Good ESL Movies

As a treat, my classes are allocated 1 feature movie per semester and my last post about  The Racing Stripes Review PPT Game got me thinking about the best movies (or the movies my classes seem to like the best) and that are worthy of a mention. Below I have included some links to trailers and shorts. I buy my DVD's at Amazon but I'm sure you all have your favourite places to download and buy.

All classes are different, so before showing any movies please watch the whole thing through to make sure it's suitable before showing your class, DON'T just go on recommendations alone!

I'm teaching Middle School age and off the top of my head, these have been the most popular with the kids.

Feature Films

1) The Adventures of Tin Tin- The Secret of The Unicorn. Adventure and comedy by Spielberg...need I say more?
2) Mr Poppers Penguins. Jim Carrey always good for a laugh.
3) How To Train Your Dragon. Animation Adventure

Short Films

These two silent films make for great discussion classes.

Signs a romance short with a twist got the high school kids (upper middle) going crazy.

Thief an entertaining film from India.

Animations

Wallace and Gromit - The Wrong Trousers (but any of the Wallace and Gromit movies are popular and usually around 25-30 minutes long)

Bernard Bear - A combination of 3 different countries got together to make this animated bear come to life and with his unique circle of friends they come up with some pretty oddball adventures.

Shaun The Sheep - Especially great for youngsters, so many great episodes.



MR BEAN

A class of its own and the ultimate for ESL teachers is of course MR BEAN  :-) Hundreds of short funny skits from the old TV show(not the animations).

Again a mention to please watch and gauge appropriateness and levels of anything before showing your class.

Would love to hear your comments on your favourites!

Fun IQ PPTX Quiz Game-Detective Dan

Critical Thinking: Power Point Game
Looking for a mystery lesson that gets the kids to try out their powers of deduction and get that grey matter working?Meet... Detective Dan.
Detective Dan in The Musicians of Abbey Road Mystery is the first of a series of Einstein style quizzes that work by gathering information to deduce a number of factors about the characters involved in the mystery and eventually come up with a filled answer sheet to help Detective Dan solve the case.

In the first release of the series you will meet 5 characters...Jazzy Jeff, Salsa Sally, Bluesy Bill, Hip- Hop Henry and Rockin' Ray.

Jazzy Jeff has lost his wallet. Detective Dan has found it and wants to return it to him, however, he only knows that Jazzy Jeff lives in Abbey road among many other musicians, he doesn't know in which house, so he(the students) go about gathering crucial information that will finally lead him to Jazzy Jeff's door.

RECOMMENDED AGE GUIDE :For an ESL CLASSROOM, the vocabulary is not difficult for primary school age, but the critical thinking process may be. I play this successfully with middle school students and up. For Regular Classrooms I recommend from grade 5 and up to adults (seriously... my friends and family have had as much of a challenge as my students have had). Only you know your class capabilities, please review all the information on this page to access if suitable for the age you are teaching.

Behind each number is a picture and sometimes slightly cryptic clue about the 5 residence of Abbey road including their names, information about their hobbies, nationalities, pets and the instruments they play. Student's must write down (on the provided information sheet) all the facts as they gather them, and piece the whole thing together.

This activity works great as a team building exercise (getting brains to work together) or as a singular student exercise. Either way it's heaps of fun and like all puzzles, the challenge brings about satisfying results upon completion.

The PPT itself has been designed for easy navigation with super cool transition effects and cruisy original Detective Dan theme music running in the background (with an easy access on/off button if you need to talk to the class) to add to a relaxing and fun class atmosphere. Here is a quick preview for you to get an idea of what's involved.

Student's will write the gathered notes, information and answers as they work them out, on to the accompanying answer sheet which is provided as part of the download.

Click this link to download Detective Dan in The Musicians of Abbey Road Mystery.



If you are a teacher like myself who has multiple classes, I like to print and laminate the worksheet and provide the students with a slim whiteboard marker (plain texters also work) and an old rag to clean the boards at the end of class.

The vocabulary covered in this activity is shown in the below picture taken of the question slide with all numbers revealed. Here you can see the different pets owned, hobbies, instruments, nationalities ( flag knowledge not necessarily required  as the are revealed with in the clues)

Detective Dan Mysteries can be purchased at my TpT store  Clever Fox Lesson Box  along with many other class ppt's and activities. Thanks for viewing.

What Did You Do On The Weekend? ESL Printable Bingo Cards

What did you do on the weekend? is something I often ask my students. Unfortunately here in China, the response  90% of the time is...HOMEWORK, I only do homework.

So a goal of mine is to often try to make students see that they do actually do a lot of other stuff, it just may be that they discount things as being too dull, simple or not important.

