Incy wincy spider

If you are teaching very young learners, this morning my RSS feed for teachingenglish.co.uk tells me there are some great things you could do on creepy crawlies, a subject dear to the heart of all young learners (well, nearly, anyway!) -- and not a few webmasters, as you can see from our photo.

The Language Assistant section on teachingenglish.co.uk is well worth checking out if you do teach small kids.

See also >> Incy Wincy Spider, the song (etc)

Eyes right! A fun way to revise grammar

This is a fun way to revise grammar!

Loved this activity, by Jo Budden, which I got from my RSS feed for teachingenglish.org.uk.

You get all your learners to stand up, get themselves into a nice long line, and then dictate to them sentences which are either right or wrong.

If they think the sentence is "right", they take a "big step" to the right (though as you can see in the photo, I got my learners just to look right or left); if they think it's wrong, they step or look left. You could make it an elimination game, Jo suggests, until you've got a "winner" -- or make it boys vs girls.

You know the grammar casino game? You could play it like that, with the sentences you dictate being right or wrong grammatically.

It's fun -- and might be especially good as a break for your hyperactive teens...

Photographing what we eat for breakfast

Greek yoghurt with muesli; black coffee...

Here's an idea that comes from IH Barcelona's Spanish Teacher Training blog -- getting your learners to photograph the week's shopping (information in Spanish).

As you can see from the photo above, a possible variation might be photographing what they have for breakfast, with the idea being to post the pictures on a class blog. I'd suggest that there's a lot of mileage to be had out of discussing such things as a healthy diet, ranking who eats the healthiest breakfast (etc.), particularly if your learners are from a variety of origins, and -- once again -- the fun of creating something together appeals more than the exercises on food in my coursebook.

The idea came from a wonderful exhibition by US photographer Peter Menzel, in which the week's shopping was photographed along with the families from around the world that bought and consumed it.

The classroom: not just a physical space

Learning together...

The photo, above, one of you (Adam?) took during the technology session on our current CELTA course this morning. (I promised I'd show you the picture, but neglected to ask permission before publishing it here: I hope none of you mind...)

We began the session attempting to rank teacher, learners, materials, technology or some other thing, in terms of their importance in the language classroom.

One of you (Rohan?) suggested "space" as the "some other thing" -- and mentioned an attractive, quiet, physical space with a welcoming arrangement of chairs (etc), an idea which I liked very much.

In the photo, I'd suggest that we can make out another aspect of that space, a more metaphysical one, if you like. We've got people close together, working together, enjoying working together... a space it's actually pleasant to be in, that learners want to be in.

The credit crunch: a topical lesson

Under 3 euros? Guess I'll not be going out tonight!

Here's one that came to me via an rss feed from the language assistant site which is part of what has to be the best ELT site, teachingenglish.org.uk...

The lesson "takes a light hearted look at the economic crisis, or ‘credit crunch' as it's often refered to in the UK", with downloadable classroom materials, tasks and activities, plus links to the useful archive of material on the Essential UK archive.

You'll want to pick n'mix as to which bits are going to suit your actual class best, but there's lots of good, topical ideas there, which is not always the case with coursebook materials.