USING GAMES IN CLASS

Using games in class make that learners use the language instead of thinking about learning the correct form at the same time inspire students to interact and cooperate to be spontaneous and creative using the language in a meaningful way.

Students want to take part in activities specially in competitive games aditionally, games also encourage them to keep interested in the work and a teacher can use the games to create contexts in which the language is useful.

Games allow students to practice language skills.

Something positive of using games in class is that games add relaxation and fun, most of the students enjoy the activities, so students can retain the information(vocabulary,grammar) easily, it means that can provide language practice in the various skills also,games involve  friendly competition.

A game should keep all students interested and involved at the same time, should encourage them to focus on the use of language giving them a chance to learn, practice, or review specific language material.

We have important things to consider when using games in class:

• We have to choose suitable games for example, depending of the number of students, proficiency level, cultural context, timing etc.

• We have to bring clear instructions/rules and give time limits.

• Rather demostrate than explain.

• Each game shoud have a clear purpose and achieve goals.

• We must ensure that shy or quiet students  have opportunities to participate and take part of the game.

• Games must be fun and help students to learn.

SONGS IN CLASS

In my opinion one of the best ways to teach English is using songs, 

using songs can be very effective also can make that barriers 

become smaller.

Songs can be used for a number of purpose also are considered a 

valuable pedagogical tool. Songs can help learners to improve their 

listening skills and pronunciation. Songs can also be useful tools in 

the learning of vocabulary and sentence structures.

The greatest benefit to using songs in the classroom is that they 

are enjoyable and can add interest to the classroom routine and 

potentially improve student’s motivation. On the other hand, despite 

these advantages, simply singing songs will not teach learners how 

to communicate in another language. Using songs as tasks might 

be one way of helping transfer words from songs into use, and 

maximize the potential of songs as teaching and learning tools.

 Songs can be used:

• To present a topic and practice a language point, lexis, etc.

• To focus on common learner errors in a more direct way

• To encourage extensive and intensive listening

• To stimulates discussion of attitudes and feelings

• To encourage creativity and use of imagination

• To provide a relax classroom atmosphere

• To bring variety and fun to learning.

IS TESTING GOOD FOR STUDENTS?

In my opinión, testing students is a good way to know how they are learning, in fact, tests are very important because they allow both( teacher and student) to evaluate their performance. Teacher will discover what áreas they are struggling with, also they will find out where they need to focus their attention.

Types of test

We have many different ways to test our students, and  are used to compare how much students are learning. here we have soe examples:

Multiple choice (objective test)

In this test, students have to read the directions very carefully because students  might be asked to choose one incorrect option , or to choose more tan one answer.

Students have to eliminate first any answers that are obviously wrong, they have to choose the best answer.

True / false

In these tests the statement must be 100% true, just one Word  could make a difference in the answer, so students have to read carefully.

Short answers

Short answer responses,requires no introduction and shoud be brief and to the point.

Matching type

A matching item is an item that provides a defined term and requires a student to match identifying characteristics to the correct term.

Completion types (fill in the blank)

In this test, students have to  identify characteristics and requires that student recalls the correct term.

Esssay

Essay ítem can test complex learning objectives as well as processes used to answer the question, also provide a more realistic and generalizable task for test,  Finally, these items make it difficult for students to guess the correct answers and students have tp demonstrate their writing skills as well as correct spelling and grammar.

FUNNY PRONUNCIATION ACTIVITIES

Yes. Yes! YES!

In this activity students compete to say a Word or sentence in the most extremely way they can.

For example: they can turns being as sad as posible and the saddest person wins.

Silently mouthing

In this activity, students have to recognize the word or sentences that teacher or a students is mouthing silently.

This activity is good for awareness of mouth position for english sounds.

Tongue twisters

This activity allow students to work in particular sounds or to contrast sounds.

For example:

While we were walking, we were watching Windows washers wash washington’s Windows with war washng water.

Mary Mac’s mother’s making Mary Mac marry me. My mother’s making me marry Mary Mac. Will i allways be so merry when Mary’s taking care of me? Will i allways be so merry when i marry Mary Mac?

Mr tongue twister tried to train his tongue to twist and turn, and twit and twat, to learn the letter “T”.

GRAMMAR ACTIVITIES

Sentences Family

This game is very funny; students will enjoy it and is a very good way to learn.

You only have to give a word to each student. Give some students verbs, other should get nouns or pronouns, adverbs etc (depending how advanced is your class). Then make your students walk around the classroom and find at least two or 3 students that they can create a sentence with. When all students have found a sentence to be a part of, they will have to read the sentence to the class.

 If you have free time before to finish you class, you can do it all over again! 

