ESL Lesson - Reported Speech - Celebrity Gossip - Intermediate and Up

   Here's a reported speech lesson that you can do with Intermediates and up that deals with celebrity gossip. At the end of the lesson, students will use reported speech by taking the roles of journalists to describe the events of a crazy hollywood party.

Introduction: (just a few minutes)

Here are some possibilities and any of them will work.
1. Come in whispering various things in students' ears
2. Come in roleplaying being a reporter
3. Show different tabloids of celebrities
4. Show a clip of a TMZ-like show

With all of these you want to try and elicit the concept of gossip (especially celebrity gossip)

Lead in: (around 7 minutes)
Demo these questions out and then have students answer them in groups or pairs.
1. What is gossip?
2. Where can you hear about celebrity gossip? 4 different ways/sources.
3. Any interesting celebrity gossip currently happening now? Name 3.

 Target Language: (under 10 minutes)
 Tip: In general with reported speech it's good to use verb shift. You can tell them though that if they are reporting something that is still relevant now or just happened, you don't have to use verb shift.

 Announce to the class that you're tired. Then on the board have ' chris .... ... . ... ... .  ' Elicit the correct sentence in reported speech. Keep eliciting and go over all of the rules this way. Depending on the level you can go over things like 'today -> that day' 'tomorrow -> the following day' 'here -> there' and so on.

Tip: Watch your TTT. Whenever I teach grammar there's no explaining involved. I go right into eliciting it out. Keep your pace fast  Also watch for verb shift. Make sure that they are using the correct forms and everything. Move with them at their level. When they get one form, then go to the next. Make sure that there's not just one student saying all of the right answers.

Study 1: ( 7 min)

Tip: Since this activation deals with celebrity gossip, make all of your studies related to that topic. This will help them use any auxiliary lexis that might come up in your activation

Students go around the class with each one saying a statement and the other student putting it into reported speech. Then this student will say a new statement and the next student will put it into reported speech and so on

Tip: If you want to make this more random and avoid students going 'round the class' use a ball. Students say a statement and then throw the ball to another student and so on. Also work on things like speed. You want this to move fast. Practice and push the pace.


Study 2: ( 7 min)
Hand out pictures of different celebrities with speech bubbles. Each celebrity will have a few statements pre written on them. Students will work in groups. Students will go back and forth asking and telling each other what each celebrity said.


Activation: (around 15 minutes total)
Set up:
Give half of the class a celebrity and the other half are reporters. Tell the class that they are at a hollywood party and all of the celebrities are a little bit drunk and saying some ridiculous things. Students get up and mingle and the reporters record the gossip. Play music, make it fun, encourage celebrities to say outlandish things and revelations about their careers and personal lives.

Activation: Gossip Show
Demo out or show a clip of a reporter reporting on gossip. Have the reporters work together and present what they heard to the class. Make it sound and feel like a celebrity show. Have the reporters ask each other questions like 'what else did he say?' ' That's incredible, was anything else revealed?' and so forth. The trick is to make it sound natural and real. Once they have done this, switch roles, have another party with new celebrities and repeat the process

Tip: You can't have reported speech without direct speech. So try and make sure that the celebrities are saying a lot of things.

Feedback: (just a few minutes)
Get basic feedback, board and correct mistakes, end the lesson with a joke.

*Want your own lesson? Just leave a comment and I'll make one for you.


Cheers,
Chris
TEFL Prague courses - The Language House TEFL

ESL Warmers and Games Using Improv - Mid to High Levels

 Using Improvisational games/activities/exercises can be a lot of fun in the classroom and are great linguistic training opportunities. Most activities in language classes deal with students presenting some kind of pre thought out  discourse. The problem with this is that speaking in real life is not as planned. Using Improv will help your students to think on their feet and discuss a variety of situations immediately without translating ideas or writing things down. Here are 6 activities that I created (although I'm sure others have thought of them) that I use in my classes.

Tip: Improv is hard stuff and should only be used with students who have a solid speaking base. Most of these activities are only useful for upper intermediate and advanced students. When you first do improv, it will most likely not work that great. Don't worry, with practice and more exposure, your students will get more comfortable and you will see a tremendous growth in their overall output with other language activities. These activities work, are extremely beneficial and are a lot of fun. Use them.

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1. Blob on the Bench (credit to Tom Hegg my middle school acting teacher) 

Prepare a seat in the center of the class where one student sits. He is the Blob. He feels nothing, knows nothing and just sits there. Tell the students to think of a situation (demo this out a bit) and have one of the students come up and interact with the blob. Whatever situation the second student presents,  the student who is the blob has to react to it.  For example: At the dentist, at a movie, in a car, girlfriend/boyfriend fight, at a psychologist, car wash, restaurant....what have you. Have them go for a bit, and when you feel there is a lag in the output, shout 'break'. Then the student who was the blob leaves and the new student is now the blob. Another student gets up, interacts with the blob and this continues.

Tip: This is hard stuff for even native speakers. Your students will feel awkward at first about it, but don't worry. Try interacting with the blob first a few times so students get the hang of it and then let them do it on their own. Once they feel comfortable doing it the first time and it's a success, you can do this activity whenever you have a couple of minutes to spare in a lesson.


