Sumo: A Body Parts Game

Image courtesy of Cforums

Sumo is a really fun game to play with kids, especially in Asia where they are probably familiar with the sport.

How to Play:

1)  Draw a circle on the floor with a whiteboard marker or make one with a long rope or string.

2)  Call a student up to demonstrate with.  Step into the circle like a sumo wrestler would by putting your hands on your knees and stamping your feet into place.  Be overly dramatic here.  Motion for the student to do the same.

3)  Call out a body part.  The two students in the circle must then touch the respective body part on their opponent (probably the all time funniest one to do is “back”)

4)  You can do king of the hill style where the winner always stays in or break the students into teams and have them get points for the fastest.

Note:  Remember to make a student the ref who calls out the body parts after a while.  You can also get more than one sumo circle going at time.  Be careful with body parts like “eyes”.

This game is always a hit and kids thoroughly enjoy it.  If you can, show a youtube video of some sumo wrestlers before playing.

Have fun!

Capture the Flag: A Vocabulary Review Game

Image courtesy of KidzWorld

Capture the Flag is a ton of fun and great for listening practice with reviewed vocabulary.  Also, many kids will be familiar with the game from popular iterations in many video games.

How to Play:

1)  Split the class into 2 teams.  Have the teams line up on opposite ends of the classroom facing each other with nothing in-between them.

2)  In the middle between the two teams, put a flag (any soft toy will do)

3)  Assign a vocabulary word to pairs of students across from each other.  So, for example, a student from team 1 will have the word Egypt and so will the student from team 2 exactly opposite him.

4)  Demonstrate the game/explain the rules.  When the teacher calls out one of the vocabulary words, the students assigned that word must run (or hop if you want to slow them down) to the middle, grab the flag, and bring it back to their team.  The first team to do so gets a point.  Also, once a student grabs the flag, if the student from the other team touches them, they don’t get the point (this prevents fighting over the flag and also makes students more careful when they run to grab it).

Tips:  Rather than just calling out the words, change it up so the students have to think and pay attention more.  For example, if all the students have been assigned countries as vocabulary words, you can say sentences like “I speak Arabic”, “I’m Egyptian”, “I live in Cairo”, etc.  The students who the sentence applies to must go for the flag.  Notice that you might even have more than one country run up with sentences like “I speak Arabic”, which makes it more fun.

Remember to have students take the role of the teacher after a few rounds.

Other Vocabulary Review Games:

Bonk!

Vocabulary Tennis

Stop the Bus!

Five Challenges to Chinese Speakers Learning English

I’m happy to present a guest post by Lindsey  Wright.  Lindsey is fascinated with the potential of emerging educational technologies, particularly the online school, to transform the landscape of learning. She writes about web-based learning, electronic and mobile learning, and the possible future of education.  Contact her at lindswright82@gmail.com.

Five Challenges to Chinese Speakers Learning English

Learning English as a second language can be difficult for anyone. For the Chinese speaker attempting the task, it can seem daunting for reasons stemming not just from the structural and grammatical differences between the languages, but also in the way each is written. However, by identifying key areas that present the greatest barriers to fluency, an instructor teaching at either a traditional campus or an online school can reduce these challenges to manageable levels. The two most known are arguably verb tense and plurals, which will serve as a great starting point.

1) Verbs

In English, the verb serves not only as the source of action in a sentence, but also as a marker of time. This is not the case in Chinese where time is most often identified at the beginning of the sentence. Auxiliary, or helping verbs in English also serve to indicate if an action is still in progress, completed, or will continue until some future point that may or may not be named. This is a lot of information for one to three words to convey and can be daunting for someone not used to thinking of time in this way.

2) Plurality

Connected to verbs is the issue of plurality. Chinese uses numbers to specify quantity rather than endings or spelling changes to indicate multiplicity. If verbs weren’t complicated enough by action and time, having to add endings to them to facilitate agreement with the quantity of the sentence’s subject is likely to confuse even the best of students. Thankfully, number agreement has more to do with the flow of the language than it does anything else, which brings up the next point.

3) Intonations and Tonality

Chinese uses intonations and tonality to distinguish words, unlike English. Other than a few changes to vowel sounds for pronunciation, English reserves differences in tone to indicate types of sentences: questions, statements, imperatives, and so on. Beyond that, English relies on sound to provide rhythm and flow rather than meaning. This lack of emphasis on tones can be daunting as there seems to be fewer aural cues.

