Resources
Books
- ESL Games
- Basic ESL Curriculums
- (Nepal) Headway English Grammar and Composition 1
- (Nepal) Headway English Activity Book 1
Audio-Visual
- Magic English when we finish and there’s still 10 minutes left, or to do a full day of Magic English and exercises.
Material
- Computer and projector.
- White board and marker.
- Sticky tape and cardboard.
- Material from Selection Methods and Reward System
Activities
In this article there are many activities (in Spanish) that can be used to get a more engaging class, specially when starting out!
Furthermore ESL Games has a very nice list of activities in English too.
Other
Digital Resources
Computer Games
Anki
Custom Anki Deck
Drill in or memorize these lesson’s vocabulary with this set:
Anki allows creating one own’s deck with any word, so the ones we accumulate in these lessons I’m dumping them into a public deck.
With a projector it’s fun because then a student comes in and types the name of the image that shows on he flashcard and it shows the letters you failed.
You don’t need to download the software, you can play it online.
When there’s too many flashcards for the students (which slows down the rhythm of the class so much) the teacher can either:
Have many student do many flashcards instead of only one, and make sure they don’t cheat by looking at each other’s work.
Simply have them speak loud and pressing enter.
Selection Methods and Reward System
Sometimes instead of having to randomly select choices or players (which I struggle with) it’s better to have some physical activity such as the ones listed below.
Volunteering Students
There might be students that want to volunteer for the activity (specially when a reward system is in place). It’s nice to interoperate between asking for volunteers for the activity and randomly selecting one tossing the balloon as follows.
| Name | Image | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Drawn Balloon |  | Inflate a balloon or a ball and paint symbols or numbers across the same longitude, drawing wedges vertically (meridians). Toss the balloon randomly or aim it towards shy students and the meridian the right thumb of the hand lands on that one is the number that’s used. The balloon’s purpose is twofold: - Selects a student and… - … selects a choice that can map to something in the activity. Not only that but can also be used to direct an answer from the student that holds it, e.g. if the reply is twofold then the first student answers the first part and then tosses it again. If nobody wants to pick the balloon kick it around the class until someone gets it. |
| Origami Fortune Teller |  | For working with pairs, one student says the number in English, the other student performs the alternating vertical and horizontal opens until the number is reached and then a letter must be read. |
| Origami Dice |  | Simply roll the dice. It’s fun because they have made the origami cube themselves! And it’s also an inflatable balloon! Follow the balloon tutorial and give it hard edges and you have a dice. |
| Big Flipping Coin |  | Just to select among two values. For instance if you want a student to say a sentence in positive or negative, this might come useful. |
INFO
Before class if you get time to spend with the students a good ice-breaker to get to know them good is to elaborate and produce those paper figures Origami Fortune Teller and Origami Dice.
To encourage them to participate a reward system might be suitable: 1 point if they participate and 1 extra point if they get the answer right.
Those points can be paper tokens signed by the teacher, or be written on a colour paper sheet which makes it more difficult for them to fake, and can be exchanged and recorded at the end of the class.
Point Cash Out
When a point is cashed out, rip the paper token.
This VR roller coaster game (you can buy the plastic case for 3-4 dollars and use your phone as screen) or offering the student with most points to go to roller skate, bumper cars or something that’s also fun for you, teacher!
Another option is to find a quick party game for laptop that can be played with 2 USB controllers and at the end of the class everyone can enjoy together the gameplay.
If many kids have to play at computer it’s long, therefore I like the idea of splitting the choices between laptop 2-player games and VR games, since VR games are individual and don’t hold the entire class in place.
Classes
- English Class 001
- English Class 002
- English Class 003
- English Class 004
- English Class 005
- English Class 006
- English Class 007
- English Class 008
- English Class 009
- English Class 010
- English Class 011
- English Class 012
- English Class 013
- English Class 014