2. Master of Puppets 
This deals with TPR. (Total Physical Response)
Put your class into pairs. One student is the puppet and one student is the puppet master. The puppet master essentially controls the puppet with language commands e.g. 'Stand up, walk over to the wall and turn around'. The puppet, has to follow whatever commands the master gives. These commands can be vocal and should include different puppets interacting with each other e.g. 'Walk over to Tomas, shake is hand and wish him a good day' 'Stand on the desk, put your hands in the air and say "I'm the king of the world"'.
After a few minutes, shout 'switch' and the puppet and puppet master change roles.

Tip: This can be used with lower levels but probably nothing lower than a solid pre-intermediate level. This is really and easy activity to pull off.


3. Speed Conversations
  Put students in groups or pairs depending on class size and tell them that they have to speak about a subject as naturally as possible for a 2 minute period. Yell out a situation/topic and students have to talk about it with each other as naturally as they can. Subjects can be things like Gun Control, Global Warming, Immigration, Marriage, Sports, Gender Roles...etc. If you want to make it more student centered, allow your students to shout out their own topics. Listen and grade the students on how well they sound.

4. Stolen Identity 
This is a variation on the 'Who am I?" warmer, but instead of students asking yes or no questions and guessing who the student is pretending to be, each student assumes the role of a celebrity.
Students mingle with each other and ask questions and give answers about what they do and who they are. You can shout 'switch' whenever you want and they have to become another person.

Tip: Push your students to really become the person they are imitating and think of the language and even mannerisms that they would use.  If you have an outgoing class, this can be a lot of fun.

5. The BS Artist - or 'Impostors' (if you want to be more PC)
Version 1 
Have your students write down what their professions are on a piece of paper. Check them to see if there are any duplicates. Randomly hand out the professions to your students so each student has a piece of paper with a profession on it (not theirs). Tell the class that they have to pretend that this is their job and they have to talk about their job to the other students. Have them go into as much detail as possible about it. Who they work with, what they like about it/dislike, what problems they have with it, what skills they need to have, what their typical day is...etc. Students mingle with each other and vote on who they felt was the most convincing.

Version 2
Have three students sit in the front of the class. One student will be his real profession and the other students have to pretend to be that profession. For example three students, one is a real doctor in real life, the other two are pretending to be doctors. The rest of the class is unaware of who is real and who is fake. In the style of the Dating Game, the class will ask each of the students in front different questions about their profession and try to guess who's the real deal and who are the impostors. When they guess correctly switch groups and another three go up.



General Tips: Improv is a skill in itself and with practice your students will get better. Remember to error correct and improve their output by either writing mistakes down or jumping in fast and eliciting mistakes if you can.



Cheers,

 C. Westergaard

ESL Lesson - Mob Boss - Upper Intermediate and Up - Lexis/Speaking

   Mob Boss - A lesson plan that you can't refuse.  


    Here's an incredibly engaging lesson you can do with upper intermediate classes (outgoing though) and above depending on the target language you want to use. It's mostly lexis based with a large amount of speaking. It is probably best suited for young adults, but you can use it really for any group that likes to have fun.  In the lesson, students will create their own organized crime syndicate (mafia) and eventually try and take out the other group's boss.
(this can easily take up 90 minutes so shave off stuff accordingly to your time frame).

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Introduction (a couple of minutes max)
 1.  Have the theme from the Godfather playing in the background and come in dressed and acting like Marlon Brando. Students have to guess who you are and what you do.

Tip:  Not feeling so outgoing...? That's ok use this instead...

2. Show a clip of a typical mob scene from a movie (the Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, the Untouchables ) and elicit the same thing.

 The goal is to elicit the concept of mafia, mob, organized crime...etc.


Lead In (7-10 minutes)
Demo these out fast with your class and then put them in groups to discuss.
1 What is organized crime? How is organized crime different from regular crime?
2. What is a mafia/a mob? Name some famous mafias in the world? (If any of your students say "TEFL Mafia" immediately give them 5 dollars...haha)
3. What crimes do they commit? Name 3.
4. Is there a mafia in this city? Who is it?
5. Why would someone join the mafia?
6. Name 3 popular movies that deal with the mob


Target Language (try to keep under 10 minutes)
Elicit and CCQ the following.
1. to wack (someone)
2. a front (as in a business front)
3. turf
4. to put a hit on someone
5. to extort (teach the noun as well)
6. to shake down
7. to racketeer (teach the noun as well)
  TIP: if you have a good class you can teach more mob related crime words
8 a. a mob boss
   b. an underboss
   c. a captain
   d. a soldier
   e. a crew
9. a made man (a wiseguy)


Study 1. Defining the words (around 5-7 minutes)
Put students in groups and give them cards with the word on them. One student has to define what the word is and the other students have to guess it. Make it a competition for time to see which group can go through the words the fastest.

 Study 2. Vocal sentence creation (around 5-7 minutes) 
Put the students into two teams. If you have a large class create groups of 4 or so. Give a good demo by using one of the words in a sentence. Throw a ball to one of the teams and they have to put one of the words into a sentence. If they do it correctly and relatively quick they get 3 points. Then they throw the ball to the other group. If the other group does it correctly, they get 3 points and so on. Work on speed and accuracy. If the student takes a while to come up with a sentence, but is able to eventually, give them 2 points.  If they can't come up with a sentence or it's really bad grammatically, they don't get any points, but their team can jump in, say it correctly, and get 1 point. The team with the most points wins. If you feel they need more practice, have them use the words again. Give bonus points if they use two or more of the words correctly in a sentence and so on.


