Appearances with Doctor Who's companions

Appearances

Hair: Blond, brown, red, black, straight, wavy, curly, permed, long, short, bob, fringe.

He / She looks: happy, amused, frightened, worried, aggressive, kind, flirty, anxious, sympathetic.

Imperatives with Doctor Who!

If you love Doctor Who, there are quite a few imperatives that come to mind.

Why not ask students what is happening in the pictures, then match the pictures with the correct image. These are just the first images I found on Google, but of course it would be better to use pictures with no quotes on them. These pictures show the context of imperatives very well....

Run!



Exterminate!



Delete!

Trust me!



Turn right!



Vote Saxon!



Remember!



Keep calm and don't wander off!



Don't blink!

Learn clothes with Doctor Who!

I know I'm more than a little crazy, but if I had my own language school I would teach English from start to finish using Doctor Who as my input!!

Clothes

Point to the following clothes: trousers, coat, jacket, sweater, shirt, tie, suit, bow-tie, hat, scarf, umbrella. (More advanced: cravat, pocket, cuff, collar)

Spot the materials: silk, woollen, leather, knitted.

Spot the patterns: striped, checked, patterned, plain, multicoloured.

Describe to your neighbour: Eg.: Student A: He's wearing red and beige striped trousers, a long beige coat and a white V-neck jumper. Student B: It's Doctor 5!

Clothes: Jeans, jacket, hoodie, boots, trainers, shoes, shorts, belt, T-shirt, blouse, tights.

Fun with Adults?

"I never play games with adults. They just don't like it."

That's what I heard yesterday at a training session on how to make Grammar more appealing. I almost fell off my chair. I couldn't help raising my eyebrows at a colleague, who made a face to show that she was thinking the same as me, but what surprised me even more was when the teacher trainer agreed with the speaker. Yes, she said, adults don't really like games, they work much better with teenagers. And walking out of the session, the other participants also mentioned that games only work occasionally with adults and only 'if you have a good group'.

I feel so strongly that I just have to express myself on this.

Maybe I have always had very immature, trivial adults, and maybe my teens have always been very stuck-up, serious students who think that enjoying a joke is beneath them, but my experience has been completely the opposite. In fact, sometimes teenagers really do think that a teacher who wants to play is actually patronising them. They want to show that they are growing up, that they are adults already (even if they're not).

I think we all go through these phases. As children, of course we love to play. As we grow up, we worry about what other people think about us and so joking in the classroom seems infantile and we want to prove that we are beyond that. But once we become confident adults, we can relax and enjoy a laugh with our peers again. And teachers need to remember these stages in order to choose the best actvities for the lesson.

I believe in ending a class on a high note, so most of my lessons finish with a game of some sort. I have run 6-week intensive Grammar revision courses where the classroom activities were almost exclusively games and role play. And I know that these lessons were successful because students immediately signed up for more. So what could have made my colleague's students react so badly to playing a game?


1) No explanation of why students were playing games.

Students ultimately have faith in their teacher, they trust that the teacher knows what he is doing and why, but they can sometimes be surprised by the tasks we ask them to carry out. Nonetheless, I really believe that students will do anything a teacher asks if it is presented in the right way and if its purpose is explained. I think that teenagers and adults are able to understand a certain amount of pedagogy and if they ask why we are doing a particular exercise, we can tell them exactly how it will benefit them. The same goes for games.  Just as we never ask them to listen or read without a purpose, explain what they will be practising before you start, and there will be no resistence to your plan.

2) Games for the sake of games.

Perhaps a teacher has been told that his lesson is too dry, or too book-oriented. Perhaps he was told that a private language school has to offer 'fun' lessons to contrast with state education. Perhaps he heard of some great game at a training session and decided to use it no matter what in his lesson that night, regardless of topic or lesson aims.

A game has to have a reason; it has to practice some language point. Students are not stupid. They know exactly when they are just being asked to do something to fill time.

3) The teacher wasn't confident enough with having fun.

