I really enjoyed Tip 7 in how simple yet effective is to make everyday exercises more interesting, engaging, and memorable. Tip 8 is another great one. By chance, I saw Carolyn Graham once at ETJ Tokyo EXPO (English Teachers in Japan) where I was volunteering on tech support and she needed help setting up and cueing some things. I'd been wondering how to reach learners who'd felt they'd grown out of singing songs in class, her jazz chants seemed just the ticket I was looking for! However, it was a while before I had an opportunity to use them in class, but when I tried some motivation chants with 1st year uni students, it went over really well and much better than expected. So, it became 'a keeper'! I'm getting better You're getting better We're getting better now Step by step Day by day I introduced it orally first as a whole class choral listen and repeat, line by line, then building up. Teams of 4-5 then had to work together to recall and write it dow...
I fully agree! When I prepare students for international exams, the second I say ''let's do part 2 speaking'' or something like that- their English instantly changes! Before that, they are chatty and fluent, but when we start doing controlled speaking activities - their behaviour changes, they are more silent, they lose fluency...
ReplyDeleteYes, it definitely makes us think about how we give directions and set up the task.
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