IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and
techniques which have all worked for ETp readers. Pay up!
Try them out for yourself – and then send us your In activities where the students
own contribution. have to find out information by
asking each other questions,
All the contributors to It Works in Practice in this using coins can make everything
issue of ETp are teachers from Seven Vila Mariana, more interesting. Give a small
São Paulo, Brazil. They will receive a set of the number of coins (or beans) to
Macmillan Topics series, each student and make them pay
for information. If, for example,
by Susan Holden.
Student A has to guess the name
Macmillan have of a country which Student B is
kindly agreed to thinking of, Student A asks one
be sponsors of question about the country and
It Works in pays Student B one coin for the
answer. Student B answers.
Practice for
Student A can then either try to
this year. guess the country or pay another
coin to get more information. By
doing this, the students who have
to discover the information will
A letter to my students try to be more specific in their
Developing students’ autonomy is something we take very seriously at our school. For this questions, while the other
reason, we are constantly looking for ways to help them continue to study English during students will try to be more
their vacations. My most recent idea was to send my students a letter by email, giving them general in their answers in order
some suggestions on what to do. These suggestions could easily be adapted for any class. to make their partners ask more
questions and, consequently, pay
Dear students,
more coins.
You can also use coins (or
It’s vacation time! But you’re not going to forget your studies, right? :-) beans) to promote learner
Here are some ways you can keep studying English during our break.
responsibility. At the beginning of
● Read a book in English. If you’re not an avid reader, read comics! the lesson, distribute five coins to
Try www.comics.com. each student and tell them that
● Watch a film (one you have watched before) without subtitles. The objective every time they use their mother
is just to ‘train your ears’! So don’t worry about understanding every word. tongue during that lesson, they
● Sing in English! Go to www.karaokeparty.com. You can even record your have to pay one coin. Once they
song and do a self-evaluation (of your English, not your abilities as a singer!). have used all their coins, they are
not allowed to speak in L1 any
● Listen to the radio in English! Go to www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice and listen
more during that lesson. Repeat
to the BBC’s service of news for the world. If you prefer music, go to
this procedure every lesson, each
www.live365.com.
day giving a different number of
● Add your classmates to your MSN or Skype contacts list and talk to them in coins and encouraging the
English! Talk about the weather, your favourite celebrities, gossip ... students to use them only when
● If you travel during your vacation, write a journal of your trip. If you don’t they really need to. This activity
travel, write about a film you saw or a party you went to. will make them think twice before
● Also if you travel, send me a postcard in English! You’re practising your using L1 unnecessarily. It will also
English and helping add to my postcard collection! Here’s the address: make them stop more often to
[include the school’s address] think about how to say something
in English. By giving the students
● Practise vocabulary and grammar by searching the internet for exercises. For
example, write practise adjectives of personality in the Google search engine
the coins, you are actually passing
and you’ll find lots of options. them the responsibility of
managing the use of English and
You don’t need to do everything, but the more you do the better, of course.
L1 in the classroom, making them
Enjoy your vacation and I’ll see you next term!
more independent and
responsible for their learning.
Carina Guiname Vitor Tambelli
42 • Issue 65 November 2009 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
It’s hip to be square! Key pals
This activity makes use of one of the I devised a ‘key-pal’ project with another teacher’s students, introducing
many Google services and products: teacher to help our pre-intermediate themselves and asking for information
Google Squared, a great tool for classes to practise reading and writing in about the other group. I allowed 20
practising comparatives and a real-life situation. minutes for them to go to the computer
superlatives. It provides information on My colleague and I agreed that we would lab and write their emails. I gave them
items in a given category, sorting the get our students to share emails. As the complete freedom to do this and just
information into different columns for students did not know each other, we monitored the proceedings. As they
easy comparison. You can even add your decided that a suitable target topic didn’t know the other students’ email
own columns and it will find the would be personal information. addresses, they sent all their messages
information to fill them! to me and I forwarded them to my
In the first lesson, I introduced the colleague. They wrote about job
● Take your students to the computer lab subject of the language used in emails. experiences, families, hobbies and
(or use an interactive whiteboard with The students discussed this, shared personal style.
an internet connection). Log on to information and opinions about
www.google.com/squared. ‘netiquette’ and then worked on a In subsequent classes, the students read
handout extracted from Macmillan’s and replied to messages from the other
● Type in a category, eg celebrities
Inside Out e-lesson about text and email class. I monitored and helped with any
(actors, actresses, athletes, singers,
language (www.macmillanenglish.com/ writing problems.
bands), cities, animals, movies or food
items (chocolate bars, sodas, etc) and insideout/Resources/elesssons/protected/ Each student ended up exchanging
click on ‘Square it’. A search for New_elessons_archive.htm). emails with two or three other students
‘celebrities’ will return six ‘fact- I then explained the project, asking my and the feedback was very positive.
columns’ in categories such as ‘name’, students to write emails to the other Priscila Jovazino
‘image’, ‘description’, ‘date of birth’,
‘full name’ and ‘age’.
● Ask your students to work in pairs with Becoming better listeners
one student (A) facing the computer
This activity is part of a project aimed at scene in which body language, facial
and the other (B) looking the other
developing the students’ listening skills expressions and other contextual clues
way. They take turns to read out facts
and providing authentic listening, thus will help them create a hypothesis of
about two items. The other student
preparing them for real-life situations. what is happening. For beginners or
each time has to make a comparative
Its main objectives are: students who are not aware of learning
sentence using that information. For
● to destroy the myth that listening to strategies, I suggest working with
example:
authentic material is extremely cartoons, in which the role of verbal
Student A: Jennifer Lopez is 39. language is generally ancillary.
Christina Aguilera is 28. difficult and you need to understand
every single word to be a competent Get the students to say what they think
Student B: Jennifer Lopez is older
listener; is happening/being said. Write their
than Christina Aguilera.
● to help students overcome their fear of ideas on the board and elicit what clues
Student A: Yes. they used to reach these conclusions.
listening by using contextual clues as
● You can add other columns, or compensation strategies. Play the scene again with the sound on
additional categories, such as ‘years and discuss the differences/similarities
active’, ‘awards’, ‘children’, etc. Google The first step is to ask questions to elicit
the learners’ feelings towards authentic between the actual video and the
Squared will automatically update the students’ interpretations. At this point,
new column for all the celebrities. listening:
emphasise that variations in the
Do you usually listen to authentic English?
As a variation to this activity, you could students’ predictions reflect the
do some research and write statements, If so, when do you listen and what do you dynamism of language and that although
such as: listen to? contextual clues help predict what is said
Gwen Stefani is 13 years older than Kelly How often do you listen and what for? or done in specific contexts, there is
Clarkson. How do you feel while you are listening? always room for unpredictability.
Beagles are, on average, taller than cocker Why? Finally, have a class discussion about
spaniels. If you don’t listen to authentic English, what is necessary to be a competent
why not? listener and get the students to organise
Hand these statements to the students,
who have to confirm or correct them What do you think is necessary to their conclusions in a chart. You can then
based on the results they get from Google understand what is said? display this chart in the classroom and
Squared. (You can save your Squares, as use it as a reference whenever they need
After discussing their answers, show the
long as you have a Gmail account.) strategies for listening exercises.
students an extract of a video with the
Mauricio Shiroma sound off. It is important to choose a Bete Santiago
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 65 November 2009 • 43