 Activation 1 - Creating a Mafia 
 Set Up (around 10 -15 minutes with Demo)
Students create a Mob/Mafia based on the following questions. Remember to demo this out with them! You should have your own Mob created where they ask you about it first. This will help them practice and for them to see what you are getting at.

1. What's the name of your mob/mafia?
2. What kinds of organized crime are you involved in/commit?
3. Where is your turf located?
4. How do you become a made man/wiseguy in your mob?
5. Who's the mob boss? Underboss?
6. What is your front?
7. How many soldiers do you have?
8. How many captains and how large are their crews?
9. Do you have any current hits on anyone?
10. Have any of your members wacked someone or been wacked recently?

Students create their mobs in pairs, or groups, if you have a large class. Monitor the activity and make sure that students are using the target language correctly. Interact with the groups while they are working and ask them the above questions to get a little be of extra practice before the activation.

Activation: Mob conference (Around 7-10 minutes)
Enter into the room and in your best mob voice (could be NewYork Italian, Russian, Yakuza ...etc)  greet everyone and say that they are at a Worldwide Mafia Conference and they have to introduce themselves to each other and learn as much as they can about the different mafias using the above questions. Erase most the each question so students are not just reading off of the board, get them on their feet and mingling. If you can play some Frank Sinatra in the background or any other mobbish type music, do it.

Monitor and interact with the groups. Jump in and error correct mistakes. Give them a few minutes with each group and then yell 'Switch'.

Get quick feedback and go over mistakes quickly. If you are out of time, end the lesson here. If you have 7-20 minutes left continue on to the next activation. This next activation is will be fun, so make sure to try and get to this last activity.

Activation 2 - The Hit (around 10 minutes or more)

Tell the class that each Mafia (group) has to plan a hit on another group's mob boss. Create or give a brief scenario for each.
For example, mob group 1's boss likes to eat at a certain Italian restaurant every Sunday night, but he's always surrounded by 4 of his best bodyguards. How will they execute the hit?
Or
Mob group 2's boss going to be playing golf at a certain time. The golf club is completely private and only members are allowed on site. The mob boss has one bodyguard with him.  How are they going to do it?
Or
Mob group 3's boss is driving to his country home for the weekend. He's going to be in a small motorcade with a security car in front and in back of him. How will they execute the hit?

 (These are just a few ideas that I thought of right now. Think of a few of your own)

Tell the students that they have to create a plan to kill the mob boss using the scenario that each group received. They will be graded from 1-5 on their creativity, realism and of course use of the target language/language skills (combined). Have them present their plans to the class. After their presentation, grade them and give them 1-5 *bullets* (not real bullets you fool!!! - you'll see later) depending on how well they did.

Something Like This

Then, take a piece of paper that you've previously drawn cross hairs on (a basic target symbol) and post it on the board. Tell the group to stand back at the other end of the class and they will throw their bullets at the target. Bullets can be anything that will leave a mark on the paper - think of sticky tack, markers, a coin even...etc If they hit the bullseye, it means that they effectively killed the boss. If they hit the outer marks, it means injured. If they miss the target completely with all of their bullets, the plan failed. Two 'injured' hits means the boss was killed.
Move onto the next group and continue until everyone is done.

 Tip: Make sure you can accurately see if the target has been hit. Use your best judgement to determine the distance of the target. Don't make it too easy or too hard.


Feedback (a couple of minutes max)
Board and correct any mistakes that you heard. Say a funny joke or comment. End the lesson.

General Thoughts: This is a fun lesson and will work well with an outgoing group. In general,  it's funny and I can't imagine anyone really getting offended by it, but use your best judgement. Just teach the lesson plan accordingly to your level and students' abilities and things will work out fine. Remember though... in Soviet Russia...lesson plan teaches you!

Cheers,

Chris

ESL Lesson - Manifest Destiny - Reading/Discussion - Advanced

  This lesson was requested by Lon a graduate of the January 2011 Language House TEFL course.

  It has an accompanying reading that you can find here Lesson Reading and is geared towards an advanced class.  If any one of you want your own lesson created, I'm happy to do it. Sign up and follow the blog please.

   Introduction (a couple of minutes)
 1. write 'From sea to shining sea' on the board and play 'America the Beautiful'
 Ask students what they think this means.

  or if you know your class well you could...

2. Come in and declare that all of the students have to move to the back of the classroom and share a single desk because you needed more room to teach. This would introduce the idea of expansion and its effect on other people. (This could be pretty funny and effective, but make sure the students know you and like you or you'll look like a jerk).

  Tip: Why not make it more engaging by dressing up or showing a picture of an American pioneer?

 The goal is to try and elicit or pre teach the concept of Manifest Destiny. You will probably have to elicit a little bit of the history and what this concept meant in terms of the founding of the United States of America. Just off the bat, this is going pretty deep, so try and keep it relatively basic. You might want to bring in  two pictures. One of the 13 colonies and the land that the US owned/occupied and a later picture of westward expansion so they can see the difference. Your intro should be only a few minutes max, so don't dwindle on the concept to long.


Lead In (7-10 minutes)
Demo out the questions as a class and then put them in groups.
Tip: Make it relevant to the country you are teaching in. If you are teaching Czechs, start the question off about the Czech Republic. Obviously don't have the question about the Czech Republic if you are teaching in a different country.
1. What are the borders of the Czech Republic? Were they always this way? Who were the first Czechs who settled into Czechoslovakia? Where did they come from?
2. Why would a country want to increase its borders or land?
3. What are 3 benefits of a country expanding? What are 3 negatives?
4. Who occupied the West in America before the settlers expanded? Where are they now? Are they better or worse off then they were before the settlers?

