with me!

Fold a letter-sized sheet into eight rectangles. On each rectangle make a list of 10 common, everyday words--they must be words that students not only recognize but can pull from their own vocabularies. Each list should have ten words on it, five if the class is low intermediate.

I usually do this by writing down one word of a certain category on each list (rather than ten words on the first rectangle, ten words on the 2nd rectangle, etc.) By filling all the lists simultaneously you make sure that each list has the same difficulty level and a variety of words.

For example, start with a category like kitchen objects and write one object on each of the eight lists: fork, spoon, knife, plate, pot, napkin, glass, stove. Other categories might be animals, rooms in a house, places of business, clothes, body parts, months, numbers, classroom objects, etc.

Mark "team 1" on four of the lists and "team 2" on the other four.
Make 2 copies of these lists. Keep one for yourself and cut the other into the 8 lists. Keep them hidden until you are ready to hand them (one at a time) to a clue-giver when he/she comes to sit up front.

My classes are small, from 4 to 8 students, so eight lists are more than enough for each person to have a turn giving clues. You can make more than eight lists, but it gets harder to come up with easy words for ten or twelve lists.

Divide the class into two teams. One student sits on a chair at the front of the class and gives clues to his teammates so that they will guess his words. Each team has 2 or 3 minutes (you decide, depending on the level of the students) to guess all 10 words on their clue-giver's list. Use an egg timer or look at the clock.

When the first team has guessed at their first list then the second team sends up a clue-giver to give clues about one of their lists. This continues until both teams have had a chance at guessing at the words on all four of their lists.
Clue-giving rules are 1) no using hand gestures and no looking at an object that might be in the room--students may have to sit on one hand and hold their list with the other 2) no "sound effects"--if the word is "dog" they may not bark 3) the clue-giver may not say any part of the word, for example if the word is swimming pool, she may not say "swim" as part of the clue.


You must keep a copy of all the lists to look at as students play. If any of the above three rules are broken, you tell the team that they have disqualified that word and the clue-giver should continue with the next word on the list. The clue-giver may pass any word and come back to it later. Encourage students to do "easy" words first and come back to words they are having trouble with. Check off each word a team guesses on your sheet and tally the points after both teams have guessed at their four lists.

This game is possible with lower intermediate students but you should give them a chance to work with a partner on their team (before playing) to come up with clues. Otherwise they have no idea what to say and use up their time with thinking.

Because the prepositions are so difficult to deal with and can make or break meaning, it is also a good idea to practice some sentence forms they might need beforehand: this is something you use to cook with, this is something you sit on, this body part is between your head and your shoulders, you put these things on your feet, etc.

Correcting Game

First just let me say thanks to the other contributors for their ideas. As a token of my gratitude, here's my humble contribution. It isn't original, but it doesn't require any handouts and can be prepared very quickly for any small group at any level.

Divide the class into two teams. Write up 10-15 sentences on the board, and tell the class that each one contains a mistake. (Tell them to read the phrases and look for the mistakes as you are writing them up - no time wasted!)

Naturally the phrases should be graded according to the level of the group, and ideally should concentrate on points of grammar and vocabulary which you have studied recently and/or on typical mistakes which students make at that level - if like me you keep a record of mistakes made by students during the lesson this is an unthreatening, anonymous and fun context in which to highlight them.

When you've finished, give each team 100 points. Team A chooses a phrase for Team B to correct - obviously they'll choose a difficult phrase (i.e. one they're not sure about!) - this gives plenty of scope for a bit of friendly nastiness! Team B decides how many points they'd like to gamble (obviously the more confident they are, the more points they'll gamble), and after consulting for a minute they give their answer.

If they identify the mistake, they add these points to their total. If not, they lose them. Team A then get a chance to pick up bonus points by correcting the phrase - if they can they get the points that Team B bet. (This means they will be consulting at the same time, so everyone's brain will be focussed on the phrase.)

It's then the turn of Team B to choose a phrase for Team A to correct. (Cross out the phrases already chosen.) The maximum bet should be 100 points, otherwise there is the risk that one team will run away with the game very quickly. It can take a while (impose a strict time limit for consultation) but the level of concentration even from students who usually don't worry too much about how correct their English is can be miraculous!

