Teaching the simple present tense meaningfully

Hello everyone,
I’d like to share two activities I have just experienced with my students after they have been introduced to the simple present tense. These activities offered a good opportunity for students to use this tense meaningfully and do enjoyable tasks that focus their attention on its forms. They have also been incredibly productive in terms of the amount of language use. The following is the plan of the lesson in which I used the 2 activities. I hope to get feedback from you soon !

Lesson topic: teaching the simple present tense using communicative activities.

Level: beginning

Skills emphasised: integrated skills.

Target language: verbs related to daily routines and professions and WH questions.

Objectives: by the end of the lesson students should be able to:

• Acquire and use new vocabulary items related to daily routines and professions.
• Practice the forms of the simple present tense meaningfully.
• Share information about their daily routine.

Materials:

A handout questionnaire to fill in with daily routine activities.
Individual sentences on slips of papers about professions.

References:

• Penny Ur, 2006. Grammar practice activities.
• Jeremy Harmer. The practice of English language teaching.
  

Activity I: daily routine

1. Teacher presents Fatima’s daily routine on the board. Actually it’s a two-column chart labelled: “time” and “activities”.
2. Teacher writes down time and activities. For example: 7am : I get up. Teacher uses gestures and mimes to present the new vocabulary.
3. When the chart has been completed, the teacher asks students comprehension questions about Fatima’s routine. The aim being to show students that verb forms change when the subject is in the third person. These are examples of the questions I used: When does Mary get up?, What does she eat for breakfast?,How does she go to school? ...etc.
4. Students are asked to work in pairs and get to know about each other’s daily routine.
5. Each Student is given a questionnaire which he should fill in by asking the other person in his pair.
6. When students have completed the task, the teacher asks them to write a paragraph in which they describe the different activities their classmate does as part of his or her daily routine. The questionnaire answers serves as a source of ideas.
7. Teacher gets a student up to the front of the class to read out his paragraph.
8. Teacher collects students ' writings for evaluation and feedback.
   

Activity II: professions

1. On the board, teacher draws a chart with many columns each labelled with a different job.
2. Students are put into groups.
3. Each group is given individual sentences on slips of papers. Actually each sentence describes an activity a person would do in the course of one of the jobs indicated on the chart.
4. Teacher makes sure that groups understand the meaning of the sentencesa and provides help.
5. Students read the sentences and match them with the jobs.
6. A representative of each group is asked to write on the board sentences underneath the appropriate job.
   

The English alphabet

I noticed that some of my students do have some difficulty in pronouncing some words because they don't know even most of the alphabet.In fact, they would like to learn ,but they find this hinderance.Therefore, Idecided to start my lesson with the English alphabet.I asked some of my students about the English alphabet.I asked students to listen carefully .I played the tape recorder.I distributed sheets where there are some blanks to fill in.I asked the students to listen and to write the missing words. I asked some students to read what they have written.I asked pairs students to compare their answers.Then ,we had a correction on the blackboard.I had also a lesson about days of the week and I used jazz chant following the same previuos steps.I was very glad because when I meet some of my students ,I hear them singing the songs they have learnt in class though nobody of their parnts know any word of English.

Using games in teaching grammar

Dear colleagues,
I’d like to share an interesting and meaningful grammar activity I have just practiced this morning. It’s actually the famous game "don’t say yes or no" adapted from “Grammar practice activities” by Penny Ur. I used this game as a supplementary follow up activity to consolidate students’ knowledge and use of short answers to yes no questions. The procedure of the game is the following:

1- On the board I wrote down names of different people and their professions. I used some pictures to present professions .

2- I explained the rules of the game as follows:

• A student is asked to stand in front of the class and answer his classmates’ questions.
• Other students in turn ask him/her about any person they choose from the list concerning his/her job. They have to use yes no questions. For example: is Leila a teacher?
• The answer must be in the form of a short answer without saying “yes” or “no”.
• The winner is the one who answers correctly the maximum of questions.
  
  This activity was a good opportunity to present new vocabulary items and manipulate yes no questions as well as short answers forms in an interesting, funny and contextualized way.Give it a trail, I’m sure your students will like it!.

Report about the P4T Summer Institute 2007

The Partnership for Teaching (P4T) Summer Institute sponsored by the American Department of State and hosted by the University of Delaware started on July 7, 2007 and ended on Aug 18, 2007. The program was organized for the Moroccan and Egyptian teachers of English as an initiative to help the ministries of education in both countries to improver the teaching of English in public schools. The participants had the opportunity to improve their teaching skills, update their academic knowledge, and discover the American culture through two main ways, the academic activities and cultural trips and meetings.

The Academic Activities

These activities consisted mainly of workshops and tutorials that aimed at raising the participants’ awareness to a number of issues related to ESL/EFL such as using drama in teaching, strategic interaction, Story telling, teaching listening, etc. such activities aim also at correcting some misunderstandings that the participants might have about ESL/EFL teaching practice. Most of the workshops were in the form of interactive presentations that gives a theoretical background and practical tasks.

The merit of these activities resides in the fact that they combine theory with practice in dealing with any issue in ESL/EFL. This gave the participant a clear picture about the issues discussed. Another merit is the fact these activities was the fact that most of the presenters used cooperative approach to learning. In other words, the participants contributed their ideas to the workshop and helped to make it a success.

