An Activity for Travel/Weather/Seasons

I'm still studying away for the Delta.  The test is on June 5th, so I feel like the day of reckoning is coming or something like that.  Anyway, hoping for the best.  This is just a quick study break to write a blog post.

Almost every ESL textbook has a unit on Travel or Weather or Seasons.  Here is an excellent "task-based" kind of activity that you can do with your students, which will fit into any of these units really well:

Put the students into groups of 4-6 (I do it randomly).   The students are a tour company and the customers are my parents who are coming from Canada to Busan for a visit.  I will show them a picture of my parents and explain about the kinds of things they like and don't like (example: they like walking around, and sightseeing as well as watching sports, but they hate seafood).   Then, the students have to plan a 1-3 day tour (depending on the time for the activity/level of students) of Busan (or your city) for my parents. 

I usually give them around 20-30 minutes for the task, and at the end they have to share their ideas with me and the class.  I make a rule that 2-3 people should do the speaking, to give more students a chance to talk.  I pick the top groups, based upon the following:

1. I think my parents would love the tour
2. They just speak, and don't read from a paper
3. Their presentation was convincing. 

 And of course, they get a little prize (one stamp as part of my reward system).

This could also be adapted into a more comprehensive task, such as making a brochure or promo video or something like that.

Free: 40 Tried and Tested ESL Games and Activities

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Rewarding your Top Students

I try to do this every semester, but sometimes I forget and then I kick myself later!

Anyway, you can reward your top students for a long semester of hard work by excusing them from the final exam and giving them an "A+" (which they would have gotten on the final exam anyway).  I usually choose 1 or 2 students for the classes under 20 and maybe 2 or 3 in the classes bigger than 20.

I base it on the following criteria:

1. Grades (must be the highest in the class).
2. Attendance (must be perfect).
3. Homework (must have done all of it).
4. Attitude (must be cooperative and enthusiastic in class).

I don't tell my classes of this possibility during the semester, they only find out on the last day of class when I tell the one or two students. I do this as a way to reward the students who are just good students without any obvious motivation. And it's also easier on me, as I have about 15 less students (9 classes x 1 or 2) that I need to administer tests to and these students would get an A+ anyway. Works for me, works for them!

1, 2, 3 strikes...and you're out

In my classroom, I try to only deal in positive behavior because I think that 98% of my attention should be given to the people who are genuinely trying to learn.  And of course the challenge is to engage everyone, so that 100% of the class wants to be there and learn English in a productive, cooperative kind of way.  I do this mainly through my reward/motivational system that I use.  However, there are times that this fails and I'm forced to pay attention to disruptive people, as was the case yesterday.  Here is what happened:

Strike 1: When I start class, I expect everyone to stop talking.  These 4 boys continued their conversation despite me looking clearly at them and waiting for them to stop.  I foresaw further problems, so I split them up by moving 2 boys to the front of the class.  The 2 boys remaining at the back improved their behavior so there were no further problems.  The 2 boys at the front were a different story.

Strike 2: The lesson continues and I'm doing a short grammar lesson.  I expect silence when I'm doing this except when I'm asking for some feedback.  Of course, if someone is confused they can ask their partner for help, but it's usually obvious when it's not idle chit-chat.  These 2 boys at the front were chit-chatting away, quite loudly so that is was enough to distract other students.

I said to them, "This is #2.  #1 was moving to the front.  If #3, goodbye and I will mark you absent."  The lesson continues.

Strike #3: We were playing a game that involved each team giving an answer.  I don't mind a little banter back and forth between the teams as long as I can hear the answers clearly.  These 2 boys were being obnoxiously loud so I told them to be quiet because I couldn't hear the answers from the other teams.  This was strike 2.9.  A minute later, they are being way louder than is appropriate in a classroom (yelling), so I asked them to leave.

