QUESTION:  I've been thinking that I depend a lot  on working through course material (the coursebook primarily and its components as well).  Often times on the first day of class not all teenage learners have their books with them.  I usually plan to use many of the 'Getting to Know You' activities that I have learned from your seminars.  Any other ideas?

 Answer:  An appropriate activity would be a "poem"[1] for Christmas, which could become the learner's Christmas card to his/her parents. Of course, it could also turn into a kind of a "tableau vivant" for the learners' class show.  The activity we describe below can be used with learners from ASenior+.

A Christmas Poem

Level: Elementary - Advanced

Age:  10+

ANSWER: We would suggest then an activity which deals with the themes of kindness or friendship  Either theme will help our learners think about themselves and their commitment to the people around them. Also, either would be appropriate as a Valentine’s Day activity.

TITLE: “What is Kindness?"

LEVEL:  Early Adolescents+

ANSWER: A judicial use of video-based exercises to spice up conventional book lessons will not only capture the learners' attention but will provide them with opportunities to recognize and use English they know, to learn new expressions and to develop essential observation skills.

As video is a very rich medium, it is important to plan a video lesson focusing on specific language learning aims.  Here is a suggested procedure to follow for planning such an activity:

ANSWER:  Here we'd like to suggest, under the title Back to Basics:  Engaging Learners in Beneficial Oral Practice,  a number of drill-like activities which promise to be light and fun for the learners to partake in and attractive to teachers to conduct.

1.  PUPPET DEMONSTRATIONS

to lead question and answer practice of useful everyday conversational exchanges

See example with   Rose and Rick

Your concern is well-founded.  Vocabulary items need to be selected, contextualized during presentation, practiced repeatedly and recycled whenever possible.

SELECTION:  Your teachers need to have selection criteria for those vocabulary items they set for their students to learn.  To name some, we consider  ‘high frequency’ (How often is the word used?), ‘receptive or active vocabulary’ (Are vocabulary items to be comprehended only or both comprehended and used?), and ‘appropriateness’ for learners’ age and level.

Answer: Since 2011, when we started collaborating with Linguaglobe, there have been a number of activities where we suggest ways of consolidating grammar structures. This time, we will work with an activity which can be used to consolidate the Past Simple.

TITLE: "Re-living Yesterday"

LEVEL: A2+, age 12+

SKILLS: Writing, Speaking, Introspective thinking, note taking.

TIME:   10 - 15 minutes

MATERIALS: None needed

QUESTION:  My students use the computer lab for 1 hour per week and work on various other projects with their teacher. We watch National Geographic videos, play songs in English and, once in a while, watch a whole movie.  This year I would like to offer the same activities,  but I am looking for something outside of the coursebook publisher's materials. Can you help?

There are two suggestions we would like to offer you.  The first has to do with computer lab activities and the second with project work tasks.