Paired Activities

This one is really fun!Bring several pictures to class. Postcards are great: they come in a variety of images: art, publicity, landscapes, cartoons, abstract or classical paintings, public figures...Then pair the students and give a card to only one of them.

The student with the card has to describe the image to his partner, who doesn't see it. As he listens to the description, the student who doesn't have the picture is asked to draw what the partner is saying. When this is finised, compare the originals and the copies with the entire class. You can use this step to introduce comparatives (on the first picture the sun is smaller, bigger...)and induce discussion.

Vocabulary Games

This is a good one. You don't need anything except a blackboard and a few pieces of paper. Divide the class into teams of 2,3,4 or even 5 kids and seat each team around around a desk or a group of shoved together desks.

Each group must have a piece or two of blank paper and one student in each group will need to be a secretary. Next, evenly spaced out on the board you need to write Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, etc., depending on how many teams you have. Big groups are fine. I had a great time once with eight teams.

So now with the desks arranged and the blackboard prepped you are ready to play. It is very simple. You will announce a general topic to the entire group such as "fruits and vegetables" or "animals" or "holidays" or "irregular verbs" or "adjectives" or "Hollywood actors" or "fast food items."

Adjust the topics to the level of your students. The groups then will have just one minute to "brainstorm" and write on their piece of paper as many English words related to the topic as they can. So if the topic is animals they will probably write words like bear, horse, pig, etc.

After one minute announce time is up and make sure the writing stops. Then do an eeny, meeny miney, mo or my mother and your mother were hanging up clothes to see which team can go first and ask the chosen team to tell you one word - just one word from their brainstorm list.

You will then clearly pronounce the word and write it beneath their team number on the board. Then in turn ask the other teams for one word from their lists. Now here's the catch and the "rummy" part of the game. Once a word has been written on the board another team may not use it, even if they have that word on their brainstorm list. (I love it when they groan.)

Keep asking each team in turn for a word keep writing it on the board until they run out of words. The team with the most words wins the round. I make a chalk mark by their team number to indicate the winners and then announce another topic. The winner of the last game should go first in the next round and that's it.

Present Continuous

Activity Description:

Group in circle, first person turns to person next to them and mimes an action ,say brushing their teeth. The person next to them asks "what are you doing" the first person says anything but brushing their teet, say "I'm tying my shoelaces" that person now starts miming tying their shoelaces and the person next to them asks "what are you doing" they could say "I'm flying a kite" and then that person starts miming flying a kite then next person in the circle asks "what are you doing" and so on.. around the circle.

Jeopardy

Here are some Jeopardy categories that I use with French high school students (14-16 years old). Some of the categories are only appropriate to french speakers.
Single Jeopardy

Give the American equivalent
100 I live in a flat. (apartment)
200 My brother’s favorite game is football. (soccer)
300 Put the suitcase in the boot of my car. (trunk)
400 We queued up for two hours. (stood in line)
500 Excuse me, could you pass me a rubber? (an eraser)
600 It’s time to change the baby’s nappy! (diaper)


100 The underground is a very efficient transportation system. (subway)
200 His glasses make him look smart. (fashionable)
300 Would you like a biscuit? (cookie)
400 Take the lift to the 10th floor. (elevator)
500 I need some more petrol for my car. (gasoline)
600 Pardon me, could I have one of your fags? (cigarettes)

Anglophone Capital Cities
100 Canada (Ottawa)
200 India (New Delhi)
300 South Africa (Cape Town, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein)
400 Australia (Canberra)500 Kenya (Nairobi)
600 New Zealand (Wellington)

Say the Number
100 17, 593
200 1/3
300 734,792
400 117, 770.3
500 89,135,964.4
600 1,000,000,000

Name the primary language spoken in these countries:
100 China (Chinese)
200 Korea (Korean)
300 Brazil (Portugese)
400 Russia (Russian)
500 Norway (Norwegian)
600 Holland (Dutch)