(There's a lot of questions here, so you might not need to do them all. Above are just some ideas).

 Prediction for Reading: (1 min)
Show either the title or picture from the reading and ask the students what they thing they are going to be reading about.

Auxiliary Vocabulary (no more than 10 minutes max)
Here are some words from the article that I would pre teach. Since these are words that they will most likely not be using in their follow up speaking activity, you can just pre-board them and go over them briefly.
1. A Puritan
2. divine (a divine obligation)
3. To reaffirm
4. to fuel (to Fuel something)
5. in droves
6. To coin (something)
7. a mindset
8 a heathen
9. The Louisiana Purchase
10 The Mason-Dixon Line
11. Religious fervor
12. To spawn


Focus Task 1  (4 minutes)
1. Cut the article into paragraphs and have students in groups put the article into the correct order.

  or you could...

2. Find a few words/dates/names from the article and students have to find their significance.

Tip: The first focus task usually deals with them skimming or scanning. Have them try and read the article quickly to get the gist of it.


Focus task 2. (6 minutes or so)
Create a true or false sheet (not provided here) with about 10 questions for comprehension. Students work on it in groups and answer the questions.  Go over them quickly afterwards as a class.

Follow up 1 General Discussion

Tip: Before doing any kind of follow up speaking activity, double check comprehension of the article. This is a deep subject and concept that most foreign students know nothing about because it's not their own history. Without a sound understanding of what they read, any kind of speaking activity will fail miserably if you attempt one. So, just double check that they understand the ideas presented for Manifest Destiny,why the settlers wanted to expand and the impact/consequences that this created.

Have students in groups discuss the following questions

1. Why would the Pioneers believe that the Native Americans were backwards? List 4 reasons.

2. Is it right to believe that one culture is more civilized/advanced than another culture? Name three reasons for each side.

3. Could the Native Americans believe the Pioneers were backwards as well? Why might they?

4. Think of  3 examples of modern day Manifest Destiny. These can include governments as well as corporations.  (you might give examples of globalization, Microsoft, Apple...etc.)

5. Is it ever right for one country to enforce its will or beliefs on another country? Why? Why not? (think of a good example where it might have been a good thing e.g. Nazi Germany and the Allies fighting back.)


Get feedback after they've discussed these topics. Then move into another activity if you have time.


Follow up 2 - Debate (10 minutes)

Designate two sides. One are Pioneers for pro expansion. The other side are against it. Give them a few minutes to create an 8 point argument and then let them debate. Don't have them write out long sentences, that will take too much time. Just have them jot down their points. You don't want them to be reading out loud, you should be more interested in them creating language on their own and replying/countering points that the other side brings up.

Tip: Debates can be tricky! and I'll write about doing debates separately in another blog post. Here are some basic things though. Tell your students that it's not what they believe that is important but being able to argue well. This will help if you have students that are really against Manifest Destiny from getting upset. Remember, it's all about the language. Give each side a point if they make a good argument. The side with the most points wins. During debates, I usually post up (on the board or flip chart) helpful language for debating (e.g. 'I agree with your point, but... I see what you are saying, however... That is nonsense!... I'm sorry, but I don't agree with that at all...etc.) This will help them sound better in the classroom. Debates, disagreeing/agreeing, stating one's opinion...etc. is a linguistic function in itself. Work on this!


Feedback (a couple of minutes)
End the debate, board mistakes and correct them. End the lesson with a joke or something uplifting.


Overall thoughts on the lesson:
This one is a bit tricky. Most people are obviously going to side that Manifest Destiny is a bad thing and that the founding of the USA dealt with a lot of pain, bloodshed and horrific treatment of the indigenous people and slaves. Your students might not want to offend you (if you are American) if they feel that they are criticizing your home country. This of course will effect your output. Try to take a stance back from this. You are the facilitator of language and that's really all you should worry about. Use body language, comments...etc. to let your students know that they can express themselves openly. Obviously if you have a student that states something you disagree with (past or current colonialistic behavior of the US) don't get into an argument with them - It's just a language lesson.

Cheers,

W.

ESL Lesson Plan - The Odd Couple - Gradable/Ungradable Adjectives - Intermediate and Up

  This lesson gets students speaking about a mocked past vacation using gradable and ungradable adjectives. It can be used with really most levels above pre-intermediate, but you'll probably have to teach some auxiliary vocabulary about holidays/vacations to help them with their activations.

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Introduction -(couple of minutes) Use any of these ideas

a. Have various pictures of different travel locations and things to do on vacation up on the board.
b. Come in with a suitcase and say you're gong somewhere.
c. Tell short story about a past vacation you went on. Make sure to use gradable and ungradable adjectives in your telling.

Lead in (7-10 min)

1. Where did you go on your last vacation/holiday
2. Who did you go with?
3. Name five things you can do whilst on vacation
4. What was the best thing about the vacation? Worst thing?
5. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?



