Late but not never!

This past week, our methods class has been conducting lessons for each other in some fascinating contexts; I wanted to record some of the cool activities from my favorite groups (to quote Dr. Elaine Horwitz).

Several of my favorite books used songs to integrate listening, reading, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar. Of course, this was a hit. Today we heard "Who wears short shorts" as part of an beginners' ESL lesson about clothing. The video they used was a wonderful old 1950s rock video, but the only one I can find is this short commercial for Nair. My favorite group used "Dos Gardenias" performed by Maria Rita for a beginning Spanish lesson on expressions of love. My other favorite group used Hi5 to appeal to small children. I had never heard of this show, but apparently it is popular with small children.

My other favorite group did not use a song. They used a really cool game of Clue. I will link to Mieca's site and ask her to share the title of the book where they found the activity.

Vivian Flanzer gets credit for sharing another really cool activity. We've all heard of Role Play activities, but Vivian puts a twist on it. She writes up a scenario that incorporates the target vocabulary and theme for the lesson. Two partners will have different information, and she makes a special point of letting the partners surprise each other. This creates a more spontaneous, exciting activity than the usual ones that I have seen.

More soon to come!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FREE (and almost-free) ESL Classes in Austin

Learning a new language is hard.  If you have money to devote to learning English, I highly recommend you study where I work!  UT ESL is awesome! However, sometimes paying for courses is not possible.  Austin provides many free or almost-free opportunities to learn English.  Here is an incomplete list.  The Austin Public Library has a great list of ESL Classes around town.  I will replicate it in part below, with my own commentary, but their list is more complete. UT hosts a free ESL course that is taught by master teachers and practicing teacher interns.  They provide a free class that the students can practice teaching, and ESL students can get an excellent, challenging free classes, Monday through Friday from 5:00 - 7:00.  Space is very limited, so watch the website or get on the e-mail list for information on how to register. Manos de Cristo provides almost-free ($20/semester) classes with morning and evening schedules.  They...
Read more

Reading and Writing WHILE IMPROVISING AND COLLABORATING

Hi all, I'm going to do two posts about reading and writing, because this seems like a good place to get on my soap box about Group Improvised Story Telling and Writing! During the past three years, my students and I have really enjoyed and learned from a style of teaching that is somewhat based on a method popularized by Blaine Ray called TPRS . Many people glance at that acronym and think "Total Physical Response," the teaching method developed by James Asher in the 1950s -- and images of children playing Simon Says jump to mind. Now, I am a fan of Simon Says and other teaching strategies that utilize students' kinetic intelligence and physical memory, but for me TPRS has little to do with that. I think TPRStories.com does a good job of explaining TPRS. The authors discuss Dr. Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis, which suggests that we learn languages receptively through high-interest, meaning-focused input that is just a little more difficult than we can produc...
Read more

ESL Resources at the Austin Public Library!

Teachers -- do you ever want to refer your students to places they can practice their English outside of class? Well, the city of Austin has a wealth of opportunities! The New Immigrant Project at the Austin Public Library was an eye-opener. They have a wall full of brochures for classes around the Austin area, including English conversation practice in the library. They also have a substantial collection of Pimsleur books, Inglés Sin Bareras, and many other audio-books, DVDs, dictionaries. You can use it in the library on their computers and tape-deck, or you can check them out with a library card. How does your student get a library card? IT'S EASY! I got one today; all you need is a photo ID and a proof of residence in Austin (could be a bill that was delivered to your address, for example -- I printed my UT address information from the computers upstairs; the librarians are extremely helpful!). Also, if you want the library to carry a text book that you use in your clas...
Read more