Name 3
100 Vegetables
200 Cities in Canada
300 Articles of clothing
400 Holidays
500 American presidents (before 1900)
600 Planetsothers: pieces of furniture, rivers in the USA, mountain ranges in the Americas

Double Jeopardy
Say the date aloud – all are 20th century (mm/dd/yy)
100 12/25/55
200 5/7/75
300 6/6/44
400 3/13/76
500 5/30/45
600 7/25/42

Trivia
100 Who wrote Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet? (Shakespeare)
200 In what building does the American president live? (The White House)
300 What river runs through the city of New Orleans? (The Mississippi)
400 What year was the American Revolution? (1776)
500 What U.S. President was assassinated in 1865? (Lincoln)
600 When was the American Civil War? (1861-1865)

harder
Who wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? (Mark Twain)
harder What’s the most widely spoken language in the world? (Chinese)
harder What’s the approximate population of the U.S.A.? (250 million)
harder What’s the longest river in the U.S.A.? (Missouri)

Name the nationality’s adjective
100 France (French)
200 Ireland (Irish)
300 Japan (Japanese)
400 Mexico (Mexican)
500 Germany (German)
600 Greece (Greek)

Country Names (translate to English)
100 L’Allemagne (Germany)
200 L’Inde (India)
300 La Mexique (Mexico)
400 Le Maroc (Morocco)
500 Le Royaume Uni (The United Kingdom)
600 Les Pays Bas (The Netherlands, or Holland)

Countable or Uncountable?
100 banana C
200 excitement UC
300 information UC
400 advice UC
500 experience C
600 fact C

A, an or The?
100 Paris is ___ capital of France. (the)
200 What ___ nice jacket! (a)
300 Picasso was ___ artist. (an)
400 Would you please turn down ___ music? (the)
500 There's ___ bug in my drink! (a)
600 It takes 10 hours by plane to cross ___ Pacific. (the)

Spell the words aloud:
100 afraid
200 lazy
300 scared
400 shocked
500 kitchen
600 frightened

Family Feud

I've had fun with family feud. It's also fairly easy to plan. Family feud is a gameshow where 100 people are surveyed and the players ("families"-- they are families on the show) try to guess what other people said. The way before you play:
1) Ask your classes a series of questions; record their answers
2) Teacher writes down the 6-7 most popular answers and how many people said each answerThen on the day of the game:
3) split up into two teams
4) Line up 5 players from each team in the front of the room
5) If you want to, ask everyone their names, where they are from, interests, etc. before starting (my classes are beginners)
6) First person in line on each team gets to try to guess the most popular answer to the question. Read the question and the first player to "buzz in" reponds; if he/she names the #1 answer, their team wins this portion. If not the other player gets to give an answer, and if it's more popular she/he wins. The winning team gets 100 points.
7) The winner of #6 above gets to choose to play (you ask their team) or pass (give it to the other team)
8) The team that plays gets 3 tries to get every answer; if they strike out the other team can steal the points with any answer that made the survey.
9) First team to get 300 points wins round #1
10) In round 2, ask 2 people the same questions and give them one point for every person who gave the same answer"Name a fruit" (host)apple-- if 37 people said apple, they get 37 pointsPlayer 2 may noy duplicate player 1's answers; if they get 200 points together they win.

This game works with all ages and levels as long as the students are marginally literate, and it's a great exam review day activity.

Grid Game

This game is perfect to review themes studied over a period of time or just that week. I divide the class into two teams and for each review question, the team works together to get the correct answer. This promotes team-work, student oral interaction and eliminates the chance of making one student feel "stupid" because they didn't remember the answer.

I write the numbers from 1- 6 on the board. Each number represents a different topic. ie: 1 - prepositions2 - weather3- verbs 4- idioms etc...Before their turn, the team rolls a die. The number they roll determines the topic of their question. To make the game more exciting, I make the #6 topic "Susan's Surprise!" which means I can ask them ANY question on ANY topic I choose of ANYTHING we have studied before!

It's really funny to see the looks of "terror" on their face when they roll a 6 and wonder what I'll ask them! (Of course I play it up by "cackling" or rubbing my hands together as though I'm preparing to ask a difficult question....) The team has 30 secs to come up with an answer and uses a pre-determined spokesperson to say their answer!