I'm a firm believer in all the little stuff counting, so, to get more than the usual answer I designed this worksheet and Bingo game to get the students to take part in a larger discussion of possible answers.

I basically run the lesson like this...

Hand out the "I had a Great Weekend" (available in the downloads section)  survey worksheet and get the students to mingle asking the different questions. For example...

Get the free download that includes these worksheets, Bingo cards, and interactive free PPT game...YES totally free!

Student 1 - Did you go to a restaurant on the weekend? Student 2) Yes I went to a restaurant.

The past tense answer is listed for student 1 on the worksheet, so that they can listen out for the correct response and correct if the student gets it wrong. If Student 2 answers Yes to the question, Student 1 can write that students name in the adjoining column.

The aim is to get as many different names for as many different answers as possible.

The second part of the lesson - I get the students to cover their answers and try to remember who did what. This can be done by simply getting one student to stand and say another students name. The student then asks them one of the questions hoping for a correct answer. If student 2 says yes I......whatever....Student 1 can sit down and Student 2 has to call another students name and ask them a question. IF however Student 2 replied NO I didn't do that...then student 1 stay standing and call another name continuing in this fashion.



The Other Way To Do Part Two Of The Lesson - The bingo cards have a matching PPT Game that is totally free for you to download.

Both the worksheet questionnaire and the bingo cards are available with the PPT game and flashcards etc, as a totally free "What Did You Do On The Weekend?  PPT Game bundle" .

ENJOY!

 

Human Bingo: I Know What You Did During The Holiday

It's not always easy going back to class after a nice relaxing summer or winter vacation but "Human Bingo: I Know What You Did During The Holiday", is a great way to ease back into the classroom for both teachers and students. Personally I have trouble getting Chinese students to act excited about anything they may have done during their holidays. Even for the lucky ones that have gone overseas, I'm still faced with blank looks and replies of..."I did nothing except homework".

Why?
This could be because they don't want to brag in front of their friends, or that nothing really is that appreciated or exciting for them or there's a good chance that they don't think they have the vocabulary to pull off such a conversation.

What We Can Do

Human Bingo that includes vocabulary to remind the students of the words and things they may or may not have done throughout their holiday, is a very effective and relaxing class to start the new semester with and this is what it looks like.

Human Bingo “I know what you did during the holiday”.

Find someone in your class who has done these things during their summer holiday. Write their NAME on the square. When you get a line of 5 people, shout BINGO! You can only use a person's name once (one time).

You spent some of the summer holiday in Beijing or Shanghai	You played     Badminton but didn’t play basketball	You read a book in English. (Not your textbook)	You used an iPhone or iPad	You ate at     McDonald’s
You traveled abroad	You spent a lot of time with your school friend/friends	You missed school and have been waiting to return to your classes	You gave someone a hug	You visited your family that live in a different province
You ate grapes	You watched an English movie at the cinema.	You DIDN’T read a single book during the holiday (Not your textbooks)	You drank some coffee	You visited one of these places -The Oriental Pearl Tower, The Great Wall, Niagara Falls or The Eiffel Tower
You DIDN'T play a computer game	You spoke English with a foreigner	You swam in the sea, ocean, river or a lake.	You cooked a meal (not instant noodles	You woke up later     than 11am
You DIDN’T miss school at all	You patted a dog	You were bitten by mosquitoes	You bought some new shoes	You got sunburnt

Useful words: ,mosquitoes - 蚊子, abroad – 国外,grapes - 葡萄,sunburnt – 晒伤 Oriental Pearl Tower - 东方明珠电视塔, hug – 拥抱 province – 省

Google Docs link here.
Human Bingo Activity Sheet

NOTE - Another one of my lessons that I'm offering for free (from my TpT store Clever Fox Lesson Box) that is very similar to this but includes an interactive PPT game, 16 different bingo card printables and two worksheet printables can be downloaded here. Or if you want to read about it first and see some pictures here. YES it really is totally free for all that. Reviews appreciated but not compulsory :-)

Class  Lesson Plan

• I usually fill a 45 minute class by beginning with a short PPT showing photos from my summer vacation.


• Short discussion about what they think I did during the vacation, based on what they saw from my photos.


• Tell them that to find out what everyone else in the class did for the holiday, we will play human bingo and explain how to play. I begin by seeing which student can get one complete line of 5 squares (with different students names....definitely cant stand and talk to one person putting their names in all the squares) and then just let them try to fill the whole grid.


• Obviously they must spend the class walking around and mingling to find the information they need.