I like the 3 strikes because almost nobody gets to 3, even kids.  In fact, most people calm down and act appropriately after the first warning. After the second one, students get the seriousness of it and usually feel quite bad about it and most of them apologize to me after class.  Anyway, if you're struggling with discipline, try it out and see if it works for you.

Readers: what do you do for discipline in your class?

Back to work!

Hello my readers...I hope you're still lingering around, after my extended absence.  Jeju got quite busy with diving, and friends, and going away dinners and other good stuff like that. 

It was back to reality yesterday with the orientation meeting my uni has every year before the semester starts.  It's essentially the only mandatory meeting we have, and it's only twice a year, so it's another reason why I appreciate my uni.

Anyway, the meetings usually feature the top 3 teachers (based on student's evaluations) out of the 26 of us doing a short presentation.  And yes, for the first time, I was in the top 3.  I presented on my reward/motivation system.  It was essentially what I did for my previous Kotesol presentation and what I will do for the Kotesol International Conference 2011 in Seoul Oct. 15/16.

Now, time to get that syllabus in order and organize my online homework thing, and print off attendance sheets and perhaps do a lesson plan or two, or three, or five.  It's my style to plan at least a few weeks ahead to avoid the mid-semester crunch.

Kotesol International Conference 2011

I've just received notice that I'll be one of the presenters at the Kotesol International Conference 2011 in Seoul on October 15/16.  It will be along the lines of motivation/reward systems.  If you saw the last presentation I did, some things will be changed so come again!  Anyway, mark your calendars.  I'd be happy to meet some of my readers.

Kotesol Conference Presentation

My first Kotesol presentation is finished and done.  I was somewhat worried about being able to fill the whole 50 minutes, but as it turns out, Motivation and Reward Systems are topics that everyone seems to have an opinion about, so the 20 or so people added in lots of good thoughts and comments to make for an interactive (and hopefully interesting/helpful) presentation.  There was even a wee bit of drama, with an attender that was somewhat hostile and confrontational.  It all happened right before my time was up so it fizzled out before it even really got started.  Anyway, who knew reward systems could be so controversial?

Here is the power point link that you can check out.  Leave a comment with questions or thoughts (particularly if you were at the presentation). 

The super-handout

...of 10 fun ESL games and 10 exciting ESL activities that can be used within your reward system to help increase student motivation.  I've made it in preparation for my upcoming KOTESOL presentation. 

How to make a bad unit in the book into a whole lesson

Sometimes there are those units in the book that just seem irrelevant, bordering on ridiculous but you have to make it work.  This week, in Top Notch 2, there was a unit about being at a hotel and all the problems that you could encounter.  I just didn't think it was helpful for my students.  When in the next few years are they going to go overseas and stay at a 5-star hotel that comes to turn down your bed and provides you with skirt hangers?  If I was teaching adults, or even students besides freshman, it would have been more helpful to them. Anyway, my students are straight out of high-school so this was not what they needed.

So what I usually do when I encounter this is to take the grammar focus of the unit and build a whole lesson around that.  In this unit it was, "You'd better/You'd better not."  This is the lesson plan I made:

1. Review Game using materials from the past 2 weeks.  I made some mixed up sentences and they had to make correct sentences with their partner. 

2. Short grammar lesson/examples.  Then, they did 2 little sections in the book.  The first was a conversation speaking with their partner and the second was writing some sentences. 

3. Then, I made a board game.  I made a 5x5 chart on my computer and put problems in each square.  For example, "I'm so fat!" or "I have no friends."  Then, when the students landed on that square, they had to give some advice using the grammar point.  I also throw in a few random things like go back 3, move ahead 2, go back to the start, and switch spots with the person on your left/right.  I make it more fun by telling them that they're the teachers and have to listen for any crazy answers, and that person has to go back the number of squares that they went forward.  I give the winner in each group a stamp (which equals 2% of their final grade).

4. In the same groups of 4 or 5, they had to think of a small problem.  Each person in the group gave them some advice using the grammar point.

