Games to help students learn English.
Unfortunately students don’t like reading. And what is even worse, they hate re-reading. It is next to impossible to make them re-read an article . They will complain, they will pretend or they will go to the toilet, but the majority won’t read the text again.
I have not created a new infographic for quite some time. I have been pretty content using the materials here. But when I saw the materials for HOW MUCH, HOW MANY, LITTLE and FEW I realised that I would like to have something better. Therefore I created the following materials to help my students understand…
During my summer holiday I spent some time creating these lovely boxes. Do you want to know what is inside?
I am not a really good teacher. But I would like to be. That is why I study a lot. Recently I read two books which tried to sum up what the scientists know about teaching and learning. The first one is called What Does This Look Like In The Classroom?: Bridging the Gap Between…
Some students find it difficult to learn all the forms of the past simple tense. The following worksheets will help them learn this grammar easily.
Autonomous students are intrinsically motivated, willing to take responsibility for their own learning and aware of their preferred learning strategies.
It has been known that people remember grammar rules best if they come up with their own explanation. Therefore, the teachers should try to design their teaching activities in such a way that they will help students create their own rules.
The verb to BE in the past tense is one of the most important grammar points in English. As both WAS and WERE belong among 100 most frequent words in English, it is paramount that students know and use them correctly.
Recently my colleague noticed that our textbook contains too few exercises to practise the verb HAVE GOT. To bridge this gap I decided to create a board game. A board game will allow my students practise the grammar in a fun way and this activity can be used repeatedly.
Imagine that even your most challenged students understand new grammar? Imagine that they discover the rules themselves? Imagine that your students ask you to test them on the topic you have just taught. All these things have happened to me after I started to use colourful teaching.
Recently I introduced Magic Grammar Cards in my classes. These cards are extremely versatile, easy to prepare and simple to use. Moreover, I believe that they are a great way to revise grammar and they support independent learning.
When learning English, students are usually given a list of irregular verbs to memorize. This list usually consists of 60 to 100 verbs. There is nothing wrong with this approach but I think that it would be much more useful to give students a list of the most frequent verbs in English and the chunks…
In this post, I would like to write about seven activities that were common in ESL classrooms in the past. However, these activities went out of fashion but there is no reason why they should not return. They worked in the past and if used wisely there is no reason why they should not work…
Harry Potter is extremely popular among students. Students know and like the stories. Why not use this affection? Let’s give them what they want and teach English at the same time.
Nowadays everyone can create audio-visual materials in professional quality. But the question is what materials we should create. The audio files, as we know them, contain a short text which students listen to and then they answer some comprehension questions. But is this the best audio which we can give to our students? <!– wp:more…
Once we return from the summer holiday, I would love to hear my students telling me where they were and what they did there. Some might be able to do it straight away, drawing on what they learned in the past, but most of them will be silent. To prevent the silence, I have designed…
In the post Microsoft Word for Language Teachers – Part 1 I explain how to use the Teacher´s Pet add-on and I share a simple macro to create the Swimming Pool worksheets. In this post, I am going to offer you more macros which will help you create vocabulary worksheets in no time. ADVERT: [showmyads]…
Do you use Microsoft Word? Do you create worksheets and teaching materials with it? You are not the only one. Microsoft Word is the most common piece of software teachers use. It is really easy to use and it can do nearly anything. However, it can do much more! It can make your lesson preparations…
To teach the conjunctions of time, it is crucial that the students understand the meaning of the conjunctions. That is why I have created the following graphic organiser which I use to explain the meaning of the conjunctions: I print the picture and hand it out to my students. ADVERT: [showmyads] Then I explain the…
Dictations?! Really? Isn’t this method outdated, boring and non-communicative? Yes, it certainly isn’t modern or innovative, but it is useful. It provides feedback on listening and during a dictation the skill of writing gets some practise. Moreover, Paul Nation in his book “What Every EFL Teacher Should Know?” puts dictation among Language-Focused listening and speaking…