• With the last 10 minutes of the class I like to get the students to sit back down and we will call out some of the activities and call out the names of students who DID those particular things.

Hints: Depending on the size of your classes and the amount of students you teach, you may wish to use the bingo sheet in different ways. If printing is not an option as you've too many students, you could write the grid on the board or project it on a smart board....then get the students to copy the grid on their own paper. Another option is if you can get enough bingo boards printed and laminated for one class, use whiteboard markers and re-use them for all of your classes.

Good luck, welcome back and most of all....have fun!

Photo Credit: Robert Couse-Baker via Compfight cc

Cartoons and Claymation: Shaun The Sheep and More

Bernard Bear, Shaun The Sheep and Wallace and Gromit

Bringing in our toon town or claymation friends like Shaun the Sheep, can help to relax students, make them laugh a little and then actively converse in class. It is a good way to incorporate some light entertainment into learning and using spoken English. Showing t.v. shows and movies for ESL learning is not always effective for lower level learners, as trying to understand the dialogue, can make it hard for them to follow the plot of the story(unless subtitled), however, showing silent shows or shows with very little speech involved, gives the students a chance to actively participate in question and answer time or an explanations session on what they think happened during a show. Mr Bean (not the cartoon) is excellent in the ESL classroom for the reasons I just mentioned...but today I'm going to look at some specific cartoons and animations featuring lovable toon town friends and claymation characters that your ESL students will love.

Bernard Bear

A Spanish, French and Korean co produced cartoon, Bernard (also known as Backkom in some countries) is a polar bear. He is not exactly what you would call very lucky in life. Each episode is only about 3 minutes in length which makes it extremely useful for including either question and answers or to get the students to take turns in describing what Bernard did during the show.  I make sure that I have about 8 episodes at the ready before class begins. I first discovered Bernard Bear whilst flying with a small Asian airline company. Watching a few episodes of this slapstick cartoon up on the drop down screens kept me amused throughout the turbulence. I have recently found out that there are also a few films. "My Friend Bernard" is a 2012 t.v feature about a small, scared boy who lacks the confidence to do anything...that is until he meets Bernard Bear. Before that in 2008, there was a d.v.d produced called "Mug Travel" and whilst you can find shorts from this on the internet, it's difficult to find out any other information about this particular show. Finally, due for release in 2013 "Super Bernard" is a 3D feature lasting a little over an hour. With over 150 episodes of the regular 3-4 minute shows...there is plenty of Bernard Bear to use with your students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSIuqbG4iOY

Shaun The Sheep

This claymation (a form of stop motion) series is a real hit with students. Created by Nick Park, of "Wallace and Gromit" fame, Shaun The Sheep has a lovable cast of characters whom the students enjoy talking about. Like Bernard Bear,  Shaun The Sheep is featured in short, easily digestible episodes of 3-4 minutes in length, so again you will need to make sure you have enough episodes to last the whole lesson.

Whilst they are all great, some special episode recommendations from the "Wash Day DVD" are Hiccups, Who's The Mummy, Sheep On The Loose and Wash Day.

Whilst you can easily and quickly make up some question and answers, I also recommend getting your students to watch the video below, introducing the main characters of the show and see if they can do a similar introduction of the cast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJGlxlFU1A4

Wallace and Gromit

As I have mentioned... before Shaun the Sheep, Nick Park created Wallace and Gromit. This is a series of four animated short  claymation films ( 20- 30 minutes in length) and 1 feature-length movie. Please note...Wallace and Gromit is not silent, there is dialogue for the students to take in, but I have included Wallace and Gromit here in this article, because even with the dialogue, the short feature shows are not difficult for the students to follow.

Wallace is an inventor who comes up with some brilliant inventions, but is a little naïve and Gromit (who doesn't speak) is a highly intelligent dog who is often helping Wallace out of trouble. The four short feature shows are -

• A Grand Day Out


• The Wrong Trousers (Academy award winner)


• A Close Shave (Academy award winner)


• A Matter Of Loaf And Death

and the full length feature film is -

• The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Academy award winner)

There are also some short features up to 3 minutes in length from a series called "Wallace and Gromit's Cracking Contraptions".

Whilst I have seen many of these, the only one up till now that I have tested in the classroom is "the Wrong Trousers". It made a huge impact with the students, more than I anticipated. The chase scene on the toy train near the end of the film, ended with most classes giving a standing ovation. They really loved every minute!

Don't be put off by having to make up some simple observation questions, all three of these series are worth the little effort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5-aVz9mWtw



Photo Credits:  eckes/bernd via Compfight cc">Photo of Shaun The Sheep .ShironekoEuro via Compfight cc">Photo of Wallace and Gromit .

