TEFL Case

Building Listening and Oral Skill Beginner - Elementary Pair work To draw and describe a person The Teacher The teacher provides papers. Class Activities Students work in pairs, and every student draws a person. They are not allowed to look at their friends' pictures. Having finished, Student A describes the drawing, and Student B draws the person described. They ask questions and give answers to complete the task. They reverse roles. Then, they compare the pictures.

Grammar Game (can be used to teach other lessons) Elementary - Advanced Group Work Students must correctly answer the given questions in order to make a goal. The teacher The teacher prepares the quiz of the grammar point(s) attached on the sticks, modified football field, and the player sticks (2 teams). The field is divided into some parts with blue lines. Class Activities Students work in 2 teams, say, the Red Team and the White Team, and they place their team logo in the center of the field. A member of the Red Team mentions a number of the players in red. S/he must answer the question attached in the player whose the number is mentioned. If s/he can correctly answer it, the team logo can be moved to the next blue line. If s/he can't do, the logo is still in the place. Then, a member of the White Team does the same with the players in white. The aim is that the team can move to the last blue line of the opponent area. If the memb...

Integrated Skills Elementary - Advanced Pair Work To complete the missing information The Teacher The teacher makes the cards: Picture Cards and Information Gap Cards. Free pictures can be downloaded from pixabay.com Class Activities Student 1 has got the picture card, and Student 2 brings the information gap card. To complete the information, Student 2 must ask questions. Using the details of the photographs, Student 1 answers the questions. Students reverse roles with different cards.

Building Writing Skill Intermediate - Advanced Class Work To continue friends' writing Class Activates It must be difficult to have a well-organized essay or a good writing based on the genre by practicing this activity. It's just for fun. Every student makes a mind map/brainstorming for the writing. Then, students write a topic sentence. Next, they pass their paper to a friend sitting next to them. They continue writing on their friend's paper by adding 1 sentence which must be suitable with the brainstorming/drafting provided by their friend. Before adding a sentence, they must read the previous sentence(s) well. They must use new learnt grammar and new vocabulary discussed before. The activity is continued until students finish their writings. For a fast and fun activity, it can be used to write a story or for a creative writing. Students freely add a sentence to build a story without making a mind map first.

Building oral skill (Asking questions) Any level Group Work To ask questions and give answers The Teacher The teacher makes the learning aids: questions and answers sticks. Class Activities The teacher splits students into 2 teams: Question Team and Answer Team. A member of the Question Team reads a question, and the member of the Answer Team having a suitable statement to answer reads the sentence written on her/his stick. This activity can be used to review WH questions. This can be used to teach conditional sentences. With this activity, choosing partners to work in pairs is fun, too.

Writing Activity Intermediate - Advanced To write based on the prompts The Teacher The teacher cut a text based on the genre or the lesson discussed in the class into some parts. Class Activities A text is cut into some parts. They can be words/phrases/sentences. Every student gets a part. Students must write a story, article, or another type of writing based on the lesson. They must begin their writing with the words which they get on the cut paper. For mixed-ability classes, students get the part containing vocabulary and/or grammar based on their ability.

Game for integrated skill Elementary - Advanced, Teens - Adults Pair/Group Work To complete the hunting The Teacher The teacher provides the tasks in each place  and the cards of clues/directions. Class Activities Students work in teams. The aim is that they finish their "journey" to get the treasure. Each team has got the same places to stop but with different routes. There is a note and task in each place. T The note is to show the direction of the next place and what the task is. The note colour is different for each team. Having completed the given task, they continue their "journey" until it was completed. In the last place are the given -TREASURES- gifts. The activities can vary.

Activity for reading, speaking, listening, and writing Beginner - upper Intermediate Pair/Group Work To read - dictate and listen - write a text The teacher Teacher prepares the texts. It's fun to use a poem, lyric, or tongue twister. Class Activities The texts to dictate are put on the wall. Students work in pairs (or in groups). Student A is a writer and Student B is a reader. Student B must run to the text to read it. Then, student B comes to her/his partner to dictate. They repeat this until the text is completely written. Having completed their job, they reverse roles with a different text provided. The activities can be modified.