If their answer is correct, they can then choose co-ordinates on a pre-prepared GRID- letters A to J down the left side of the grid and the numbers 1- 10 across the top. Each co-ordinate point has a hidden point value of 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 pts which YOU have predetermined on a score key and kept out of sight. After they choose their coordinates, you reveal the value of that square. ie: A-3 is 30 pts! G-1 is 50 points! etc.

Their anticipation to find out how many points they have is hilarious and so adorable! (I usually sing part of a game show theme every time a team happens to pick a square with a 50 pt value. They love it and totally get into celebrating their success. It's also a great thing to prepare them for activities in reading maps with coordinates etc..)

I have the team add their scores each time (I keep track on the board). This gives practice in saying their numbers correctly. Another way to choose points is to give each team 2 dice, one red and one white, roll them and read them as a number, red dice first. ie if they roll a red 6 and a white2 that would be 62 points for their team. Again, make THEM add the score for number priactice! They love that too.

I have had incredible success with both my beginner and intermediate classes. It builds class spirit and each student's morale as they see how much they are able to retain! Hope you have as much fun with it as I have... Hope I didn't bog you down with unnecessary detail!

20 Q's

Here is an old favorite I play very often with my high schoolers. The students have to guess of what thing the person who is it is thinking by asking him or her at most 20 yes/no type questions.

If no one guesses the answer after 20 tries, the answer is revealed. A "yes" answer earns the questioner another chance to ask, a "no" passes the asking on to the next player. Maybe your students are advanced enough to ask appropriate questions on their own, in my case to facilitate my weak ones I hand out a print I made with examples of questions.

The first question on my print is, "Are you animal?/vegetable?/mineral? Then below that I have written outline style three catagories of questions: animal, vegetable and mineral. Under the animal heading my first question is, "Are you human?" Then I have written questions like, "Are you famous?" "Are you in this school?" "Are you a man/woman?" "Are you Japanese?", etc.

In case the animal is not human I have, "Can I eat you?" "Can I ride you?" "Are you bigger than a _____?" etc. Under the vegetable heading I wrote questions like "Can I eat you?" "Are you delicious?" "Are you in Japan?" etc. And finally under the mineral heading I wrote, "Are you metal/plastic/stone/wood?"

"Are you (blue)?" "Do I have you?" "Are you in the classroom?" "Can I see you?" etc. By using the print my students get a feel for asking questions in English and I have found many no longer need to refer to the paper. I hope you have good luck playing this great word game.

Hey. Let's hear it for the past perfect continuous and all other verb tenses!

1) Teach/practice/review - whatever - the particular verb tense with your class.

2) Allow your class to practice the verb tense in pairs to become more familiar with the structure and when it would be used.

3) Now divide the class into teams: two teams, or three or four if the class is huge. On each team should be three to six people.

4) Divide the board into columns: one column for each team. (Two teams of four to six each is ideal...)

5) Let each team come up with a team name. (Last week we had "Monday's Blues" and "Monday's Rhythm"....

6) The first member from each team comes to the board. Each student standing at the board gets a marker and prepares to write as fast as possible. The rest of his team, sitting in their desks or at the table, prepares to help the writer by screaming out the hopefully correct words of the sentence.

7) The instructor lets the writers know what to write by describing a situation which the writers must then scribe in the previously-decided-on verb tense.
For example: we're doing past perfect continuous, so the instructor says something like:

"Yesterday I went to my sister's house. Her two kids, Jamie and Alicia, were in a mess. They had torn clothes, they had dirty faces and one had a black eye. They were both angry."

The writers, with the help of their teams behind them, now know the situation, and know what tense they have to write the situation in. Their team helps them to pen as fast as possible:

"They had been fighting."

You can do this speed competition for any tense. The instructor can glean situations from any grammar book ie Grammar In Use by referring to the appropriate tense page to pose the situations.