Overall, it was a solid lesson that got the students talking and listening, thinking, laughing and learning.  If I had just stuck with the book, it would have been an exercise in tedium I think.  Don't be afraid to use your own discretion to make whatever you have work.  My caution is that you really should at least make an attempt to use a page or two of the book everyday, or the students will get annoyed and wonder why they actually had to buy it.

A Movie Review

It seems like every ESL book out there has a unit on movies.  And the 2 I used yesterday, Smart Choice 2 and Top Notch 2 are no exceptions (and by the way these 2 books get the official "My Life! Teaching in a Korean University Stamp of Approval." 

Anyway, if you're looking for an idea to make that movie unit a bit more interesting, since your students are likely a bit weary of it, is to have them do a movie review.  It's been a decent/fun time in all the classes that I've used it in. 

How it works: I put them in groups of 3 or 4 usually.  Then, they have to pick a movie that they've all seen.  They write down the movie name and genre.  They have to tell the movie story in 4 or 5 sentences.  Finally, they say if they liked the movie or not and if they'd recommend it, in 2-3 sentences. 

Then, they appoint one person from the group to read out their movie review to the class.  I'll give one participation point to each member of the group who has the most interesting, detailed and easy to understand presentation.

2011 Kotesol National Conference

I've officially been accepted as a presenter at the Kotesol National Conference in Daejeon on May 14.  I'll be talking about, "Motivation: Effective Reward Systems."

It's not an academic presentation, but a teacher training one, which is where you come in.  I'm looking for some qualitative kind of input from you about what you do in your classes to motivate your students.  What rewards do you use?  Grades, candy, other things?  How do you administer it?  Do you punish negative behavior or just reward positive?  Does it actually work?  What have you done that hasn't worked.  I'm looking most specifically for your experience in Korea, with both kids and uni students/adults.

Please, please, please respond either to my email: jlbolen@gmail.com or leave a comment. 

Thanks in advance for your help my readers.  And be sure to check out my presentation!  I look forward to meeting you.

Competitive vs. Cooperative

In the past few years, I've made my classrooms a kind of competitive place.  I've talked before on this blog about my reward system and that most of the stuff I do in class has at least a few students who get a stamp, which equals 1% of their final grade.  Most of the students seem to enjoy it, but there are some who comment in every class that they weren't so into it.  The non-competitive, or weaker at English students I think.  However, in Korea it's all about ranking and comparing against your peers, so my system plays right into the Korean mindset and culture.

But, I can't stop having this kind of nagging feeling in the bottom of my stomach that learning is all about cooperation and collaboration, not competition.  And I wonder if it's time for a change.  And, it would have been years earlier if my students genuinely wanted to learn English and had their own internal motivation/reward thing going.  But, sadly, most do not.  Hmmm....what to do.  Reader ideas?

Games

Yesterday, I talked about some mistakes that A Geek in Korea made in class.  He responded to my criticism today on his blog.
 This is what I said:

When I do prep for a class, I’ll generally plan enough activities and games to fill the entire time.  And then, I’ll include one more optional one.  This way, I’ll always have enough to use the entire time and not have to make up stuff on the spot.  And, I have a roster of about 30 games and activities that I’ll cycle through in a semester.  This is enough that I never have to do the same thing twice, but it’s small enough that I understand thoroughly how to do/play all of them.  I suggest that you make your own master list.  Occasionally, I will incorporate news games into the list, but I’ll work through all the possible questions that students might have first to make sure I am the expert in how to play.

And this was his response:

(30 games! No way. I just don’t teach this way. Never have, never will. I have activities and different worksheets I make, and I have lots of things we do, but I never play that many games with any batch of students at any time of the year. Even when I taught children, I never played 30 different games, even when I had dozens of classes! How to you keep people interested in a lesson when they just play games all day? How do you have so many games connected to conversation topics that are in books required for the courses? That’s amazing! I do not play games in most of my freshman classes, but I will supervise activities and help them with their language to improve.)