Reading Activity Elementary - Upper Intermediate Individual/Pair/Group Work To look for the answers on a cut text The Teacher The teacher prepares a text, based on the material/the lesson, and the question card. The text is cut into some parts and put on the wall around the class. Class Activities Students must go around the reading gallery to look for answers. For a big class, students work in groups. Each student has got 2-3 questions, depending on the number of questions. The order of questions of each student/group is different except the last question. There is no answer for the last question to make this method become fun. The activity can vary. The last section of this activity, students can order the cut parts into a good text.

Speaking Activity Elementary - Intermediate Pair/Group/Class work To make a speech in one minute based on the topic The Teacher The teacher provides topics discussed in the class. Class Activities Students work in pairs/groups. Every student has got a topic. Students must speak based on the topic for one minute, or depending on the level of students. If the class is a mixed level class, teacher gives each student topic based on the ability/level.

Speaking Activity Pair Work Elementary - Upper Intermediate To describe the arranged pictures and arrange the scrambled pictures The Teacher The teacher prepares the pictures. There are two parts: well - arranged pictures made as a booklet and scrambled pictures. Class Activities Students work in pairs. Student A has got scrambled pictures of a story. Student B has got the well - arranged ones as a booklet. Student B tells the story based on the arranged pictures. Student A arranges the pictures based on the description of student A. Having finished, student A retells the story. Then, they reverse roles with different pictures/stories.

How to divide students into some groups/pairs Pair works, group works, and class works are common class activities for a big class. When we split students into some teams, or they must work in pairs, we can use another way to group them. Every student has got a word. Students must go around the class and look for friends bringing words in the same given category or decided rule. The decided rules can be looking for synonym, finding the antonym, categorizing, or other ideas. Having found friends bringing the required words, they work in that group. By grouping students in this way, we can also review learnt vocabulary or provide new words for students.

Speaking Activity/Writing Activity Pre - Intermediate to Advanced Group Work To make a story based on the starters with the same sentence as the beginning The Teacher The teacher makes the story starters for each group. Using sticks makes the teacher busy, but it's more interesting for students. Every member of a group has got the same starters, but each group has got different starters. Class Activities Students are in the groups of 3, or depending on the number of students. Every member of a group has got 4 sentences for story starters. All members of a group have got the same story starters, but each group has got different story starters. The students in the group begin their story with the same starter. The following sentences of story starters are freely ordered. Having finished the story making, each student tells the story to the group. They must have made different stories although the starters are the same. They compare their stories. The activities can be ...

Activity: A Story Mountain It helps students write a story. They can plan ideas for what to write in the beginning, build-up, problem, resolution, and ending.

Speaking game Any level Lead in activity Pair/Group Work To play snake and ladder with questions and/or instructions The Teacher The teacher makes the boards and the dices. The questions or the instructions depends on the lessons discussed in the class. Class Activities The rules is similar to play snake and ladder . However, students have got to answer or perform some actions when stopping in the place.

Teachers use exit tickets to get information used to check students' understanding of a topic or lesson and gather feedback on teaching.

Vocabulary Game: Days of the week 6-8 year old students To arrange the days of the week The Teacher The teacher prepares the media for this game: The caterpillar, the days which separated like SUN and DAY. They are randomly put on the floor or on the wall. Class Activities Students have got to arrange the cut words into the names of days.

Vocabulary and Phonics Game Elementary; children - Teens To slap/hit the mentioned words The Teacher The teacher sticks the words on the wall or the white board. S/he can make a power point instead of printing the words or writing the words on the whiteboard. This activity is to teach children how to utter some confusing words like "three" and "tree", "she" and "see", and so on. Class activities Students have to slap the mentioned words by hand or a stick. The last student still plying is the winner. The activity can be modified. It can be used for vocabulary activities: presentation, revision, or testing. The teacher doesn't have to mention a word. Teachers can show a picture, give clues, describe, and so forth.

    Teaching vocabulary is also challenging. Learning vocabulary can be "frustrating". The teacher and students make vocabulary board based on the topic. Pictures and paper craft are downloaded from internet for educational purposes.

Speaking game Any level, Teens - Young Adults - Adults Pair/Group/Class Work To mentions verbs, noun, adjectives, adverb of place, and people to build a story or description The Teacher The teacher prepares the card, or the students simply use their own papers. Class Activities Students must mention 2 words for each given category. For the 2 places, students can mention places that they don't like. The teacher can have students write funny ideas for each category to make the game more fun. Having completed the lists, students have got to build a story by using the words written on the card. Then, they tell the story to partner, to members of the group, or to some friends in the classroom. However, students are not allowed to read the text. For higher level, students make this as impromptu activities. They are not allowed to write the story for preparing the the story. The more strange the words mentioned before, the more fun the story made.

