Lesson Plan Ideas for the Busy Teacher: ESL Flow

The end of the long day has finally come. It's time to wind down and... plan the next exciting lesson for tomorrow's class. A new teacher has many ambitions, but one thing about teaching is that work usually continues after classes are finished for the day. Either you might have office hours, or more likely you will spend your “free” time whipping up some activities related to your lesson themes.

During my first few weeks of teaching, I definitely faced this situation and quickly found a new best friend in the very popular search engine, Google. I googled my way to many excellent resources that provide effective and convenient resources for busy educators. One resource I will share in this post is ESL Flow.

ESL Flow offers lesson plans for diverse levels of English study, from low beginner to high advanced. This productive resource consists of teaching ideas, worksheets and even graphic organizers that can supplement your regular lessons. The worksheets are typically related to a particular theme or unit of study, including Jobs & Careers, Relationships, Movies & Celebrities, Describing Places, Giving Directions, and Brainstorming. ESL Flow is also an excellent tool if you are looking for simple or challenging exercises in grammar, writing, vocabulary, or reading. 

This website is definitely a one-stop resource to meet all of your teaching needs. If you ever need any new ideas to spice up your lessons, you will benefit from using ESL Flow to get your students participating in dynamic activities. My recommendation is to mix-and-match the activities to incorporate speaking, reading/writing, and listening, depending on your class goals. Good luck and have fun!

The Amazing Field Trip: Practicing English in the Real World

It’s that time of year again... students are heading back to classes and language educators are hard at work with teaching, grading, and mentoring. But one thing that most everyone looks forward to is the long-awaited class field trip!

Language programs tend to offer students with various opportunities to apply what they learn in the classroom to the “real world”, learning how to accomplish daily tasks with their English knowledge. Field trips offer language learners a chance to engage in authentic dialogues and practice listening skills, not to mention explore beautiful and sometimes exotic locations. 

As fun as field trips are, it is important to keep in mind that skipping a day of class is not meant to just relax and skip a day of learning English. There is no doubt that students will talk to each other in their native language when they are outside the classroom, or just out of hearing range of the teacher. In contrast, a school day outside is a lesson to be learned in the “real” classroom. 

Here are several ways to make sure that students practice their English while having a good time:

1.  Order Food in English

Being outside is a great opportunity for students to practice ordering food in English. Not only do they have to know the correct question format (ex: Can I please have…, I want to get…), but they are encouraged to practice their pronunciation of tricky food names. Or at the very least, they can say a meal number or point to a delicious-looking picture!

2.  Pay in Cash

Students can pay with cash to learn how to distinguish bills, coins, size, and color. They can practice listening to the cashier mention the total amount of their meal, and in a sense practice reading by counting out the correct currency. Students can also use this great opportunity to say aloud the total amount in terms of ‘dollars’ and ‘cents’ to practice numbers.

3. Scavenger Hunt

This type of activity works extremely well in museums, or any activities that take place indoors. Teachers must first figure out a general theme of the location and provide things for the students to find. A few months ago, my co-teachers and I took our students to an Egyptian Museum. They were set with a task to take pictures (using either cameras or iPhones) of subjects/items related to mummies, old weapons, Egyptian clothing, and so on.

For a follow-up lesson, the students created a slide show of the things they found to be interesting, colorful, scary, ancient, etc. and presented them to the class. With a scavenger hunt, the students end up doing all the work but also have the most fun! Additional questions could include: What was your favorite part of the field trip? What was not so pleasant?