The Adverb Game

In this game, students will focus on adverbs that describe the manner in which something is done.

Students A will have to go out from the classroom; this student will choose a manner adverb. (for example slowly.) when the student returns to the classroom, another student B is going to give him orders.(for example: stand up, walk around the room, shut the door.)  Student A, who chooses the adverb, has to follow his classmate’s orders in the manner of his chosen adverb. (He must stand up slowly.) After the student has been given at least three orders, his classmates can guess his adverb.

Here are some adverbs that you can use:

Jerkily, seriously, sleepily, loudly, happily, angrily, strongly, silently, calmly, dramatically.

GRAMMAR TENSES

Simple Present

• We can use the simple present to express theidea that an action is repeated or usual( every year, every month, every week)

examples:

I eat an apple.

He eats an apple.

• We can use SP for facts that are believed to be true.

           Example: Cats hate mice

• Generalizations.

           Example: The moon rises in the night.

• Scheduled events in the near future.

          Example: The plane takes off at 12 o'clock tonight

Present Continuous

• We can use  PC to express the idea that something is happening now, at this very moment. It can also be used to show that something is not happening now or in thear future.

    Example: I am working on my computer.

                      I am leaving tomorrow.

Present Perfect

• We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact time is not important. You CANNOT use the Present Perfect with specific time expressions such as: yesterday, one year ago, last week, when I was a child, when I lived in Japan, at that moment, that day, one day, etc. We CAN use the Present Perfect with unspecific expressions such as: ever, never, once, many times, several times, before, so far, already, yet, etc.

    Examples: You have seen thah movie many times

                      People have traveled to the moon.

                      Have you read the book yet?

Present Perfect Continuous

• We use the Present Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and has continued up until now.

    Example: He has been sleeping for the last 3 hours.

• To talk about an action that started in the past and stopped recently.

            Example: The grass is wet becasuse it has been reaining alld day long.

• To talk about an action that started in the past and is continuing now.

            Example: i have been watching TV for 2 hours / since you left.

Simple Past

• We can use the SP to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention

 Examples: I saw a movie yesterday

                   Did you have dinner last night?

                   She washed her car.

Past Continuous

• We can use the PC to indicate that a longer action in the past was interrupted. The interruption is usually a shorter action in the Simple Past.

 Examples: I was talking on the phone when she arrived.

                   While we were having the picnic,it  started to rain.

                   While i was sleeping last night, someone stole my house.

• Actions happening in the same time in the past.

          Example:  While we were having the picnic,it  started to rain.

Past Perfect

• The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.

Examples: She had left when i arrived.

                  I had never been to an opera before  last  night.

Past Perfect Continuous

• We can use the Past Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and continued up until another time in the past ( for 10 minutes, for 3 weeks). The duration does not continue until now, it stops before something else in the past.

Examples: They had been playing soccer when the accident occurred.

                  

• To show that something started in the past  and continued up until another time in the past.

               Example: I had been living in that town for 6 years before i moved to Lima.

• We use the PPC  before another action in the past to show cause and effect.

                 Example: I was so tired. I had been working for 8 hours.

Simple Future

• SF has two different forms in English: "will" and "be going to." Although the two forms can sometimes be used interchangeably.  Both "will" and "be going to" refer to a specific time in the future.

Examples:  You are going tomeet Jane tonight.

• Use the SF for instant decisions.

 

              Example: I've left the door open ; I'll close it.

• We use the SF, when we predict a future situation.

              Example: she'll pass the exam. She's hardworking.

Future Continuous

• We use the FC for actions that will be taking place at some time in the future.

              

                 Example: When you arrived, I'll be  sleeping.

Future Perfect

• We use the FP to express ompleted action before another action in the past.

                       Examples: By tomorrow, I'll have finished my homework.

                                         You are going to have perfected your English by the time you come                                               back from the US.

Future Perfect Continuous

• The FPC is used to show that an action will continue up until a particular event or time in the future.

                            

                              Example:  She will have been working for over 9 hours by the time her

                               children arrive

 

FUN ACTIVITIES FOR WRITING

I have been reading  some articles about writing skill and i found good activities in order to students can develop this skill. i modified some activities to make them easy. If you are interested to read some articles about education, you can follow me through this blog or follow me through mi pinterest count as Melanie Ponce(Lima-Peru).

i hope you like it and put this activities in practice.

Shopping

We can use the weekly shopping trip (like grocery list) as an opportunity to help students to develop reading and writing skills.

Students will need:

Paper and pencils

What to do:

Ask students to think , what kind of things they usually buy when they go to a supermarket?.

Students have to create their own grocery list,teacher have to give  students a sheet of paper in order to they write their ideas. Teacher can provide help giving them some ideas about what they can buy, also teacher can help them with the spelling.

