Archive for the 'Speaking' Category

Jan

Silly Phonics Tips

As many of you, I also teach phonics regularly. There are things that always trip up the students.

The first is QU. So I tell them a little story. Q is very scared (mine if they don’t know the word scared). He always needs his friend U to help him (again, mine if needed). Another fun way is once students get the idea is print out a giant Q and a U (enough so that every is a q or a u). But them in teams. Play a game where they have to move around the room, but Q and U always have to stay together. Likewise if Q wants water or to go to the bathroom, U has to go. But not the other way around.

The next is silent E. Again tell a story that E gets very angry when he has to stand at the end of the word. And E yells at the other vowel “Say your name” (since long vowels sound like the name of the letter). Make a list of words that use silent E (by this point students should have learned the short vowels). It doesn’t really matter if you use nonsense words. The point is to get the kids involved too. So you bring three student up to the front and give them each a letter (here are where those big letters come in handy). For example, you would have a S, an I and a T. Have students read the word. Then give a fourth student the E. Have him/her act angry for having to be last. Have E go up to I and say “Say your name!” and then go back to his/her space. Then get the class to read the new word, site. In my opinion, nonsense words work better for this.

Finally, the dreaded PH. I’ll admit, I just came up with this one because in one of my 1st grade classes (but high level for their age) was learning the work trophy. Of course, they kept saying tropy. So finally I told them this. P and H don’t like each other. So they f-f-f-fight. It really clicked with the students. And now they correct themselves when they say tropy instead of trophy.

Feel free to try these out in your class, and leave a comment letting me know how it goes.

posted by Kathryn in Language,Phonics,Speaking,Teaching,Teaching Resources and have No Comments

Nov

Hot Potato – Version 2.0

A few weeks ago I wrote about using Hot Potato as a speaking game in the ESL classroom. Well, here is version 2.0. As I was playing with McQueen class (an older, low intermediate class) I decided I shouldn’t have to do all the work. Why yes, I can be lazy late on Thursday.

You play Version 2.0 the same as the original version. But instead of the teacher asking questions, the student who gets the hot potato has to ask a question of another student in the class. I think this is a much better version. Asking questions is a skill that gets practiced less as students progress up the ESL ladder. And if I don’t have to ask the questions, I can pay closer attention to the problems students have in forming questions and making appropriate responses.

If I get really motivated, I’ll make a dedicated hot potato mp3 that I can just put on my iPod. That would reduce the time I spent stabbing at the pause button and I can pay more attention to potential disasters.

Try it out. As always let me know how it goes.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Games,Speaking and have No Comments

Oct

Speaking Games – Hot Potato

As ESL students get older, they tend to clam up. Try teaching a book called “Speaking Tutor” to two mute fifth graders. Isn’t puberty fun?

Unfortunately I don’t have access to any sort of technology in the classroom. I came across a (flash I think) speaking games that reminds me of hot potato. In this game music played while students passed a ball of paper (personally I’d use my beach ball). When the music stopped (controlled by the teacher), a question came up in the game. The person with the ball had to answer the question.

I think I’m going to replicate this with just paper. Print a question on a piece of paper, and ball it up. Use your CD player with music of your choice. When you hit pause, the person has to unball the paper and answer the question.

I can actually see this being a great icebreaker game with higher level classes or even small adult classes.

Try it in your classroom and let me know how it goes. I’ll be sure to try it with target language (younger kids) after our test week is over.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Games,Speaking and have Comment (1)

Aug

Balls

I see a beach ball as an essential tool for games. So far I haven’t had any accidents and even if a kid gets bonked in the head, it’s an air filled ball. It isn’t going to hurt too much. I used to use a smaller nerf type ball about the size of a baseball. It worked okay for the older kids, but the little ones didn’t have the manual dexterity to throw and catch it.

Any how, back to using a ball. Currently we use both the “Let’s Go” series and the “Tops” series with the majority of our students. I’ll write a future post on how I use a ball with “Let’s Go”. I generally don’t use it with “Tops” because it’s more grammar and writing focused.

On to games. One is just asking open-ended questions. It’s best for mid to upper level students who have a good vocabulary and good grasp of how to form questions. The questions can range from the mundane such as “What’s your name?” to the complex such as “If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?” You can also practice specific sentence structures. With a lower level class one day, I did “I like _____.” where they could fill in the blank with anything. I was trying to practice using the plural form (yes, I know there are exceptions) for things you like.

All of these things are really boring activities on their own. But add in the fun of throwing a ball around the classroom and suddenly they’re the best things ever.

My ball is on the smaller side. I’d be surprised if it were a full 6 inches in diameter.

If you try it in your classroom, let me know how it goes!

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Language,Speaking,Teaching and have No Comments

Jun

What Is He Wearing?

I was at HomePlus one day and I found markers made for writing on glass. What could be more fun? I bought two sets. Phoenix Class was studying clothing and the question “What is he/she wearing?” Usually I have students do this on paper and then we go though it orally. Now don’t get me wrong, the kids love to color. But when I told them they were getting to color on the windows, they almost flipped their little minds.

In a way, it works better on the windows because it’s easier for other students to see and they can use other students’ pictures in their speaking.

So I present, Phoenix class (Martin, Jenny, Julie, Stephanie)…

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Language,Maple Square,Pictures,Speaking,Students,Teaching and have No Comments

Jun

Kung Fu Panda

I was going through old videos and uploaded some to YouTube. This is finally after getting myself logged back into my account. Something is buggered (or was buggered) with this stupid linking your Google and YouTube account. But I digress.

This is a video done right before 2009 annual presentations. These kids would be first graders now. I proudly present Newton Class from Little Campus.

posted by Kathryn in Language,Little Campus,Presentations,Speaking,Students,Videos and have No Comments

Apr

Hot Seat!

I’m a believer in using games to educate and reward. I have a class of first graders whose favorite game is a spelling bee. Who would have thunk it?

Hot Seat! comes courtesy of a coworker. It emphasizes speaking and vocabulary. It’s a simple game that uses nothing more than a marker/chalk, a chair and a word list.

I’ve played this both as a team game with points and a just general activity. Place a chair under the board. Have one student sit in the chair so they can’t see the board. Either the teacher or another student writes a word on the board. The students not on the “hot seat”. The rest of the students have to describe the word on the board for the other student to guess.

If you play in teams, put a limit on the time to give clues. I disallow sign language no matter what. Depending on the level of the class, the clues can be single words, phrases or full sentences. Sometimes it’s fun for higher level classes to be limited to one word at a time because they have to work cooperatively to give the clues.

When I teach domain specific knowledge, such as science, I use the chapter or unit vocabulary as the word list.

If you try it with your students, let me know how it goes!

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Language,Speaking,Teaching Resources,Vocabulary and have No Comments