This activity has become a go to in most of my classes. It goes over how to agree to disagree, but it also focuses on how to support your argument. Supporting a statement contributes to writing and speaking in many ways, but this activity particularly leads students to think in a critical manner. Anytime I ask for the student’s opinion about a topic, they usually need a little prompting to get anything out! I found that […]
Reading Strategies
This semester I taught an intermediate reading class, and we were able to read through two novels while doing multiple writing projects. Before we started the novels, I wanted students to practice different types of reading they do on a daily basis. This seems to be common knowledge, but I found that examining how we read helped us delve deeper into reading strategies. We went through this PP and practiced each “type” of reading as […]
PIQEAT Paragraphs
Last summer I attended an excellent acceleration workshop at Porterville College. Melissa Long was our presenter and we were constantly busy with her multitude of activities for us to experience. We walked away with a binder of activities she has used from the years she’s been teaching ESL acceleration. I was impressed with the following handout which breaks down the paragraph into the five components, or PIQUEAT for short. Read on! PIQEAT Paragraphs
101 Ideas for Your First Three Weeks of Class
First impressions are sometimes critical in how students view the new class, new teacher, new classmates, and overall what they think of the class. This is a collection of faculty strategies for creating a positive environment during the first three weeks of college classes. The different categories include helping students make transitions, directing student’s attention, challenging the students, providing support, encouraging active learning, team building, and more. Some ideas I’m sure we have all implemented, […]
Where do the homework scheduled hours fit in?
Although I’ve been teaching for many years, this last semester I had one class where too many students came to class without having completed their homework. I knew that many students had jobs, and family, but it was an eyeopener after I had each student fill in what a typical week consisted of with regards to their scheduled time commitments. Next semester I will have them complete their weekly schedule (with homework hours included) at […]
Kinesthetic Practice with Past Tense using Laminated Cards
Tesol Planner has a wealth of creative ideas which include quite an assortment of colored pictures of verbs that can easily be laminated and cut up to make small piles of student activities. This activity challenges students awareness of the past tense. I give each student a stack of mixed regular and irregular cards. They are to distinguish which verbs belong to the regular “ed” side, and which are irregular. Next, they take the regular “ed” […]
How are you feeling today?
This is a great visual chart of 30 different faces illustrating the intermediate+ adjectives under each face, such as anxious, mischievous, hysterical, and ecstatic. My students have enjoyed learning the new vocabulary by first thinking of a time when they have either experienced a particular strong emotion, or witnessed someone else demonstrating the emotion. Typically I ask them to select five new adjectives, look them up and make sure they understand the new vocabulary word, […]
Writing Practice Past Tense
I have found writing in steps leading up to the picture works well. This activity promotes students to use their imagination to create a story of the past. Directions: 1. I ask students to write about what they did before the went to class. I give an example on the board about what I did. I also present the PowerPoint with the initial questions. 2. Check examples and help with creativity. 3. Brainstorm with the […]
Listening Log
I adapted a listening log that students can complete for homework. I recommend modifying the video you want students to view and the questions. The rubric is helpful for all logs (may want to adjust the based on your class point value). >>>Listening Log Example<<<
Masquerade- A New Way to do Introductions Again!
At the beginning of the semester I have students walk around the room and introduce themselves to one another. Someone during a meeting made the comment, “I wish we could recreate this experience to practice more.” That is when I came up with this idea. This activity is for the lowest level to teach introductions. Directions: Have students practice introductions at the beginning of the semester. Print out and cut out the profile cards. Create […]