Speaking game Elementary - Advanced Young Adults - Adults Pair/Group Work Students answers the questions attached on the cards The Teacher The teacher prepares the bridge cards. Each cad has got four questions attached on the back of the cards. The 4 questions should be in the same topic. Class Activities. Students can be in pairs or groups. Every student has got cards. A student mentions a card s/he wants, say, King-Club. The student having that card reads the questions. The student requesting the card must answer.

Grammar Game Elementary - Intermediate Pair/Group/Class Work To play domino focusing on the parts of speech The teacher The teacher prepares the cards. During the game, the teacher guides and gives further explanation when students find difficulties. Class Activities Students play this like they play domino. They have to match the same category mentioned.

Speaking game Pre-Intermediate - Advance To build story based on the picture and words in the cube The Teacher The teacher prepares the cubes with pictures and words like verbs, phrasal verbs, new vocabularies, and so forth. The cubes can be downloaded from www.islcollective.com or other resources, or the teacher can make them her/himself, to make this activity more suitable with the lessons/materials discussed in the class. Class Activities Students work in pair/group, depending on the number of students. Each student/pair/group has got 2 cubes: the pictures and the words. A student throws the cubes, s/he has got to build a story based on the picture and the provided words. In pairs/groups, the higher level students can make this activity as a chain story. The students must carefully listen to what the previous student(s) say in order to make a good story. This activity can be used to teach writing or grammar.

  Chain Drawing Speaking Game Any Level To activate past simple and/or past continuous in speaking Every S starts drawing when the music is played. When the music is paused, Ss stop drawing and pass the drawing to a friend sitting next to them. They continue drawing on the paper, given by a friend, when the music is replayed. It is repeated until they finish their drawings. At the end of this activity, every S has got a drawing, and Ss work in pairs/small groups. Each S describes the drawing to the partner/members of the group by imagining what their dream was about or what they did last holiday, and so forth.

A fun activity to enhance students to speak; Picture crown

  Vocabulary Game Elementary - Advanced Group Work Students make sentences to make a good paragraph For building writing skill, improving vocabulary, a nd/or building speaking skill The teacher The teacher prepares the words. They can be new vocabulary or learnt vocabulary. Each group has got the same words. Class Activities The students are divided into some teams, depending on the number of students. Students have got word(s). The Teacher mentions a word. The students taking that word must run to the white board/prepared paper on the wall and make sentences. After that, the teacher mentions the second word, and the member bringing that word does what the first member does before. Before writing, s/he must read the previous sentence(s) well in order to make a good paragraph. Students and teacher can discuss the mistakes made. ​Having completed the tasks, in chorus, the students tell the story made. It can be used to review learnt vocabulary or to provide new wo...

Grammar Game Elementary - Advanced Pair/Group Work Members of group unscramble words into good sentences. The Teacher The teacher prepares the media of the game and the grammar points introduced or discussed in the class. The teacher makes a list of scrambled words in a table and print it. Then, it is cut per sentence. The cut papers are put on the wall or whiteboard. The number of them depends on the number of groups. The papers are in different colours. The Class Activities Member 1 has got the job to take the first scrambled words. S/he unscrambles the words, and the other members of the group help him/her arrange the words into a good sentence. Having competed the job, s/he shows the answer to the teacher. If s/he correctly answers, the Member 2 of the group continues taking the second scrambled words. Then, s/he does the job. However, if the first member incorrectly orders the words, s/he redoes it until it is correctly arranged. The quickest group comple...

Teaching English as A Foreign Language CAUTION: THERE MAY BE MANY ERRORS OF ENGLISH USED I'm not good at English. I'm not an expert of English teaching. I'm not well educated and don't conduct a research. Actually, without my description, people reading this have understood about things which I mentioned before. It's too broad that I name this blog as TEFL. I ask myself a question whether I publish this blog or not. I write what I experience in the class. I make this blog for reminding myself what games which I should use in my class activities. I find writing so difficult that you may doubt when reading my writing. Perhaps nobody reads the blog which I make. As a result, 'you' here refers to the one writing this because he is the only one reading the blog.