Target Language (2-5 min)

Gradable Adjectives are both grammatically based but also lexically based. Students need to know what the adjective is and its strength to use it correctly. What I do is pick about 8 gradable adjectives and add their ungradable equivalent. For example, good - great, cold - freezing, pretty - gorgeous, small - tiny, angry - furious, large - enormous, ugly - hideous,  bad - horrible  


Tip: The adjectives you use will be determined by what your activation will be. So think of the context of what they will be speaking about at the end of the lesson and use this to determine what adjectives to use. Also remember that if you are working with lower levels a lot of these adjectives will be brand new, so you will need more time to teach and learn them if they are unknown. Likewise, if you have an advanced group, give them more ways to grade an adjective or other synonyms for ungradable adjectives like for angry teach them Furious, Livid, Enraged...etc.

Presenting this is pretty easy. Just put Good on the board and elicit out Great from the students. Ask them what the difference is. Put Very in front of Good and ask them if that's correct. Put Very in front of Great and ask them if that's correct. If they say no, ask them why. Real easy stuff.


Study 1 Strips (5 min)
Hand out strips of these words and students in pairs have to match up the gradable and ungradable adjective (pretty - gorgeous).


When they have finished, briefly go over the ways to grade a gradable adjective (very,really, somewhat, a little...etc) and what you can use with ungradable adjectives (really, just, absolutely...etc).


Study 2 ( around 10min)
Take 2 minutes to elicit things that deal with holidays/vacations. Elicit these words out. The...hotel, people, food, nightlife, pool, room, scenery..etc Try to get about 8 different categories.

You should have pictures that represent all of these categories and pass them out to the pairs. The students have to take opposite roles for them so one student will say that the food (they have a picture of food) looks good and the other student says 'no it looks great!' and so forth. Do this for about 5 minutes and make sure that all of the target language is being used. Also watch for the tone and volume. The students using ungradable adjectives should sound enthusiastic. Get them to say the word/sentence with some vigor.


Activation (Around 15 min depending on time)
Demo: Tell the class that you just got back from a trip. Have the students ask you as a class about your trip using the above categories presented (room, hotel, nightlife...etc) Alternate your answers between mild gradable adjectives and ungradable absolute adjectives.

Switch up pairs and tell the students that they have just got back from a vacation with their partner. Student A is a mild mannered person, student B is an extreme person. SA always uses gradable adjectives ('the room was somewhat big').  SB always uses extreme adjectives ('the room was enormous!'). They have to go through all of the categories listed and then they can switch sides.

Tip: As always, work on natural language. Just don't have them list through the categories. It should sound like a regular conversation as in 'Well, what a nice trip we had, do you remember the pool, it was pretty cold'.... 'Cold? are you kidding, it was absolutely Freezing!' ...etc. That's what you want. Make it sound natural and work on pronunciation, fluidity, question asking and tonal quality.



Feedback (around 3 min)
Get some basic feedback from the groups once they are finished. Board and error correct any mistakes you heard. End the lesson with a quick joke.


Alternatives


This is a fun setup because students can really talk about anything. If you have a good class that races through the holiday scenario, give them another scenario and they can do it again...e.g. class reunion, first day on the job, review of a movie...etc. Remember, you can't just say 'talk about a movie' that won't work. You need to task it out with them first e.g. talk about the...actors, score, director, set, plot, script, ...etc. This how you'll get the output that you want. It takes a couple of minutes to do this, but don't forget, or else the activity won't work nearly as well. Also remember that it's not just about them knowing the rules or what the adjectives mean. Work on getting them to sound as natural and fluid as possible. That's the point anyway of language learning.


Cheers,
 W.

ESL Lesson Plan - Adjective order - Pre-intermediate and up - Lost and Found

 This is another fast 45min-60 min lesson dealing with Adjective Order with the topic of trying to find something that has been lost. I like it because it uses the students' own possessions in the lesson for props and it's an effective way of hammering these points down with a lot of repetition. You can also have a secondary focus on the function of asking for help and giving help if you want to.


Want a lesson plan just for you? Leave a comment on what you want and I'll personally create one for you.


  Thoughts on Adjective Order in general

A lot of teachers have a hard time activating this grammatical point. Often times they spend upwards of 30 minutes just going over all of the rules on the correct ordering which is usually number, opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material and purpose (NOSASCOMP). Don't do it that way. Is it important for your students to be using all of the adjectives at once? Of course not. We don't speak this way. When have you ever used a sentence with all of these adjectives at once?  If you have an advanced class and you want to go over this with them quick, then fine. For all of your other classes, you really shouldn't even be introducing NOSASCOMP at all. Instead pick about 3-5 of these categories and activate those.  This will determine your context and topic of your lesson because different adjectives go with different descriptions for things.

  Here's a basic setup that you can use and adapt pretty easily for a host of different levels.


 Lost and Found

 Introduction (a few minutes)
1. Come into the classroom looking like you've lost something. Start searching under your students' desks, look on the floor, in closets...etc.
  The goal is to elicit the word/idea of losing something and trying to find it.


Lead in (7-10 minutes)
Have these questions up on the board, demo them out and then put students in groups/pairs .

1. What was the last thing you lost?
2. Where did you lose it?
3. Have you ever lost anything that was really important?
4. What are 3 things you can do to find lost things?
5. Describe a thing that you lost with 3 adjectives  (this is where you really need to do a good demo and seed your answer with some of the target grammatical language.)



Target Language

Decide which adjectives you want to activate. You can really pick any that go well with your topic. In this case I'm going to use -  Opinion, Size, Color and Material.

