Every semester for intermediate and advanced (listening/speaking or Integrated skills) classes I have the students create a powerpoint and present on how to do something. I created my example and plan to post a student example or two here on the website. I usually have students work on timing, volume, transitions, and presenting. This would be the second or third presentation of the class (I like to start with an introduction). >>>Glenn’s Example Presentation<<< […]
Category: Pronunciation
Pronunciation – Spanish specific problems
My students loved working on pronunciation this semester. They felt like this was one area that could improve in a concrete way. In the beginning, we went over the sounds in English, and over the concept that letters do not equal sounds. This idea needed repeating throughout the entire semester – English has a lot of blended letters and silent letters. Spanish speakers have lots of issues with their vowels! They tend to use short/long […]
Icebreaker Song “I’m Glad to Meet You”
This is one of my all time favorite ways to break the ice with new students, especially at lower levels. I picked this up from an old ESL songbook years ago, but can’t recall the name. The song is to the very familiar tune “La Cucaracha”! Even if singing isn’t your forte, just starting the first line, everyone will immediately join in. If you have a lot of Mexican students, have them sing the real […]
Telling the Time
In my low-beginner listening class students learn how to recognize numbers in different contexts. One of the contexts is time. In addition to the practice provided by the textbook (“Skillful Listening & Speaking”), I use a map of world times zones to practice telling the time. << https://www.worldtimezone.com/ >> It is a world map which shows current times in major cities. I simply zoom and scroll around the map while asking the class to tell […]
Teaching Diphthongs
This is the last class on American English vowels. Previously, we covered all vowels. Below are a few simple steps I take to introduce diphthongs to my students: Explain the meaning of the word “diphthong”. Present the list of words with the five diphthongs. Students listen and repeat after me. Students read the words out loud as I walk around the classroom, listen and correct them if necessary. Diphthongs are not the most difficult sounds […]
Speaking Exam
Trying to give an authentic exam to test speaking skills can be difficult. I have enjoyed this exam and have used it as an additional section to a written exam. The only con is that the other students need to be busy doing something else while I am testing some of them (or have a few students stay after class alternating days). It is quick and I usually will record the students response so I […]
Role Play and Word Emphasis
I picked this up from one of my colleagues at UCD (sorry, I don’t remember who) and have often used these “scenarios” with different activities. In this activity, I have had advanced students change the stress in the sentence to change the meaning of the dialogue – asking them to perform the skit twice. In my lower levels, I may simply have students write out a skit and then the class tries to guess the […]