The academic activities were concluded with a final mini-conference that was entirely prepared by the participants. The conference topics featured what the participants learned from the whole training either in terms of form or content. In terms of form, most of the workshops presented at the conference reflected the techniques of presentation stressed during the training. In terms of content, most of the conference topics reflected either the issues dealt with during the training or the participants’ cultural experience during the training. Even if there was not enough time to prepare for the mini-conference, the participants managed to demonstrate their understanding of the different workshops and cultural activities. The mini-conference was also a form of preparation for the participants for the follow-on conference in the home country either in terms of organization or delivery.

The Cultural activities

On the cultural level, the P4T summer institute was an opportunity for the participants to discover the American culture, since it was the first time for all the participant in the USA. This objective was achieved through a number of cultural trips to monuments and places that constitute landmarks of the American Culture such as Dover, Philadelphia, New York, Lancaster, and Washington D.C. In addition to that, the cultural aspect of the training was fostered through a number of meeting and social gatherings with people from different walks of life and professions. Examples of these meetings are The People-to-People dinner, the Dover teacher meeting, and The ELI teachers’ lunch. These gatherings provided opportunities for the participants not only to improve their linguistic abilities but to foster their cultural awareness and understanding as well.

Mohamed ELFATIHI

The training program

Dear colleagues!Infact all what we have learnt in Delaware is so beneficial to me,all what I would like to say thank you for all people who endeavered to make of this program a success both the Moroccans and the Americans .Now in all my classes I am trying to use all the techniques and the skills we have learnt in Delaware:songs,chants,games,drama,puzzles,crosswords....etc.For the activities I am trying to use different forms:multiple choice,word and sentence order,gap filling,sentence completion,wh-questions.....etc.What surprised my colleagues is the life the Amish people are leading,It was the first time they have heard about them.In short everything we learnt in the USA was wonderful from society to pedagogy.Thank you and I really miss you:all the people whom I met there .I hope to see you here in Morocco so that you can discover the beauty of Morocco.You are welcome..........

It has been a long time since I wrote in the Blog. We began our school year about four weeks ago.I have put a plan since I ARRIVED IN EGYPT.I made some copies for all my colleagues about what we have done in the USA AND EVERYDAY WE HAD DISCUSSIONS about how to adapt these new techniques in our school and according to the commercial curriculum.
At first I put the idea of my PORTFOLIO into use for integrating writing daily and it was really a success. It was at first difficult to have positive results but through trials my students liked the idea very much.
Second, I made use of our workshops about how to teach VOCABULARY in an easy and expressive way.
Now I am thinking of how to solve my students' problem in speaking as some of them are shy to speak in front of others and this could be solved through group work , but others get afraid of making mistakes , it is my duty to help them speak freely.
If I have any new idea or technique , I would keep in touch.
LAMIA

Using jazz chants in listening activities

Dear colleagues,
I'd like to share with you a lesson that both my students and I liked so much. Students learnt many things and had a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to your comments. Thanks!

Lesson plan

Lesson topic : listening using jazz chants

Students Level : beginning 1

Time : 45 minutes

Skills emphasized : Listening and developing oral intelligibility through appreciation of the rhythm and intonation patterns of spoken American English.

Target functions and structures :

• asking for names and their spelling,
• greeting others and asking about mutual friends,
• introducing friends in a casual and frequentely used form,
• using short forms of the verb Be.

Objectives : By the end of the lesson students should be able to :

• review the functions and vocabulary previousely taught: asking for names and their spelling , age, using short forms of the verb Be,
• get used to the sounds and features of American English,
• be aware of the striking difference between written words and their spoken forms.

Materials:

• Small talk Book and cassette by Carolyn Graham
• tape recorder
• Task sheet with written conversations .

Activity I : warm-up

T briefly reviews the previous lesson by asking students about their names, how they are spelt, their age, their home towns......

Activity II : Listening

1. Students listen to chant n°1 on the cassette
2. Students listen once again and try in pairs to fill in blanks with words from the chant. They are already given a task sheet.
3. Class correction of the exercice with answers on BB.
4. students repeat sounds they find difficult.
5. teacher along with students establish the rhythm by snapping fingers, then students repeat each line of the chant after the teacher
6. Students listen again to the chant on the cassette
7. Class is devided into 2 groups ( 2 rows for each group). Each group is given a role and repeats his lines after the teacher.
8. The 2 groups perform the chant without the teacher modeling.
9. the groups exchange roles while keeping the rhythm with their fingers snapping.

Activity III : practice

• Students in pairs write a dialogue in which they use all what they have just learnt using their names ..etc.
• Students act out their dialogues to the whole class.
• Teacher helps them retain the rhythm and intonation paterns.

* The same activities were repeated with all the other chants in units 1 and 2 in the jazz chants book .

References :

• Small Talk book and cassette by Carolyn Graham. Oxford University press.
• Workshop on Rhythm, Stress and intonation with jazz chants. Marybeth Worillow. P4T Udel 2007.

New eJournal about the English language

Below you'll find the link to a new online journal on a topic we all know and love: the English language.
Check out the new eJournal, Dynamic English online: http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0807/ijse/ijse0807.htm Or as a pdf file: <>
Enjoy the journal.
Kamal Hadder