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good about themselves. The next section will boards tray. If your chalkboard doesnt have a
describe several activities to help teachers tray, tape the pictures to the board. Tell stu-
achieve these goals. dents to study the pictures, looking carefully at
each one and saying the word to themselves.
Entertaining and educational activities Then, have students put their heads down on
One of the hardest things about working their desks to block their view of the board.
with young learners is that often they are pre- Heads down! Heads down! you cry, imitat-
literate, that is, they have not yet learned how ing the correct posture. Once every little head
to read in their home or native languages. is on the desk, you remove one picture,
When, as a teacher, you are working with pre- rearrange the others, and then yell: Whats
literate students, you cant just write letters and missing? Students look up and then guess
words on the board and expect them to be able which item has been removed. The first stu-
to read what you have written. However, pre- dent to guess correctly scores a point and gets
literate students can orally learn a large to hold the item. Continue until there are only
amount of language before they learn to read two items left. The student with the most
and write. This is the order in which we learn items wins.
our first language (Krashen 1981), so it makes Spin-offs
sense to structure language classes in ways that You may want to put students into pairs or
take advantage of our natural learning inclina- groups of three and do this activity coopera-
tions. Described below are activities that work tively. Also, you could have students take turns
well with preliterate learners as well as with performing the teachers role. This makes the
learners who have developed literacy skills in activity extremely student-centered, which is
their native language and English. always motivating.
Its important to mention that for the fol-
lowing activities to work well, the teacher has Erase!
to be lively and enthusiastic! You need to put
fun and energy in your voice (in English, of Purpose
course) to get the students in the right frame This activity is mainly for beginning level
of mind to participate. If you are excited about students who are at the word recognition
the activity, they will be excited, too. level. It allows students to practice their word
recognition skills, using vocabulary items in a
Whats Missing? specific category. As students become able to
recognize words, they can practice their read-
Purpose ing skills at the word level. (Note: It is impor-
This activity is designed to give students
tant to initially teach students words that rep-
practice recalling the names of items in a spe-
resent a category of vocabulary that they have
cific category of vocabulary. Before doing this
already learned in realia/picture form. That
activity, students should have already been
way, there is a clear relationship between what
exposed to categories of vocabulary in real
they know orally and what they learn in writ-
and/or pictorial form, such as food items, col-
ten form.)
ors, classroom objects, seasons of the year, etc.
This is a high-energy activity that includes
Now, they can have some fun while practicing
short bursts of running and some light-hearted
their new knowledge.
play. Ive used this with a variety of age groups
Preparation and nationalities, and it has always been a
You will need large pictures of the vocabu- great success. However, the teacher (and her
lary items in the category or the actual items supervisor) must be able to tolerate noise and
themselves, if they can fit on the chalkboard high spirits in order for this activity to suc-
tray or be taped to the chalkboard. If the chalk- ceed. By combining a vocabulary review activ-
board does not have a tray, you will need tape ity with physical exertion, students are both
to fasten the pictures or items to the board. reinforcing new vocabulary AND burning off
Procedure excess energy in a lively way. After this activi-
Line up eight or more large pictures of one ty, they will be ready to sit and concentrate
category of items, such as colors, on the chalk- (and so will you).
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window! I encourage the students to run to leave them there as a prompt. Put students in
the item and touch it. Touch the door! You pairs. Give student A the card and model how
get little bodies hurtling through space to obey to shield it from student B. Have student A
your commands with much hilarity and ener- describe the card bit by bit to student B, who
gy. This works great with fidgety students who draws it on a piece of paper according to stu-
want to move. Let them! dent As instructions. Student A can only use
As students get more advanced, you can verbal language (no gestures!) to communicate
give more complex commands, such as the message. When student B is finished, have
Touch the door, touch your shoes, and then the students compare the card to the drawing.
touch the window! Depending on your toler- Then have students switch roles with a new
ance for noise and controlled chaos (or your card and repeat the activity. This is an engross-
supervisors, more likely), this works great, ing activity and will hook students of all ages.
even with very young children. You can use all It works particularly well with shapes (circle,
kinds of verbs, such as open, shut, tie, untie, square, triangle, etc.).
throw away, pick up. This activity burns a lot of Spin-offs
energy, is great fun, and is educational, too! For homework, students can make the
Spin-offs cards for the next round of this activity with a
Students can take turns facilitating this activ- different category of vocabulary. On the day of
ity. In addition, you can put students in groups the activity, collect a card from each student
of two or three to do this activity and have and then redistribute one card to each pair.
them take turns facilitating the small groups. This kind of student ownership of an activity
is always exciting for students.
