QUESTION:  I know that one of my responsibilities as a language teacher is to guide my learners in 'learning to learn'. My greatest challenge,to date, is to figure out a way to encourage them to keep in touch with English over the holidays when we do not hold classes.Once they return, it seems to take weeks for them to get back into using English fluently.

ANSWER:  Try our activity titled “My Relaxing Summer Experience:  A Post-Summer Break Guided Composition”.  It is appropriate for B1 and above learners.  Aside from providing them with vocabulary recall and in-class writing practice as you requested, this activity can be extended to class project work requiring learner poster or powerpoint presentations.

ANSWER:  An essential part of English pronunciation is some basic awareness of syllabication and word stress.  Our suggestion , "Let's Snap, Clap, Tap, Walk Syllables" is an activity for beginning/elementary level children, yet it can be used with all levels and ages of language learners.  Learners can practice saying words and phrases in unison, while indicating on which  syllable, within a word or phrase, the stress falls.  We provide you with 4 ways to indicate or mark where the stress falls: Snap, Clap, Tap, Walk.  Two additional silent

ANSWER:  Try our activity "Grammar Quotes" for using folk wisdom in grammar teaching and revision.  Advanced learners enjoy this activity because, by studying folk sayings and popular quotes, they get an insight into the culture and mentality of English-speakers.

Here are three examples which can be presented to learners to gloss, discuss and, finally, scrutinize structurally so as to identify which grammatical constructions they use.

ANSWER:  Here is a suggestion "In This Situation, What Would You Say and Do?"--a guided group work writing and speaking activity, in which intermediate level learners have the opportunity to write exchanges and short dialogues--appropriate to specific social situations.  There is minimal preparation and the entire 'double' activity should take approximately 20 minutes.

PREPARATION OF MATERIALS:

1. Prepare three sets of cards:   

ANSWER:  Certainly. Especially if these learners have not had any previous using-the-dictionary training by their teachers. And even if they have, the activities discussed here help them practise more.

Answer:  Dice Discussions is an activity for intermediate to advanced learners to help them develop fluency and confidence in using topic-related vocabulary items in a light, game-like situation.  This group work activity requires some writing before the Report Back stage.

PREPARATION:

Project Image: 

QUESTION:

When I attempt to hold whole class discussion, even though class size is not large, I encounter problems in engaging most learners to participate.  There are three major problems:  1) not all learners speak because certain individuals dominate, 2) no matter how familiar the subject, there seems to always be a vocabulary “shortage” and 3) most learners want to talk only to the teacher. . .or better yet, listen to the teacher.