Enthusiasm....it might be worth a try?

In most of my classes, I'm pretty "enthusiastic."  When you're talking to students who don't really understand English that well necessarily, things like gestures and voice inflection are really important, so I try to do a fabulous job of that.  And, I also try to make funny, simple jokes.  And, it's a good thing I do, according to this article!

Four Corners 2 Speaking Test

The semester is coming to a close, which means it's speaking test time!  Here are my test questions, loosely based on 4 Corners 2, units 5-9 which I gave to the students beforehand.  There are 9 questions, and I interview 3 students at the same time, so 3 questions/student (randomly chosen). It takes around 13 minutes for the group of 3.

Note that these are just general categories--I will never give students questions more specific than this since it leads to just straight memorization and isn't really an accurate reflection of actual conversation ability.

I grade the students based on 4 categories, all equally weighted: understand the questions/grammar +vocab/fluency/interesting + detailed answers.

1. Healthy/ Unhealthy habits.  How often/ how much/how many

2. TV.  Pg. 56/ 59

3. Shopping.  Where do you buy clothes?  Why/ how often, etc.

4. A market in your neighborhood (look at pages 72/73).  

5. Places to visit.  Should/ Can.  Page 77-5 (speaking)

6. Where can I…..? (page 142).

7. Jobs: best/ worst in your opinion (from page 86).

8.Page 86-2.  Who would you like to meet?  What are 3 or 4 interesting questions you would ask them.

9.Who is a person that you admire (past or present).  Where/when/what, etc….? What were/are they like?

Why I'm doing the Delta

Check out  my guest post on Profs Abroad.  And check out all the other stuff on that site too, it's one of the good ones.

And don't forget to get my go-to resource for the Delta: An A-Z of ELT

Speaking Activities and Games for ESL Students

Check out one of my other sites for some  ESL speaking activities that you can incorporate into your classes easily.


And also check out one of my favorite books for Speaking Activities: Speaking Activities that Don't Suck.

Delta Module 3

The 5000 word paper has been sent off through cyberspace to its final resting place.  Thankfully.  I'll hold off on the advice giving until I see my score.  But, let's just hope it's the all-important "pass" or better! I'm quite confident based on the feedback that I was given from my tutor, so I'm relaxing now!

And...which book did I find extremely helpful for doing the Delta?  An A-Z of ELT.

Test-Teach-Test

The test-teach-test (TTT) methodology is not my usual style of teaching, and most days, I lean more towards PPP (presentation/practice/production) or task based teaching.

However, for simple grammar concepts or vocab that students have probably studied before, TTT could work very well, so I decided to give it a try with "Be" in the past and other regular/irregular past tense verbs, since my students should already have a decent grasp of the basics.  The unit in my book that I was covering was 4 Corners 2, Unit 9.  And here is the "test" that I prepared, with some vocab/names of people thrown in from the previous unit:  The Past Tense Test.  In addition, I pointed out the pages in the book that they could refer to if necessary.  I gave the students about 10 minutes to work on it and then we checked answers together (teach phase).  I went quickly over the easy ones, and pointed out some of the tricky stuff (ie: negatives/questions actually use the present tense verb).  

Then, for the final "test" phase, I made a Past Tense Board Game, which the students played in small groups (again recycling vocab from Unit 8 in the book).  And, of course, I walked around the class checking for accuracy.

Overall: it went well!  ALL the students, even the ones who don't actively participate in class seemed to enjoy the board game and they put in a good effort on the test and were referring to the relevant pages in their books, etc. Success!  I'll definitely be doing it again for easy things that the students probably already know, but just need a bit of review on.

Check out Jeremy Harmer's "The Practice of English Language Teaching" for more details on methodologies.

Life in Cities Intro Activity

This is the perfect way to introduce the "Life in Cities" unit that you find in most conversation or 4 skills textbooks (Four Corners Level 2, Unit 8 for me).  I hand out the questions (see link below) and put the students in groups or 2 or 3.  I give them about a minute to read the questions before watching the video.  Then, they watch the video and take some notes.  The video has a wee bit of the cheeze factor going for it, but it's graded appropriately for Korean University students.  At the end, I give them 3-4 minutes to compile their answers in their group and make one "good" paper to hand to another team to check.  The teams with the highest number of correct questions get a stamp in my class (my reward system, which equals grades), or you could give a prize of some sort.  It takes around 20-25 minutes total for a big class (30 students).

Life in London Questions

Introducing can/should

There's always that unit in the book with "Can/ Can't" for possibility/impossibility and "should/shouldn't" for advice.  Here is my fabulously fun way to introduce it, such that even the lowest of the low classes, quietest of the quietest classes will participate.

Tell them you want to go on vacation somewhere in Korea and need their advice.

"Where should I go?"

Collect some answers.  I usually choose Jeju Island, for reasons you'll see later.

"Should I go in summer?"  Yes, no, etc.

"So what can I do there?"  Blah, blah.

"How can I get there?"  Airplane?  "Can I swim?"  Hahaha!  Crazy teacher.  No, you can't.

Elicit some answers and have a bit of fun with it.  Write up on the board/PPT:

Where should I go?/ Should I.....?
What can I do there?  Can I....?

and you're good to go!

Personality Game Powerpoint

Personality Game 

Most books have a unit of some sort on "personality."  Here is a game that I made which is the perfect way to finish your class.

1. Put the teams in groups of 4-7 and have them choose a "captain"

2. The captain sits at the front with a pen and a paper and their teammates also have a pen and paper.

3.  Put up the questions 1 by 1 and have the captain write down their answer and their team has to guess what the captain's answer is.

4. My 2 rules are that the captain must have eyes forward and hands together (ie: no signalling the answer to their team) and the teams must talk quietly.

5. Check answers at the end, and if matching, the team gets a point.  The winner gets a prize at the end!

The game takes around 20 minutes, but you could do more or less questions obviously to suit your time constraints.

Personality Game PPT

And for a little more information on personality types, which could be adapted to higher levels, check out this book:

Free: 40 Tried and Tested ESL Games and Activities

Email Address

Come see my presentation on Teaching Public Speaking and Presentation Skills!

I'm considering changing the name of this blog from, "My Life: Teaching in a Korean University" to "The rarely updated, yet still fabulous blog about teaching in a Korean University."  Thoughts?

Anyway, the real news is that I'll be giving a presentation at the Kotesol Fall Mini-Conference in Busan next weekend (Saturday, Sept. 14th) at the Pusan University of Foreign Studies (PUFS).  The conference runs from 2-5:15ish, but you can see my presentation at 4:00.  I'll be talking about how to teach presentation and public speaking skills.  It's "101" style so perfect for those who've never taught it before.  It's free and everyone is welcome, even non-Kotesol members.  Hope to see you there.  And of course: all the information found here.   

Check out my #1 book for teaching presentations and public speaking: Speaking of Speech.