Maybe the teacher chose the game too fast and wasn't sure of its effectiveness. Maybe he was new to the group and felt less comfortable in their midst than the students did. Maybe he likes complete control and can't cope with the spontanaeity that is innate in many games.

Whatever game you choose, you have to know exactly why you're doing it and for how long you should play before it loses its effectiveness. But also, put yourself in their position. After a long day at the office, wouldn't you like a little bit of fun?

4) The wrong game at the wrong time.

If you teach young learners, you know that activities can be stirrers or settlers, and if you teach Russians, you know that they absolutely hate to change chairs. Perhaps the students had just been slaving over some complex point after a very tough day at work, and now the teacher was asking them to complete some very complicated logic task. Perhaps they'd been asked to make a fool of themselves in front of students they'd only just met. of course there would be reluctance and a lack of enthusiasm.



I keep thinking about those poor adult students who never have any fun in class because the teacher made the wrong choice one time and has used it to form his principles on teaching. We are all capable of choosing the wrong game, but we mustn't give up at the first sign of resistance. A student who has fun while learning is a motivated student and will keep on coming back for more!

New beginnings

'Interview your neighbour and then tell the class...!'

How many first lessons have started this way? How boring and irrelevant is this if your students already know each other and the only new person in the room is you?

A new academic year means new students for me, so I decided to share my favourite first lesson activities to help me get to know my students. Please let me know yours too!!!

Flower labels

Pre-intermediate and above. Mingle activity.

Cut out a flower shape with five or six petals. Write your name in the centre and brief facts about yourself in each of the petals. Make a roll of sticky tape and stick it ont he other side so you can attach it to your clothes like a badge. Prepare a flower shape for each student in the class.

Students should write facts about themselves on the petals, but should not use sentences, ie. 'angelic teenagers', not 'I have angelic teenagers', so that discussion is possible.

Students mingle and read each others' flowers. They do not have to talk about every petal, but when they see a fact that interests them, they should ask questions about it, eg. 'Oh, angelic teenagers! Do you have angelic teenagers or do you dream of having them?' ' Geography? Do you like it? Why do you like it so much?' etc.

As with many get-to-know-you activities, I think the teacher should join in with this one.

Speed friending

Best suited for Intermediate and above. 6 students minimum, maximium - as many as you like! An even number is required unless the teacher takes part. The resultant language is similar to Speaking Part 1 in Cambridge KET, PET, FCE or CAE exams.

Ask students to put their chairs in two rows facing one another, so that everyone is opposite a partner. Specify a time limit (you could use an egg timer, or stop-watch etc.)

Students have 3-5 minutes depending on your assessment of their abilities to get to know each other. When the time is up, ask one line to all move down one chair, thus giving everyone a new partner, and start over again.

The teacher can move up and down the line making notes of errors and strong points. This means that over 15-20 minutes the teacher will hear everyone speak and will be able to ascertain strengths and weaknesses in grammar and vocabulary as well as hopefully find out some interesting facts about their new students.

This activity doesn't have to be done on the first lesson. Often students, especially adults, can study for a long time in a group without ever really getting to know one another, so this could be used at any point in the course to give them a blast of intensive speaking. It also enables you to drill Speaking Part 1 for the Cambridge Main Suite exams, which is often considered to be the easiest part and therefore somewhat neglected. If you have an imaginative group, you can give them a few minutes to create a fake personality and then they can do this task at any point in the course, practising functions as well as the exam task without getting bored or having to ask questions to which they already know the answer.

Fact Spidergrams

Draw a circle ont he board and write your name in it, then add five or six facts around it like a spidergram. Keep the facts as short as possible. At least one of the facts should be a number. I usually use the following: cheese, spiders, 45, ice hockey, 5.

Tell the students that these facts are connected to you and they should ask you questions which will make you say these words. Their goal is to make you say exactly the words you wrote on the board. For example, they cannot ask, 'Do you like cheese?' They have to ask, 'What's your favourite food?' and if you answer, 'Pizza', they have to think of another question to make you say, 'cheese'/ This allows you to see how well they can form both types of question.