4) Cultural Differences

Another issue that may not seem inherent in learning English is cultural differences. While Chinese speakers rely on indirect communication and non-verbal cues, English speakers are taught to be direct. In part, this is as much a stylistic approach to transmitting message as it is a cultural reinforcement of interactions. A researched approach on these differences found that amongst other issues, that the highly prized conciseness that exemplifies business English for its economy and clarity can strike a native Chinese speaker as too informal.

5) Arrangement

Lastly, it can take a bit of getting used to the concept that words in English are arranged alphabetically whereas the system used in Chinese dictionaries varies by not only the number of radicals, but whether a book chooses to organize them by number of strokes or by some other system. This is exemplified in some directions to help English students at University of Albany – SUNY learning Chinese understand the differences in dictionaries. Using an English dictionary can seem daunting to students as most of the linguistic elements essentially involve the phonetic sounds rather than the symbolic or conceptual elements that define words written in Chinese. However, having students make the connection between the phonetic sound and arrangement of the alphabet can aid in the study of English as new words are committed to memory.

By keeping these five challenges in mind, it becomes easier to teach English to a native Chinese speaker. Focusing on the more difficult areas and being patient means that the instructor and the student can overcome these obstacles so fluency is possible with the least amount of stress for both.

Stop the Bus! – A Vocabulary Review Game

Image courtesy of Dream West Embroidery

Stop the Bus! is the same as Scattegories if you are familiar with the family-fun US board game.

How to Play:

1)  Split the class into small teams.

2)  Draw three columns on the board and write a different category above each column, for example, countries, fruits, and colors.

3)  Write a letter of the alphabet in the upper-left corner of the board.  Students must then write a word in each column corresponding to the category and starting with the first letter written on the board.  For example, if the letter is “B”, students could write Brazil, banana, and blue.  When teams finish, they need to shout, “Stop the Bus!”  The first team to shout, “stop the bus” and have correct answers scores a point.

After each round you can ask for more examples of words starting with the chosen letter in a given category to review some more.  I’ve found this to be a really good game to start off lessons with, especially for lower levels.

Other Vocabulary Review Games:

Bonk!

Vocabulary Tennis

Capture the Flag

Vocabulary Tennis – A Vocabulary Review Game

Image courtesy of Bimboosoft

Vocabulary Tennis is basically the same as last week’s Bonk! but with more of a team element.

Instructions:

- Set up students in two rows facing each other.

- The teacher decides which team starts first and shouts out a category.

- The first person in the row needs to call out a vocabulary word from that category. If it’s correct, the person across from them must shout out another vocabulary word from the same cateogry. This continues on down the line bouncing back and forth between teams until someone makes a mistake or repeats a word already said.

This game has advantages over Bonk! in that the whole class is involved and they have to listen to each other. If they don’t listen to the words others are calling out, when it comes to them, they might repeat one and so lose the match for their team.  It’s engaging, competative, and fun!

Other Vocabulary Review Game Posts:

Bonk!

Stop the Bus!

Capture the Flag

Bonk! – A Vocabulary Review Game

Image courtesy of U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

With my current job I’ve found I’m simply far too busy for long posts.  Instead, I’ll be posting short and fun activities to do with kids.

One of my favorite games to play with kids is Bonk!, not least of all because it involves hitting students on the head   For this game you’ll need two chairs and something soft to hit students with.  A big inflatable bat is ideal, but plush animals work just as well.

How to Play:

1 – Form two teams

2 – Set up two chairs in the front of the class and call a member of each team up to sit in them.

3 – Say a category like colors, animals, clothes, or whatever else you want to review.

4 – Students must alternate saying a word from the category.  If a student repeats a word already said or takes too long to think of a word, you hit them on the head and say Bonk!.  The other team then gets a point.

This game is great because it challenges students to recall as many words as possible from a given category.  It also works with any category, so is great for review.  And students find the getting hit on the head part hilarious.

After a few rounds I usually call a student up to choose the category.  Just be careful which students you give the bat to though

Other Vocabulary Review Game Posts:

Vocabulary Tennis

Stop the Bus!

