Odds & ends
A few extras. They didn't seem to fit elsewhere but I thought they would be of interest.
Level up/ Level Down. Choose your own level. Except for private lessons, ever class has students at different levels. This is a handout I made to go with English Firsthand that lets student raise (to make a task more challenging) or lower (to make it easier). The "book section" refers to Firsthand but you can use these with any book. Preview = vocabulary. Interaction = fluency-oriented groupwork.
Level up/Level Down is part of a series of 9 handouts about ways to modify your textbook. Other ideas include varieties of shadowing, ways to work with pronunciation and ways to maximize student speaking time. You can download those skill sheets HERE.
Classroom Management: stuff they didn't mention in teacher training is something I wrote, originally for my own students (teachers in training) and later published on a Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto's wonderful Teaching Village blog.
Related to the issue of classroom management: Most English teachers do a lot of pairwork and groupwork. It is useful to change pair- & group-partners regularly. This lets the students get to know everyone, keeps groupings fresh, and helps deal with the fact that there are always different levels (of ability and motivation. Pair up! is a handout listing 40 different, simple ways to divide classes into pairs.
A while back, my English Firsthand co-author Steve Brown and I wrote and article about activity frames that could be used for nearly any topic, grammar point, etc. It was called One size fits all.
Level up/ Level Down. Choose your own level. Except for private lessons, ever class has students at different levels. This is a handout I made to go with English Firsthand that lets student raise (to make a task more challenging) or lower (to make it easier). The "book section" refers to Firsthand but you can use these with any book. Preview = vocabulary. Interaction = fluency-oriented groupwork.
Level up/Level Down is part of a series of 9 handouts about ways to modify your textbook. Other ideas include varieties of shadowing, ways to work with pronunciation and ways to maximize student speaking time. You can download those skill sheets HERE.
Classroom Management: stuff they didn't mention in teacher training is something I wrote, originally for my own students (teachers in training) and later published on a Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto's wonderful Teaching Village blog.
Related to the issue of classroom management: Most English teachers do a lot of pairwork and groupwork. It is useful to change pair- & group-partners regularly. This lets the students get to know everyone, keeps groupings fresh, and helps deal with the fact that there are always different levels (of ability and motivation. Pair up! is a handout listing 40 different, simple ways to divide classes into pairs.
A while back, my English Firsthand co-author Steve Brown and I wrote and article about activity frames that could be used for nearly any topic, grammar point, etc. It was called One size fits all.
Yogic breathing. My students sometimes need to use English in high stress situations such as job interviews, taking "big tests" like the TOEIC, TOEFL, etc.
I teaching them "yogic breathing" to use in situations. By breathing like in a yoga exercise, they are able to "calm their mind" and relax. It also gives them a way to be in control of their own mental state. And they can do this "privately in public." -- Even a a room full of people, no one will notice. Chick here for the handout/poster:Breath to relax.
I teaching them "yogic breathing" to use in situations. By breathing like in a yoga exercise, they are able to "calm their mind" and relax. It also gives them a way to be in control of their own mental state. And they can do this "privately in public." -- Even a a room full of people, no one will notice. Chick here for the handout/poster:Breath to relax.
And here's a new version that uses a photograph to show the same thing.
Loving Kindness Meditation
We do a unit with our first year reading students on traditional Asian Healing. They learn meditation, yoga and Thai massage. In the meditation lesson, they try Loving Kindness Meditation (also called Metta meditation). Here is the handout they read before trying it. They they actually try it using this link from youtube.
We do a unit with our first year reading students on traditional Asian Healing. They learn meditation, yoga and Thai massage. In the meditation lesson, they try Loving Kindness Meditation (also called Metta meditation). Here is the handout they read before trying it. They they actually try it using this link from youtube.