S . ESL Teaching

(bunting - activity. Examples from kids 4, 6, 10, 11 yo) When I do my teacher training, I often come across new teachers who have never written a lesson plan in their lives. Especially when teaching small children they are often a bit lost and don't know what kind of activities to do with children or how long an activity should last (please, don't plan an activity that takes 40 minutes ....) among many other things . So here is an idea on how you could start (see at the bottom of the post). It can easily be adapted for different ages. For beginner teachers, I often advise them to do a detailed plan. It takes a loooot of time and you may feel like it's nor worth it. After all the goal is not to plan for 4 hours just to teach 1 hour (and only get paid for that one hour!). Been there, done that! But believe me, at the beginning it is really worth it (I will write another blogpost about why you should have lesson plans), with time it will get easier and you will teach more...

Teaching with flashcards is my favorite way to teach new vocab. You should see the shoeboxes full of flashcards on my shelf! Whenever my husband comes into the office he points to my boxes and asks: “We throw them? We need more space!” :p. Don’t touch my boxes! Anyway, even if flashcards are a great way to teach new vocabublary, do yourself and your students a favor, and switch from time to time. Teaching with flashcards all the time can get anyone bored out of their skin. I also use realia (real objects) or ppt presentations, for example, but there are tons of other ways. But let’s get back to the flashcards. How I usually introduce the new words is by showing a flashcard, saying the word and have the kids repeat (yea, that’s the boring part .. but not for long). The same again with the second word. Once I have 2 words, the fun can begin.  I stick the cards to the board (the 2 that I taught so far), pointing to one card and saying the word, then pointing ...

One of my favorite teaching materials is "Flashcards", because there are just sooo many games you can play with them and make lessons really fun. Here are some ideas that came to my mind just now, but there are tons more out there. 1. Have the children close their eyes. Hide the flashcards everywhere in the room. Depending on the age of the children you can also just place the cards openly into different corners of the room. Have the children open their eyes. Call out a card. The children run to find the correct one. The child who finds it first receives a point. Repeat until no cards are left. 2. Another version of this is .. use big flashcards (DinA4) and pin them to the wall. Call out a card and have the children run to the correct card tapping it. Those who tapped the right card get a point. 3. Pin all flashcards to the board. Drill the vocabulary. Have the children close their eyes and remove one card. The children then have to guess which one is mis...