5 tips to be successful in the classroom

 I have been in London for a week so far and here I am ready to post! Teaching here is such an incredible experience! At the moment my class is made up of 14 upper-intermediate students.

I have been planning lessons and having classes and I have come up with some tips you teachers could be interested in.

1) Engage your students - no matter what they are learning (e.g. vocabulary, grammar) the more they have fun the more they will learn.

2) Be prepared - consider your own vocabulary and language awareness. Students rely on you, be ready to answer their questions.

3) Elicit - by conditioning students will be more aware of what they are learning.

 4) Check - don't ask "Do you understand"? (probably no one will tell you the truth) but test. Ask check questions and you will be sure whether they got it or not.

5) Speak little, speak well - give students as much time as possible to speak. Speak just to give them instructions!

I hope these tips will be useful! Bye for now!

You are more beautiful than you think

Many times I have classes with small groups of girls or women only and what I noticed is that they understimate their beauty. Dove and I think women are more beautiful than they think so I planned this lesson ;-)
STUDENTS: ADULTS
LEVEL: PRE-INTERMEDIATE

1) Show your students this video until minute 0:55 without audio.

2) Ask your students the following questions:
- Who is the man? What is he doing?
- What are the women doing?
- Can he see them?
- Why do you think he is drawing them?

3) Show your students this picture and ask them to draw their own face.

 

4) Now show your students the video with the audio until minute 1:26. Ask them: Why does the artist want to have two descriptions of the same person?

5)  Ask your students to draw the face of the student sitting next to them.

6) Now show them the video till the end. Were they right in their predictions?

7) Focus on the language of slogan "You are more beautiful than you think".

8) Finally, invite your students to have a little conversation about beauty.
Suggested questions:
- What is beauty for you?
-  Do you think physical appearance is important? When?
- Do you know anyone who feels ugly?

I do hope you will enjoy the lesson as we did!

CHIUSURA ESTIVA

Lo Studio di Consulenza Linguistica resterà chiuso fino al 31 Agosto 2013. Le iscrizioni saranno aperte dal 2 Settembre 2013 e i corsi cominceranno la prima settimana di Ottobre 2013.

Intanto guardate la nostra infographic

Love don't co$t a thing

My followers and students know I love to create my lessons using everything I see, listen to in my daily routine. Last week I read this e-book

written by highly-qualified English teachers. I was impressed by the first story How shiny fall... by  Kerstin Hammes (visit her website www.fluentlanguage.co.uk) and so I decided to create this lesson plan.

INTERMEDIATE ADULT STUDENTS (1 hour)

1) Show your students this picture (taken from the story)

2) Ask them what they can see. Do they think a ring is a token (symbol) of love?

3) Ask them to read the title and try to guess what the story is about.

4) Tell your students to read in small groups the first paragraph and ask the following questions:
- Who is the narrator of the story?
- Which words does the ring use to describe itself?
5) Students read the second paragraph and then work in pairs:

6) Students read paragraph 3 and 4 now. Ask them to predict what happens to the main character.
7) Let them read the ending. Are they happy with it? My students were quite sad about the end of the story so their homework was re-writing the ending.

This is from my student Carla.

One day, she took me back from the box. I was so happy. She had been pregnant so her finger was too fat for me. Now they had a baby and I was in my place again.

By the way, you can use this story to review comparatives.

 

Download the e-book you will find other fascinating stories. Hurry up!