Classroom Activities 7: Info Gap Monsters and Writing

Teaching 3rd Person Grammar to Elementary Students

The fun way! 

   By the time my students arrive at level 3 in English Land, they have a good working vocabulary and are proficient with I like..., I have..., I am.... So they talk a lot about themselves. I noticed that the switch to talking about others and other items and their qualities is quite difficult for elementary students in the foreign language classroom, and when I first arrived at my job I was intimidated by it. But now I know there is no need to be intimidated by this.

Activity: Info Gap Monsters With Writing
Draw and Write, First Learning of Awareness of the 3rd Person

Corresponds to English Land Series Unit 3 

All you need is some descriptions of monsters (using target vocabulary your students have been exposed to: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, wings, teeth, skin, legs, arms, etc...) written in a way students can easily understand.  Students are also learning important sight words like colors. 

All students can read about the same monster, but in my small language classroom I like to give each student a different monster. In a large class, each group could be given the same monster so that they can work on the reading together. Also fun would be to give them all different monsters and then when they finish drawing, they can find members from the other groups who had the same monster. 

Students have finished reading and drawing. They highlight I have...  and I don't have phrases. By this point they have already drawn their monsters and arrived in their groups if you are working in the group setting. 

Students then should be made aware that I is strange in this situation, because we are talking about the monster. So we change it to it, he, or she. The sentences are then changed from I have to It has. The repetition is good for the students.
They can then present their findings to the class, which is good reinforcement, and this is possible in group and small class settings.  Everyone enjoys to see the resulting monsters and everyone had a good time! 

The students who generated these monsters are 3rd graders. This activity works well for 3rd grade and above. 2nd graders usually read "I have" and draw a monster only, without having to write themselves. 

Classroom Activities 5: No Face His and Her All Ages

Classroom Activities 5

No Face Multi-Language Practice Exercise

And what's great about this activity is that it can be applied to a wide range of language! 


You Will Need: 
-paper, a drawn face

 This could be printed off the internet. Boy/Girl Human/Nonhuman Princess/Pauper... your imagination is the limit! 
-facial features for the face for target words eyes, ears, nose, mouth, 
-tape
-a wall or surface to mount the faces on
-a blindfold if one student or yourself will use it, or multiple blindfolds if you plan on allowing other students to participate for hygiene purposes

  Anyway, this face will also need features. So if you have any way to make a blank canvas... my classroom set has the facial features removable down to the hair! That's right, everything can be put on if you design your activity just so. And the principles of this activity can be applied to any vocabulary set, but the activity I'm featuring here focuses on face parts and his/her he/she and boy/girl. This would even work like the pirates I have previously featured. 

How to do the activity:
 -Think pin the tail on the donkey, with tape and face parts and students must use English
 -Use this activity as review, students must have a good working knowledge of the words, give them a brief refresher before beginning.
 -Students should know boy and girl, and for older students you can also introduce his/her with this activity
 -For the first round through you can blindfold yourself if you trust your class, and if you're good blindfolded and know your classroom spatially you can further clarify the meaning of his and her if your class has never been exposed to the words before
   Students are to say "his/her nose" as they hand the face parts to you one by one
   If they know right and left, you can allow them to say that as well
-For really advanced students, maybe they can learn "turn it" or "it's upside down" etc... a lot of practical spatial words come out when students are doing this activity
 -When all the pieces have been attached, announce "finished", have students tell you "finished" or "that's all" and unblindfold yourself or the student, and admire your work! 

Most students of mine have gotten a big kick out of this exercise! 

The blank face canvases. The hair is also removable. Not the prettiest but at least it gets the kids giggling.

This was my later evening class. I lost my touch.

My first time, the students gave me pretty good guidance. 

Underneath the star this little boy is smiling! 

This one too, the thumbs down is actually a good thing little boys love to be disgusted! 