To introduce the grammar, try using an inductive approach, by writing an incorrect sentence on the board

  a. The leather, pretty, green, large, bag is mine

Ask the students if they think this is correct. If they say it isn't, ask them why. from here try and elicit the correct order and have them correct it. (which should be The pretty, large, green, leather bag is mine.) That's all you need. You dont' need a 30 minute explanation. Keep it basic and simple and don't talk too much. Let the students do most of the work and just follow up with a few CCQ's every now and then.


Study 1
Strips  - Students work in pairs and are given a bunch of adjectives that they have to form correct orders with. If you have the time and materials instead of have the adjective word on the strip have a picture so the student will have to work a bit harder to think of the word in english. For example, you'd have a picture of leather or wood instead of having the word 'wood' written out.


Study 2
You pull out your phone and have students, as a full class. describe it as a class with the correct adjective order. Do the same with a pen, glasses (if you wear them), your jacket and your bag.

Tell students to produce each of these things (a purse/bag/briefcase. a jacket, a phone, a pen, glasses) and describe them to their partners. Make sure to go around the room monitoring for errors.

Tip: Make this a competition. Whichever group can get through theirs the fastest wins.


Activation

Depending on class size designate 1-3 people to be Lost and Found help and the rest of the students are people who have lost something. Then take all of the belongings (probably not the glasses though :)) and randomly hand them out to the Lost and Found students. For the activation, students have to ask the different Lost and Found people for their lost things using the correct adjective order. If the Lost and Found people do not have the missing item, they have to respond with what they do have ('I'm sorry, the only bag I have is a Beautiful, small, green,cotton bag). Then, the student has to go to the next booth and ask again to another student. Once people get the hang of it and the speed, fluency, accuracy is sounding good, have them switch roles.  Make this fun. Set the class up where the Lost and Found students have booths or even name tags...etc. The more you can do to make it look real, the more engaging the activity will be and the more your students will participate.


 Tip: Work On Natural Language!  This isn't just about using adjectives correctly, it's about sounding real. This means that the people looking for something need to introduce themselves, where they lost their item...etc. The people playing Lost and Found need to respond like real people 'Hello, is there anything I can help you with'  'I'm sorry sir, I'll keep an eye out for it' - this kind of thing. If it sounds like students in a classroom or not natural and authentic, you are doing it wrong. As always, make sure to start this activity off with your own demo.


Feedback
Get feedback from the students, board any mistakes that you wrote down, end the lesson with a funny joke or something.


 Alternatives - You can really switch up whatever is lost to make it harder or easier depending on your students. You can also really train the linguistic function of asking for help and customer service. For example with advanced students you might say that the people who are working for the Lost and Found are total jerks and will only respond to costumers if they are super super super polite...etc. There's a lot of different options you can do with this.

ESL Lesson Plan - Theme Parks - Intermediate - Lexis

  Here's a fun original lesson that you can use with intermediates and above dealing with theme/amusement parks. Depending on the level you can simplify the lexis or make it more difficult.


Introduction (2-3 minutes) (Use any of the below suggestions)

 a. Post some pictures of rides or amusement parks on the wall.
 b. Come in dressed as Mickey Mouse or have a picture of him (elicit Disney Land).
 c. Role play being on a roller coaster and have students guess where you are.
 d. Show a video of a roller coaster from 1st person perspective .

  The key is to try to elicit the word/idea 'amusement park'. Your students might not know what that word is in English, but they will all understand the concept.

Lead in (about 5-10 minutes)
Have these questions up pre written on the board or as a handout. With a 45 minute class you probably won't need 5 questions.

1. Do you like amusement parks? When was the last time you went to one?
2. Is there an amusement park in your city/town/country?
3. Name 3 famous amusement parks in the world. Do they have a theme?
  (Make sure you know three and try to have pictures of them )
4. Name 3 rides that you can find in an amusement park?
5. Name 3 other things that you can do in an amusement park?

Demo these out with the students and then put them in pairs or groups to discuss. You don't have to name all of the examples, just give them a good example to work with.  Monitor and error correct as needed. Break the activity and get some quick feedback.

Target Language (lexis based 5 minutes or so)
Elicit and CCQ these out. Make sure to go over pronunciation as well.
1. a roller coaster
2. a ferris wheel
3. a haunted house
4. a concession stand
5. a fun house
6. a water slide
7. a carousel
8. bumper cars
9. a scrambler
10 a bounce/moon house
11.  a petting zoo
12.  a kiddy ride
13. a concession stand

(About 10 of these should work and remember that you can switch these out for rides that you feel are more appropriate for your students)

Study 1. (about 3 minutes)
(groups or pairs)
Students match the word with the picture. Alternatively if you want some more vocal output, students can say the word while they are matching it.

Study 2 (5 minutes)
Students in groups or pairs
One student describes the ride and the other students have to guess what it is.

Tip: Make it a competition and put a time limit on it. This will increase student output. Also remember to always be monitoring. Circle the different groups and correct for grammatical/pronunciation mistakes and other errors.


Activation
 Set up
 - Create your theme park (20 minutes or more depending on your class)
 You should have your own theme park preplanned out. Show drawn layout of your amusement park that shows the location of all of your rides. The following questions should be on the board.

1. What is the name of your amusement park?
2. Where's it located?
3. What's your theme?
4. How much do you charge for admission (use ticket if admission is a hard word)
5. What is special about your amusement park
6. Do you have _____________ (insert ride name)
  a. What's it called ?
  b. Where is it located in the park?
  c. What's special about it?

 (You'll notice that some of the questions are in contractions. In general for speaking activities it's a good idea to get your students to use contractions. It will make their speaking sound a lot more natural and more native speaker like.)