And a few points from me in response to this:

1. Please note that I said games AND activities.  Some of my activities include things like survey your classmates, fill in the blanks on a worksheet by talking with your partner who has the corresponding information, or make a conversation and present it to the class. 

2. You'd be surprised as to how easy it is to make games connected to whatever grammar point or topic that you're studying.   Most (all!) of the things on my master list are just generic type games that I can adapt to whatever we're studying.  And yes, it would be totally boring and irrelevant if the game was not related to what we studying that day.  But, I NEVER do that, unless it's just a little 5 minute warm-up game once in a while.  Anyway, I challenge anyone to give me a topic or grammar point and I'm sure I can come up with at least a couple interesting, relevant games in a few minutes for you :) 

3. How do I keep people interested by just playing games?  In my 1.5 hour class, I'll usually do 2 games/activities where some people get a reward of some sort (in my class, a stamp worth 1% of their final grade).  One warm-up game, and then one game or activity to reinforce what we studied that day.  This seems to be an optimal amount.  I do other stuff too, including writing practice, partner conversation, grammar work in the book, etc.

4. And, it seems like A Geek in Korea has this idea that game cannot equal learning.  I totally disagree.  I think that sometimes the best learning happens when people forget that they're actually learning English and are focused on the game in question.  It's like a different area of the brain gets accessed, besides that area that is just focused on language.  The same thing happens when teaching content, in a  second language context.  It's like the students forget they're actually learning English too, because they're so focused on the content.

A fun activity about travel

This week, in World Link Book 1 we were learning about travel and places to go on vacation.  For a fun activity, I put them in groups of four and gave them a little assignment:

Choose a place your group wants to go on vacation (outside Korea).  Why do you want to go there?  What season do you want to go and why?  What are you doing to do there (3 or 4 things)?  Are there any special clothes or things you need to bring? 

I gave the groups 15 minutes and then I had one person in each group report their answers to the class and I wrote a quick summary on the board.  I gave a small prize to the groups with the most interesting answers.

A simple review game

Last week in class, my grammar point was countable/uncountable nouns and all the technical details surrounding it.  It can get quite complicated, so I wanted to review it before moving on.  A fun way to do it (and other stuff too!) is to play this game.  I'm sure you know the game S-O-S.  If you get three "S" in a row or three "O" in a row you draw a line through it and get a point.   I've adapted this game for my purposes.

I draw a grid on the board, usually 6x6.  I give them numbers and letters to make it easier for the students to pick what box they want.  Then, I divide the students up into teams of 4 or 5 and give them each a symbol (triangle, square, star, heart, etc).  Then, I ask review questions, going from team to team.  Simple, easy questions with a definite right or wrong answer are best to keep this game moving quickly.  A correct answer gets them a square on the board.  I do 6 or 7 rounds, and by this time the good teams will have 2 or 3 points.  The top team gets a prize (in my class: a stamp worth 1% of their final grade). 

As a final note: this game gets boring after 20 minutes or so, so don't plan on playing this for an entire class.  It works best as a warm-up review kind of game. 

A reward for top students

In each class, there are 1 or 2 students that I excuse from the final exam and give an A+. I base it on the following criteria:

1. Grades (must be in the top 3 in the class).
2. Attendance (must be perfect).
3. Homework (must have done all of it).
4. Attitude (must be cooperative and enthusiastic in class).

I don't tell my classes of this possibility during the semester, they only find out on the last day of class when I tell the one or two students. I do this as a way to reward the students who are just good students without any obvious motivation. And it's also easier on me, as I have about 15 less students that I need to administer tests to and these students would get an A+ anyway. Works for me, works for them!

Warm up game

...a fun one to get some thinking juices going. It's called odd one out. For example, I'll have 7 or 8 sets of them on the board. You can make it into a review game in some cases. Body part, shapes and foods work very well.