This speed competition is ACE for several reasons:

it shows students who are still weak in a particular tense just how weak they are; it forces the students to become nimble in the tenses, it reviews over and over the tense you are working on - don't use more than one tense per day and don't play this two days in a row to avoid confusion - and it breeds fluency. Ace, ace game.

Your students will be screaming out grammar in an intense, heated, passionate bid to get their correct sentences on the board first!
Move through the teams using different pairings.

What's inthe Box

This "game" is lots of fun. I used it with my advanced-level conversation class, but it could also be used with beginners and intermediate-level students. Take a medium-sized box, preferable one that has a top.

Cut a hole in the top and replace it on the box. Then take an object - something that they'd be at least somewhat familiar with - and place it in the box. I used things like scissors, a fork, a pair of earphones, and a spool of thread.

Have a student come up to the front of the class and put their hand in the box. They have to describe the object to the class by TOUCH alone, while everyone else guesses what it is. It's good for building vocabulary and also listening skills. My class had so much fun doing this! Hope yours likes it, too!

Activities

I work with Spanich speaking adults at my community college. Every week they have several dictation sentences along with their spelling test. Unfortunately, they never seem to do very well, and they end up asking me to repeat the sentence a million times.

As a result, I designed a dictation game to help them prepare for their weekly tests. I take about ten sentences from their weekly story and right the words on small peices of cardboard. They day of the game I break them into teams of three and read the sentences. The first team to build the sentence gets the point. They have to buzz in, I like to use the buzzer from the game taboo, in order for me to check their sentence.

The other teams keep working until someone gets it right. They have to make sure that they have capitals, correct punctuation and spelling, and the right words. For example I might try to trick them with by, bye, and buy. This game seems to really work well. The students really get into the spirit of the competition, but more importantly their dictation abilities on their weekly tests are improving dramatically.

Intonation Activity

Ok, I got the idea from a book called Teaching Oral English K-8, but I've used it with my undergrad and adult learners, all to wonderful effect.

1) Explain that in English you have to give stress to certain words to deliver certain meanings: review examples like "Oh" and give emphasis to disappointment, anger, surprise, grasp idea etc...

2) Model a sentence likeYou want me to give you moneyThrowing emphasis first on MONEY? and then GIVE? and YOU? etc...

3)This moronically simple dialog can be committed to memory:
A: Hi, how are you?
B: Fine, thank you. And you?
A: Just great. What have you been doing lately?
B: Oh, not much. But I've been keeping busy.
A: Well...it's been good to see you.
B: Yes, it has...well, bye!
A: Goodbye.

Do group choral response till they seem to know it, then have them practice in pairs, still keeping an uninflected normal neutral tone.

THEN: give each pair a situation, emphasizing that it's SECRET and they musn't show it to anyone else, that they will act it out and others will have to GUESS who they are by their inflection, gestures and body language. (I suggest writing the situations on index cards, very simply: "You are two people who have just met but don't really know each other, and feel obliged to make small talk on an elevator"....)Some situations (be creative!):

1) two athletes (boxers?) who will compete in a match tomorrow
2)a sick person in hospital and friend who visits
3) two old people who are all but deaf
4) a robot and his designer
5) a divorced couple
6) a couple who's love is doomed by marriage promised to others
7) a teacher and a student suffering from infatuation
8)two people who are angry at each other
9) a landlady and her overdue tenant
10) a teacher who has given a student a bad grade, they meet years later
11)two people who have met before, but can't remember where
12) two spies who are meeting late at night
13) two old friends who run into each other on a railway platform
14)?? Confucius meets Lao Tze in heaven?
15) a detective and a criminal The idea is: they don't change the dialogue of A and B, just the inflection/intonation to suit the situation...

4)After each pair has practiced about 5 min or so, hopefully they'll have committed the simple dialogue to memory. Call each pair up and have them perform the dialogue. After each skit, the class tries to guess the situation.It's good to ask: "How does Shirley feel towards Joanna" in this skit? If it's not clear what's happened in the skit.

THen you give positive reinforcement to the actors by at least acknowledging the emotion they were trying to convey.I found the students got into it. IT's short enough time on stage that they get a little more comfortable airing their english in public, without directing it at just the teacher....Appreciate knowing how this works for you.

