Good morning
Me again - popping into your Sunday morning inbox. Hope that you've had a good week. The sun was shining here this morning, so maybe Spring is on the way.
I've got some more great teaching ideas for you this week - some thoughts about Guided Discovery as a way of presenting grammar, a video idea with an example of this and an online tool for learning language through songs.
Guided Discovery
If this term is new to you, there's a
video here that will talk you through it, but basically, it's a way of increasing learners' engagement with grammar teaching by making it into a puzzle. Rather than telling them the rules and asking them to come up with examples from them, you give them examples and ask them to work out the rules. It works particularly well with language where the meaning is pretty straightforward but the form is tricky - things like tag questions, comparatives and superlatives and .... articles...
Sneak Preview
Yup, articles. One of the great joys of English grammar - three little words - a, an, the, and a whole raft of rules and exceptions. In this week's
sneak preview video, I've got a motivating, low prep, high output activity for you to teach and practice articles with geographical names - it works well online or face to face and all you need is a world map.
Website
Finally, enough of grammar - here's something completely different - a really nice online tool for your learners. This one has been around for a long time and so you may know it, but I find that it's often helpful to be reminded of things, and if you don't know this, it's a real treat. Learning English through songs can be very motivating and
Lyrics Training is essentially a gap-fill tool. The beauty of it, though, is that when each line has played, the music stops automatically and gives you time to think and fill in the gap without rushing. You can also replay just that line again...and again.. and if you still can't get it, you can just get the answer and move on. It has hundreds of songs and you can choose the level of difficulty. It's available on an app for iPhone and Android so your learners can play/ listen/ learn on the go. Why not set them a song to learn for homework?
So, that's about it from me for this week. Hope you enjoy these things and as always, do let me know how you get on.
All the best
Jo