 As a full class, students ask you these questions to further practice the target language and grammatical forms. Go through it with them until they are able to ask the questions with ease. Once you feel they have the hang of it, but them into groups/pairs and have them create their own amusement park. Make sure to have some paper handy so they can draw out a map and label the park with the different rides. Monitoring is crucial during this part. Make sure that you are interacting with the groups and asking these questions to them during the creation of their parks. This will allow them to get a bit of practice answering the questions. Correct the mistakes you hear and work on the fluidity of speaking (e.g. having students use contractions, speed, volume, tone...etc.) Don't settle for mediocrity. Push your students to be creative and add details to their rides. If their parks are boring or basic then the final activation is going to be boring or basic. Have some cool examples of rides around the world (pictures) to help them come up with interesting ideas. However, don't make them linger too much on one ride or one idea.

 When the students are finished with their amusement parks, break the class and go into your activation. Tell the students that they are at a conference for new amusement parks and they need to find out about all of the other parks being presented. Give them the task of learning about the other parks, but also have them think of a few positive things that they like about the others parks and a few negative things.

Activation 
Main Activity 
Get the students on their feet and have them ask answer to the different groups about their parks. Make sure to ERASE  the questions or the majority of the question so students are not just reading them. If you've done a good demo for this, the students should feel more than comfortable asking these questions without the use of the board or their notes.  Yell out switch every 4 minutes or so, so that the students will interact with different groups. Monitor the entire activity and correct for mistakes. Try to get your students to use natural language. It should sound like a real conversation.

Feedback  (5 minutes with error correction)
Each group comments about a park that they learned  about what they liked, disliked about it. Have them vote as a class on the best park in the class and why. Make sure to board any errors you wrote down and go over them before ending the class.

Tips: This lesson is geared for a 45-60 minute class. If you are teaching a longer class, you can supplement the lesson with an article about amusement parks. Perhaps new technology or a new ride...etc. There's a lot of ways to go about this. You could for example have the students create an advertisement for their park and present it to the class. Or, you could do writing (a formal letter) where you have each group write a letter of complaint about another group's park from an upset customer. These are just some ideas and no one way is necessarily the correct way. If your students are engaged, using the target language and there's a lot of output overall, then you're doing it right.


 Cheers,
Westergaard

TEFL Reviews and Testimonial Scams

 Hey Everybody,

It seems more and more prevalent these days that a few TEFL providers are writing their own TEFL/TESOL reviews and even creating their own TEFL review sites. This doesn't happen a lot but there are some really terrifying examples of it going on with a Prague course right now.  It should be a concern to you if you are researching courses and a sound way to pick the good courses from the bad.

If you feel uncertain about a school regarding course quality, job prospects, housing...etc there's an easy fool proof way to to check if it's legit.

My advice is this - reviews and testimonials are great, but if they are not backed up by Facebook profiles or a clear way for you to contact these reviewers/graduates, they may be fake. We have dozens and dozens of testimonials and positive reviews from students. However, they only mean something, because you can contact these people. If you can't contact them, what's the point?

I know it sounds crazy (and it is) to think that there might be a 40+ year old man pretending to be a 23 year old Californian girl, but it happens unfortunately.  Keep your eye out for this kind of thing. In today's social media climate, there is absolutely no reason for a school to not be able to get you in contact with a dozen or so recent graduates of the course. There are good TEFL courses/schools out there and there a few really bad ones. Both want/need students to stay in business.

Positive TEFL reviews for courses are great way to get new applicants and if a school is sub par they will have to resort to writing fake reviews about their TEFL program to compete with good courses that don't need to. Believe me when I say that they do. Furthermore, there seems to be a course in Prague that has created their own review site (or works with a TEFL review site) to write positive reviews for themselves, block negative reviews about their course and potentially write negative reviews about other Prague TEFL courses.

But Don't Worry, just get real feedback.

 Most legitimate courses have graduates that are happy to share their real experiences with you via email or Facebook, Twitter ...etc because they understand the apprehension and anxiety that comes with packing up your things and moving abroad. Real graduates of any course are happy to help and a quick email or Facebook chat isn't much to ask for.

If you encounter a course with tons of positive feedback, but no way to actually contact these people, there's probably something fishy going on. If a school can't or refuses to connect you with graduate contact for whatever reason, they probably should be avoided. Best case scenario is that it shows the school is not connected with their graduates post course, which they should be for job/housing/networking help. Worse case, is that those testimonials might not be from real graduates at all. Generally speaking, if a school is well liked, they will be represented on many different review websites and not just one in particular.

Cheers,

Chris Westergaard

How to do Engaging Introductions

What is an Introduction to a Lesson?

All good lessons for the most part should have a greater topic that your target language fits under. The Introduction is a way introducing your topic and possible target language in an interesting and engaging way. In general, introductions are only a few minutes long and don't necessarily have to include a lot of student output.

                         


Why are Good Introductions Important?

Introductions serve to engage the class right from the beginning. You want your students to get involved and be interested in what they are about to learn. Most teachers that complain about their students being lazy or apathetic or unmotivated or unresponsive probably are not engaging their students enough and probably don't have really solid Intros. If you can get your students engaged in the first few minutes of the lesson you're likely to carry that energy throughout your lesson. This will improve output from the students, your overall pace, attendance, motivation...etc Solid introductions are easy to pull off if you have the courage to step out of your own comfort zone a little bit. They only take a few minutes to do and if you pull them off effectively you'll see dramatic positive changes in your classroom.

