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giovedì 17 ottobre 2013

The Power Of Post-it Notes

Here we go with a new post! Yesterday I had three mini group classes: PRE-TEENS, TEENS and ADULTS (intermediate). At the end of the day while I was tidying up I realized I had used post-it notes in every lesson. I think post-it notes are practical, handy and we can use them in several situations. Here you are three different ways to use post-it notes.

1. PRE-TEENS 
Present Simple: Question Form
Many students think the question form is as clear as mud. Some students forget to use the auxiliary do,others use do instead of does.
I took some post-it notes and wrote down a word (or two) on each of them. All together they make a question. Then I messed them up and I stick them up on the board. The students had to rearrange the words  in order to make a question. Everytime the students made a mistake I put an alarming sound so they knew they were wrong and they changed the position of the post-it notes. These are just two questions they made. The colour of the post-it notes helped them create the right question.

2. TEENS
My teen students started reading a graded reader book yesterday. It is about a teenager who plays video games. They brainstormed vocabulary about videogames and then I gave them two sets of post-it notes. On the light blue notes there were words and on the orange notes their definitions. In pairs the students had to match them in three minutes. 






3. ADULTS
Adult students love studying functional language (requests, complains, invitations) because they use it in their daily life. After listening to short dialogues and noticing the new language about giving suggestions the students were divided in pairs and were asked to look around the classroom so they could notice post-it notes on the walls. There were three types of post-it notes: 1) Suggestions 2) Replying positively 3) Replying negatively. Each pair was given a type to find out and stick up on the board. The board looked like this midway through the activity.

When and why do you use post-it notes? Please share your answers with me.
I hope this post was useful and you might use these activities in your lessons.

Have a lovely day

Larissa


6 commenti:

  1. Hi! I'm a fan of post-it too! I use them for a 'listen&grab' exercise: I select words/phrases from a script we're going to listen to in class, I divide my students in 2 teams, and place the post-it with the words/phrases written on, on a desk in the middle of the room. The students stand up and group around the desk. While listening they have to grab the post-it with the word/phrase they hear. The team whose members grab more post-it wins. Then they go back to their desks and we explore the meaning of the words, part of speech, synonyms and so on. I keep the post-it and re-use for the next lesson to revise the vocab: I give a post-it each and ask them to use the word in a sentence.

    RispondiElimina
    Risposte
    1. Thank you for sharing your brilliant teaching idea! I do love it!

      Elimina
  2. I've used them a lot in my lessons. It's a very easy and yet powerful way to organize patterns, vocabulary lists, etc. Thank you for sharing the idea. It has a lot of potential to teach every aspect of the language.

    RispondiElimina
    Risposte
    1. Thank you for visiting my blog and sharing your ideas! All the best, Larissa!

      Elimina