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The Human Knot: Team Building Exercise

Team work is always a good thing to teach your students, and the Human Knot is the perfect way to get the point across. Another good thing about this activity, from an ESL perspective, is that it is also great for teaching your students prepositions. Students will link hands (in a special way) to form a human knot, which they then will have to discuss, twist and contort their way out of, without breaking any links.

Objective: To teach the students to work as a team to make and then untangle a human knot. They will do this by conversing what they want to do in English using  prepositions.

Keywords: Over, under, into, out, through, around, across. 

Starter: Begin the class by showing the students the prepositions. A good way to explain these is by using a stool as a prop to demonstrate the above keywords. Step OVER the stool, hold the stool above your head "I am UNDER the stool, Put your arm THROUGH the legs section of the stool etc. Continue to teach and drill the students like this for 5-10 minutes.

Activity: Just before starting the activity, call 5 students to come up and stand in a circle with you, you will need them to listen and then help you to show what to do to the rest of the class. 6 people stand in a circle and they must now link hands but before they do you need to explain the rules to be followed to make this work. If they don't follow the rules they will get two circles or a knot that can't be untied.

Rules To Form The Human Knot:

• The knots can be formed with groups of 6, 8 or 10 people. 6 being easy, 8 -  medium difficulty and 10 people -  very difficult.


• You can't link hands with the person next to you.


• You can't  link both hands with the same person.


• You must start the knot by first connecting right hands and second connecting left hands. If one right hand holds someones left hand...it's not going to work. So get every one in the circle to first put their right hands in and once they are joined, then put their left hands in.

Once the knot has been formed, students need to start to discuss what they need to do to get out of this tie. For example, Joe might say "Bill go under my hand, and Lisa go over here. The students can lift their arms high for students to walk under or all squat low to the floor so students can climb over. It is important not to break hands and rejoin them in an unfair way, but make sure the students know they can re-arrange their grips so as not to twist and hurt their wrists, shoulders etc.

Extra Notes:

• Make sure the students start in groups of 6. This is the easiest knot to get out of. Once they have completed that move on to a group of 8 which is a lot more challenging. If they can get out of the 8 people knot, try a group of 10. A knot consisting of 10 people is really very difficult to escape from, but it can be done.


• Emphasize to the students to take care and be careful not to hurt themselves or others.


• If you find you have some time to spare, you can run some time trial competitions or have some races between the groups to see who is the quickest or can finish first for 6, 8 and 10 person knots.


• You really have to check that the students use as much English as they can, in all the excitement it's easy for them to revert to only using the native language if left unchecked.


• Another great exercise to finish up the class with is to assign one student to each group who will verbally direct them (as an onlooker) on how to untie their knot.

woodleywonderworks via Compfight cc">Photo by woodleywonderworks, cc">some rights reserved.

Word Games: 3 Quick Vocabulary Builders

Word games are great to use in the ESL classroom, especially when you're in need of quick, low preparation and fun ESL games. In countries like Australia and England, it's not just the online and smart phone versions of the scrabble like activities like "Words With Friends" or one of the many Facebook word games...it's the old-fashioned newspaper and magazine crosswords and simple anagram type activities that are still very popular as a relaxing way to pass a few hours...however, when it comes to teaching in a country like China, word games are not something that they commonly partake in. Maybe because of the difference in the language (Chinese characters) I'm not really sure? but being a word game fan myself, I really like to throw some into class every now and again. They are good vocabulary builders.


When it comes to moving word games into a classroom situation, you may find that your school or teaching premises doesn't have the technology to have online facilities for you... nor any luxuries like interactive whiteboards etc. Before playing these I organise my class into groups so they compete against each other. I also give each group a small whiteboard (how to make your own whiteboard), whiteboard marker and cleaning cloth. It makes the lesson even more entertaining and ensures they work in teams but if you don't want to do that, each team will need a piece of paper and a pen.

Note : For teachers in China, be warned, if you are teaching middle school students, and the school gets a weekly English publication delivered, like a small newspaper... our school has one called "teen", then there is a chance that the students already have to do a weekly crossword. I can tell you from experience (when I first started this job)...It doesn't go down well to give them another to do in class. There are however, other word game options and I will give you three fully presented, quick preparation games, right here for you now, that you could use separately as time fillers, or put together to fill out one whole word game lesson.

Word Games

1) First Letter, Last Letter

I like to play this first as it is a great warm up activity.

What To Do:

Give the students a group such as food, animals, things you like doing, things you find at school etc...

The aim is to write a list of 10 things within this category whilst sticking to the first letter, last letter rule. This means that whatever letter the first word ends with, the second word must start with and so on....so if you told them that the group of items they must list will all be types of "food", a list could end up looking like this.

