How
can we change the way students answer exercises in the book? How can we vary
the way we check the work in class? It is usually pretty repetitive and boring,
so how do we keep students interested and engaged?
One
thing I like doing with my younger students, is to use fun PowerPoints,
downable from here:
(Go to : "Whole class review
games" to find the free PPT's I discuss below).
Behind
the Box: Who is the mystery person?
I
like using the "behind the box" power point. Every time someone
answers correctly, I remove a box and students get a chance to guess who or
what is hiding behind the box.
This not only increases engagement, but it
also creates a buzz in the classroom and a lot of interest. Students like to
guess who is hiding behind the picture and they are very curious about it. This
is also an opportunity for me, to teach them some culture or history. I once
put a picture of Hillary Clinton and we discussed her history and her
presidential candidacy. (By the way, you
will need to know how to add a background image to each slide- you should right
click the slide and choose: background).
A
treasure in the ocean
Another
way to check those exercises is to use the "Sunken Treasure" power
point. Participating students, get a chance to guess where the treasure is
hiding. (They do that by choosing a box number which is also good for reviewing the numbers). When someone reveals the treasure, we stop
checking the exercise and we have a small celebration. This game usually causes
very quiet students to participate! Kinda like using a ball toss game in class,
this will make reluctant students participate.
Car
race and horse race- group work
Another
way is to divide the class into groups. Every group gets a chance to answer a
question in the exercise together, as a group. If they have the correct answer,
then their "horse" or "car" moves "one step"
forward. The winning group is the one who finishes the race first.
Vary
the way you do exercises
In
her book "100 Teaching Tips", Penny Ur writes about more suggestions
about how to vary the exercises in the book:
1. When
students finish, have one student role play the teacher and check the exercise.
(They can ask you for help if they need to).
2. Students
can complete the exercises in pairs.
3. Students
can do the exercises orally instead of doing it in writing.
Start
a challenge
Challenge the
students: Have students do as much as they can in writing within five minutes
(either individually or in pairs).
Allow many right answers
Usually, there is
only one right answer, but it is easy to change the exercises so that lots
of right answers are possible. It helps with differentiation as stronger
students can come up with new sentences, and it can definitely enhance creative
writing.
1. In
grammar exercises such as these:
Last night, she
________ (leave) at six o'clock.
You can tell students
to ignore the verb in brackets and suggest other verbs in the past such
as: came, spoke, laughed.
2. Using
the same sentence, students can also delete the end of the sentences and
create their own continuation after the
word "left". For example:
Last night,
she sent her friend a text message.
3. If
you have a "gap fill" with a word bank, you can tell the students to
ignore the word bank and write their own words or even write a few
possibilities.
4. If
you have a "matching" activity, students can ignore one of the
columns of "matches" and invent their own match for each item in the
remaining column.
Penny adds that these
are not too difficult for students to do since they use their own language,
meaning, words that they already know. Therefore, it may even be easier.
I hope this will help
you in planning the upcoming school year!!
If you are an English
teacher, you can stay in touch and send me a Facebook friend request here: Hili Zavaro
Hili
tags: English, EFL, games, technology
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