Activities

This is for those who love to play Taboo. This is modeled after the old game show from when I was a kid.

PreparationYou will need an OHP and transperencies to play this game. To prepare, create a list of categories for which you can come up with 5 examples. I have used words that start with W (window, wow, weird, Wyoming, witch), things you can't see (love, air, kindness, stupidity, friendship), things that you listen to (news reports, speech, whistle, teachers, parents). I like to have about 20 categories each time I play.

You can choose whatever you think will be most appopriate and useful for your students. To make things easier and reusable, I made a chart on my computer, grouping each category with its words. Then I printed out the groups on transperencies and cut them out. I didn't inclde the name of the category on the list, but you may want to. Sometimes it takes me a sec to remember what the category is. I don't think that having the name on the OHP will help or hinder students.

To Play

Set up the overhead. Place two chairs facing each other, with one facing the overhead and the other with its back to the overhead.

Divide your class into two teams. Two students from one team play at a time. One student (Student A) will be the guesser and the other (student B) the clue giver. Student B sits in the chair facing the OHP and student A sits with his/her back to the OHP. Give students 3 categories to choose from.

Put the category square onto the OHP. Once you remove your hand, give the team 1 minute to get as many out of the 5 words as possible. They can use any words they want, in the target language, as long as NO PART of the word to be guessed it used. Give one point for each word correctly guessed.

The team with the most points wins! Only the two team members sitting in the front of the room can speak. NOTE: The guesser often looks to the non-participating team members to see if they are mouthing the words. I try to sit the playing team members so that the guesser can't see them easily. When I see it happening, I don't give credit for the word.

Activities

This is a great way to review those verb conjugations:

Divide your class into teams of equal number (no more than 5-6 students per team as that is how many subject pronous there are in English...depending if you are teaching 'you pl.' as a seperate one). Each team sits in a row. The first student in each row is #1, the second #2, etc.

Give all number ones a piece of paper. Then you pick a verb from the vocabulary that you are studying (eg. Eat) and all number ones write "I eat" and then pass the paper to the student behind them. The second studnets write "you eat" and pass the papers back.

This continues until all subject pronous and verb forms have been written. Then the last student passes the paper to the first student and the first student runs to the board to write all the answers on the board. The first team to get their answers on the board in the correct order and correctly conjugated ( I eat, you eat, he eats, we eat, they eat) gets a point.

If you have several students in your class, you can expand the game by adding she and it as seperate entries. Then the students shift places, so 1 moves to spot 2, etc. and the last student in each row becomes student 1. Continue until each student in the row has had a chance to write on the board.

This game gets quite rowdy! My kids love it! They don't gets point for messy board writing! If one team gets the answers up there first but is too messy to read, then the point goes to the next fastest team. Good luck!

ACtivities

This game takes a lot of explanation, which can be good to test your students' listening skills. KILLER! is like a basic "interview game" where the students ask each other questions that review whatever pattern you choose (ex. "did you ~ yesterday?" "can you ?").

The difference is that this is a contest (whoever gets the most answers wins), and that there are killers in the room.

To decide who the killers are, at some point during your explanation, tell the students to close their eyes and put their heads down. The students you tap on the shoulder will be killers. During the 5 min. the students have to ask each other questions, the killers will try to "kill" other students by winking at them.

The way this works is that killers try to ask / answer questions to / from other students, and during this exchange wink at them once. "Dead" students return to their seats and can't ask any more questions. After the 5 min. are up, ask the killers to raise their hands. Then ask the "dead" students to raise their hands.

Finally, have the students raise their hands according to how many other students they asked. The student with the most answers (names written down) wins. You can play this several times with different grammar patterns in the same lesson--some of the students get really into it. When I played it, I had students who chased each other, yelling their questions, and students who carried around books in front of their smiling faces so that they couldn't be blinked at (and killers doing the same to fake them out).