Here are some general tips


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1. For Christ Sake please don't begin any lesson by telling the students what you are going to be talking about.
This is such an amateurish way of teaching. Don't walk into a class and say "today class we are going to be talking about ________" (travel, sports, music, crime...etc)
Your intro should illustrate what the lesson is about without you having to describe anything. For example if you are doing a lesson that deals with 'Crime' as the topic you could... Walk in and nonchalantly begin to steal random things from your students, immediately role play with them that they are inmates in a jail, pretend to stick up the class like it's a robbery (don't do this until you know them and never do this in Russia:), tell a brief story about a crime, have random crime pictures up on the wall...etc. Just DON"T WALK INTO THE CLASSROOM AND SAY THE LESSON IS ABOUT CRIME!



2.In general don't do intros most of the time that deal with your Target Language - Why? Simply because learning grammar is boring and it's hard for people to really be interested in it. Nothing puts people to sleep faster than you trying to engage them by telling them that they're going to be learning about mixed conditionals for the next 90 minutes.I actually believe that the CIA uses grammatically based intros as a form of interrogation these days. True story. There might be times where it is appropriate or works, but you'll get better results 95 percent of the time if you stick towards your topic and not your target language.


3 Don't be too worried about stepping out of the box and your comfort level. Should you start screaming or yelling or dancing around like a maniac during the first couple lessons of a new class to get them engaged? No You Should Not, you'll just look like a Crazy Person. However once the class knows you a bit, experiment and have more fun with them. Boring teachers shockingly have boring classes. Boring teachers miraculously have students that don't show up or who are apathetic during the lesson. Most boring teachers on some level know that they are boring. Most boring teachers also know what they have to do to be engaging but they don't do it. Why? Because 'they aren't comfortable' I hate this excuse and it is an excuse and I hear it 100 times a year. Yes there are some things that you might feel awkward doing or put you outside of your comfort level, but it's for the better of your class and your students. Stop complaining. Live a little. Try to get at least a faint pulse back in your classroom because it's slowly dying. Also, with more practice executing intros will get easier and easier. You just have to try and you will see results. If you TOTALLY bomb and make a fool out of yourself your students will say 'Well at least he's trying' and probably participate more out of sympathy.


4. Be engaging but don't overdo it.
The opposite of boring teachers are attention seekers. The intro ISN'T about you and it should only be a few minutes long. I've seen teachers do intros that lasted 15 minutes or more. This isn't a comedy hour so leave the 45 minute Jim Carey shenanigans at home. Engage your class, get them interested, but make sure to transfer that energy towards the students and SS-SS output. If you are too engaging you end up simply becoming an entertainer and it backfires. Students then don't want to speak or participate, they'd much rather just watch you. Remember, if you're intro is longer than 5 minutes you need to shorten it.


5.Be wary of your effect on the class.
I'm 5-9 on a good day and about 155 pounds. That means I can be very physical with my students (which I am) and no one has a problem with it. I can mock threaten them, run around the classroom and have overall a lot of fun and everyone enjoys it. This isn't possible if you're say 6-5 and 240 pounds. If you try some of the things specifically that I do or the way that I do them, you're going to terrify your class and no one wants that. This can also be related to your students. Age, gender, cultural backgrounds all change what you can and can't get away with.


6. Be Confident in what you are doing and sell it
Yes, it always feels awkward to get up there and do something that would probably get you fired or institutionalized in any other job. I know, trust me. I've taught thousands and thousands of lessons. Still though, be confident in what your doing and sell it. If you half ass your intros it's going to be clear to your students that you are not into what you are doing and it's going to effect them. Guys their only a few minutes long, put the effort in.


7. Always Get the students involved
A common intro for any topic is to tell a brief story. Guess what, too many times the teacher speaks too fast or the story is too long and the students have no idea what just happened. Or you have a teacher deciding where to go on a holiday but he/she just ends up talking to himself/herself. Try and get your students involved from the beginning. The longer they don't speak at all in the lesson the harder it will be for them to speak later on. Also a bit of interaction serves as a great natural CCQ so you know that they know what's going on. All of this is really easy. Just ask some basic questions or elicit what you're doing every now and again. So instead of showing two pictures of two different holiday destinations and YOU speaking about them, ASK THEM. Ask them what this is a picture of and where it is and why it would be enjoyable. If it's a story you're telling, stop every now and then and students can fill in some basic words.. T: 'So I was walking down the _________" Students: "Street!" anything like this will work, just get them involved.


8.Mix things up
There are a lot of different kinds of intros or ways to introduce a topic. These can be dressing up,bringing in props or realia,telling a story, posting pictures around the classroom, roleplaying, writing a statement on the board...etc Don't just do the same kind of thing each class.


9. Set your intros up in advance

Watch your pace! You don't want to start lesson and have a 3 minute lag while you set up your introduction. A lot of times I won't be in the classroom and the first thing I do is my intro as soon as I walk in.This can be really effective. You'll probably need a bit of set up time, so if you want a good effect, just put up a sign or tell the students to wait for a minute outside while you set things up.



And Finally...

Just make the effort to come up with a good introduction for each of your lessons. If you genuinely make a consistent and direct attempt to engage your class in the beginning of the lesson you will see improved performance in a host of different areas. They're also a lot of fun, so why not?


 Hope that helps        

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Westergaard



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