Experiences of an English Language Teacher

Category: lesson activities

Top Six Reading Activities for EAP Teachers

I recently read a really interesting and inspiring blog post on ELT Planning – about 23 ways to use a text in the classroom. It was very interesting to see what was suggested and it got me thinking about EAP-related tasks which could be used by teachers and students for their academic reading skills.

In academic writing and skills development, reading is crucial for any undergraduate or post-graduate student, with English being their second language. For the vast majority of EAP students, they have difficulty comprehending academic language, so in this blog post, I am sharing my six favourite reading activities for EAP students.

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Pancake Day: Lesson Ideas and Activities

One of the most popular events during late February or early March, in the UK, is Pancake Day. I am sharing some lesson ideas you could use with your class to celebrate the event and to get your students learning more about this British custom.

It is very important to introduce your students to celebrations in the UK, so they are able to learn more about British society and events which they may come across. Furthermore, they will feel more inclusive within British society if they are able to participate with some events.

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Classroom Community Builders: Book Review

Introduction

I was kindly asked a few weeks ago by Alphabet Publishing to review a recent publication, “[amazon_textlink asin=’B074FWN3M9′ text=’Classroom Community Builders: Activities for the First Day & Beyond’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’elt09-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’99e0913a-87de-11e7-87ea-5d5087f5bc56′]”, written by Walton Burns. After a few weeks of waiting, the book finally arrived along with a personalised letter from the publisher.

The publisher, Alphabet Publishing, is one of those small independent organisations which specialise with practical ideas for teaching and lesson ideas. The first book that I reviewed for them was “[amazon_textlink asin=’0997762810′ text=’50 Activities for the First Day of School’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’elt09-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’1a0b37f9-87e6-11e7-88fd-bfbe6f384fc9′]” as a video book review. You can watch the video below or find out a bit more from a previous blog post.

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British Food: Lesson Activities

Blog Post Image

In this post I have developed material for teachers to incorporate into lessons related to food – not such a good idea if you have any Arabic learners as Ramadan has just started. This particular lesson lasts around 45 minutes and is a good task for learners to become more aware of British food.

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Teaching Ideas for Word Stress

pronunciation-practice-activities

Pronunciation Practice Activities” by Martin Hewings

So the past few months, I have been focusing more and more on pronunciation for all levels of learners, no matter whether they are young learners or adult learners of English. Anyhow, I tried out a new lesson idea today which was partly inspired from the wonderful book, “Pronunciation Practice Activities“, written by Martin Hewings. I would recommend any teacher worth their salt to purchase this book, as it offers some great pronunciation lesson ideas which could be incorporated into class immediately.

Most teachers would identify word stress with the teaching of new vocabulary or as a technique to support pronunciation for problematic lexical items. This is all well and good but it reminds me of a teacher reacting to issues rather than proactively focusing on areas of language learning. Personally, if a teacher is able to develop a lesson based around pronunciation and developing learners’ awareness of pronunciation, so much the better. There is by no means anything wrong by reacting to pronunciation issues as they arise but I think it would be a nice change of focus when we remind learners that there are some basic principles that they can learn no matter how large or small the lexical item. Nevertheless, lets look at one lesson idea which is published in “Pronunciation Practice Activities“.

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Real English Lesson: Functional Language

I recorded this lesson at my work of a fellow teacher preparing learners with functional language for debates and expressing points of view. It was a great lesson and I was so grateful being able to observe and record such a valuable lesson. I now thought that I will share this lesson with you all to see how my colleague is able to engage, motivate and support learners during a lesson. Enjoy!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvqf1_Wa2BE?ecver=2]

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"How Filming Lessons Could Completely Change Professional Development (Modern English Teacher

The latest article published in Modern English Teacher focuses more on the latest filming that I have focused more in the past few months. Have a read to find out a bit more how teachers could film their classes for their own personal CPD as well as sharing ideas with out English teaching professionals from around the world.

Perhaps I should focus on a future article about how to edit and upload a video to a website which promotes video sharing such as YouTube. For example, I have to spend hours editing the video, rendering it, upload it to YouTube and then finally add effects and thumbnails. It takes a lot longer than you think but it is rewarding to see so many people deciding on watching some of the videos.

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