ESL

Make Your ESL Games Great Again

Make Your ESL Games Great Again

When I was a first-year teacher, my lesson plans looked like this.

"Warmer (game)

Grammar

Game

Book p14-15

Game

Review"

Games were great at entertaining my classes. Much later I realized that some games were also great for learning English. The challenge was figuring out which games. 

If you want your games to be more than a break between grammar drills and book work, check your games against “GAMES” (Group, Appropriate, Motivating, English, Skills).

Teaching Mixed Ability Classes - How Can We Teach More Of Our Students More Of The Time?

Teaching Mixed Ability Classes - How Can We Teach More Of Our Students More Of The Time?

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln (via Penny Ur),

You can teach some of the students all of the time, or all of the students some of the time. But you can’t teach all of the students all of the time.

Why not? Because most classes are mixed level. Some students learn faster than others, some write better than others, some are quieter than others. So the question we need to ask ourselves is…

How can we teach more of our students more of the time?

We can teach more of our students more of the time by making our mixed level classes “MIXED” (by using Materials, Instructions, eXpectations, Evaluation, Discipline).

Grammar isn’t about rules. It’s about meaning.

 Grammar isn’t about rules. It’s about meaning.

Yesterday, I was Cc’d in an email. My coworker, Annie, (who handles all the online payments in our department) emailed our mutual boss, Gary. The email read,

“Hi Gary, Ross is asking me to pay the website fee for 149.95USD, but the bank is asking for a verification code to complete the payment. What should I do? Thanks, Annie”

I read this and thought, ‘what a bitch....