Some ideas on how to use news articles in lessons are:
If you’re not sharing these Learning Upgrade videos with your late elementary to middle school students, I recommend doing so. They’re very straightforward and explain the most important concepts in reading comprehension. This one is about the main idea and the overall organization patterns of a paragraph.
Here’s how I use the video:
The best part is the feedback I’ve heard from students when they watch the video, “Oh, this is cool!”
I have always interpreted this song as it might pertain to students learning English, especially the younger ones.
I am posting this song for those of us who need an uplifting start to one of the last weekends of summer as the new school year looms in the near distance. Sometimes you have a blank page before you, but you have an assignment to complete. Where does your inspiration come from?
Open up the dirty window, feel the rain on your skin…are just a few of the suggestions from Natasha Bedingfield as she explains that this upcoming year or school year is the beginning of whatever you want your life to be.
If you like studying English in non-traditional ways, I recommend going back to the lyrics of the song and listen for the variety of verb tenses presented here. How many can you hear? The song also contains the passive voice, complex sentences, and English phrases that you adopt as your own:
If you really want to challenge yourself, go back and read the lyrics and count the missing apostrophes!
Have a great weekend!
In my experience, it’s always been easier to teach the future with will after a couple of grueling semesters of drilling irregular past forms and mastering the verb to be with the present participle for the present progressive. The ease of this verb tense is a welcome change.
Learning the future with will is like a vacation! So, as summer comes to an end, and you think about your future classes, here’s an activity to help you practice changing verbs from the present simple tense to the future tense.
When using the word “manners” meaning etiquette, it is plural. Some expressions you might see “manners” in context are:
Have a discussion about different acceptable manners in your ESL classes. The cultural differences among countries and regions are great conversation topics.
Brainstorming is a technique used not only in school, but also in college and the workforce. Brainstorming allows you to not only generate your own ideas, but also to share your ideas with others. Sharing your ideas could stimulate others’ creativity, too. By the end of a short brainstorming period, you’re ready to plan! After you’ve developed a solid plan, you’re almost finished!
The benefits of brainstorming include:
But, make sure you have a strategy, or else this could happen:
So, just remember to
Remember the game 20 Questions? Well, you don’t have to wait until the cable gets repaired or the next long car trip to play. Use this in your ESL classes to help students develop grammatical accuracy, question formation, and critical thinking!
It’s easy and fun, and it requires very little prep time. It only requires an understanding of the rules, which can be found here…
Test yourself: write a sentence with a two-word interjection. Don’t forget to punctuate correctly with interjections.
Example: No way! I didn’t say that!
Click here for an activity to practice punctuation with interjections (also in PDF).
Test yourself: Write a sentence that contains at least one of every part of speech. The parts of speech are: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, interjections, and prepositions.
Example: Hey! Are you on a comfortable chair or not?
These activities might help you identify the different parts of speech:
Test yourself: Try writing 3 sentences using their, they’re and there correctly.
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