Capture the Flag

Guest Post by Thomas Christie: Talking to Tourists

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Image courtesy of Akorenliyiz

This post is by an old teacher of mine named Thomas Christie.  When we worked together in Turkey he used to do a really cool activity with tourists and I asked him to write it up for the blog.   Tom has worked in Korea, Turkey, Spain, and the UK and is a strong advocate of dogme principles in ELT.  Here is Tom’s post:

Do you teach English in a city where there is an abundance of tourists? Have you ever considered having your learners compile a survey and taking advantage of this? Well, you should for the excellent practice it offers your learners. I am going to explain the many reasons why it’s fantastic and a few reasons that I found which caused challenges.

When I taught English in Istanbul, some of my most memorable classes were when we hit the streets to talk to tourists. Istanbul is a great city to do this. In Istanbul, most general English classes are 3 hours long so even when I worked at a school which was 30 minutes from the tourist beat; it was still possible to have enough time to meet plenty of English speaking visitors. This 30 minute journey also proved to be productive as the learners practiced their questions and wrote new follow up ones as well as enjoying the valuable thinking time. In a different branch for the same school, all we had to do was walk out onto the busiest street in Istanbul. This had the advantage of being able to literally point at the school and say where we came from. If there are tourists in your city within a reasonable distance, go for it. Just hit the tourist beat. Most of the preparation can be done as homework to save time.

So, why is speaking to tourists so spectacular for your students? Well, the bottom line is that it offers real communication, the kind of which is enforced when the students leave the classroom. The tourists were genuinely interested in what the learners had to say. They appreciated the advice and suggestions offered by local people with experience of the area and places that weren’t always frequented by outsiders. This also motivated my students to converse as they were proud to talk about their city and show hospitality. Both sides were usually really happy to benefit from the exchange. What a great way to find out about the area, from locals who aren’t in it for commercial reasons!

Your students will encounter many different accents. Many people often overlook the fact that English learners often spend most of their time talking in their L2 to other people who have learned English. There is often a focus in the TEFL world of sounding like a native speaker. However, the wide range of accents encountered provides great listening practice, particularly as I ask my students to take notes on answers to report back later. The conversations are so intriguing that your students and the tourists will be intent on trying to understand, offering intensive listening practice.

Another plus is the chance to really get to grips with some functional language such as politely getting someone’s attention, greeting people, thanking people and apologising for any inconvenience caused. I once took a class out without practicing this well enough and it caused problems as tourists are sometimes like a fish out of water and feel that they are being harassed. So, having learned from this experience, I would practice the language extensively through role play in the classroom. Things like “Excuse me, I wonder if I could take a moment of your time to ask a few questions” as well as “Excuse me, we are studying English at such and such school. Would it be possible to ask for a few minutes of your time?” and “Would you mind answering some questions for a survey?” are essential for making the encounter a success. Don’t worry if this sounds too advanced for a lower level class, there is enough context to make it understandable after some practice in the classroom. It’s also worth noting that some tourists (very few) will want to ignore the questions and continue in their headed direction. However, this provides more language learning opportunities with a quick “I’m sorry to bother you” and “Thank you for your time.”

One thing that I have noticed when taking learners out onto the streets is that the quieter shy students tend to take a leading role in initiating and maintaining a conversation. Confidence levels are increased with such an exchange between your students and people on holiday. I once came back from completing a survey with an elementary class. As we were in the lift returning back up to the classroom, there was a real buzz of excitement in the air. The class rapport had changed for the better and most students were really confident taking hold of their language learning. They realised that shyness is just an obstacle and that their language skills had improved to the extent that they could offer advice to fluent speakers of English.

I haven’t explicitly noticed in any of my classes but there is always the chance that someone in the class might have their confidence level diminished. Be wary of this when monitoring the exchange between your students and tourists and jump in when you feel that meaning has become confused. However, for any student who doesn’t feel like participating, there is always the opportunity to listen and take notes.

To top it all off, what are the two main advantages of this cultural exchange? Firstly, the students utilize the language learnt in class through a tangible format. When making a list of questions, the students and teacher can incorporate so many grammar structures. Some obvious questions could be, “How long have you been in Rome?” or “If you came to Seville again, would you stay for longer?” You could even make the questions more advanced “Would your opinion of Kyoto have been the same, if you hadn’t come to visit?” or simpler with “Is this your first time in Italy?”

An example set of questions that one pair of pre-intermediate students provided.

