PDF Ideas for Language Teachers: Getting Your Class to Talk

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Students seated on the floor; one is talking intently, others are listening. Photo of a class. These can be problems, confusions, interesting points, or basic ideas in the text. Use strategic body language Planning Your Approach · Teaching Strategies · Student-Teacher Communication · Small Groups and Discussions.
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Through classroom observation, I have seen that some teachers are much more comfortable letting their students take center stage than others. And I have concluded that those teachers who are most comfortable with student-centered classrooms see the greatest linguistic results, have less attrition from one level to the next, and have more students who are engaged and happy.

The Cornerstone For Teachers

Use a website like Wheel Decide to change topics every two to five minutes. The students in one row remain in their seats, and the ones facing them move every time the time expires. Every few minutes, new pairs have a conversation. Next, have them present their posters to the class. Pail of prompts: Make slips of papers with different scenarios related to your unit.


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Have students draw them out of a pail and practice a conversation on the topic. Next, have each group go to the front of the room and talk about their topic for one or two minutes.

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Set a timer and have them talk until the time runs out. Silent exchanges: Give students working in pairs a topic related to the current unit. Have each pair create a Google document that they share with each other and with you. Each pair has a written conversation on the topic.

Why It’s Happening

The teacher can monitor the conversations and give feedback via the Google doc. This allows students valuable interpersonal writing practice before they move on to the more high-pressure exercise of interpersonal speaking. Once they have practiced the conversation in silence, have them read it out loud. First Five Fridays: Assign each student in your class a Friday or two during the school year when he or she has to direct a conversation for the first five minutes of class.

These could be family members, pets, food, selfies, a celebration, a photo of you doing a sport, etc. The teacher puts the list on the board, and in pairs, students go through their pictures and share them with each other explaining their stories behind the photos. Some ways to differentiate this activity are having the students work in pairs or small groups, pairing stronger speakers with weaker ones, adjusting the activity to include photos that the teacher has chosen, etc.

Something that I like to do in my classes is to combine photo sharing with the presentation activity. For those not familiar with this activity, students present something for 3 minutes, then compress the exact same speech into 2 minutes, and finally compress it once more into 1 minute. You can have students choose 3 pictures and spend one minute explaining each of them then compress the speech into 2 minutes, etc.

Students always seem to enjoy this activity and can immediately see benefits and results. Here is a great explanation of a way to combine this activity with speed dating for maximum benefits. I learned this activity from a teaching conference a little over a year ago, and I have been using it in my classes ever since. Whenever I talk to other teachers about it, they express both shock and excitement and cannot wait to try it with their classes.

The premise of the activity is simple: you send students outside to take photos with their mobile devices.

Free Classroom Resources

Choose a topic that is related to the lesson content, set a number of photos that students must take I usually say 3 , set a time restriction I usually say about 10 or 15 minutes , and then see what your students bring back. Later I post the photos on the screen and have students explain their rationale once more to the entire class. Having them talk with partners or small groups first gives them the confidence and practice they need before speaking in front of the larger group.

If you have advanced students, you could easily skip this step. Sometimes I also combine this activity with the presentation activity mentioned above. This is another fantastic and interesting activity that promotes fluency and gives students an opportunity to bring their own content and voice into the classroom. Last, but certainly not least, is Speed Dating. This final conversation-based activity has students gaining confidence and speaking English fluently in and outside of the classroom in no time. This is hands down my favorite activity out of this entire list because it gives students a chance to practice a conversation about a particular topic or topics repeatedly without realizing it or getting bored because their speaking partner is always changing.

This activity requires very little preparation, and I usually scaffold students with questions that they can use from this amazing book by Gunther Breaux. This is not too good to be true because the improvement in fluency that you see in your students is real and measureable. This activity has transformed my classroom to be completely student-centered, and my students and I are overjoyed with the results.

Another excellent resource that I use to help scaffold students with discussion questions on diverse topics is this page from iteslj. Using these types of discussion questions will get students talking about themselves keeping them interested in their conversations in class. So there it is: five fantastic activities that require little or no preparation and can be used in your classroom next week. Give your class a story starter at the beginning of the round.

Starting with the person whose birthday is closest to today and them moving around the circle, each person gives his group one sentence of the story. After one person is done, the person sitting to his left adds a line where the first person left off. Students continue around the circle, adding one sentence at a time, until the music stops or until you give another signal. Whoever is in the middle of his sentence or is struggling to think of a sentence when the music stops is out.

He must leave the circle. Then students play a second round either continuing the story or with a new story starter. Play continues until the final round when the person not speaking when the music stops is the winner. Prepare a small slip of paper for each student in your class. Each paper should have one word on it that goes with a word on another slip of paper. For example, matching pairs might be fork and spoon, day and night, bat and ball, or table and chairs.

Fold the papers and put them into a hat. Each person then draws one slip of paper. On your word, students must circulate and talk to one another trying to find their partner. Once two people think they are a match, they come to you to see if they are right. If they are, they sit down. Play until everyone has found their partner. Then have those partners work together to create a new pair of words that go together.

Repeat the game with these student given examples. To prepare for this energetic and fast paced game, write several questions each on one index card or post-it note. These questions can be get to know you questions, comprehension questions or questions using current vocabulary words.

Encouraging students to speak in English - English lesson

Before your students arrive, hide these cards throughout your classroom. At the start of class, break your students into two teams. Explain that you have hidden cards throughout the room. On your word, students will search the room for the cards you have hidden. They can only pick up one card at a time.