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It Works in Practice 114

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15 views2 pages

It Works in Practice 114

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will quest
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© © All Rights Reserved
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IT WORKS

IN PRACTICE
More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all worked for
ETp readers. Try them out for yourself – and then send us your own contribution.
All the contributors to this issue will receive a digital subscription to
Modern English Teacher.

LOST AND FOUND One day, I was walking to the subway to go to university.
| I looked down and saw a €50 bank note on the floor. At
Mark Trevarton, Bangkok, Thailand first I thought it was fake, but I looked again and realised
The recent storytelling-themed issue of ETp reminded it was real! | Nobody else had seen it, so I picked it up
and put it in my pocket. | In the end, I decided to go to
me of my favourite storytelling lesson procedure. This
the shop and buy myself some new Levi’s jeans.
is very flexible and always goes down really well with
my students. It’s also a great, low-preparation backup 3 Now put the students into pairs and ask them to retell
the story, using their pictures to help them. Close
lesson if you are ever called upon to cover for another
monitoring is essential here to pick up on emergent
teacher at the last minute. All you will need is a sheet
language or linguistic gaps. At this point, it’s also nice
of plain paper, folded into four, for each student, and a to get students’ reactions to your story: What would
story or anecdote about losing or finding something to they have done with the money?
tell the class.
4 Elicit the story back from the class, writing it up on the
1 Start by setting a context – typical warmer questions board, bit by bit. When it’s all there, you can bring in a
will do, eg Have you ever lost or found anything? Get focus on particular language points. In my story, it could
an atmosphere of sharing and communicating going, be narrative tenses, pronunciation of -ed endings and
and elicit any useful vocabulary. consonant–vowel linking (picked it up = ‘pick ti tup’),
2 Now tell the students the story (mine is about when I discourse markers, or anything you noticed while
found something). I tell it in four short sections, monitoring. Some form of brief controlled practice might
pausing for a minute between each one. During the be useful to help the new language stick.
pauses, the students draw a quick picture in one 5 Now it’s the students’ turn! Ask them to turn over their
section of their folded papers to help them remember papers and draw pictures to help them tell their own
the section of the story I have just told – a quick story (in this case, of when they lost or found something).
sketch is all that is required, they don’t need to be
6 There are various ways you can proceed now.
Picasso. My story goes like this:
Student A can show their pictures to Student B, who
guesses the story before Student A says what really
happened. Or Student A tells the story to Student B,
who draws pictures and retells the story to Student
C. The important thing is that this can be repeated
again and again, so that the students can refine their
storytelling and language at each stage with
feedback from peers or teacher.

7 As an optional follow-up, ask the students to write


up their story (or a partner’s). This could be done
for homework.

The beauty of this procedure is its flexibility. You can adapt it


to any topic or language point that can be encapsulated within
a story. It could be anything from ‘causative forms’ to ‘last
time I cooked dinner’. Students enjoy the creativity of drawing,
and it acts as a good focal point to help them process and
produce language. It also comes tried and tested at all levels
and ages – primary kids, IELTS Speaking Part 2, elementary
business students, the lot – so give it a go! n

32 Issue 114 • January 2018 www.etprofessional.com


IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

THREE VOCABULARY ACTIVITIES Quizlet live


This activity focuses on vocabulary revision and can be
Jamie Clayton, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
used with any recently-studied lexical set. You will need to
The activities described below are three particularly fun sign up to Quizlet at quizlet.com and create a set of
and challenging ways to work with vocabulary. They can vocabulary flashcards for your class. Here are some ideas
be used to liven up EAP vocabulary procedures, make for creating flashcards on Quizlet which involve the
pedagogically sound use of mobile phones in class with students in matching up pairs:
young learners or adults, or simply to add some variety to
the usual vocabulary games that teachers play. All three
activities are suitable for students at A1 level and above.

L2–L1–L2 board translation lists


The vocabulary focus of this activity can be any recently-
studied lexical set.
1 Get the students to line up in two teams facing the
board. Have them race to write up a vertical list of a full
set of recently-studied vocabulary. The order they write
the words in is not important.
2 Ask the students in each team to work together to write
an L1 translation next to each word.
3 Once both teams have done their translations, erase
just the English list, leaving the L1 one.
4 Now move the teams over so each works on the other
■■  ord + definition (eg exhausted + the feeling when
W
team’s list. Ask them to write the English words next to
you are very tired)
the L1 list. (If you don’t swap lists here, the students
can do this stage using memory only, which takes away ■■ Word + opposite (eg exhausted + energised)
a lot of the challenge. Using the other team’s list also ■■ Word + L1 translation (eg exhausted + me̥ t lám)
allows for discussion in the next step.) ■■ One half of a word + the other half (eg exhau + sted)
5 Ask each team to circle any L1 translations that they ■■  ne half of a chunk + the other half (I was so
O
think might have been wrong. The teams then get exhausted + that I slept straight away)
together and discuss these translations, trying to come
to an agreement over the best translation. With lower 1 In class, go to quizlet.com, select one of your
levels, allow these discussions in L1. vocabulary sets and click on the ‘Live’ button. Give
your students the game code that appears on screen.
Google Voice Search
The focus here is on the pronunciation of the target vocabulary. 2 Get your students to go to quizlet.live on their phones
and enter the game code.
1 After studying the meaning of a set of words, ask the
students to circle the words from the set that they are 3 Put the students into teams and get them to sit
having most difficulty in pronouncing correctly. together and play the game.
2 Tell the students to get their phones out and Variation: If you don’t mind the noise, ask players from the
go to Google Voice Search. (They can same teams to stand on opposite sides of the classroom so
download the Google app for free.) When the that they have to communicate across the space in between
app is opened, there is a microphone symbol in order to win the game. n
which, when pressed, allows the voice search function.
3 Ask them to search for their circled words by saying IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
them to Google. Only intelligible pronunciation will
result in the correct item being searched, so the Do you have ideas you’d like to share with
students can see immediately if what they are saying colleagues around the world? Tips,
can be understood. techniques and activities; simple or
4 You can ask the students to note one piece of extra sophisticated; well-tried or innovative;
information about each word they search for by clicking something that has worked well for you?
on one of the dictionary links that will appear in a All contributions win a prize!
successful search result. This information could be a Write to us or email:
collocation, an example sentence from the dictionary, [email protected]
etymological information, a synonym, an antonym or
the rendering of the word in phonemic script.

www.etprofessional.com Issue 114 • January 2018 33

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