1)      Where are you from?

2)      Why are you visiting Istanbul?

3)      Have you been to Istanbul before?

4)      How long are you planning to stay?

5)      What are you doing today?

6)      What has been your most memorable moment so far?

7)      What do you think about Turkish food?

8)      If you came to Turkey again, would you think about visiting a different city?

9)  Have you been to the Palace?

10)  What do you recommend visiting in your home town?

As you may have realised, most of this language will arise in the classroom at some point for this level.

You may have also noticed that some questions provide excellent opportunities for more conversation through offering advice/suggestions/recommendations such as “If I were you, I’d recommend taking the train to the park” or “The palace is (really) worth visiting.” I had my students make a list of recommendations beforehand that they could refer to.

The second big advantage is taking the cultural exchange back to the classroom for reporting, discussion and to work on any language that came up during the exchange. All students will have noted (a great skill) what the tourists had said. In the classroom, pairs or groups of 3 can report their findings, make presentations and compare them with others. This offers a chance to use statistical language and reported speech as well as setting up a really insightful discussion about tourism in the area.

So, unlike your learners who have the added problem of making themselves understood, don’t be shy! Get outside and practice all the language from the classroom in a truly communicative setting.

But how can we find the tourists???? You might ask.

Don’t worry! They are actually the easiest people to point out. Just look for maps, cameras, guidebooks and confused facial expressions.

DO’S AND DON’TS!!!

***   DO’S   ***

-          Thoroughly practice language in the classroom before leaving.

-          Have students approach tourists in pairs or groups of 3’s (anything more could be a bit intimidating).

-          Have learners explain to the tourists properly what they are doing and where they are studying. Some sort of documentation from the school would really help or just a leaflet.

-          Give students clipboards. This will help the feeling of professionalism.

-          Give students leaflets to offer the tourists to reinforce what they are saying.

-          Give students maps to show the tourists where they might be talking about.

-          Help your students identify tourists.

-          Obviously, check all questions before you leave.

-          Think about some follow-up activities – maybe an article or video about tourism in the city.

***   DON’TS   ***

-          Have learners congregate in large groups.

-          Stay far away from your students. You have to be there in case there’s a communication problem.

-          Leave your students unprepared when they hit the streets.

-          Don’t forget the importance of encouraging your learners to note answers and comments.

-          Ignore the language that comes up during the exchange! Most of it will be extremely rewarding and memorable for your learners!!!

Interesting Homework

Image courtesy of Discovery Education

Scott Thornbury’s recent post on homework reminded me of some ideas I have been wanting to share on this blog for quite some time.  While I’m a great opponent of homework in traditional schools, I think the more you use and interact with a language, the more your language will improve.  As Scott pointed out, a few hours a week is generally not enough to learn a language very quickly.

The main thing is to make the homework fun and interesting.  Also, as most students don’t have a lot of time, it’s best to give them something easy that can be done quickly but which can also be expanded upon if they want.  Here are some cool homework ideas I’ve used in the past:

1)  Students go home and research their favorite band, movie star, film, etc.  They then come and share the info with the class.  These activities are easy to build lessons off of as well.

2)  Students must go out and find someone to follow.  They should follow this person for 5 minutes.  Afterwards, they should write up a quick description of the person, their activities, and make guesses about the person’s personality and life.  Students always have a lot of fun with this one.

3)  Interview an older family member about what life was like X years ago and report back to the class.

4)  Googleganger – This is a fun one from Karenne Sylvester.  Students must research their name online and find out about the lives of other people with the same name.

5)  English Raven’s Wizard English is a fantastic idea.

6)  Show and tell always works well.  My favorites are the few students who always forget and end up presenting their pencil

Preventing Punishment

Image courtesy of Bankrupcy Litigation Blog.

Often it’s not what you do to stop unwanted behavior when it occurs, but what you do to prevent it that really counts in creating a classroom environment productive to learning.

There are 3 main things I look at to prevent problems occuring in the classroom:  clear guidelines & expectations, classroom awareness, and engaging activities.

Guidelines and expectations are something that need to be set right from the beginning.  For many young learners, school is a new environment and it’s often not clear to them what they are doing there or what is expected of them while they are there. 