1. Egg


2. grape


3. eggplant


4. turnip


5. pork


6. kiwi


7. icecream


8. meat


9. tuna


10. apple

First team to finish, with all correct answers...get 10 points.

2) Letter Square

Also known as word square or word block, I admit that having a love of word games myself, you could find me every weekend, waiting for the newspaper to arrive just to do this puzzle. It's very simple to organise in a class and will keep the students thinking and concentrating for the whole lesson if you let them.

What To Do:

Draw a 3x3, 9 squared grid on the blackboard

Pre arrange a nine letter word and write each letter into one of the nine squares making sure you mix the arrangement of the word up to make it a little more difficult. Make sure that the word is suitable for the level you teach. If they work from an English book, you could check the glossary of words at the end of the workbook and find a nine letter one, but it's not difficult to think of some common words to use.

Here's my example of one for junior 1 or 2



The object of course is to use the 9 letters to make words.

You can only use each letter once. In the above word square there is only one "T", so you could make the word "ten" but not "tent". There are however two E's, so you could make the word "teen".

The ultimate aim is to find the 9 letter word, which is in this case TELEPHONE. If a team finds the nine letter word award them 5 points and 1 point for every other word they find. You could get into scoring differently according to how many letters are in each word they find, but it is time-consuming and messy.

Set a time limit of about 10 minutes for this activity and then move on to the last word game.

3) Word Scramble

This is a pretty cool and surprisingly often takes the students quite a while to finish, so make sure you leave yourself enough time. Again it is very simple to set up with little preparation other than writing on the board.

What To Do:

Choose a category, or again you can use mine.... Here, I am using sports. I thought of 15 different sports and mixed the letters up. The students job is to un-scramble them. It is up to you whether you tell them the category, but I usually at least tell them that all the words belong to the same group of things. It is also your decision whether to let them use their dictionaries. I don't think it offers any advantage to finding a word they have no idea about, but it can help them if they know the sport, but are unsure of the English (which is fair enough). Be careful though that there isn't a picture page dedicated purely to sports at the front or back of their dictionaries.

Here's my sports word scramble list:

• LSKBTAEBLA - BASKETBALL


• NDMOBNATI - BADMINTON


• EHCYOK - HOCKEY


• NSITNE - TENNIS


• CRSOEC - SOCCER


• LYLBLOVALE - VOLLEYBALL


• LESABLBA - BASEBALL


• FOGL - GOLF


• SINTELEBANT - TABLE TENNIS


• XOGIBN - BOXING


• NGNURIN - RUNNING


• MYNGTCISSA - GYMNASTICS


• GIWIMNSM - SWIMMING


• NDIGVI - DIVING

You can either score this as the first team to finish gets the highest points for example...1st team to finish 10 points, 2nd team to finish 8 points etc...OR if no team looks like finishing before class is over, give them 1 point for each word they have un-scrambled.



Photo Credit: CarbonNYC via Compfight cc">Photo by CarbonNYC, some rights reserved.

HeadBands: What Am I?

Headbands reviewing is really just an elaborate way of playing “What Am I?”, but it’s a heap of fun and great speaking practice for students learning English.

Click Here 103 Heads or Back Review Cards Download

I often see people mentioning that the most fun game they often play in their ESL classrooms is “Who Am I?" This involves sticking the names of famous people on students back, whilst they mingle around the classroom asking questions to find out their identity…BUT (and notice it’s a big but), any ESL teacher based in China knows that for them… this definitely is not going to work. Chinese student’s (and that includes adult students), have hardly any idea about world-famous personalities. Michael Jackson, President Obama and a couple of soccer stars (at a stretch) are not going to suffice in a class of up to 60 students, however headband or back reviewing nouns most certainly does work and is highly successful and fun.

I have mentioned about the hedbanz game in a previous post about the commercial boxed board games to use in your classroom, It's super quality and fun for everyone. People have been reviewing like this forever with just an everyday sweat band, or head band (or clipping cards to students backs).  It's such a hit with classes, here's some more info, instructions on similar games and some downloads of review cards that you can use in similar ways. 

30 Christmas Themed Heads or Back Review Cards

Reviewing in this way really is fantastic for the ELL and ESL classrooms. It’s great to start the class with a whole lot of example questions that they will be able to practice. Am I big? Can you eat me? Am I in this room? Am I alive? Can I move? Am I red? ...you get the idea. It's entirely up to you as to if you make your students stick to yes/no questions or make life easier and allow them to ask broader questions like What color am I? I prefer to stick to yes/no.