4.  Giving Directions

This activity is actually a test of navigation skills. Depending on how many teachers are on the field trip, students will be split into small groups, with one teacher for each group (to avoid the possibility of getting lost in an unfamiliar area!). Each group will have a map of the general area (produced from Google Maps or hand-drawn by an artistic teacher, for example). Half the groups will meet at Location A. The other half will meet at Location B. They must walk on foot and find Location C as a team, speaking in English and using direction terms, body language (i.e. pointing), and lots of negotiation! The first groups to reach Location C are the “winners”.  You can even create this task to resemble a scene from The Amazing Race, with short tasks given throughout. Teamwork will eventually lead the students to victory.  :)

It is true that field trips should be exciting and memorable. These are the special times when most students form tight bonds with their classmates by joking around, enjoying the scenery, and just having fun. However, it is essential to remind students that the only way to improve their language skills, maybe slowly but steadily, is to practice English in any situation possible. After all, the world is a playground, and practice makes perfect!

Stay Informed with Breaking News English

What is Neil Armstrong famous for? How much food do Americans waste? What is the danger of global warming?  These are the tough questions that can be answered by reading the most recent articles posted on BreakingNewsEnglish.com, a superbly thorough and meaningful resource site for language educators. The concept of this website is simple enough: Current events from around the world are written in plain English, with no unnecessary news jargon that requires you to look up every other word in the dictionary. Half a page of news worthy material is strategically condensed to a maximum of two paragraphs, keeping the meaning and interesting facts in the reading passage. 

Not only does the website creator Sean Banville do an excellent job with the news articles, he provides an extensive lesson plan (enough for about 2 hours+ of class!) for each article. The extra activities help the students actively engage with the written material, not only by absorbing information but also by sharing opinions. This may be a good time to say that the news content is most appropriate for students in the High Intermediate to Advanced class levels.

Despite the abundance of a variety of news articles that discuss different events, the lesson plans always follow a similar structured format to keep things organized and facilitates easy learning habits. I would like to break down each section of the lesson plan and share my thoughts about how each part can be used effectively in the language classroom.

Warm-Ups

This section consists of many good ideas for encouraging the students to work in pairs. Some ideas include discussions about the most interesting and boring words/concepts in the article, completing a table about the subject (ex: sharing opinions),  debating about beliefs, ranking concepts from best to worst, and writing word associations. All these activities promote active thinking and clear expressions of opinions, but it may be best to choose just one or two to get the ball rolling.

Before Reading/Listening

This section includes questions to show what the students already know prior to reading or listening to the article. This includes True/False statements, synonym match (similar meanings of words), and phrase match. These can be used as small group or pair work activities, and answers can be discussed as a whole class.

While Reading/Listening

Creating English sentences is like a jigsaw puzzle. Words that correspond to different parts of speech must fall into the correct place in the sentence: nouns come after articles, adjectives come before nouns, and so on.  One activity in this section is the Gap Fill: students must fill in each blank with one correct word that they can choose from a word list on the side. This exercise tests logical reading skills. Another activity in this section is for students to fill in each blank with the word they hear, given the context of the story. The teacher (or an advanced student) can be chosen to dictate the script. 

After Reading/Listening

It is important to follow any reading activity with review activities to ensure understanding and comprehension. This section offers several different ways to review the reading, including a word search (finding collocations to the given words), article questions, vocabulary (circling and discussing unclear words), and testing each other with word meanings.

Survey

Students have a chance to interview their fellow classmates with three questions that they create relating to the topic. When everyone is finished, the teacher can call on some students to share their answers. 

Discussion

This is my favorite activity in the lesson plan for pair discussions. Student A gets a set of 10 questions relating to the subject matter, and interviews Student B.  After Student B answers the questions, he/she will ask the other 10 questions to Student A.  After all students are finished, the teacher can select a few questions to prompt a comprehensive class discussion.

Language – Multiple Choice

This section allows students to choose the correct fill-in-the-blank answer from the given four choices. This can be used as a pre-reading activity or post-reading (comprehension) activity.

Writing

This section allows students to write freely for 10 (or more) minutes about the given topic. After writing, students can exchange papers for peer editing .

Homework

Some homework ideas provided in the lesson plans include searching for more information about the topic on the Internet, making a poster to display the findings, and writing a magazine article about interesting facts. It is up to the teacher to decide what homework activities work best for the class.