Classroom Activities 4: The Prepositions Table

Classroom Activities 4: The Prepositions Table

What you need: a large table drawn on any surface, can be done in front of a large group or in a private lesson, writing utensil 

What to do: You can practice any prepositions: on, in, under, between

Usually I ask students what foods or things they like and don't like, the things they like I tell them to draw on the table. Then I tell them to draw a toilet under the table and they get really shocked. Some of them break out laughing because it is unexpected. Then they are allowed to draw their disliked foods in the toilet. You can give students the option of giving each other the commands of what to draw and where, using correct usage of prepositions! Easy as pie and effective! 

Corresponds to: English Land 3 Unit 4 

Classroom Activities 3: Practicing Can

Classroom Activity 3

Nonsense Animals and Actions

Type of activity: small group activity for practicing animals and verbs, and the grammar "Can it (action)?", "Yes it can" or "No, it can't", ideal for elementary students, for intermediate students

Text correspondence: English Land 3 Unit 5 

"Can a koala drive a car?", "Can a baby quail push a car?" 

What you will need: a stack of animal cards, the more interesting the appearance the better, and a stack of frequently used verb cards. I use animal cards from a set of Go Fish cards we had in the school, and the verb cards from the Great Verb Game, although the pictures on the Great Verb Game were a little ridiculous. Some students love it and some will refuse to look at the cards, saying they are simply too ugly. So strike a balance between interesting and repulsive.

What to do: have enough sets of cards for small groups. My classes are small so I only need one set of action cards and one set of animal cards, but this game is appropriate for groups of 3-4

    -give each group their stacks, after modeling the target phrase "Can it (a bear) drive?" Students usually take to this right away and start having fun. 

Classroom Activities 2: Prepositions Treasure Hunts

Classroom Activity 1

Prepositions Treasure Hunts
Corresponds to English Land Level 3, Chapter 4
OR
Good for: beginning prepositions (Elementary School Age) 

You will need:

- Paper, Scissors, laminator (if you want to make a long lasting treasure hunt set)

-An item representing treasure, or real treasure to give to the students if they gather all the cards for their assigned treasure hunting quest

What To Do: 

-Number the Cards 

The Treasure Hunt can be as long or as short as you'd like, each card describes the location of the next item, and should be unique to your environment or classroom

(ex. #6 is under the clock) 

-Hide them before the class, retaining the first card as a hint

-For Larger Classes: Prepare color coded treasure hunts for small group hunting: groups are only allowed to take the cards for their color           

                                                                and should do it in order

For more practice: 

Do this as a warm-up activity or an extension of the lesson. I feel it really engages them and gets elementary age students thinking about the structure of preposition sentences, as they often mutter the locations under their breath as they search. Students can take turns reading the cards or a reader can be assigned. However, I have seen even shy students take to this activity. 

This could be used for any foreign language.

Classroom Activities 1: Missing Parts Characters

This is my classroom. That is basically all of it. The table can be pushed back a few feet if it's standing. Like three feet maximum. Or, the table is collapsible and allows for more space for little kids class or active class. But it's still a small room and keeping those kiddos engaged week after week becomes a priority, and yet, no easy task at all.

I recall my predecessor telling me that the best part of the job is that no work comes home. That is not true. Even if I am not working I am always thinking of students: the good, the bad, the engaged, and the disengaged. Oh, genius-kid would love this. Or, I wonder if I can involve this problem student if I did such-and-such in class. My classes are small enough that I have all their names memorized, and even then, all my students have nicknames in my mind.

At any rate, this post is the first in, hopefully, a series that can help out other teachers of activities I have created for my classroom to help spice up classroom work for students who come see me week after week, some who have now been with me for upwards of a year and a half. 

