Category: Vocabulary

Christmas activities
Christmas activities

So this is Christmas. And once again I am looking for some interesting materials to use in my lessons. But I don’t want to recycle as the students often remember very well what we did last year or the year before. Lucky kids, as I can hardly remember what I did yesterday :-).

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Clothes vocabulary
Clothes vocabulary

In my opinion, vocabulary is the most important part of language learning. If you know some words and no grammar, you can communicate. However, if you know a lot of grammar and no words, communication is impossible.
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In this post I would like to give you a chance to enrich your students vocabulary with words for describing items of clothing. There is an infographic, a film and an online quiz to help you teach over 30 words connected with clothing. I hope you find this post useful.

Clothes vocabulary – film


Here is a film to present and teach vocabulary connected with clothes. All the words are displayed, and pronounced by a native speaker. The video consists of two parts. In the first part the students see the clothes, and the word and they hear the native speaker pronounce the word. Their task is to repeat the words. In the second part of the video they only see the clothes, and their task is to say the correct word before they hear the speaker.


Clothes vocabulary – infographic


To make sure that your students can practise the vocabulary at home too, print out the following infographic and hand it out.
Clothes vocabulary infographic

Clothes vocabulary – online quiz


The following quiz is in HTML5 and will play on all mobile devices. It consists of two parts. In the first part, you should match the words with the correct pictures and then click on the correct piece of clothing.
In the second part of the quiz, you have to write the words you see in the picture. If you pass any of these parts, you will be rewarded with a game.
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Clothes vocabulary – quiz

Clothes vocabulary – Links


You can find some great materials to teach clothes vocabulary at the British Council site.

Facebook vocabulary
Facebook vocabulary

Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. Many of our students spend hours on it every day. But have you ever given them a chance to speak about Facebook in an English lesson?

In this post I would like to bridge this gap and give you a chance to teach some words connected with Facebook. Once the students know the words they will be able to talk about Facebook and what they do there. To teach the vocabulary, there is an infographic, a quiz and several speaking activities.
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Facebook vocabulary – infographic


Go through the following infographic with your students and ask them to translate the words if you teach a monolingual group.

Facebook infographic vocabulary

Facebook vocabulary – online quiz

In the following quiz your students can practise the vocabulary taught in the infographic. The quiz consists of two parts. It is in HTML5 and it will play on mobile devices and desktop computers.

Facebook vocabulary quiz

Facebook vocabulary – speaking

The following section contains several speaking activities to give your students a chance to practise the new words in a meaningful way.
The first activity works very well with students who are 15 or older. Hand out the following questions and ask your students to choose three questions they would like to ask you.

a) What was the last post you put on your timeline?
b) Do you share your photos on Facebook?
c) What was your last comment?
d) How often do you comment?
e) How often do you write a status on your timeline?
f) What was the last post you liked?
g) How many friends do you have on Facebook? Do you know your friends personally?
h) Do you ever message anyone? How often and why?
i) What is in your cover photo?
j) What was the last thing you shared on Facebook? How often do you share things?
k) Do you use news feed or any apps on Facebook?
l) Are you a member of any groups? Why?

Answer the questions as best as you can and demonstrate the way you would like your students to discuss the questions.

Then ask your students to choose 7 questions they would like to ask their partner. Ask them to work in pairs and discuss the questions.

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The second speaking activity is called ranking. The students should rank the following Facebook features from the most useful and interesting to the least.

GROUPS, BOOST POST, STATUS, MESSAGE, COVER PHOTO, LIKE, SHARE, PROFILE, COMMENT, EVENT

If you have never done a ranking activity with your students before, it is a good idea to teach the phrases first. Teach phrases like: “I think …. is the most useful…,” “I think …. is the least useful …,” etc. If your students are not able to use these phrases, their discussion will not be very interesting or long.

How to teach collocations with HAVE # 2
How to teach collocations with HAVE # 2

This is the second post in which engames.eu has joined forces with Fluency MC to provide materials for teaching collocations with the verb HAVE. In this post we teach the collocations from the second part of Jason’s rap song.
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In this post you will find the song, an infographic, two interactive quizzes and a game. We hope you will find the post interesting and useful. If you have any suggestions about how we can improve our effort, please leave a comment.