THE RULES : The basic game involves one person putting on a head band and choosing a card. The card is placed into their head band, and then they must ask questions to the other students to find out “what they are” before the allocated time limit is up. Simple and easy! With small groups this method is fine, as is the method of up to 6 students all wearing a card in their head bands at the same time and taking turns to ask questions…but what do you do with big classes?
Click Here 103 Heads and Back Review Cards Download 
Headband Reviewing in a Big Class?

When teaching 30- 60 students, this method works well.

• Make 6 groups of students (so a class of 60, would be groups of 10 students)


• Give each group 1 head band and let them rock, paper scissors to see who will go first for each group


• Make sure you stand in a central place for students to make their way over to you


• One person from each group (not the headband wearer) comes to you to get a picture card and then takes it back to their group and without showing the head band wearer (guesser) what the picture is, places it into the student's head band.


• This student must now start asking his group questions to find out what he is.


• Once the student guesses the answer, they must pass the head band to a new student and bring their card back to you.


• They of course pick up a new card to take back and put into the new students head band, and so it goes on.

Potential Problems You May Encounter

• It can be the case that the students find the cards so funny that they get too excited and give away the answers. You must keep a close eye and try to stop this from happening.


• The students are not supposed to give the guesser hints and should ONLY answer his questions, make sure they know this.


• It’s impossible to remember which groups have had which cards. There are actually plenty of cards, but it does happen sometimes that the student finds a card that their team has already guessed. The good thing is… they can remember the cards they have used and only need to tell you that they need a different card.

Back Review Mingle
The other way that works well with review cards is the Back Review Mingle. You will need a way to secure the cards to students backs such as clips or reward stickers.
Students mingle around class asking other students questions (again in yes/no answer format) to help them guess what they are (indicated by the card on their back).
I allow only 1 question allowed to be asked to each student, encouraging them to keep moving. You could also bring in a rule that if that student asks you a question you can't ask them in return. This can slow things up and make the lesson last longer and keep the students moving and thinking.
30 Christmas Themed Heads or Back Review Cards

The Final Verdict

A few decks of different categorized cards for Head-Band or Back Reviewing, in my opinion, is an absolute must have in your lesson assault pack. They won’t tire of playing these game, and it easily adapts to a large class.

Superheroes and Supervillains Class Produces Amazing Art

I'm always astounded at Chinese students ability to draw. Not all, but many are very talented. To give you an idea of what the student's capabilities are when it comes to sketching out some art, I decided to post some of the final products from the recent superheroes and supervillains lesson I ran in class. A few of the student's included their short descriptions and stories as part of their pictures, but many wrote them separately.


This lesson spanned over 3 weeks (3 x 45 min lessons), and I'm very impressed at the results. You can view the full superhero and supervillain lesson plan I wrote in an earlier post here at ESL-TASTIC, but just quickly... the 3 lessons included -

• Week 1 - an introduction to superheroes and super villains using photo's and a short super heroes video clip, translating the most common heroes into English, begin to draft their own hero and villain sketches including a description of the hero and villain.


• Week 2 - Keep working on their pictures, descriptions and stories.


• Week 3 - Complete their work, describe to the class and watch a X-Men/ Wolverine cartoon episode.

You can see the difference in culture when you view the results .

They don't know much about superheroes here other than the Japanese "Ultraman", so even with my short lesson, their pictures are mostly all based on Chinese legendary figures. Marvel and DC Superheroes are becoming very popular around China though, so I guess their influence will gradually start to change. You can also see the big influence of Japanese cartoons and comics within their drawings.

The artwork and stories that I'm most impressed with are always the kids that manage to think outside of their (often sealed off) square and think of some real unusual characters like one below here with 2 pencil rivals.

The Superhero and Supervillain lesson, really works very well and whilst they very obviously still draw towards their own culture , it opens up a whole new world of what we grew up with and introduces them to new characters. It's really great to see these wonderful pieces of art and even more encouraging to see the pictures by the students that embraced the opportunity to try and change their perspective a little.

Hope you can find the same success with this activity as I have found.

The Sofa Game: How To Play Name Calling Fun

If you're looking to liven your class up a little, add some laughs and generally have a good time, the couch game is a good way to go. I know what it's like searching for activities that will actually work...In five years I have come across so many lesson plans and activities that you can easily see from the get go... are just not gonna stand up in class...or...You try, and you fry! I am determined to keep the contents that I put up on this site, as pure lesson winners. I'm not going to fill it with lessons that can only go half the distance. This next lesson certainly fills a 45 minute class period with mega fun...Your students will love you!

