This is my first post on writing. I have not written a post on writing because my students do not like to write and I felt that the textbook activities were enough for them. However, as I have to observe my younger colleagues, it so happened that I saw them teaching the same thing twice. And as I got bored I started to create a lesson that I would teach using the same topic. And this post is the result of the activity.
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The aims of the lesson are these:
- To write a letter about their favourite toy with young learners.
- To learn some basic phrases for writing a letter.
- To practise their reading skills.
To achieve these objectives, I have prepared a reading activity, a vanishing drill and a worksheet with several exercises. I hope you find them useful.
[su_spacer][su_heading]Writing a letter – reading
[/su_heading][su_spacer] Print the following set of letters. Cut them and place each letter around the classroom. [su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Happy-street-1_unit-3_letters.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Eight letters for young learners[/su_button]Print the following worksheet. You need to print it in colour, otherwise your learners will not be able to complete the first task.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Writing-a-letter-happy-street.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Writing a letter worksheet[/su_button]Hand out the worksheet and tell the students to take their pens and walk around the classroom, read each letter and write whose toys are in the pictures. Students can cooperate and help each other here. This activity takes about ten minutes.
Check their answers in the end.
[su_spacer][su_heading]Writing a letter – vanishing drill
[/su_heading][su_spacer] To teach the key phrases, I have prepared the following vanishing drill. Display the first slide and read each sentence aloud. Ask your students to repeat after you. Read the slide at least twice.Display the second slide. Now, some words are missing. Ask the students to read the slide aloud (all of them at once). They have to say the words that are not there, too. Go on displaying more slides. Each time several new words vanish.
In this way, your students will learn to pronounce the words correctly and they will memorise the basic phrases from the presentation.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/writing/YLE folder/Vanishing phrases letter (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Writing a letter vanishing drill[/su_button]ADVERT:
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Writing a letter
[/su_heading][su_spacer] After finishing the drill, ask your learners to complete the exercise two on their worksheet.Check their answers and now ask them to think about their favourite toy. Elicit a few descriptions of their favourite toy and now tell them that they have to write a letter about their favourite toy.
Collect their letters at the end of the lesson and correct them. Ask the students to bring the toy they wrote about into the next lesson.
In the following lesson, ask the students to place their favourite toy on their desks. Choose several letters, read them aloud and students have to say who wrote the letter.
Recently Fluency MC and I worked on a post about body parts. In the post we presented about thirty parts of the body. We used a wonderful rap song by Jason Levine, an infographic and a quiz to teach these words.
Then Jules from English Through Music Madrid contacted me and informed me that he has a new song on body parts for young students of English. I immediately loved the song, and we agreed that I will create a post on it.
In this post you will find that great song, an infographic, a revision video and a quiz with two games. We hope you will find all these useful.
[su_spacer][su_heading]Body Parts Vocabulary – song
[/su_heading][su_spacer] Here is a song by English Through Music Madrid. First watch it with your students and then ask them to point to the body parts they hear.Next, the students can sing along.
At the end of the lesson I would recommend that they listen to the song and complete the following lyrics:
Body parts for young learners
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Body Parts Vocabulary – infographic
[/su_heading][su_spacer] Here is an infographic with all the parts from the song. It is suitable for presenting the vocabulary and for practising it. After you present the parts, drill the pronunciation and then ask the students to cover the picture on the left and label the parts on the right.
Body Parts Vocabulary – quiz
[/su_heading][su_spacer] ADVERT:[showmyadsa] The following quiz can help your students practise the body parts. They can take the quiz either at school or at home. It consists of two parts. In the first part, students should match the words and the pictures. In the second part, students have to write the words. The students will be rewarded with a game after each part of the quiz they pass. The quiz is in HTML5, so it will play on all desktops and mobile devices. [su_button url=”https://engames.eu/body parts/Body parts YLE quiz (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Body parts quiz[/su_button] [su_spacer][su_heading]
Body Parts Vocabulary – revision video
[/su_heading][su_spacer] If you want to revise the vocabulary quickly in class this video is one of the best ways to do it. Ask your students to take a piece of paper and something to write with and play the video. The students have to write the name of each body part before it is displayed. They have about 12 seconds for each word.
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
[/su_heading][su_spacer]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.
[su_spacer][su_heading]How to interpret the results?
[/su_heading][su_spacer] 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
[/su_heading][su_spacer] 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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[showmyadsa] You can find some information about the Oxford online placement test here.