Today's Activity: Classroom Activity 1

Missing Parts Characters

What you will need: 

-clipart of characters, a simple google image search will do you just fine

  some topics which may be of interest: pirates, zombies, princesses, One Piece, Pokemon, blow up the image during printing

  (You are not selling this, you are merely using it to engage student, let your imagination go wild or your target vocabulary drive this search, if you are studying clothes choose an image with interesting and complicated clothes and accessories. If you are teaching body parts, choose something a little more exposed.  When students are engaged and curious about other items they might see, such as the pirate's sword or the zombie's brain, I find they become motivated to ask the vocabulary and retain it pretty well. )

-cardstock cards

-optional: laminator, laminator sheets

-scissors

-printer

This is the set I made for "Pirates", it reviews clothes, "bird", and face parts.

What I did: 

-print out enough copies for your class plus one to show as the model image as the students try to piece the character together: I have maximum three students so I chose to go with three, plus one 

-cut out the student characters, and then cut out various parts which clearly show target vocabulary, laminate the bodies and the cut out parts, the cut out parts are now game pieces which students will race to find under the card stock cards (you will need 8-10 cards, to have 8-10 items in play at a time) 

-cut up cardstock for a size which generally fits over the body parts you cut out

The Game: 

How to have fun with this in class

-elicit or teach new vocabulary with the full body image before beginning the activity and review I have/I don't have, or He/She/It has, doesn't have 

-pass each student, or each group of students, their altered copy of the goal image. Encourage them to shout out "He/She/It doesn't have... (x)!" or "He/She/It has (x)!" 

-tell students to close their eyes, and hide the various cut out parts, 8-10, depending on how many cards you cut out

-students only get one chance to look under a card, and must decide "He has/He doesn't have", each player or team gets a chance. When the game starts to reach its end some of the cards will be "empty"

-The first team to gather all it's missing parts wins! Routinely check in with students by eliciting what they still DON'T have so that they will know the vocabulary word to draw their card! 

Some of my kids were scared of this one.

                                        One of my Pirates, close up

                                         

 One of my classes requested a "Stinky Baby" character

Zombie edition

Don't stress finding the perfect size image, they can easily be blown up and the kids will have fun with the game, not how perfect the image is
. The better you know your kids, the better you can make a game that will engage them!  Just go wild. 

Happy Teaching! 

Corresponds to: English Land Level 2 Chapter 5
English Land Level 3 Chapter 3

Pernicious Prepositions

I worked with some students on phrasal verbs (which more often than not, are combinations of verbs with prepositions) for an entire summer once, and I am seeing the importance more and more as I see how students struggle with the topic. I am offering this list of prepositional verbs and verbs that use prepositions along with other verbs I have noticed in helping a student prepare for the SAT. Even American students are tested on knowing these verb conjugations. Knowing them really increases how natural a speaker sounds.

The beginning of the list was taken from: Evergreen, a Guide to Writing With Readings, International Edition 9th e by Susan Fawcett

The list may be helpful when covering prepositional verbs in high school classes and above.

According to

Acquainted with

Addicted to

Afraid of

Agree on (a plan)

Agree to (something or a proposal)

Afraid of

Angry about or at (a thing)

Angry with (a person)

Apply for (a position)

Apply to (doing something) (One should apply oneself to their studies)

Approve of

Argue about (an issue)

Argue with ( a person)

Capable of

Complain about (a situation)

Complain to (a person)

Comply with

Consist of

Contrast with

Correspond with (write) I corresponded with a young lady in Kushiro, Hokkaido

Deal with

Depend on

Different from

Differ from (something)

Discovered by

Differ with

Displeased with

Donate to

Fond of

Grateful for

Grateful to

Identical to

Inferior to

In search of

Interested in

Interfere with

Number of (nouns) I saw a number of new vendors at the Saturday market.

Object to

Protect against

Reason with

Rely on

Reply to

Responsible for

Sensitive to

Shocked at, shocked by

Similar to

Speak with (someone)

Specialize-in

Succeed in (a noun) I succeed in (I am successful in) my language classes.

Succeed in (Verb-ing) He succeeded in petitioning his case before the committee.