The Sofa Game also known as The Couch Game, ranks within my top 5 list. Whilst it's not as "English filled" as a lesson such as Wanna Buy A Duck, it makes the kids concentrate, listen and speak. It is also funny and will give them a good laugh.

General Idea - The main idea is to get the kids all sitting in a circle (boy, girl, boy girl) with four chairs at the head of the circle specially marked as the sofa.
Because the students are sitting in a boy, girl formation around the circle... "the sofa" will be occupied by two girls and two boys. The aim of the game is for the girls to totally occupy the sofa with four girls, and of course the aim of the game for the boys, is to occupy the sofa with four boys. Let's take a look how this will happen.

UPDATE : I have now designed a Sofa Game Activity Pack. Everything you need including more detailed instructions and tactical plans, name cards, Sofa Marker PDF and Seating Plan PDF.

The Sofa Game: Set Up and Play

1. Put all of your chairs in a large circle and get the students to sit around on the chairs in a boy, girl formation. The one chair immediately to the left of the sofa should be vacant...but every other chair should have a student sitting on it. To successfully play the couch game, you will probably need at least 20 students to make this game worthwhile.


2. Get the students to write their English names on paper. (Name Cards available in Activity Pack)


3. Collect names in container


4. Get each student to put their hand in like a lucky dip and draw out someones name.


5. BIG NOTE: Make sure that the students don't show or tell anyone what name they have...in China, this is very hard thing to stop the student's doing, but after a couple of rounds they start to realise that this game works better when they learn to keep quiet about their new persona.


6. Now the students have to pretend that they are the person whose name they have pulled out of the container. Play starts with the person sitting to the left of the empty chair, calling out a classmates name.


7. The student who is holding that name in their hand (on the paper) must stand up and walk to the empty chair. This often causes many laughs when a boy has inadvertently picked out a girls name... and a big, tall and beefy looking Mary, stands up and wanders across to sit in their new position.


8. Now the vacant chair is in another spot...yes? so the person sitting on the left of the new vacant chair calls another name and the new "whoever" moves over next to them.


9. The trick is for the students to try to remember who has who's name. The girls want four girls to move onto the sofa... even if one of the girls now has a boys name, and of course the same goes for the boys.

Obviously the team that wins will be the team that can fill the couch with either girls or boys. My classes love to do girl vs boy games! Competition is fierce.

The Couch Game Resources

• small strips of paper


• container to put all the names into


• something you can use to mark the four chairs that will be "the couch".

OR GO THE EASY WAY WITH THE SOFA GAME ACTIVITY PACK

The Couch Game Lesson Notes

• The hardest thing is not getting the students to cheat or give away their identity. You must stop the kids from calling out or mouthing their new names in their excitement and want to win.


• The next most difficult thing is of course the explanation.  As always, with activities like this one, I find it is best to get it all set up and for the first round, describe and show as you go. The student's catch on pretty quickly when they see how competitive and fun the activity is. When I first gathered enough courage to try this activity (I was scared about how to explain) I just couldn't get over how well and easily it all fell together.

The Cup Game Lesson Plan: Teaching Rhythm

 The Cup Game: The Cup Rhythm makes a great rhythmical music lesson. Sounds great and looks cool.
BIG NEWS - ALL NEW CUP GAME 2 is now available. A new hip rhythm with flips and slides, new play-alongs and heaps more.To read my post and see video's and information, click here. 
Having studied at the Conservatorium of Music in Australia (and being a drum teacher back home) means that I like to incorporate some music into my classes every now and again. Song lessons have never been particularly easy to pull off for me (even as a music teacher). Chinese kids are shy and don't always want to perform. Add to that the fact that you can never please everyone, with half the kids not liking the song... not singing or taking part...I rarely do songs.
Drums or more specifically rhythms however, are a different story. With clapping games being popular at schools here and all over the world, students really love The Cup Game lesson. 

A class of of 60 students getting into the groove to one of the tunes in the cup game lesson activity pack :-)

In this post I have included  the lesson plan I follow when teaching this... However the easiest and most fun way to run this activity is with the interactive PPT . It has step by step video instructions, a metronome feature to practice each step in time and two original tunes that I designed especially as "play alongs for this rhythm. Check out this video to see it in action.

If however you wish to proceed with a cup, some students and yourself...(as I did for many years)I've detailed some instructions here.

Title: The Cup Game Rhythm Lesson 

 Keywords:: Clap, Tap, Move Over, Pick Up, Put Down, Exchange, Over, Hand, rhythm, beat, cup

Objective: To be able to say the new words, learn about what a rhythm is and how to go about playing one.

