by cristina » Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:53 pm
1.I use most of the activities mentioned here. We usually start the lessons with an informal chat, just to get started. The topics are varied: you can ask simply about the previous lesson, how they feel then, sometimes about their weekends. Sometimes just asking them about news they read or heard about motivates them and a simple chat predicted for 3 minutes can last quite a lot!
I use show and tell and discussions usually with smaller groups, with split groups. An advantage is that they prepare their presentations or the discussions beforethe actual oral activity, so they have time to think about what they want to say and how to do so. I often find that even students who are strong at English feel shy sometimes when speaking in front of the whole group. With reduced groups, the ‘speakers’ feel more comfortable and confident when they do their presentation and the rest of the group are more attentive and willing to ask questions or make comments.
With conversations really depends on the topic they are asked to talk about. If they find it interesting most students get initially engaged but I find that they soon run out of ideas, they turn into their mother tongue while you are checking other pairs or groups.. Since it happens quite often to me, I tend to reduce the time we spend in this sort of activity and I don’t do them very often.
Role plays are definitely great activities for them. You can adapt the activity for mixed ability classes ( being more demanding with stronger students) and I see how motivating they are for the students. They are quite imaginative, they have time to prepare them beforehand , have fun inventing the dialogues and are eager to ask you for vocabulary or useful language they need. They also love acting them out in front of the other groups.
2. Students make lots of mistakes: During the oral activity your aim is for them to participate and express their ideas, so interrupting them with corrections may make stop the flow of the conversation or make the student feel insecure about his/her performance. I only correct the mistakes on the spot if they are making understanding difficult. Then I encourage the student to go on. At the end of the activity we comment on some of the mistakes that have come up during the activity.
Not all the students participate: on the different occasions we do oral activities I try to ask personally some questions ( easier for weaker students) related to the topic, to make sure that all of them participate at some point. Maybe not the same day, but along the week lessons I try to have this in mind.
Students aren’t sometimes interested in the topic: It happens, no matter what you do. Even when you let them choose the topic to talk about you find that some students don’t like it and sometimes they do not know what to say about it. I try to choose other topics that may interest these students then.
They spend a lot of time speaking in their mother tongue: this is difficult to avoid. The ideal would be to make them understand they should be using English all the time but this doesn’t happen with most of them. So, with some pair activities I ask some of them to perform the dialogue or do the activity again with the rest of the group listening. This way, they use the ‘speaking time ‘ I give them to practice what they will say to the rest of students. I find that they usually want to make a good impression on their classmates.
1.I use most of the activities mentioned here. We usually start the lessons with an informal chat, just to get started. The topics are varied: you can ask simply about the previous lesson, how they feel then, sometimes about their weekends. Sometimes just asking them about news they read or heard about motivates them and a simple chat predicted for 3 minutes can last quite a lot!
I use show and tell and discussions usually with smaller groups, with split groups. An advantage is that they prepare their presentations or the discussions beforethe actual oral activity, so they have time to think about what they want to say and how to do so. I often find that even students who are strong at English feel shy sometimes when speaking in front of the whole group. With reduced groups, the ‘speakers’ feel more comfortable and confident when they do their presentation and the rest of the group are more attentive and willing to ask questions or make comments.
With conversations really depends on the topic they are asked to talk about. If they find it interesting most students get initially engaged but I find that they soon run out of ideas, they turn into their mother tongue while you are checking other pairs or groups.. Since it happens quite often to me, I tend to reduce the time we spend in this sort of activity and I don’t do them very often.
Role plays are definitely great activities for them. You can adapt the activity for mixed ability classes ( being more demanding with stronger students) and I see how motivating they are for the students. They are quite imaginative, they have time to prepare them beforehand , have fun inventing the dialogues and are eager to ask you for vocabulary or useful language they need. They also love acting them out in front of the other groups.
2. Students make lots of mistakes: During the oral activity your aim is for them to participate and express their ideas, so interrupting them with corrections may make stop the flow of the conversation or make the student feel insecure about his/her performance. I only correct the mistakes on the spot if they are making understanding difficult. Then I encourage the student to go on. At the end of the activity we comment on some of the mistakes that have come up during the activity.
Not all the students participate: on the different occasions we do oral activities I try to ask personally some questions ( easier for weaker students) related to the topic, to make sure that all of them participate at some point. Maybe not the same day, but along the week lessons I try to have this in mind.
Students aren’t sometimes interested in the topic: It happens, no matter what you do. Even when you let them choose the topic to talk about you find that some students don’t like it and sometimes they do not know what to say about it. I try to choose other topics that may interest these students then.
They spend a lot of time speaking in their mother tongue: this is difficult to avoid. The ideal would be to make them understand they should be using English all the time but this doesn’t happen with most of them. So, with some pair activities I ask some of them to perform the dialogue or do the activity again with the rest of the group listening. This way, they use the ‘speaking time ‘ I give them to practice what they will say to the rest of students. I find that they usually want to make a good impression on their classmates.
