Teaching Resource Thread

HomeForumsGeneral DiscussionTeaching Resource Thread

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #8775
    Avatar photoChris Ziich
    Moderator

    Since there are quite a few of us English teachers here could we share some ideas? This could come in handy for those that might need ideas in a crunch. I know that I, for one, come up with lesson plans sometimes minutes before class.

    I’ll start off with some ideas that have worked pretty well for me:

    1) Taboo. Like the board game except I select vocabulary words from class and put them into a powerpoint presentation. The basic gist of the game, if you’ve never played taboo goes like this: Divide the class up into 2 teams. The teams take turns attempting to score points by correctly guessing words. A typical card (slide) might look like this:

    Quote:
    Mao Zedong

    -China

    -leader

    -chairman

    One player from the guessing team tries to describe “Mao Zedong” to his team by only speaking (no gestures, acting, spelling, rhymes with) without saying any of the “taboo” words below. Once his team correctly guesses the word, they score a point and they move on to the next card. A player from the other team will keep watch to make sure none of the taboo words are used and will keep time. 2 minutes is typical. Afterwards, the teams switch.

    My students get quite competitive and this forces them to think outside the box and speak a bit.

    2) Picture Guide. I’ll select some interesting photos from the interwebs. One student will attempt to recreate a picture based only on verbal assistance from his/her classmates. After they’re done, they look compare the actual picture and the drawn picture and shriek with laughter. This game works best if you know your students are artistic. Older students lose interest quickly.

    3) discussion topics:

    -Dreams. get students to describe interesting dreams they’ve had.

    These made for interesting classes. If you’ve done anything particularly interesting or effective, please share!

    #18483
    Avatar photoSteven
    Participant

    Above taboo words should be inclusive of “Tian’an men” and “Renminbi”, otherwise it’s too easy

    #18580
    Avatar photoSteven
    Participant

    Above taboo words should be inclusive of “Tian’an men” and “Renminbi”, otherwise it’s too easy

    #18484
    Avatar photoLucy 92
    Member

    Technically I am not a teacher. I am a chinese college student who used to teach teenagers English as a part-time job.

    This is what I did with my students..

    WORD GAMES.(Sure many of you did this)

    Ask one student (random choice) to come up with an English word,

    any English word, (better not start with the letter X, such as X-ray), for example, apple, and then the next student has to come up with a word that begins with the last letter E, and then it may goes like this…

    Apple- Eleven- Negative- Employment- Thailand- Dormitory…..

    I always put the students in two or more teams,

    sometimes we put the girls one team, and the boys one…

    #18581
    Avatar photoLucy 92
    Member

    Technically I am not a teacher. I am a chinese college student who used to teach teenagers English as a part-time job.

    This is what I did with my students..

    WORD GAMES.(Sure many of you did this)

    Ask one student (random choice) to come up with an English word,

    any English word, (better not start with the letter X, such as X-ray), for example, apple, and then the next student has to come up with a word that begins with the last letter E, and then it may goes like this…

    Apple- Eleven- Negative- Employment- Thailand- Dormitory…..

    I always put the students in two or more teams,

    sometimes we put the girls one team, and the boys one…

    #18498
    Avatar photoDanielle
    Participant

    Oh man, so many games – I found the best resource for teaching kids was the common sticky ball, a plastic ball with suction cups around it that stuck satisfyingly to the blackboard when hurled by a wiry 8-year old. This could be used in a variety of games: the ol write a bunch of verbs, put circles around them and get kids to hit one and make a sentence.. the ol make a grid, put question marks in each square, get a kid to hit one then reveal the magic number of points – or skull and crossbones indicating death…

    With uni students I’ve found discussion games have been successful. Last week tried doing one similar to speed dating – two rows of chairs facing each other, on each chair a slip of paper with a different scenario featuring person A and person B (ie A: You’re 30 minutes late meeting up with a friend at Chunxi Lu. Make excuses. B: You’re angry that A is 30 minutes late. You don’t believe their excuses). The students in the person B line of chairs would move up a chair every two minutes. Was wildly successful and funny to boot. Students exhausted after speaking English 20 minutes straight. Yesssssssssss.

    #18595
    Avatar photoDanielle
    Participant

    Oh man, so many games – I found the best resource for teaching kids was the common sticky ball, a plastic ball with suction cups around it that stuck satisfyingly to the blackboard when hurled by a wiry 8-year old. This could be used in a variety of games: the ol write a bunch of verbs, put circles around them and get kids to hit one and make a sentence.. the ol make a grid, put question marks in each square, get a kid to hit one then reveal the magic number of points – or skull and crossbones indicating death…

    With uni students I’ve found discussion games have been successful. Last week tried doing one similar to speed dating – two rows of chairs facing each other, on each chair a slip of paper with a different scenario featuring person A and person B (ie A: You’re 30 minutes late meeting up with a friend at Chunxi Lu. Make excuses. B: You’re angry that A is 30 minutes late. You don’t believe their excuses). The students in the person B line of chairs would move up a chair every two minutes. Was wildly successful and funny to boot. Students exhausted after speaking English 20 minutes straight. Yesssssssssss.

    #18665
    Avatar photocantoloper
    Participant

    One I’ve found works, a self made board of famous people glued on to it (make sure they are famous in China- Zhou Jie Lun;Lady Gaga;Michael Jackson;Obama;Beckham;Jeremy Lin etc). Students pair off, one chooses one of the characters in their mind (can’t speak it out)then they essentailY play 20 questions-

    – are you (Chinese; a boss; married;American etc)

    – do you (live in China;like singing;like dancing;come from America)

    Good practice for ‘to be/to do’;nationalities or whatever you want to practice.

    #18666
    Avatar photoJerryS
    Participant

    Google ‘Genki English.’ Then google ‘Genki English torrent.’

    Genki English is an essential tool for me.

    #18686
    Avatar photosaha
    Member

    informative!!!

    #18790
    Avatar photoChris Ziich
    Moderator

    @JerryS I downloaded Genki. All I can say is… the software and the songs are annoying as hell, but I guess I can see this working for kids under 8. What age group do you teach?

    In my university class, I’ve been trying to prep the students for the American college education system. ie get them used to communicating by email, do a powerpoint presentation, and write essays. Surprisingly, these kids claim to have almost never used email. I told them to send me an email during class and all of the sudden those iPhone4s that they have their hands glued to all day seemed foreign to them. Cultural difference I guess.

    #22168
    Avatar photoSandi
    Participant

    This is helpful! Thanks all.

    Off to check out Genki English.

    Not holding out much hope here but, any advice on how and what to teach my two year olds would be great!

    As a new teacher, I feel like I’m getting the hang of teaching the older kids (aged 3-5) but am really struggling with what to do with the babies.

    #22169
    Avatar photoJerryS
    Participant

    @ Chris, yea its for kids… Forgot to mention that heh. Totally missed this thread. I teach at kids school, quite easy heh.

    But yea as for ‘prepping’ students for uni outside of china.. GL with that, it is very hard work, esp for students of ESL. If they are glued to their things other than a pen and paper, it can be hopeless. I hope you can gear them to do research, like library type of research and not let them google their way into a mess. Its a shame they never use email, if they can QQ their way into an A, then its all great… With that said.. I might want to try my hand with Uni students.

    #22197
    Avatar photoEric
    Participant

    oh whoever bumped this thanks. I think that this might come applicable to me in the near future!

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • The forum ‘General Discussion’ is closed to new topics and replies.