Collocations with HAVE – song


Ask your students to listen to the following song and complete the second part of the lyrics (the third verse starts at 1:30.)

Listen and complete the lyrics:

Have collocations lyrics 2

If you dare, you can sing along with Jason 🙂

Collocations with HAVE – infographic

Display the following infographics and go through the information to clarify the meaning of the more difficult phrases. If you teach a monolingual class, translate the phrases into your students’ mother tongue.

have collocations 2 full web

Once the students understand the collocations ask them to work in pairs and ask and answer the questions in the outside circle. In this way they can practise the collocations in a communicative way.

Collocations with HAVE – online quizzes


Both of the quizzes are made in HTML5 so they will play on computers and all mobile devices. In the first quiz, you have to drag the correct words into the correct places. If you pass the test, you can play the game Angry Farmer as a reward.

In the second quiz you should match the collocations and their definitions and then write the collocations. Once again, if you pass the test, you can play a game.

To play on the full screen, click here:
Quiz – full screen

The game contains questions from the first post on collocations with HAVE and this post. You can practise all the collocations with HAVE here.
Click the dice in the right hand corner and then move your counter. If you step on a question mark, you have to answer a question. If you answer correctly, you will move forward. If not, you will move back.
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To play on the full screen, click here:

Quiz – full screen

Fluency MC – videos


If you like Jason’s song, have a look at some more by him:

Collocations with HAVE – download


You can download the quiz here:

Have collocations 2 (Web)

Learn the collocations with have
Learn the collocations with have

Jason R. Levine produces some of the best videos for teaching and learning English online. You probably know his super famous rap on irregular verbs. However, for this post we agreed to create materials for another one of his videos. You will find materials here for his video on collocations with the verb HAVE.

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In the post you can find the following activities: a video with the song (by Jason), the lyrics worksheet, an infographic with all the collocations, an interactive quiz and a game. If you go through all the activities I am sure that you will know most of the collocations.

Have collocations – video


Watch the video and complete the following worksheet with the lyrics.

This post covers only the first two verses of the song so stop the video after the two verses.
Have collocations song

Have collocations – infographic

Go through the following infographic. If you have a monolingual class, ask them to translate the collocations. If you teach an international group, explain only the more difficult phrases.
Have collocations full

Then ask the students to work in pairs or small groups and to ask and answer the questions in the outer circles.

Have collocations – interactive quizzes


Both of the following games are created in HTML5, so they will play on all mobile devices.
The first game is called Quiz Goose Science, and your task is to click on the dice in the upper right hand corner. When you do, your avatar moves. If you finish your move on a question mark, you will be given a question. If you answer correctly, you will move ahead. If not, you will be moved backwards.
You can play against either the computer or other people.

To play on the full screen click the button:
Game – full screen

The second game is an interactive quiz. Your task is to answer all the questions as well as you can. If you pass the quiz you will be rewarded with a game.

To play on the full screen click the button:
Quiz – full screen

Links


I would like to thank Jason for his cooperation, and I hope we will publish many other posts together. In the meantime, you should check out the following videos by Fluency MC:

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Town vocabulary
Town vocabulary

Vocabulary is the most important part of language. Without grammar you can communicate with difficulty, but without vocabulary you cannot say anything.
In this post, I would like to teach nearly 30 vocabulary items for different town facilities. I have included an infographic, an online quiz and a worksheet with several vocabulary activities. There is also a video where all the words are pronounced by a native speaker.
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Town vocabulary – infographic


The following map shows a town with all the buildings labeled in English. First, ask your students to have a look at the map and try to understand the meaning of the words. If you don´t understand any of the words, check their meanings below:
Town facilities vocabulary
Here are all the words and their definitions:

  • bank – a place where you keep your money
  • airport – a place where planes start and finish their journey
  • warehouse – a place where companies keep their goods until they need them
  • hotel – a place where you can stay for a night or longer
  • wood – a place with a lot of trees
  • traffic lights – a set of red, yellow and green lights that shows you whether you can go or you have to stop
  • school – a place where you can learn a lot of new things
  • train station – a place where trains start and finish their journeys
  • apartment house – a building with a lot of apartments
  • house -a place where people live
  • skyscraper – a very high building
  • city centre – the buildings in the middle of a town or a city
  • church – a place where people worship
  • fire station – a place where firemen keep their equipment
  • shopping centre – a place where there are a lot of shops
  • park – a place with grass, trees and benches. You can relax there.
  • bridge – a structure across a river or a deep valley
  • police station – a place where the police are headquartered
  • stadium – a place where football or rugby matches are played
  • petrol station – a place where you can buy petrol
  • hospital – a place where you go when you are really sick
  • factory – a place where they make new things
  • wharf – a place where they move goods from ships to trucks or warehouses

 

To learn the correct pronunciation of these words, watch the following video and repeat the words you hear.

Once you feel that you know the vocabulary, it is time to move to the quizzes.

Town vocabulary – online quiz


Here you can choose between two options. You can either print out the worksheet and practise the vocabulary on the paper or you can do it on your computer or mobile phone.

Town vocabulary worksheet

Town vocabulary key

ONLINE QUIZ:


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To see the quiz on a full screen click the button below:
Town vocabulary online quiz

Town vocabulary – share


More often than not I teach in classrooms with no internet connection, so I realize that it is important to be able to use the activities offline too. You can download the online quiz, the game, and the picture and use them offline:
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Town

Placement test for young learners of English
Placement test for young learners of English

Placement tests are extremely important if you do not know your students well and you need to know what to teach them. Further, these tests can be used to measure whether your students made any progress during a certain period of time.
Placement tests are often professionally produced and sold for a lot of money. And as nearly every publishing house sells placement tests, they are probably in demand. However, there are very few placement tests available for young learners of English.
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Noticing this gap, I decided to design a placement test for young students. The test is aimed at children aged 8 – 10. They should have studied English for 2 or 3 years for about 3 hours per week.

Placement test

The test contains 40 items. The students should choose the correct word for each of the pictures from the line below. They should write the number of their answer in the box nearest the picture. You will need to print the placement test in colour as it is not possible in some cases to choose the correct answers without seeing the pictures in colour.

YLE placement test

How to interpret the results?


You can either give the test to the students at the beginning of the school year and then compare the results with the same test at the end of the year and see the progress.

Or you can use the following interpretation:

  • 40-35 The student knows everything from the textbooks Happy House 1, Happy House 2 and Happy Street.
  • 34-20 The student knows everything from the textbooks Happy House 1 and Happy House 2.
  • 19-10 The student knows everything from the textbook Happy House 1 and should move to Happy House 2.
  • 9-0 The student should start with the textbook Happy House 1.

More placement tests


If you do not teach young learners and you need a placement test, you can find a free one here.
If you would like to know how many words your students know, you can try the vocabulary placement tests here.
Or if you would like to have your proficiency level checked professionally, you can find information at the British Council site.
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You can find some information about the Oxford online placement test here.

Weather vocabulary
Weather vocabulary

Weather is one of the most common conversational topics in Britain. Therefore, if you know the basic vocabulary, you can talk to 60 million people. With 60 million conversation opportunities, it is well worth the little effort you need to put in.
To make it as enjoyable as possible, there are several activities to help you learn all the words: a pictionary, a worksheet, a video and an interactive test.
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Weather – infographic


You can learn the vocabulary using the following infographic or pictionary:

Weather forecast vocabulary

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words in the following video:

After you learn the words, it is time to practise using the new vocabulary. First, you can try the following worksheet. Try to solve all of the puzzles.

Weather vocabulary – quiz


The following interactive quiz is made in HTML5, so it will play on all mobile devices. Therefore, you can practise all of the words wherever you are.

If you would like to display the quiz on the entire screen, click the button below:

Weather vocabulary – further resources


You can find a lot of information about weather at British Council site.

I like the following songs about weather:

Learn 10 words in twenty minutes
Learn 10 words in twenty minutes

This is the third post which contains ten new words for intermediate students. The words are among the 4,000 most frequent words in English. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation’s list of words. If you have missed the first post on vocabulary, you can find it here. The second post Learn 10 words in 21 minutes is here.
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I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new vocabulary. To achieve this, there are a worksheet, a mind map with the words, an interactive exercise and a video with the correct pronunciation.