At the end of each lesson plan, you will find the correct answers for the various reading comprehension activities.  Perhaps the best thing about these activities is that they are adaptable to student level, student interest, and class time. Unless you plan to devote the entire class session on the news and current events, it is possible you will not use everything. It is helpful to pick and choose what your students need the most help on, what kind of activities you want them to practice (ex: reading, listening, vocabulary acquisition, sharing opinions, etc.), and what will grab the students’ attention.

Reading about current events and engaging in discussion is now more exciting and meaningful. Go ahead and check out the breaking news!

Practical Uses of Post-It Notes in the Language Classroom

Teachers lead busy lives. You may have used post-it notes before to jot down important reminders, such as appointment times, upcoming test dates, and a last minute shopping list. But these little sticky notes that come in a variety of colors and cute designs are not only meant to be reminder pads… they can also be used as a simple yet effective teaching/learning tool. I would like to share three practical ways to liven up the language learning experience for your students by using post-it notes.

1. Vocabulary Review

The process of learning and reviewing vocabulary words can be dry and mundane. Repeating the same activity over and over can just become a boring task for the students, so adding some variety when teaching vocabulary can make students energized and excited to apply their new knowledge. As much as possible, it is important to have students get involved in the learning process. 

Activity: Vocabulary Challenge      (High Beginner +)

Each post-it note has a vocabulary word that had been taught in the unit. The students will choose a note, and write the definition and a sentence for the word they receive. Then, they get into small groups and create some “test questions” together using the information. For example, they can make a crossword puzzle out of the words (with the definitions as hints), or fill-in-the-blank sentences (using contextual clues). At the end of class, every student solves the questions and check answers together.

2. Facilitate Questions

Another way to use post-it notes is to practice asking questions. Asking and answering questions is perhaps one of the most important skills L2 learners should acquire, as it keeps a conversation going in a meaningful direction.  However, it is also one of the more difficult aspects of language learning due to sentence structure, word placement, and intonation.

Activity: The WH- Questions         (Beginner +)

Each post-it note has one of the WH words: Who, What, When, Where, Why.  The student chooses one note at random, and he or she is prompted to ask a question relating to the content of the academic unit being taught. One of the other students will volunteer to answer the question.

Activity: Open/Closed Questions    (High Beginner +)

Each post-it note has a vocabulary word relating to the particular theme of the unit. The student chooses one note, and asks an open question (informative) or closed question (Yes/No) to the person sitting next to him or her. The student will answer the question, and the activity continues until everyone has had a turn.

3. Games

Activity: Who am I / What am I     (Low Intermediate +)

Students tend to enjoy guessing games, which are great ways to learn question formation and review what they already know or just learned. 

One game is called “Who am I?“ Each post-it note has the name of a famous person on it. Students will go around the room and ask each other Yes/No questions (“Am I…”) to figure out who they are. For example, they can ask about gender, age, occupation, height, and so on. Similar to this game is “What am I?” Each post-it note has the name of something that is non-human, such as names of vegetables, objects, or animals. Students will go around the room and ask each other Yes/No questions (“Am I…”) to figure out what they are. For example, they can ask about size, color, taste, and so on.

Before you head out to your next class, make sure to pick up the post-it notes that are lying around your house and take advantage of a great teaching tool.  

Get the Ball Rolling with Stickyball.net

You are an educator. A hard-working, patient, and determined educator striving to make a change in the lives of the students you teach. But sometimes, life just gets in the way of planning your lessons... running errands, gym workout, going out to dinner with those special people in your life, and simply the desire to balance your work life with a healthy social life.

If you find yourself in a time crunch and need to plan a lesson for (let's say) tomorrow morning's class, it is wise to utilize a reputable ESL resource that you can easily find on the Internet. One such resource is called Stickyball.net. This website provides a wide selection of activities that you can use depending on what language topics you plan to teach.

