Activity for writing

e.g. Students have been learning vocabulary to describe people. Choose a character appropriate for the age of your students like an alien, a robber, a super hero. First ask the students to shut their eyes and imagine this character. Then they tell each other what this character looked like in their mind’s eye. Next they decide on how they want the character they are going to write about to look. They could draw a picture first. After this they write a list of all the main characteristics e.g. evil eyes, a long scar on the right cheek, blue skin. Once they have plenty of ideas, they must write a descriptive paragraph together (the length depends on the age and ability of the children). While they write they must try to be as descriptive and interesting as possible. They can make as many changes as they want while writing. Once they are happy that they have got a really good description they can write it up neatly.

Pair dictations

Students of all ages all like doing picture dictations, which are very easy to set up and get lots of language practiced. First the teacher describes a picture and students must draw what they hear. For example it could be to practice describing people (He is very tall, he has large round eyes and a square shaped nose…) or for prepositions of place (There is a house on top of a mountain. An airplane if flying over the house, an elephant is standing in front on the house…)

Get students to draw their own pictures without showing them to their partners and then take turns describing their picture to their partner who must draw the picture. They check each others’ dictations by comparing the pictures.

Planning a lesson for young learners.

Writing lesson plans is one of a teacher’s most important responsibilities. Having a good lesson plan makes the teacher’s job easier and allows students to learn as much as possible while enjoying the material. These are the tips for writing lesson plans:

Have a clear objective and write it down

When writing ESL lesson plans it is really important to have a clear objective. This should not be something vague like “students will learn the present simple tense” but rather something very specific, such as “students will be able to talk about their likes and dislikes using the present simple tense and new vocabulary words”. Having a good lesson plan written down allows the teacher to refer to it and make notes and adjustments throughout the class.

Plan a warm-up

The warm-up can be as simple as posing a question for conversation, talking about a visual such as a picture, or a quick review of the last class’s material. The warm-up should not take more than 10% of the total lesson time.