Vocabulary Lesson 3 – infographic

First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. Be careful with the memory aids, though. They work perfectly for me, but it does not mean that they will work for you. If you feel they are unhelpful, just skip them. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.
Vocabulary 4000 mind map

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words with the native speaker.

Vocabulary Lesson 3 – interactive quiz

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices. If you pass the quiz you can play the game Indiara as a reward.


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Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above or you prefer working on a paper, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary part 4_ws

Vocabulary part 4_key

Office equipment vocabulary
Office equipment vocabulary

Most of the people who learn English spend their life in an office. Therefore it is neccessary for them to learn the names of the equipment there.
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In this post I introduce 25 office vocabulary items in an infographic and a video. You can then practise all the words in interactive quizzes (over 70 quiz questions) and in a paper worksheet. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can share the activities.

Office Equipment – infographic


The following infographic contains 25 vocabulary items. Students should first study the picture and try to remember the meaning of the words.

Office vocabulary infographic

You can practise or learn the correct pronunciation of the words in the following video. Simply, listen and repeat:

Office Equipment – quizzes


The activities above are ideal to introduce the words and their meaning. However, to really learn the words, you have to use them and practise them. In the following quizzes you have to produce the words and thus there is a bigger chance that you will remember them.
The first quiz is interactive and as it is in HTML 5, it will play on any mobile device.

Office equipment – full screen quiz

If you do not like doing quizzes on the screen, you can print out the following pdf files and use them instead. There are several tasks to practise all the words.

Office vocabulary worksheet

Office vocabulary key

Office vocabulary – share

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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Office Vocabulary

Kitchen tools and equipment
Kitchen tools and equipment

It is very popular to teach vocabulary in lexical sets. It is easier to explain the meaning and you can present quite a few items at one time. Moreover, the presentation can look good and induce the students to study the words.
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Surprisingly, research shows that it is not so effective as teaching unrelated items. But you still can learn and teach quite a lot of words if you want to. In this post I am going to teach 26 items you can find in a kitchen. There are kitchen tools and other equipment.

Kitchen Equipment – infographics


The following infographic contains 26 vocabulary items. Students should first study the picture and try to remember the meaning of the words.

kitchen tools and equipment
© Macrovector | Dreamstime.com

You can practise or learn the correct pronunciation of the words in the following video. Simply, listen and repeat:

Kitchen Equipment – quizzes


The methods above are fine to introduce the words and their meaning. However, to really learn the words, you have to use them. In the following quizzes you have to produce the words and thus there is a bigger that you will remember them.
The first quiz is interactive and as it is in HTML 5, it will play on any mobile device.

Kitchen equipment – full screen quiz

If you do not like doing quizzes on the screen, you can print out the following pdf files and use them instead. There are several tasks to practise all the words.

Kitchen words_key

Kitchen words_ws

If you would like to have all the exercises in one file, download the following file. Moreover, there is the picture with blank gaps and thus it can serve as an ideal exercise to practise the vocabulary.

kitchen and tools vocabulary_full

Kitchen vocabulary – share

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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KITCHEN EQUIPMENT (Web)

Learn 10 words in 21 minutes

This is the second post which contains ten new words for intermediate students. The words are among the 4,000 most frequent words in English. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation’s list of words. If you have missed the first post on vocabulary, you can find it here.
I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new words. This time it will take a bit longer as there are more exercises in the print version and there is the video with the pronunciation of the words.
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Vocabulary Lesson 2 – infographic

First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.
Vocabulary infographic 03

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words with the native speaker.

Vocabulary Lesson 2 – interactive quiz

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices. If you pass the quiz you can play a game as a reward.


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Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above or you prefer working on a paper, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary_4000_set003_ws
Vocabulary_4000_set003_key

Learn 10 new words in 16 minutes
Learn 10 new words in 16 minutes

There is the famous quote which says that you can say very little without grammar but you can say nothing without vocabulary. I completely agree, and that is why I have created the following post. I aim to teach intermediate students 10 new words.
In this post I am going to teach the words that are among the 4,000 most frequent words. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation´s list of words.
I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new words quickly.
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Vocabulary Lesson 1 – mind map

First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.
Vocabulary infographics 02

Vocabulary Lesson 1 – interactive quiz

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices.