Shopping

We can use the weekly shopping trip (like grocery list) as an opportunity to help students to develop reading and writing skills.

Students will need:

Paper and pencils

What to do:

Ask students to think , what kind of thing they usually buy when they go to a supermarket?.

Students have to create their own grocery list,teacher have to give  students a sheet of paper in order to they write their ideas. Teacher can provide help giving them some ideas about what they can buy, also teacher can help them with the spelling

Journals 

Keeping a journal is a way for students to write down daily events and record his or her thoughts.

Students will need:

one notebook.

What to do:

We can helps students to start a journal. They can write about different topics such as making a new friend, an interesting school, university or home activity that they just have completed, or about  how students felt on the first day of class.  Teachers has to encourage them to come up with other ideas. At the end of the week, students can share some activities that they wrote on the notebook

Greetings

Everyone loves to get mail, especially when the card has been personally designed.

What you'll need:

Paper and pencils

Crayons and magic markers

What to do:

Ask your students to list the birthdays of family members, relatives, and friends. Show your students some  birthday cards with funny, serious, or thought-provoking messages. Your students can then create his or her own birthday card by using a folded piece of paper, making an attractive cover, and writing a short verse inside.

Message in a Bottle

To help students with writing. Have the students choose from these:

If a genie gave you three wishes, "What would they be?"

You found a bottle with some mysterious paper inside, "What was written on the paper?"

What to do:

After the students have written their papers, the teacher can take used water bottles and insert all  the student messages(if we dont have a bottle, we can replace it using a box) then teacher can start to read,  one by one, what the paper said.

PS: this activity can be anonimously  in order to students dont feel shamed.

I Love You the Purplest

What to do:

Have each student choose a color to write a poem about. For example, one student may entitle their poem, "I Love You the Greenest" and write about why he choose this color for example, color green reminds them of the meadown grass or the majestic pines found in the mountains.

Who Am I?

What to do:

This is a fun activity. Students have to think in 1 animal that they want to write clues about. Remember to tell students to keep it TOP SECRET! Then they have to write a little story. The really fun parts comes when it is time to exchange stories with their classmates and see if they can guess each other's animals!

TYPES OF LISTENING

DIFFERENT TYPES OF LISTENING

APPRECIATIVE LISTENING

In this kind of listening, Student’s gains pleasure/satisfaction from listening, they enjoy the story. We use appreciative listening when we are listening music, poetry.
These are personal preferences and may have been shaped through student’s experiences and expectations.



INFORMATIVE LISTENING
The aim of this listening is to concentrate and gain correct information from the speaker in this kind of listening you reserve judgment. For example in church listening to a sermon, in conferences, or while you are hearing directions or instructions, students are listening to pick out the key points to understand the message.




CRITICAL LISTENING
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass judgment on what someone else says. Students were able to recognize this kind of listening while attending a political ceremony or in a debate, in those situations, students could learn to hear the communication and identify arguments and key points.



DISCRIMINATIVE LISTENING
Here the listener is able to identify and distinguish emotions when the speaker’s change their voice tone, use of pause, etc. Someone who is expert in discriminative listening, will realize how the body language change in tone and volume to detect what the speaker is thinking and feeling
For example a person saying “its fine” with the arms crossed it means that is not fine at all. This example is very useful to identify discriminatory listening.






EMPATHIC (REFLECTIVE) LISTENING

This is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding and trust, here the listener tends to listen rather than talk.
The emphasis is to try to understand the feelings of the other person being supportive and patient.

.

Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom

Introduction

The teaching of English as a foreign language is now one of the most important subjects in most European primary schools. The implementation of English has brought along the need to establish clear objectives that are different to the ones traditionally assigned to secondary schools. While in secondary schools we still find, in many cases, a teaching based in the formal aspects of the language, i.e. grammar; primary school teachers have had to adopt a different approach as the age of the children make the teaching of formal aspects not advisable. As a result of this point of view, the different Educational Departments have decided to establish, as the main purpose of the EFL teaching, the development of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, the implementation of this approach has not been trouble-free as many teachers insist on asking their children to understand every single word they listen to or read, or expect their pupils to write or speak without making the mistakes normally found in the process of acquiring any language.

The main purpose of this paper is to provide some guidelines that we hope can be useful to teachers of English as a foreign language in primary schools.

Listening

Listening is the language skill which learners usually find the most difficult. This often is because they feel under unnecessary pressure to understand every word. To achieve the aims related to this skill, the teacher plays an important role that is defined in the following steps.