RULES (hopefully this will make the process clearer):

1) everyone has to write their own question
2) everyone has 5 min. to ask the question to as many people as they can. the person who asks the most people wins.
3) when everyone puts their heads down and closes their eyes, the students I touch on the shoulder are "killers."
4) during the game, the "killers" try to "kill" as many students as possible by winking at them.
5) if a student is "killed" he has to go back to his seat and sit down. he is "dead"
6) after the 5 min. are over, the student who asked her question to the most people wins.

GOT IT? GOT QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? e-mail me.

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT
How can you assess the progress your students are making? Bill Bowler and Sue Parminter offer practical advice.

Some teachers are suspicious of continuous assessment. 'Doesn't it take lots of time?' they ask. Well, compared to devising regular progress tests, preparing answer keys, fixing marking schemes and marking a class's pile of tests every few weeks, not really. The way the work comes, though, is different. With continuous assessment you spend less time preparing evaluation materials outside class time, but more time evaluating in class. This is because you are assessing each student a little and often, rather than testing rarely and intensively.

'But isn't continuous assessment subjective?' ask other doubters. Well, isn't a formal written test subjective? Selecting test activities, deciding what are correct answers, and allocating marks to different areas are all subjective decisions taken by the test writer, whether it is the teacher him/herself or the author of his/her chosen coursebook.

Regular commitment

For sure, continuous assessment requires a commitment from the teacher to spend a regular amount of time not only teaching, but also evaluating students' classwork. This is not hard to organise in a classroom where there is plenty of pairwork and groupwork. While student groups are simultaneously discussing questions or performing a roleplay, the teacher can move round evaluating oral and listening skills, or noting the range and accuracy of students' vocabulary and grammar. To help the pure logistics we offer you a ready-made but adaptable chart to photocopy.

Even with more traditional whole class teaching, homework can provide a useful opportunity to evaluate each student's knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and writing skills on a regular basis, instead of relying on one end-of-course test.

Why use continuous assessment?
There are four main reasons for using continuous assessment instead of, or in addition to, formal tests:

1 Because of nerves, some students are bad at tests, though they may work well during class. Test results do not truly reflect such students' abilities, whereas continuous assessment gives a global and more accurate picture.

2 Formal tests emphasise a 'product' rather than a 'process' approach to learning. Strong students, for example, who usually perform well in tests, may become lazy, selfish and uncooperative in class because they know that their final grade depends on their test performance.

Continuous assessment emphasises 'process' rather than 'product', encouraging complacent students not to rely on a final test, but to contribute regularly in class.

We should remember that some mistakes students make in class indicate 'learning in progress'. For example, in a lesson introducing regular past tenses, a stronger student may produce an experimental, though incorrect, sentence like *I goed home at 6 o'clock yesterday. A traditional test would deduct marks for such 'intelligent' mistakes, whereas some means of rewarding this ingenuity, which is clearly a step on the road to correct English, may be made in contiuous assessment.

3 Some learning skills that we think are useful, and that we may want to encourage in our classes, are difficult to test. We cannot, for example, test the fact that a student regularly and punctually does homework, that they have a positive and enthusiastic attitude towards English, that they try hard in class, that they work well on their own, or that they co-operate well with other students in pair or group work activities. We can, however, include these things in a continuous assessment scheme.

We should of course bear in mind that some of the tasks we set in class - such as prediction before listening or reading - are not tests, but warming-up stages designed to awaken interest in a listening or reading text to follow. There are no right or wrong answers in such tasks, and we should not react to wilder guesses as if they were 'wrong'. If we do, we will discourage participatory behaviour and originality of thought in our students, and we should be actively promoting these qualities in our classes.

4 Although many teachers are convinced of the value of teaching English communicatively, 'communicative' tests are difficult to design. As a result, we use more traditional tests and so we may end up testing students on accuracy and form when we have taught them with an emphasis on fluency and meaning. When using continuous assessment, on the other hand, the way we evaluate is part of the way we teach.

Using continuous assessment when you teach communicatively means that you will naturally evaluate students' communication skills along with everything else.

Some do's

Tell students at the start of the course if you plan to use continuous assessment on its own, or in conjunction with formal testing, to calculate their final marks. If you are going to use a mixture of formal tests and continuous assessment, explain how much each component will be worth in the final mark. Will it be 50/50 or 60/40, or what?