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Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary_4000_02 worksheet
vocabulary_4000_02_key

Will for the future
Will for the future

There are many different ways to speak about the future in English. You can find all of them in the previous posts on future tenses at Will or be going to or at Be going to post. In this post I would like to explain and teach the usage of WILL for speaking about the future. You are going to find a mind map, a story about WILL and several interactive exercises here. I hope you will find this post useful.

Will for the future – mind map


First study the form of WILL in the following mind map:
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Will mind map

Once you present the form of the verb WILL it is time to explain the usage. I prefer using stories when explaining the grammar. I do it this way because stories are more memorable than just a simple explanation. You can create your own story or you can use mine. If you are afraid that your students´ English is not good enough you can tell the story in their Mother tongue.

The story about WILL


Ever since Will was born he was strange.
He looked like a normal boy but he wasn’t. He irritated people with his behaviour. He simply talked too much
For example when he was at school he always wanted to help other people. But while other children helped without any words WILL always spoke.
“I, Will, help you, sir,” he shouted when he saw the teacher carrying a lot of things.
“I, Will, clean the board,” he jumped up another time.
Of course, his friends did not like it and soon they started to say ironically.
“I will do it.” or “She will do it.”
As I say, Will talked too much. And he liked talking about his opinions.
“I think …” were his favourite words. And as children did not like him they soon parroted.
“He thinks it WILL rain.” “I think I WILL earn a lot of money.“
And one day another strange thing happened. Will’s eyes went big and he started to predict the future.
“There be people on the Moon. We fly to Mars.”
But children did not believe him and they laughed even more.
“There WILL BE people on the Moon. We WILL fly to Mars,” they screamed all over the school.
Nowadays no one remembers Will or his behaviour at school but ever since people still say “I will do it,” when they decide at the moment of speaking to help anyone.
We still say “I think she will fail.” when we express our opinions about the future.

And when we predict something we say “People will not use tablets in 10 years time.”

No one remembers the nerd WILL but his name is there in the sentences.

WILL for the future – practice

You can watch a bit different video explanation the usage of the will form here:

Once you think your students understand the grammar you can try the following quiz:


WILL – full screen quiz

WILL for the future – leave a comment and learn

WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE YEAR 2015.

Write your opinions into the comments and I will correct them and inform you about your grammar.

WILL for the future – share

If you do not have the internet connection in the classroom you can download the quiz and presentation here. Moreover, you can place these at your blog or website 🙂
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Will explanation

Please rate this post below. Our previous post on adverbs of Frequency scored 4.49 stars. Do you think this one is better?

Christmas activities
Christmas activities

Christmas is coming and it is always a good idea to have several Christmas activities up your sleeve. Here are the things I love to do when I teach the Christmas lesson.

Christmas – song


There are many different Christmas songs. I always play three or four traditional English carols, but I always prepare an original song the students have never heard before. This year I have prepared the following song.
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I ask my students to listen and complete the following lyrics:
Christmas time song
If you are looking for more Christmas songs, there is a nice one on British Council page.

Christmas – song


Once I we are over the song I love to present Christmas in Great Britain. I use the following mind map.
Christmas mind map vocabulary better
I print out the mind map and then I display it on the IWB. I start from the top and explain that 24th December is called Christmas eve and that people in Britain and America get ready for the Christmas day. I present each vocabulary item and explain it to my students or elicit their knowledge.
I go like this till the 26th December.
Once you have presented the vocabulary, you can test your students’ knowledge in the following game:

Christmas vocabulary quiz

Christmas – Czech Traditions


Of course it is great if students can speak about the British or American Christmas traditions but the foreigners are always interested in your own traditions. That is why it is necessary to be able to speak about the local traditions.
As I teach in the Czech Republic, I have prepared a short text about the Czech traditions. You can find the text, recording and several quizzes over here:

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Czech Christmas traditions

Christmas – Download


Would you like to download the song and use it in offline? As we cannot distribute more than 10,000 copies you have to complete the following form and we will send the video and MP3 file ASAP.
Please note, that you cannot distribute the song further!!!

So, merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Telling time in English
Telling time in English

Telling the time is something I have to teach every year. And to be honest I have not been very successful. Even gifted adults struggled.
And this year I faced even bigger challenge. I was supposed to teach this to a group of challenged children who cannot tell the time in their MT. So I prepared some new materials and … And I did it.
And here is how.
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Telling time – mind map


We started with the following mind map. I asked the children to learn the words for each time.

Telling the time mind map

Then I demonstrated telling the time in English using one of the PAST times. I told them that they have to start with the minutes and then add the clock. The WOW moment came and I was really happy. Then I showed them how to work with the blue phrases. They soon understood that they have to add 1 to the number of clocks.

Telling time – classroom activities


Of course it is nice to understand something but only practise makes masters. So here are several activities we have tried in our class.
First, we played bingo. I dictated the times and the students crossed them out. The winner (3 times in a row) shouted Bingo.
Another variation of the same game is that the students tell the time. Ask each student to choose one time on his card and tell it. The others listen and if they have it on their cards they cross it out.

Telling the time – bingo cards

The other activity is a pair work. Each student gets a card and they dictate their times to their partner.

Telling the time – pairwork

Telling time – computer activities


If you want to provide home practice for your students you can use the following activities. First, you can ask your students to choose the correct time according to what they hear:

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Telling the time – listening

In the second quiz students are asked to write the time correctly. Both quizzes are in HTML5 so they will play anywhere.

Telling the time – produce

You can find another interesting game to practice language connected with time at British Council time.

Telling time – share


Do you like the activities? You can share them on your blog or website. Or if your classroom does not have the internet connection you can use these activities too. The only limitation is that you must not sell the activities.
telling_the_time

Common mistakes – holidays
Common mistakes – holidays

The mistakes students make are ideal for learning. They are much more complicated than any mistakes in textbooks and it is more motivating to correct your own mistakes. Moreover, students often make mistakes in areas not covered by textbooks or covered on a place which is remote from the time when the student makes the mistake. That is why I collect my students’ mistakes and try to deal with them.
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This collection of mistakes comes from my students´ essays about their last holidays. I hope that they will help you or your students avoid these mistakes in the future.

Common mistakes – mind map


There is the collection of the mistakes in a mind map. In the first column there are the wrong sentences. In the second column there are the corrected versions of the sentences. The third column contains the explanations.
Common mistakes connected with holiday

If you use this mind map in a classroom it might be a good idea to explain the mistake yourself and ask the students to fill in the explanations in their own words into the mind map below.
Common mistakes connected with holidays with empty gaps

Common mistakes – games


I have produced two games to practise the correct versions of the wrong sentences. The first game is called Basketball and your task is to choose the correct answer and then stop the sliders in the middle of the basket. Can you score ten time?
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Common Mistakes Basketball

The second games is a simple quiz. Answer the questions correctly and then play the game called Word boggle. All the answers are based on the mistakes from the mind maps above.

Common Mistakes Quiz

Common mistakes – Classroom ideas


I love using the following activity with my classrooms. It comes from the book Teaching Unplugged by Scott Thornbury and Medding. Before the lesson I write each sentence on a separate slip of paper and I hang them around the classroom (do not forget to number the slips). Then I ask my students to take a piece of paper and write the correct versions of the sentences on the paper. They can help each other as much as they feel necessary.
Once most of the class have finished, I elicit the correct version of each sentence. It is a nice and really useful activity.

You can find some interesting activities connected to holidays at British Council pages.
If you prefer a game-like activities, there are several at British Council pages again.

Common mistakes – Share


It is a common problem that many teachers have interactive whiteboards but no internet connection. You can download the games here and use them offline or on your webpages. However, you are not allowed to sell any of the activities on this site.