ESL Writing Exercises: If you need some ideas for writing homework or warm-ups in class, this section provides the writing templates and teaching ideas for teachers. Indentation, capitalization, and paragraph organization do not come naturally to many L2 learners. The writing activities can be modified to accommodate different fluency levels.

ESL Vocabulary: Perhaps the most important part of any language learning experience is to increase vocabulary knowledge and apply the words correctly in real-life contexts. This section provides educators with the definitions of themed words and fill-in-the-blank worksheets.

ESL Dialogues: This section is especially helpful for beginning students to show how vocabulary words are used in real-life dialogue by reading the lines provided. More advanced students can create their own dialogues using the given vocabulary words and a chosen topic.

ESL Games and Activities: Being able to accompany learning with fun language activities takes time, creativity, and lots of energy. Students who learn a second language will likely remember the materials more if they are engaged in educational games and activities. Being able to interact with others and move around also makes the students stay awake!

Stickyball.net has many more ESL topics and resources that you can explore. The goal in any classroom is to first get the ball rolling, and everything will come together from there. Have fun!

Entertain with a Purpose in the Language Classroom

A full agenda is lined up for the Lesson of the Day. Grammar, writing, vocabulary… students are here to learn, not to be entertained. Maybe you have heard this statement from co-workers, or even  friends of co-workers. In my first year of teaching, this saying was so ingrained in my teaching routine that I didn’t realize why my lessons seemed so lifeless. I would notice the students’ energy level drop and sneaky eyes glance at the clock every two seconds. It came to the point that even I wondered if class was over yet. What was going on?

Flash forward to life in 2012. At times, teaching can still be a little rough around the edges, but fortunately I have come across a new motto: Entertain with a purpose. Language textbooks that are created for class use are intended to complement activities from the “real-world”, resources that teachers have to find or create to accommodate student levels and needs. To create an energetic learning environment, you must show the energy vibe yourself. Try to make your class more dynamic by implementing music, puzzles, role-plays, game-show themed vocabulary review, or YouTube videos to illustrate the main take-away ideas. 

One great site to check out is ESL Topics: Making Teaching Fun. This site offers “free and easy-to-use printable classroom activity handouts for teachers.” No matter what class you are teaching, the most valuable skill that students will gain is becoming a better communicator, whether it is through writing, listening, or speaking. This site offers different topics to supplement your lessons, including: Word Banks, Vocabulary Quizzes, Interactive Crosswords, Word Searches, Discussion Activities, Advice Columns, Board Games, and Bonus Handouts.  

In particular, the use of role-play dialogues and advice columns has proved to be the most applicable in many students’ lives, due to the nature of dealing with everyday problems and scenarios. So have some fun while teaching, and explore the possibilities of entertaining with a purpose!

Conversation Strips in the Language Classroom

I must admit that I use a lot of worksheets to supplement English lessons that I teach. Grammar activities, conversation scenarios, reading passages, I have seen plenty and used a variety of printed resources. However, I am definitely wary of wasting paper in this Go Green environment, especially if I print things that I never use but keep in a "just-in-case" folder. Before I go print crazy with the abundant resources on the Web, I am now thinking of ways to reduce paper and in theory, increase more student engagement in the language learning classroom. Instead of looking down at the assigned papers, students will be looking around at each other!

One activity (strategy) that is highly adaptable to fit any class level and lesson theme is the use of conversation strips. You can fit about 25 strips on one piece of paper by creating a Table template; all you have to do is write appropriate statements/questions for the class and cut them out before the next lesson. For more advanced classes, you can even have the students write relevant topics on the strips as a warm up activity! In a listening or conversation class, students can go around and ask each other questions or tell each other quotes from the strips, expecting a detailed response from classmates. In a reading class, you can have students pull out different writing prompts from a fun bag, container, or a silly hat; they will each have to write about the topic they chose for a certain length of time, and to change things up, they can swap papers and read aloud (or edit) each other's work. There is room for lots of variation on how to use conversation strips.

I think that relying less on printable handouts in the classroom and more on student input is definitely one way to improve your teaching skills!