My questions would ultimately be:

What's your favourite food? (Cheese)
What are you afraid of? (Spiders)
What's your shoe size? (5)
What's your favourite sport? (Ice-hockey)
What's your house number? (45)

As they ask the right question, cross it off on the board and give them a few extra facts about yourself. They usually ask me if I play ice-hockey, and I say, 'Do I have all my teeth? Do you think I play or watch?' They almost always ask if I'm 45 years old, at which I pretend to be massively offended. This makes them giggle and breaks down the barrier of first-class nerves.

You don't have to go through all your facts. When they have the idea and have learned at least a little bit about you, ask them to do the same thing for themselves, with at least one number (to make it more of a challenge). Tell them they should not write obvious things like where they live or how old they are. You might need to give suggestions - 'What is your mother's favourite food?' 'How old is your grandfather?...'

Then students should show their page to a partner, who should ask the questions to get these answers. As they are practising their questions, you can circulate and make notes on their success with question forms as well as find out facts about your students.

Finally ask each student to share the most interesting fact about their partner with the class.

Feeding time

I have just spent an hour making top hats. If you're British, you know exactly what I mean. Basically they are marshmallows dipped in chocolate and topped with a Smartie, and they're every child's favourite birthday party treat. If you're still confused, here's a picture of them:

But I don't have a kid and I'm not going to a birthday party. I have 13 teenagers who I see twice a week, and who I love to feed with all manner of sweet things.

So why do I spend my Sunday afternoons thinking up what to surprise them with? Well firstly, it's just that - it's a surprise. The wonderfully cute thing about my teens is that, no matter how often I bake for them, they are still really surprised every time. The best present is an unexpected one, and I get an unbelievable high from seeing their amazed faces. I guess Russian state school teachers don't bake too often...

Of course food can be a reward, for example, I think I first started baking for my kids when they got high results in a test. But I also like to use food as part of a game. For instance, I already wrote a post about using a chocolate advent calendar to give my kids CAE Use of English tasks. A mouthful of chocolate prevents students from asking their neighbour for help and forces them to deal with their task on their own.

Sweets are also a great way to divide up the class. One of my first days as a teacher I observed a colleague doing the following with a group. She wrote 6 topics from the coursebook on the board, and beside each a colour. Then she offered each student a coloured Skittle, and depending on the colour of sweet they had chosen, they had to speak on that topic for 30 seconds. Of course there are many other ways to decide which topic each student will receive, but using sweets just makes a nice alternative, and we are, after all, all about varying our activities. I prefer to have students work in pairs rather than speaking in front of the whole class. Sometimes I allow them to choose 2 or 3 sweets right from the start, and then they can choose in which order they want to address the topics. This is a good idea if I want to give them marks for their speaking, because they can speak first on the topic that they consider to be the easiest, and by the time they reach the 'harder' topic, they have satisfactorily rehearsed the structure and functional phrases necessary for their presentation, and are better able to deal with the themes that they feel less confident about.

Finally, I really believe food goes a long way towards helping with affectual issues. Working in a private school where student retention is important, I am always concerned about creating an atmosphere not only conducive to better learning, but also of enjoyment and friendship. I am sure that even the shyest student relaxes for a moment when he takes a big bite of chocolate cake and is therefore just that bit more open to his next speaking task. I like to hope that as he is savouring my sponge, he is forgetting just for a moment to panic about the upcoming listening task. And for the time that the group is partaking of my culinary experiments, there are no conflicts, no less-liked students. Everyone is equal and united in the same activity - eating.

PS. One word of warning: sugar highs lead to very deep slumps. Don't give too much food at the beginning of class or you can kiss productive activity goodbye. You will have a frenzy of chat for 15 minnutes and then the rest of class you will have to just stand by and watch as they slide slowly off their chairs into a sugary coma. Believe me. We've been there.