This is especially true if your school’s program has a different environment from other schools they are going to.  In Asia, schools are very disciplined and structured, so when students come to classes at my school, they are very unsure of how to behave.  The play-type atmosphere and more open environment makes many young learners feel like they can do anything in our classrooms.  In fact, they don’t know what to do with themselves because they’ve never been in such a free environment before and this often has them bouncing off the walls the first few classes .

Not only should expectations be set early, but they should also be discussed with the students.  As teachers, we should be careful not just to set rules and expect students to follow them.  We should reach a level of mutual understanding with the students and explain the reasons for rules.  Explaining to students that it’s important to respect each other, so we should listen when others are speaking is better than simply saying “Be quiet and listen.”  Even learners as young as 3 years old can participate in a discussion about the reasons behind most rules.

This goes equally for activities as well as the general class.  Whenever a new activity is being introduced, the rules and expectations for that activity should be explained clearly beforehand.

Being aware of your classes’ needs is another easy fix for preventing students from acting out.  If two students are always picking on each other, move them to different seats. If students can’t sit in a circle without fidgeting, give them chairs. 

It’s also about reading your class.  If students are getting bored with an activity, change to a new one.  If students have a lot of energy, get them up and moving.  If they can’t focus as a group any more, move to an individual craft.  

Out of all these preventative measures, I think the most important and effective is engaging your students.  As Simon mentioned in a comment on my last post, the primary reasons most children act up are because they are bored or the task is too difficult.   This is something I commonly see in classrooms and remember from my own schooling.  When students are bored, they lose interest and start to behave in ways that are unproductive for learning. 

Making engaging lessons comes down to asking and answering the right questions.  What is the age and developmental level of the students?  What are their interests?  How long are their attention spans?  If you can answer these questions, it’s pretty easy to create activities that are the right level and length that match your students interests.  Engaged learners are active learners and don’t have time to get distracted.

Also, one thing I’ve notice is the number of students an activity involves has a huge impact on how interesting it is.  Designing activities that have all the learners participating are much better than ones where only one or two at a time participate.   

What other ways do you use to create a positive learning environment and prevent disruptive behavior in your classrooms?

Related Posts:

Discipline & Punish:  The Birth of the School

Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the School

Image courtesy of Brandon’s Useless Knowledge

Many countries around the world still use punishment, even corporal punishment, as a common classroom management technique. This has wide repercussions not only in the classroom, but within society as a whole.

The underlying idea is this – if you punish a child (or adult for that matter) they will be deterred from doing the same thing again because they don’t want to be punished.

Well, if you ask me, that’s a pretty wrongheaded way to go about it. It’s an overly simplistic behavorist model of both learning and morality, i.e. if you shock the dog, it won’t bark any more.

This is wrongheaded for two reasons. 1) It makes the assumption that humans are basically evil and need to be programmed to make the right choices (does anyone else see the influence of Christian thought on this one?). I, for one, don’t feel such assumptions are productive. 2) It also removes reflection and empathy from the process of human interaction. Instead, deliquents are isolated and punished, supposedley so they can “think about what they’ve done”, but we all know that that never happens. Something more along the lines of “boy, do I hate that teacher. You just wait till I get you back!“.  Rather than initiating a dialogue and engaging with the class/society, people are being told what to do, how to behave, and are being removed from group.

What do punishments actually teach anybody? They primarily teach the sacred priniciple of “don’t get caught”. Punishment, instead of modifying behavior (which is the proposed goal), simply teaches people that they need to be smarter about doing the wrong thing. In effect, if you can get away with it, then it’s not a problem. This is why students simply find better and better ways to cheat or why you realize the dog is still drinking out of the toilet bowl every time you leave the house.

What we really want is reflection and internalization of moral principles. You shouldn’t cheat because it’s the wrong thing to do and it can have a negative impact on your learning, not because you’re afraid the teacher will give you an F if they catch you.

The other really big problem with punishment is that it builds up resentment and a negative classroom environment. How many students have you met coming out of detention that were reformed or forgiving towards the authority that put them there? How many ex-cons come out of prison a new person and with no grudges against the cops, the system, the government? The entire set of assumptions systems of punishment are based on are simply ridiculous.

Instead we want to create a classroom and society where people are taught to behave the right way because they want to and because they believe it’s the right thing to do. The next few posts will explore alternatives to punishment in the classroom.

What are your thoughts on punishment in the classroom or more widely within society as a whole?

Related Posts:

Preventing Punishment