Superior to

Take advantage of

Worry about

____________

From SAT (continue to build this list)

Appointed with

Boon for

Conscript to My uncle was conscripted to the army during the Vietnam War

Conferred on

Demonstration of

Deprived of

Obstruction to vs. Obstruction of

Impediment to

Redeemed for

Relegated to

Teacher Pitfalls: Making the Most of Teacher Talking Time

The most important part of EFL, to me, in any country is fulfilling my duties as a teacher.

Thus, in every capability, I am working on improving myself as a teacher. So currently I am doing an EFL course online and tutoring as temporary work. I will publish my essays here. The word limit is 700 words and it feels constrictive at times, maybe I will edit them in my free time.

(c) Malia Autio 2011, please cite if the information is used anywhere


New Teacher Pitfalls: Making the Most of Teacher Talking Time

On Teacher Talk Time: Why and How to Avoid It

Teacher Talk Time is so important in the training of educators, especially in the field of EFL, that it has received its own abbreviation of TTT. It is important for teachers and teachers-in-training to consider TTT because of the inverse relationship between TTT and STT, STT standing for Student Talking Time. Student talking time in the EFL or foreign language classroom is the time in which students are able to express their ideas and to receive quality feedback from the instructor. They pay for their time in class, thus when it is cut short by teacher-talking-time it becomes a failure of the teacher. Teacher Talk Time is covered early on not only due the importance of increasing student talking time, but also because that excess TTT is the most common error made by inexperienced teachers while experienced teachers continue to consider it. Efforts to reduce TTT should always be made in conjunction with efforts to improve the quality of the teacher’s classroom communication.

The first step to conquering excess TTT is an awareness of the problem and studied patterns of ineffective teacher-talk. The first, and most cited, is echoing. Echoing is the teacher’s repetition of a student’s response, which is detrimental to the students in two ways. One, they are less likely to listen to one another answer questions and remain overly dependent on the teacher in all class exercises in general. Second, even when answering an open ended question a student may be discouraged from continuing to respond. A far more effective use of teacher talking time would be to provide positive response (yes, good), or provide further questioning. (Springer, 2009) Ilene Springer’s article provided the example of asking “What did you do this weekend?” If a student were to answer “I went to a movie,” the teacher would not ask, “You went to a movie?” But rather, “Where? With who? What movie?” to continue the line of questioning and provide more effective modeling to students. A student may continue to talk, and others will be more likely to be motivated to participate as well.

Other notably noxious forms of teacher talking include self-talk and filling up silence. (Springer 2009) Excess self talk (the teacher talking about him or herself) can easily be eliminated in favor of solid lesson planning and class time to cover new material. Filling up the silence occurs when the teacher completes student sentences at the slightest pause before allowing the student to complete his or her idea. The inexperienced teacher must learn to increase their patience with and faith in the students to reach a satisfactory response when given the appropriate amount of time. When students are given time to express their thoughts completely, the teacher can better assess strengths and weaknesses for future lesson and assignment planning. The video included in the TEFL online lesson included the suggestion of keeping a class journal of common student errors. Such errors will not be observed and learned from if students are not given the opportunity to make those errors in the first place.

With the most notorious of the forms of non-constructive teacher-talk eliminated, the teacher may shift the focus to developing quality communication with students. Directions and explanations should always be as clear and concise as possible. Some specific examples of constructive teacher talk include: explaining and modeling usage of new vocabulary and grammar forms, modeling the days tasks and exercises, retelling student stories (after they are completed, of course), and eliciting responses—which is essentially providing casual chatting to the student that allows them to exercise new forms while reinforcing past learning as they are given enough class time and are given time to use their recall skills. (Ammaranas2005 2010) Excessive teacher talking should always be avoided, but at the same time it does not dismiss the roles the teacher must fulfill when he or she does speak.

