Some ideas for teaching (part 1)

(posted by Zsofi Budai)

I hope all of you had a wonderful first week teaching in your villages! If not, let Janelle and/or me know about any problems that arose – we’ll do our best to solve them.

In the meantime, here are some ideas/lesson plans that really worked for me when I was an LE volunteer (I taught in Slovakia – yes, only in Slovakia – in both 2004 and 2005). Feel free to add your own to share with every one. You should be able to post comments anonymously, but if for some reason you can’t, do let us know!


FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN (BEGINNERS)

Ice Cream

I had several classes of elementary school-aged children, all of whom were more or less beginners, and they LOVED what I called the “ice cream lesson.” I spent part of a class period teaching them ice cream related vocabulary, including phrases such as “I would like X scoops of Y and Z flavor.” I went over all of the flavors (you can draw the corresponding fruit on the board so that they understand what it is) and had the kids practice ordering ice cream from one another.

The next day, I took the kids over to the local ice cream shop (which was actually one town over) and promised to pay for their ice cream if they ordered in English (I first had them say everything in English, then point to the flavors so the lady behind the counter actually understood). It worked perfectly! It didn’t cost me very much either, since ice cream in rural HU or SK is very cheap, as I’m sure all of you know by now.

Songs

I’m sure most of you have done or are planning to do this already, but kids really love learning fun, catchy songs in English (like Bingo), especially if they involve movement. You could choreograph a dance to the song as a class, with each person getting one line of the song to make up steps to.

FOR TEENAGERS/YOUNG ADULTS (INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED)

Song lyrics

I got this idea from my high school Spanish class – I picked a song, wrote out the lyrics, and cut out random words. (If I wanted to make it easier, I wrote all of the words out on top; if I wanted to make it harder, I didn’t give my students the words at all.) I actually had access to a printer and copier in the mayor’s office so I typed up the lyrics and distributed them to my class, but you could just write everything on the board and have your students copy it into their notebooks. Then we listened to the song in class (several times); once the students got most of the missing words, we went over the meanings of those they didn’t know. This activity was actually pretty hard for most people, so make sure you pick a song in which the singer enunciates well and doesn’t swallow his/her words.

Lesson in slang

This was hard for me because I don’t use much slang in my everyday conversations, but teenagers love learning the latest American (or British) slang. Spend part of a lesson teaching them vocabulary, illustrating how to use it, and then having the students come up with their own sentences. Just stay away from anything raunchy, because that’s the point at which you’ll lose the class’ attention. Also, my students loved learning about regional expressions, so teach them something about the way in which people in your hometown speak. At the end of the class period, have your students teach you a few slang expressions in Hungarian or Slovak!

FOR ADULTS (INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED)

Scattegories

This certainly works with more advanced teenagers as well, but I found that I only really had success with it in my advanced adults’ class. If you don’t know how this works, let me explain: you come up with 6-8 categories (like country name, city name, animal, move title, etc.) and then have someone stop you as you recite the alphabet in your head. Whatever letter you stop at is the one that everyone has to use as the first letter in all the things they come up with in their categories. After a set amount of time (like one minute), you stop everyone and go over the answers. If people didn’t put down anything or if they wrote an answer identical to one of their classmates’,

Lesson in politics

Everyone likes learning more about the US (or Britain, whatever the case may be) but more often than not your students’ understanding of American politics will be, well, misinformed. Use this opportunity (with the presidential election coming up next year) to teach them about how the American government works. First, go over a list of political vocabulary to make sure your students are able to discuss this topic, then give a mini-lesson on American politics (complete with pictures of key people and places, if possible). Afterwards, have a discussion with your students about the government in their home country (HU or SK) – I find it fascinating to learn about what people think of Gyurcsány (HU) or Fico (SK).