How To Make Your Students Speak

Teaching English is not a piece of cake, but what challenges teachers most is speaking, I believe.

We teach grammar.
We teach reading.
We teach listening.
We teach writing.

...but when we ask our students speak, they are either shy or half of their speech is errr, uhmmm, wellll, one word and again errr, uhmmm..

Thus, today I'd like to share a nice activity, which challenged my students and helped them in an enjoyable way. In this one, all you need is some piece of paper, a pen, and some creativity. I prepared my cards with some words that my students can talk about including computers, football, movies.

The rules are simple. One student starts voluntarily or you may know how to choose him/her :) Then, the one chooses one card among a group of cards, one word on each. The student has 30 seconds to think and then s/he is supposed to talk about the word on the card for a minute without saying errr, uhmmm, oh, welll.

I know this is not easy, but it is fun and when students accept the challenge, you can see them controling their speech and producing more accurate and fluent sentences. If you believe that your students will be frustrated, you can change the time interval - 30 seconds maybe or you can simple give your students 3 mistake chance and they will have a better opportunity to speak.

Have fun!
Ayca

A Speaking Activity: Can You Define It?

Hi all!

Today's activity is a speaking one and I remember being a part of it when I was in U.S. - Spring International Language Center. My experience was definitely amazing, so I wanted to share it with you. 

The activity is appropriate for any levels if you can adopt it based on the needs and abilities of your students. My version will work better if you work with at least intermediate level students who are at least secondary school students. Also, your class size should be 20 at most. You can also divide the class into 2 groups if you prefer that.

Here are the steps:

1. Prepare the class setting. You will need a wide screen TV or a projector. Also you need to arrange the seats. Considering that you have 10 students in your class. Place 5 chairs facing the screen and the others facing the opposite. 
2. Tell your students to have a seat. When they sit down, 2 students will be facing each other. (One is looking at the screen and the other is not!)
3. Turn on the projector and explain the procedure. 
4. The procedure: The ones facing the screen will watch a movie for two minutes and telling what is happening in the movie. After a minute, the students will switch their seats and the other student will continue talking about the movie. 
5. After they watch it, they will be summarizing the movie together discussing and filling the gaps in their minds if they have any. Or you can ask a possible ending!
6. At the end, you can re-play the movie or show the end, this time all the students are watching.

For the movie, I advise you to use Pixar's short movies. Here is a link!

Please share if you have any advice or concern,

Best,

Ayca

A Writing Activity: Self-Storming

Sorry for neglecting the blog for such a long time due to my busy schedule! Yet, I am back here :)

Today's activity is an enjoyable one aiming to improve the writing skills of the students. Most of the students start writing without any graphic organizer, so they lose the track of their ideas. With the help of this activity, one can teach students how to conduct a brainstorming on their own and organize their thoughts on a specific issue before starting writing.

Here comes the steps:

1. Specify the topic that you want to work with. It can be about anything appropriate to the level of the students. (Animal rights, environmental issues, social responsibility, impacts of social media, world history, sharing a memoir, healthy food...) 
2. Share the topic that you have chosen with your students by simply writing the title onto the board.
3. Explain your students the process: First, they will be listening to a soothing music and taking notes on the topic in general. Second, they will be grouping and organizing their ideas based on a graphic organizer. Third, they will be sharing their ideas in an organized way in pairs and they will give feedback to each other. Last, they will start writing after they receive a consent from the instructor. 
4. Turn on a soothing music. You can use this link if you wish.
5. Tell your students to start working individually. Ideally, they can work for 10 mins, but you can extend the time if you think they need more time.
6. Use the graphic organizer and explain how to use it with specific examples.
7. Tell your students to work with the graphic organizer and give feedback to their peers.
8. Check out their graphic organizers and give feedback before they start writing. 
9. Collect all their papers (brainstorming, graphic organizer & the writing) at the end of the class and give feedback to their writings.

