Disappearing dialogues is a very much used language teaching technique

1. Elicit and write the dialogue. Or use a prepared dialogue.

This post was submitted by James.

Our dearest playwright SHAKESPEARE wrote in his play As You Like It, this:

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages”.

Maybe due to his quote, maybe because I love theatre and performing plays, … I don’t know why, but I believe that if you are a teacher, you are a good actor / actress, don’t you think so?

Well, I strongly believe THEATRE is one of the best ways to encourage students to speak English, to memorise, to motivate them, to improve their pronunciation, to make them feel better speaking up, … and so on. You can find many plays thanks to Oxford, Burlington Ed. Perhaps you’ll have to arrange the numbers of characters, pages, … but it’s worthwhile.In my school, we have already performed wellknown plays such as ROMEO and JULIET, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Needless to say, that experience WAS UNFORGETTABLE, AMAZING for the students!!!

Moreover, if you don’t find a suitable play, you can ask the students to write their own plays, as if it was a role-play. It’s also a positive project, since they get more involved, they feel motivated and learn a lot.

I hope you’ll like it! 

This post was submitted by valme.

I usually engage everyone in a friendly chat, just to get them ready for the start of the lesson, then, when I know they are concentrated on me, I walk out of the classroom.

Seconds later (after the chatter has died down a little – ‘where’s he gone?’) I knock loudly on the door, then open the door, wave to the class, walk into the classroom, take a pen out of my pocket, write my name on the board, put the pen back into my pocket, scratch my head, sit down, cross my legs, cross my arms – and then I say “What did I do?”

From then you are listening for use of the past tense, giving you an idea of how much teaching is needed.  The fact that students call out the answers will help the weaker students.  If they miss an action out of the sequence, do it again.

I usually emphasise my movements so they remember them all.  

This exercise works just as well as “What am I doing?” (call out as do the action) and “What will I do?” (call out before I do the action – can be great fun if you change your routine).

This post was submitted by Tim Musgrave.

      I’d like to share my idea to present reported speech for the first time in the classroom. It can be used with all level students. You just have to modify it according to the level.

     It is a fun way of teaching reported speech. Ideally it is the best if you present it on ppt slides. First introduce your characters on a slide: Jim, Jessica and Gossip Girl (as in the famous American TV serial). Jim and Jessica is a couple having a conversation over a coffee and talking about their relationship. Gossip Girl, as the name suggests, is the one who spies them and texts everyone, reporting what they have said to each other sentence by sentence.

      After the introduction, show Ss the speech bubbles of the couple on a seperate slide. Jessica might say: “Oh sweetheart, I love the wedding ring.” showing her ring. Jim might reply: “ Yes honey, it looks really great.” (You can change the context entirely if you think your Ss don’t like such romantic conversations, which is quite possible .

      Then, show the Gossip Girl and her “reported sentences” in a another speech bubble. This time it goes like Jessica said she loved the wedding ring and Jim said it really looked great. You can also use the verb “tell”.

The ppt slides go on like this, but each time you present another tense like “ I am looking forward to the wedding day” so that Ss can see several tenses and how to transform them.

      As you go on, encourage Ss to notice the rule and when the couple’s conversations is finished, ask them how the Gossip Girl is reporting the couple’s speech, meaning what’s the rule. Ss will say, deducing from the examples, they have to transform the tenses to past tenses.

      You might present more examples again related to the same context, or you can ask them to create their own dialogues as if they are Jessica and Jim, and choose a Gossip Girl for reporting.

After you make sure that Ss grasp the idea. As a follow up, ask them to write sentences as follows :

-         Gossip Girl told me that Jessica and Jim were getting married and I could not believe.

      Ask them to think of their own lives and create sentences about themselves like “ Gossip Girl told me that my best friend would go to the party without me and I got angry with her.

     It takes up a whole class hour. Especially at the end they have great fun talking about their own lives.

P.S: As a little variation, you can choose celebrities instead of made-up characters.

This post was submitted by Didem Yesil.

I”ll guess your birthday Magic Trick

Ask your students to do the following, calculating for their own birthday. Go slow and repeat the instructions so they follow along. Use the board to show an example.

• Enter the number 7 (7)
• Multiply by the month of your birth (7×6=63)
• Subtract 1 (63-1=62)
• Multiply by 13 (62×13=806)
• Add the day of your birth (806+8=814)
• Add 3 (814+3=817)
• Multiply by 11 (817×11=8987)
• Subtract the month of your birth (8987-9=8978)
• Subtract the day of your birth (8987-8=8970)

Now the fun! – Ask a student to tell you their result. In your head, quickly do the following

• Divide by 10 (8970/10=897)
• Add 11 (897+11=908)
• Divide by 100 (908/100 = 9.08 )

Tell the student their birthday!  (for example, using my own – Sept. 8th).

They will be amazed! Tell a few more students when their birthday is. For homework ask them to try and find out how you did it! They’ll come up with some creative answers!

There are a lot of amazing science and math tricks that teachers can learn easily and which offer very powerful engagement AND language learning activities.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

Extensive Reading: Voice Diary

This recipe works best if you combine it with Extensive Reading. It builds confidence and teaches reading, speaking, and listening
Encourage your students to make a voice diary with their cell phones. Its listed under the “Voice Memo” Feature. First you need to provide a high interest story to your students.

1.    Have them read the story once quietly
2.    Next read the story aloud and record it on their voice diary
3.    Then have them playback and listen while they read

And the best part of it is, the students can track their progress. If they keep at it for a couple weeks they can actually hear the difference. Its worked great with Tech students

Can be adapted to anything, if they see a funny or cool sign, they can read it and save.

This post was submitted by Jason K.

1.  Put large posters of “Yes” and “No” at opposite ends of the classroom. (you might also use “Rocks! – Sucks!  or “I think so” or “I don’t think so” etc….)

2.  Students stand. Read a statement such as “I love chocolate ice cream” .  Students answer by going to the side of the classroom, the poster, that represents their opinion/answer.  Or if undecided they can go to the middle. Continue reading statements.

3.  Give students a slip of paper. They write their own statements or closed questions (Yes/No). Then each take turns reading theirs and seeing the opinions/beliefs of classmates.

….

You can use this technique in many ways and to cover/introduce many topics and language items. Really good for doing surveys interactively… A perfect example of “learning on your feet” and Active Learning.

This post was submitted by David .

Any time students are performing an activity: dialogue, discussion, task etc… train them to “pass the pen”. After speaking, the student passes the pen to someone else. If you have the pen, you then must “add to” the activity. It’s your turn.

The simplist way to introduce this to students is to put some questions on the board or in a worksheet. Students randomly ask a question and “pass the pen”. That student replies and asks a question and “passes the pen”. You might even just use the “Spin the Question” game on EFL Classroom 2.0.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

Students in groups pass around a piece of paper while music plays. When it stops, whoever has the paper must answer the question or do a specific task.  In this game - finish the Christmas Carol.

Pass the paper is an excellent interactive way to review the lesson / curriculum.

Get the powerpoints and more games like this HERE.

This post was submitted by David .

Simply use these templates or have them draw their own.

First, review how to write a card by doing one as a whole class on the board. This will give them an idea of the appropriate register and vocabulary.

One caution – make sure you assign or draw names. That way, everyone in the class will get a card!

The teacher can be the postman!

This post was submitted by Ellen.