Sources:

Ammaranas2005, (2010, June 19). Avoid teacher talking time for a better classroom [Web log

message]. Retrieved from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/ammaranas2005/avoid-

teacher-talking-time-a-better-classroom

Springer, Ilene. (2009, December 30). How to reduce teacher talk time in efl classes [Web log

message]. Retrieved from

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2521739/how_to_reduce_teacher_talk_time_in_pg

2.html?cat=4

On the Role of Teachers

My inspirational teacher (bottom right corner)

The most important part of EFL, to me, in any country is fulfilling my duties as a teacher.

Thus, in every capability, I am working on improving myself as a teacher. So currently I am doing an EFL course online and tutoring as temporary work. I will publish my essays here. The word limit is 700 words and it feels constrictive at times, maybe I will edit them in my free time.

(c) Malia Autio 2011, please cite if the information is used anywhere

Role of the Teacher

Section 1.2 highlights many of the roles teachers fulfill as well as their positive qualities. In their main functions, teachers are lecturers, counselors, and great organizers who should always be prepared. The avoidance of excess teacher talking, interrupting students, and over-planning for them should is important to maximize the positive traits. To introduce these qualities and potential trouble areas for instructors in a practical manner, I would like to introduce two experiences with teachers I had during my life as a student.

A great teacher of mine was my high school Japanese teacher. She fulfilled her role as lecturer, counselor, and organizer—as well as exceeding these expectations in many areas. I always felt she was wholly invested in educating her students and helping them achieve their dreams. Class was well organized and we learned through many different formats. She integrated lecturing, listening, and reading and she consistently monitored our progress through providing warm-up activities that stressed continuity as they subtly forced us to think about material we had long since finished. She was always personable and organized, and was never overly serious about the subject. Her teacher talking was brief, informative, and made colorful by cultural references that were, from time to time, familiar—such as integrating pop-icons from Japan that had also had some impact in the US, while sometimes she asked us to push our comfort zones by encouraging us to do research on more challenging and unfamiliar topics.

One role of the teacher that section 1.2 does not mention is Integrator, or the trait of being integrative. Japanese did not feel like an untouchable experience to the students in class. Frequently she invited us to take part in community events such as the local Japanese speech contest. She encouraged us to find pen-pals, or go to community restaurants and venues reflecting the culture, and helped guide us to those connections where it may be daunting for students to find those connections alone. She made herself available during lunch-time and played recorded videos, television shows, and music from her home country. These activities I felt made the subject seem real and the subject became engaging to most students who took the class. When students felt like the subject had a connection to their life, they became motivated to continue to study past the two year language requirement for graduation.

College organic chemistry lecture was a completely different experience. I took two courses of it and experienced two poor educators. The situation was much exacerbated by the tremendous class size of upward of 330 students. Our professors tended to go by the book in both lecture and exercises. We prepared for multiple choice tests and had very little contact with our professors. At office hours or test review sessions there could be upwards of 100 students sitting before the teacher. They were not horrible instructors, always seemed as rushed and hurried and their attitudes definitely transferred into my experience in their classes. When the teacher’s attitude is not confident, students lose confidence in the teacher. It also gives them a sense that the teacher is inapproachable, and based on my experience I agree with Section 1.2 that approachability is a key trait for a teacher as it encourages the student to fulfill their duty to engage and ask questions honestly.

The classes also did not offer any sense of community, as students were not actively encouraged to seek one another’s help. This would help them act independently of the professor. I realize how much the sense of community in the classroom and feeling tied to my peers helped me to succeed in many different fields of study in high school. Even in the university, my performance was much better in classes where peer discussion was encouraged.

Overall, my experiences give me a sense of the role I seek to fulfill as a teacher. I may find myself to be 15% lecturer, and definitely incorporate integration of subjects and knowledge into my classes through the role of counselor and guide, approximately 20% of my efforts. The rest of the energy I will invest in uniting students with effective materials and lesson plans.