I believe that many students start writing without concentrating on their ideas, so they need to learn how to organize their thoughts. This activity can be adapted to various levels and can teach many students the importance of using a graphic organizer.

Love,
Ayca

Challenge - Spelling Bee

Challenging good students is sometimes a big problem for most of the teachers. Because they are aware of the fact that their level is higher than their peers, the goodies sometimes feel detached from the basic activities and wait expect a challenge to show that they are good. Here is a well known activity adapted as a challenge and engaging no matter the age and level of your students. 

1. Make groups of two/three. 
2. Explain your students the procedure: This is a challenge. The teacher will be reading a word/phrase aloud for once and the groups will be writing it on a piece of paper/mini-board. (If you think that this is a waste of paper, you can number the group members as 1,2,3 and all the 1s can come to the board and challenge for their groups.)
3. State the rules briefly.
4. Ask them to get ready.
5. Let the challenge begin.

The rules: 

1. The words will be read aloud only once! 
2. They have 10 seconds for spelling.
3. For each correct spelling the group will receive 10 points.
4. No native language! If they speak in their native language, erase 10 points.

*You will get surprised their excitement when they are challenging. If you think that you need more rules, feel free to add more but don't overwhelm students with too much rules.
*The ideal time for this challenge is 20 minutes. If you go further, it is getting pretty tiring for the teacher.
*The activity is great for vocabulary revision, but you can also add some target(challenging) vocabulary to make it more fun.

Love,
Ayca

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Icebreakers

Icebreakers are simple, quick and enjoyable activities leading you and your students into the mood, decreasing the stress level of your students and engaging them into the language class.

Thus, here are some enjoyable examples that you can adapt for different age and level groups.

Icebreaker No:1 - Remember the name

1. Tell your students to make a circle. (if possible)
2. Number them starting from one to five so that they know the order. (1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5...)
3. Tell your name and your favorite color/animal/food/actor (or a word describing themselves, or ask them simply make a special movement)
4. Ask the student with number one to repeat your name and the information you gave (Ayça - red)
5. Ask the student with number one to tell his/her name and favorite color.
6. Ask the student number two to repeat your name, the information you gave, student number one's name and his favorite color
7. Ask the student number two to tell his name and favorite color.
8. Continue the activity as a chain.
9. When number five completes his chain, ask the second group to start from their number one student.
10. At the end, you can challenge your students to repeat all the names and favorite colors.

Icebreaker No:2 - How are you today?

1. Ask your students to draw a triangle or a star.
2. Tell them to close their eyes and ask them "How are you today?" 
3. Make them think of their feelings for a minute. (You can use some music at this point)
4. Tell them to open their eyes.
5. Tell them to write how they feel on the corners of triangle or star.
6. If anybody volunteers, you can ask them share their feelings with the whole class.

Icebreaker No:3 - Flying vocabulary

1. Make a vocabulary based on your students' age and level.
2. Tell your students to take a piece of paper and listen.
3. Tell them the first word from your list and ask them to write what pops up in their minds first.
4. Continue telling the words from your list one by one.
5. You can ask your students to share their related vocabulary list and learn why those were the first words they thought.

Icebreaker No:4 - Yes or No

1. Prepare some yes-no questions. Those questions can totally be silly and fun or related to the previous/future topics.
2. Make the questions appropriate for personal answers. Don't prepare questions with a certain correct answer!
3. Tell your students that you are going to ask them some questions and they or going to answer them: yes, no or maybe
4. Ask your students compare their answers with their friends.
5. At the end, you can ask your students why they chose yes, no or maybe as an answer.

Icebreaker No:5 - This is my song!

1. Find a melody for your students. This can be from a famous song or something that non of your students know. 
2. Make your students listen to the melody.
3. Ask them to write lyrics to make this melody a mini-song in 3 mins.
4. Ask your volunteer students to sing the song for the class.
5. Ask the class to vote for the best/ most enjoyable/ most creative song(s).

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