Common mistakes holiday

Alphabet – audio-lingual method
Alphabet – audio-lingual method

When I started teaching the English alphabet I was really sure that it will be fun and easy to achieve. My students had no problem learning the alphabet itself, but when they should have used it, they were making a lot of mistakes. I have tried everything. We tried using finger alphabet, some information gap exercises where spelling was necessary and so on. However, all these activities had very poor results. Seeing my failure I decided to create an audio-lingual computer based activity. It is a simple drill but I believe that those who will pass the test will be able to spell correctly.

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Alphabet – introduction


As I write above learning the alphabet from A to Z was no problem. The students were greatly helped by several alphabet songs and games. The best ones came from British Council pages on alphabet. We really enjoyed these.
To help my students more I have created the following mind map. I hope you will find it useful too:

Alphabet mind map

Alphabet – audio-lingual quiz


I tried to find some recordings with spelling but I was shocked that I managed to find only two of them in different textbooks. So I had to created some myself. I asked a native speaker to spell 25 different English words and these I put into the following quiz. You should listen and then write the words you hear. It is not easy and the passing score is really high. Will you succeed?
At the end there is a game for you. Both the quiz and the game are in HTML5 so they will play on any mobile device too.

Alphabet – Audio-lingual quiz

Alphabet – Treasure hunt

My students love this game. Even more so, if I bring a reward for the winners.

Start the game and display the grid. Call the students to say a pair of letters and then click on the appropriate square. If they do not hit the treasure blue square appears. Call the students randomly. The one who finds the treasure gets the reward.

There are two slides with the grid so, you can play two games.

Alphabet – share


If you do not have an internet connection you might find the following files useful. You can upload the files to your own site or use them off-line.

Alphabet (Web)

Countries and nationalities
Countries and nationalities

States and nationalities gamesThere are many different states and nationalities in the world and we cannot know all of them. However, it is necessary that you know your own nationality and the name of your state. Moreover, I think that you should know at least the names of the most populous countries. That is why I have created the following post. There is a video presentation of 15 countries and nationalities. Then there are these states presented in a mind map and several quizzes to practice the new vocabulary.
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Countries and Nationalities – video


Here is a video presentation of all the countries and nationalities taught in this post. Each country and nationality is pronounced by a native speaker and there is their flag.

Next you can listen and sing the following song and try to solve the quiz here. If you succeed you can play a tic-tac-toe game against the computer.

Countries and Nationalities – mind map


After watching the videos above you can ask the students to fill in the following mind map with the correct states and nationalities. If you do not want to teach the nationalities, you can ask your students to fill in the name of the state and all the things they can say in English about each state. (e.g. Italy, pasta, Rome).

Countries and nationalities mind map

Countries and Nationalities – games


Here you can find all the states and nationalities in the wordsearch.

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And finally, here is a game Teacher invaders to practise all that you know.



 

Dates – adaptive learning
Dates – adaptive learning

Adaptive learning has been the new buzz word in Language teaching community for some time. It sounds so promising. Students will learn only those things they do not know and they will practise what is needed for them to remember. And of course everything will be computer based and the students will be able to learn at the moments they feel like it.
Sounds great, however there are many pitfalls. I recommend the text on Adaptive learning and teaching at http://the-round.com/resource/a-short-guide-to-adaptive-learning-in-english-language-teaching/. To show you how such an adaptive learning activity could look, I have created a simple adaptive learning activity on Dates.
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It is really simple, because it will repeat the thing the student does not master only once. Ideally the programme should offer a different explanation (based on your mistakes) each time you fail to learn something. Here I mostly offer the same explanation, but I have tried this in one case.

Dates – activities


The aim of the adaptive learning activity is to teach ordinal numbers from 1 to 12 and the months.
Thus at the end the students will be able to form Dates in English using the ordinal numbers from first to twelfth (plus twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-first). If you want to teach the all the dates go to the following post on DATES .

Here is the adaptive learning activity. As it is in HTML 5 it should work on any device. Just follow the instructions and if you learn all the dates you will be give a chance to play a game. Enjoy.

If you would like to see the adaptive learning activity on the full screen click the button:

Dates – adaptive learning

Dates – Share


At some schools there is a problem with the internet connection. That is why you can download the following file and use the activity offline with your students. Moreover, you can upload the activity to your site and share it there. No strings attached 🙂

DATES_html5 (Web)