Listen and Draw
Lexical Sets
Purpose
This activity is for a more advanced group Purpose
that can produce speech, unlike the other This is another student-centered activity
activities that require little or no verbal pro- that allows students to review and critically
duction. This activity allows meaningful prac- evaluate vocabulary in categories. Students
tice of prepositions of place and categories of must analyze the relationship between items,
vocabulary. In addition, students must compe- thus using critical thinking skills while review-
tently communicate with each other in a realis- ing vocabulary items. Again, this takes some
tic manner, which always increases motivation. preparation on your part.
The novelty of drawing pictures in the English Preparation
class is also interesting for students, and the First, pick a category of vocabulary, such as
action of drawing often aids learning. things found in a school. Next, make a list of
Preparation 25 to 30 words from this group. Then, arrange
This activity takes a little bit more prepara- the words into subgroups, such as furniture
tion on your part than the previous activities. (chair, desk, table), things you write with (pen,
First, you need to choose a category of vocab- pencil, crayons), etc. You should make four to
ulary that the students already know. eight different subgroups of vocabulary. You
Second, get 25 or more large index cards. can organize the subcategories any way you
On each card, draw a different set of pictures want, but make sure there is some logic! Now,
using the category of vocabulary. For example, make sets of little cards with each word on one
to make a card illustrating the category fruit, card. Make 12 to 15 sets of the 25 to 30
in the middle of the card draw an apple. Above words, depending upon how many students
and to the right, draw a banana. Below and to you have.
the left, draw some grapes. And so on. Use Procedure
your imagination! Divide the students into pairs or groups of
Procedure three. Give each pair a lexical set. Tell them
On the day of the lesson, teach or review that they have to put the pile of words into
the words top, bottom, right, left, above, below, categories. Thats all. After theyve worked for
next to. Write the prepositions on the board and a bit, tell them the number of categories.
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They will moan and then rework their ANDREA SCHINDLER is the Regional English
groups. After another bit, tell them exactly Language Officer at the American Embassy
how many items are in each different catego- in Amman, Jordan. She promotes English
ry. They will groan and then reanalyze their language teaching and gives English
subcategories yet again. This activity focuses teacher-training workshops and seminars
their attention on the vocabulary and makes throughout the Levant. She has taught
them critically think about hierarchy and English and trained teachers in the Middle
East, Asia, and the United States for over
grouping, which are higher order thinking
20 years.
skills than mindless, decontextualized memo-
rization. This activity will engage your class
until you put an end to it. Remember, more
time-on-task equals more learning!
Spin-offs
With preliterate young learners, you can use
pictures of items already learned instead of
words. With advanced young learners, you
could have pairs of students create the lexical
sets and then use a different pairs set each time
you run the activity. Again, a sense of being a
stakeholder, a part-owner of the learning
process, is incredibly motivating for students.
Conclusion
All of the supplementary activities listed
above aim to channel the boundless energy of
young learners towards enjoyable and educa-
tional learning experiences. Laughter, move-
ment, and noise are fine in the classroom! Its
completely unrealistic to expect young learn-
ers to always sit in chairs in rows and silently,
individually complete worksheets. Its much
more effective to incorporate their inex-
haustible supply of enthusiasm into activities
rather than try to stifle it. When young learn-
ers are laughing, moving, and playing while
learning, chances are good that they will have
positive feelings toward the L2 and will look
forward to English class in the years ahead.
References
Asher, J. 1977. Learning another language through
actions: The complete teachers guidebook. Los
Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions.
Brown, H. D. 2001. Teaching by principles: An inter-
active approach to language pedagogy. White
Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Krashen, S. 1981. Second language acquisition and sec-
ond language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
MacIntyre, P., Z. Dornyei, R. Clement, and K.
Noels. 1998. Conceptualizing willingness to
communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2
confidence and affiliation. Modern Language
Journal 82 (4): 54562.
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