1. It is important to help pupils prepare for the listening task well before they hear the text itself. First of all the teacher must ensure that the pupils understand the language they need to complete the task and are fully aware of exactly what is expected of them. Reassure the pupils that they do not need to understand every word they hear.
2. The next important step is to encourage pupils to anticipate what they are going to hear. In everyday life, the situation, the speaker, and visual clues all help us to decode oral messages. A way to make things a bit easier to the pupils is to present the listening activity within the context of the topic of a teaching unit. This in itself will help pupils to predict what the answers might be. The teacher can help them further by asking questions and using the illustrations to encourage pupils to guess the answers even before they hear the text.
3. During the listening the pupils should be able to concentrate on understanding the message so make sure they are not trying to read, draw, and write at the same time. Always give a second chance to listen to the text to provide a new opportunity to those who were not able to do the task.
4. Finally, when pupils have completed the activity, invite answers from the whole class. Try not to put individual pupils under undue pressure. Rather than confirming whether an answer is correct or not, play the cassette again and allow pupils to listen again for confirmation. You may be given a variety of answers, in which case list them all on the board and play the text again, so that the class can listen and choose the correct one. Even if the pupils all appear to have completed the task successfully, always encourage them to listen to the text once more and check their answers for themselves.

Speaking

First of all, we must take into account that the level of language input (listening) must be higher than the level of language production expected of the pupils. So we have many speaking activities used in the first levels that enable pupils to participate with a minimal verbal response. However in the last levels, pupils are encouraged to begin to manipulate language and express themselves in a much more personal way.

In primary schools two main types of speaking activities are used. The first type, songs, chants, and poems, encourages pupils to mimic the model they hear on the cassette. This helps pupils to master the sounds, rhythms, and intonation of the English language through simple reproduction. The games and pair work activities on the other hand, although always based on a given model, encourage the pupils to begin to manipulate the language by presenting them with a certain amount of choice, albeit within a fairly controlled situation.

In order for any speaking activity to be successful children need to acknowledge that there is a real reason for asking a question or giving a piece of information. Therefore, make sure the activities you present to the pupils, provide a reason for speaking, whether this is to play a game or to find out real information about friends in the class.

Once the activity begins, make sure that the children are speaking as much English as possible without interfering to correct the mistakes that they will probably make. Try to treat errors casually by praising the utterance and simply repeating it correctly without necessarily highlighting the errors. And finally, always offer praise for effort regardless of the accuracy of the English produced.

Reading

In order to make reading an interesting challenge as opposed to a tedious chore, it is important that pupils do not labour over every word, whether they are skimming the text for general meaning or scanning it to pick out specific information. Other things to keep in mind are:

1. When choosing texts consider not only their difficulty level, but also their interest or their humour so that children will want to read for the same reasons they read in their own language: to be entertained or to find out something they do not already know.
2. As with listening activities, it is important to spend time preparing for the task by using the illustrations (a usual feature in reading activities for children), pupils' own knowledge about the subject matter, and key vocabulary to help the pupils to predict the general content of the text. Discuss the subject and ask questions to elicit language and to stimulate the pupils' interest in the text before they begin reading. Also make sure that the pupils understand the essential vocabulary they need to complete the task before they begin to read.
3. While the children are reading the text, move around the class providing support if pupils need it. Where possible, encourage pupils to work out the meaning of vocabulary as they come across it, using the context and the supporting illustrations.
4. Do not encourage pupils to read texts aloud unless this is to learn a play or recite a poem. Reading aloud inhibits most pupils and forces them to concentrate on what they are saying as opposed to what they are reading and the meaning is very often lost.

Writing

In primary schools, EFL pupils progress from writing isolated words and phrases, to short paragraphs about themselves or about very familiar topics (family, home, hobbies, friends, food, etc.)

Since many pupils at this level are not yet capable either linguistically or intellectually of creating a piece of written text from scratch, it is important that time is spent building up the language they will need and providing a model on which they can then base their own efforts. The writing activities should therefore be based on a parallel text and guide the pupils, using simple cues. These writing activities generally appear towards the end of a unit so that pupils have had plenty of exposure to the language and practice of the main structures and vocabulary they need.

At this stage, the pupils' work will invariably contain mistakes. Again, the teacher should try to be sensitive in his/her correction and not necessarily insist on every error being highlighted. A piece of written work covered in red pen is demoralizing and generally counter-productive. Where possible, encourage pupils to correct their own mistakes as they work. If there is time, encourage pupils to decorate their written work and where feasible display their efforts in the classroom.

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The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 12, December 2002
http://iteslj.org/

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http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-FourSkills.html
*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Marcos Peñate Cabrera
mpenate [at] dde.ulpgc.es
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (The Canary Islands, Spain)

Plácido Bazo
pbazom [at] ull.es
University of La Laguna (The Canary Islands, Spain)