1. apple/orange/onion/banana
2.ankle/toe/leg/mouth
3. Tv/cup/credit card/table

and on it goes.

Which one is different and why?

1. onion, because not a fruit
2. Mouth, because upper 1/2 of body.
3. Cup, because it's a round shape.

I usually put them in teams of 2 and they have to write down their answers. The first 2 teams get a prize of some sort.

Starting Class

I know everyone has their own way to start class but here is the method that I usually use and that seems to work pretty well at capturing and getting attention.

1. I walk into the class, adjust the temperature, desks and podium to my liking. I'll turn on the computer and projector if using it for that class. A few random hellos as students walk in.

2. I take my stuff out of my bag and set out all the materials I'll need for that class. Nothing is worse than having attention and then losing it due to poor preparation and having to search in your bag for things.

3. I write up the days agenda on the board. I'll also write the first 1 or 2 things that we'll be doing, so I don't waste time doing this later. By this time, there is usually about 1 or 2 minutes until class starts, so I'll walk around doing attendance.

4. I'll start with a good afternoon/morning and then some general chit-chat for a couple minutes. I'll avoid this with the dead classes because the dead silence is never a good start to a class, but it's actually quite fun with the better ones.

5. Then a game of some sort. Even if it's secretly studying or introducing the topic for that period, call it a game and make it into some sort of competition with a winner and have a prize. For example, instead of just reading the little descriptions in the book of 4 people's plans for after graduation, I copied them out and we'll play running dictation to start the class off with.

That's my routine. What's yours? One final tip that really works for me is to tell the students to talk to me only after class. When I'm getting all set up, I don't like to be interrupted with small issues that can be dealt with after class.

Moving Beyong the Book

A major weakness that I can see in my students is their ability to move beyond the book. They're actually pretty decent for the most part at reproducing what's in front of them, with the typical answers. Examples: "My hobby is playing computer games." "I'm from Korea!" "I have a sister, brother, mother and father."

But anytime they need to move beyond this, it's like pulling teeth to get any sort of interesting, creative or original answer. My solution is to offer points/stamps/grades (whatever you use) for interesting answers, that use a bit of creative power and originality and to praise these highly, while just giving the boring, old answers a blank response basically. No response, either negative or positive. And the students pick up on this and in a couple weeks, they're all striving to move beyond what's right in front of them. Everyone likes positive feedback...as a teacher, you can control the class using this to your advantage.

Board Games

One of my favorite things to do in class is board games. Sometimes I'll make my own and play as a class for a review game or the World Link Textbook has some really good ones in their teacher resource book.

When I use the ones from the textbook, I'll put the students in groups of 4 and get them to referee their own games. I'll promise a "stamp," which translates into grades for my class to the winner of each group. I'll write on the board a couple example questions from the game and put up some wrong and right answers. Then, I'll ask my students which one is wrong and why until the get the hang of it. In their own games, if their classmate answers incorrectly, he will not be able to move his marker ahead but will have to remain in the same square. It's amazing how competitive Korean students can get and I can see them all listening intently to their classmates and figuring out if their grammar is correct or not. If they have a dispute, I'll come offer the final decision about a right or wrong answer. Getting them to correct each other adds a whole new element of intensity to the class and dramatically improves accuracy of speaking. Try it...you'll be amazed I think!

Free: 40 Tried and Tested ESL Games and Activities

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Student Homework Checkers

Last semester, Mirella gave me a great tip on checking homework. Get students to act as homework checkers.

She has students volunteer to be homework checkers for one part of the assigned homework. The checker comes to the front of the classroom and orally checks the work, as a teacher would do it. The checker speaks only English and asks the other students to answer the questions.

Give extra participation points to the checker and one participation point to the students who volunteer answers.

I have found in most classes the students really love this method of checking homework.

Benefits: It is student led. Students have a better understanding of how difficult it can be with an unresponsive class. Students are more willing to volunteer when the student checker is at the front of the room. It's a real situation for communicating in English.