Explain to students at the start of the course why you have decided to use continuous assessment. You may find the following explanations useful: 'Because learning a language is a slow process and I want to check your progress regularly.' 'Because what you do in every class is important, not just what you do in the final test.'

Tell students at the start of the course exactly what you will include in your continuous assessment. Possible areas are: projects and homework; participation in pairwork, groupwork and whole class work; autonomy in individual work; effort and progress; completion of extra remedial or extension tasks, whether done as homework or in self-study time in class.

For a remedial task which is easy to organise, underline students' mistakes in homework without writing in the correct version yourself. After students get their underlined homework back, they correct the underlined parts. Another time-efficient way to review homework in class is to tell each student to hand their finished work to a classmate who marks it from a blackboard answer key before they return it.
Consider using a month's continuous assessment at the start of a course instead of a formal diagnostic test. Everyone agrees that it is useful to gauge students' starting level, so that you can accurately judge the progress they have made by the end of the course. A formal diagnostic test at the start of a course can, however, be very intimidating.

Continuous assessment of a diagnostic period of classwork is therefore a useful alternative. It gives you the opportunity to gauge students' previous knowledge and abilities without having a negative initial effect on the relaxed class atmosphere that you may want to establish.


Prepare a written list of the areas in your continuous assessment scheme - with the marks for each category - to give to students at the start of the course. Tell students to keep this list. You may want to refer to it later when discussing continuous assessment grades with individual students.

With younger students, prepare a one-page description of why you are using continuous assessment - and a list of what you will look for in each class - in the students' mother tongue. Students can take this page home to show to their parents. If, later on, you need to discuss why you are using continuous assessment with parents, or to explain to them how it works, you will have a useful document to refer to. Prepare this list by referring to the teacher's assessment chart on page 18, designed for you to photocopy.

Some don'ts

Don't feel that you must assess every student in the class on everything within one lesson. With a class of thirty this would be physically impossible to achieve. Instead set yourself an assessment period of a month and aim to assess each student once on each area within that period. (With a class of thirty this means focusing on about seven students per week.) If you find this target unrealistic, set yourself a longer assessment period of six or eight weeks.

Don't feel that you must abandon formal testing. It can be useful to combine continuous assessment with formal tests to get a fuller picture of students' learning. The photocopiable chart on page 18 provides a suggestion of how to combine continuous assessment with an end-of-month test.

If you want to give greater emphasis to testing, use the same grid, but raise the value of the end-of-month test to 60% and reduce the value of the continuous assessment to 40% (or use an 80% versus 20% split if you are a more conservative teacher).

Bill Bowler and Sue Parminter have taught English as a foreign language and trained English teachers in Belarus, Britain, Canada, Hungary, Italy and Spain. They are currently living and working in Alicante, Spain, where they are writing a new secondary school English course for Oxford University Press.

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT GRIDOne grid each month for every ten students
CLASS: ....................................................................STARTINGDATE: ......................................................FINISHINGDATE: ......................................................
IIIIINAMES OF STUDENTS











CONTINUOSASSESSMENT60MARKS
LANGUAGE (15 marks)
GRAMMAR/FUNCTIONS


VOCABULARY
AVERAGE
SKILLS (15 marks)
READING









WRITING









LISTENING









SPEAKING









PRONUNCIATION









AVERAGE










LEARNING SKILLS (15 marks)
CLASSWORK









GROUPWORK









PAIRWORK









INDIVIDUAL WORK









EFFORT









AVERAGE










OTHER WORK (15 marks)
HOMEWORK









PROJECTS









EXTRA TASKS









AVERAGE











END OF MONTH TEST (15 marks)
WRITTEN









SPOKEN









AVERAGE










TOTAL % MARK










COMMENTS
- on progress









- on need for extension work









- on need for remedial work



Note: The end of the month test consists of a group roleplay for oral evaluation (marked for fluency, pronunciation, use of vocabulary, grammatical accuracy and participation) and a written test that covers grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading and writing (marked for spelling/punctuation, vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction and content).