Class Ideas

If anyone’s not too sure what to do in class, one of the teachers at the high school I worked at uses this site in class. The kids like it: http://www.lyricstraining.es/

In the vein of business buzzwords, this is a great start for spreading some essential office terminology.

Concerning role play brainstorming, here’s some printable pdf’s to invoke your students’ theatric muse.

I came across this article by Siabhra Woods that discusses how such drama-based activities can create participation through placing the responsibility on the students to conduct the direction of the lesson.

Here is a website that demonstrates team-building exercises, as well as many other office-related activities, employers utilize in the work place to boost morale and strengthen professional relationships. I like these because they force the participants to take a role, more often than not comical,  in what’s going down.

http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/ – This página de web has
brazilians of worksheets that cover all the verb tenses in printable
handouts that mostly seem to be in exam format. This would be ideal if
you wanted to pull a pop quiz on your youngsters, or simply just
sequence and review afore-taught subject matter.

http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com/english/ – The English Blog provides us with a wide range of activities that tend to be more politically and
culturally geared. Basically it presents some current events
controversy, gives some feedback and highlights key terms and vocabulary. It’s something I turn to frequently when I hit writer’s block preparing for my adult classes.

http://www.esltower.com/grammarteachers.html – ESL Tower is fantastic if you’re looking for things like printable exercises. There’s a horde of visual games that break down relatively advanced themes like modal expressions and partitives.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/lev03.html – This page has
examples of student assignments and descriptions of various verb
tenses. From what I’ve seen a lot of these are reading and
interpretation exercises that incorporate different conjugations to
analyze brief narrations.

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/jan03/less.htm – Some great project ideas that are completely outlined concerning age, timing, and execution. Good for little to middle-school-aged rascals.

http://www.englishclub.com/ – I posted this one a couple of months
ago, but thought I’d make with the reiteration. My favorite aspect of
Englishclub.com is the talking point worksheets. For the older, more
advanced students these pages show how to take a topic and exhaust
every aspect of it through interrogatives.

The Origami Ball

This is my personal favorite because after the students complete all the steps you get to see them huff and puff away trying to inflate it. I’ve done this activity with students ranging from 5 to 12 years old. Be sure to emphasize key words such as fold, line, cut, blow etc. while giving instructions. During and after the project I frequently act out the steps and ask the students what I’m doing.  Además, being the holiday season you can write this off as a Christmas ornament.  All the steps for this activity can be found here

The Paper Dog

This dog is great because it’s fairly primitive but also allows the students to incorporate their own artistic ingenuity. Ideal for your younger pupils. Instructions for this dog, as well as a host of other origami animals can be found here

Holiday Origami

I really should have posted this earlier, considering we only have one week  of school left before the vacation. Anyhow, if you need any last minute ideas for holiday oriented origami I have put a link below that has a whole page of different little Christmasy projects like the tree above. Check it out  here

The Snowflake

Not exactly an origami, but what would winter be without snowflakes? If you’ve forgotten how to make these winter delights you can refresh your memory here