Starter: Explain what a beat in music is and how we can also call it a rhythm. Rhythms and beats are played on drums. Demonstrate with the hand drum and let some kids try.
Next, show them how we can play beats on anything and that today they will learn how to play a beat with cups called the cup game. Demonstrate what it will look and sound like and then hand out a cup to each student .

Note: Students must either have desks for this lesson or sit in circles on the floor. If you are teaching in China...getting the kids to sit on the floor is not likely to happen.


Activity: Go through the beat and actions with words slowly... section by section, first demonstrating and then getting the kids to try. Make sure you do it section by section and slowly tie each section together.

Note:Prior to developing The Cup Game ppt,  I incorporated explaining rhythm and beat by playing my djembe drum. If you can also play a hand drum...it's a great way to start the lesson, however...it's really not needed. If you want to get a basic grounding on playing a hand drum you can look at Life Is Rhythm: Beat A Drum For Health where I run through basic hand drum techniques and benefits of drumming. It may give you some more ideas to add to the cup game class.

The Cup Game Rhythm

This is the chant I teach the kids. I have heard slight variations on the words used, however, I find this chant works well.

Clap clap, tap tap tap, clap move over, clap pick up...down, change over hand.

Get the kids to practice by themselves. Next,show them how they can play in a group passing the cups around the table and keeping the beat even (like in the group video below)

Extra Stuff: Show them a couple of extra stacking the cups whilst playing the cup game beat tricks...for example setting 5 cups up in a row and starting from left moving to the right, play the cup game rhythm and as you "exchange over hand" at the end, put the cup on top of the next cup in the line, so at the end, you will have your 5 cups in a stack..

You can also get them to play all together resulting in one big class beat... Be inventive.

Resources:

• You will need one plastic or paper cup for each student and desks for them to play on. My findings with the cups are that the paper ones sound better, and if you can find some fairly sturdy ones, they also last longer...the plastic ones seem to split down the sides fairly easily. I teach over 600 students, and I find I need 1 pack of 100 cups to safely get me through a week. Packs of cups are not expensive, so you can also buy enough to double up. Give each student two cups for double the strength.


• Djembe drum for rhythms introduction

Reminder: During the cup game lesson, we must remember to remind the students - don't hit the cups too hard, they will break.

Standards:The standards we will fulfil during this lesson are: learning new vocabulary, team building, playing rhythms.

If you're feeling really inspired, see if you can get them to do it in time with some music like in The Cup Game PPT

ENJOY!
BIG NEWS - ALL NEW CUP GAME 2 is now available. A new hip rhythm with flips and slides, new play-alongs and heaps more.To read my post and see video's and information, click here. 

Fantastic Four Square: The Ultimate Fun Time For Your Class

I think it's extremely important as an ESL teacher to make sure that you also fulfill your responsibility to show your students activities, including sport, that they most likely have never had the chance to see or do. I have always found sporting activities popular with the boys however here in China, the girls are a little less enthusiastic. In the past I have shown them dodge ball, tunnel ball, streets and alleys, cat and mouse and even brought an AFL footy across for the kids to have a try. The girls often take some coming around to the idea of physical activities, feeling out classed by the boys....BUT...I have found a solution.
Do you remember playing Four Square, sometimes also known as Square Ball? This simple and easy to set up activity is one sporting class that even the girls enjoy participating in. You can chalk out the squares in the traditional way (like in the above photo) or mark the court out using tape (I use the coloured electrical tape).

Basic Vocabulary - before starting I ask them why they think the game is called four square...After they answer, I run through some basic vocabulary for the game like -
Serve, bounce, out, in, hit and some sporting phrases like "YOU'RE OUT! and YOU'RE GONE! It is also a good idea to teach them the word Queue, and get them to queue in an orderly fashion around the four square court awaiting their turn.

You can even get the kids to take turns at becoming the umpire for a few rounds, getting them to us

ed to the new vocabulary and exert some authority.

For those of you whose memories are a little foggy, here's the general idea.

Basic Memory Refresher The court is divided into four equal size squares. The four players on the court hit the volleyball sized ball around into the other players squares trying to get the other players out by either missing the ball or hitting it out of bounds. When someone is out, they leave the court and any players in lower ranking squares than them, move up one position...allowing a new player to come into the court and action.

It is a tactical game offering some physical activity and bucket loads of fun, and the best thing is...you don't have to necessarily be good at sport to play well. I often have some very unlikely students making it all the way to the kings square.

For the full write up on how to play, I have put the whole kit together in the following link. It includes the rules and an instructional video, which you can show to your kids if needed.

Facts For Fantastic Four Square Fun

Make sure you get involved in the fun, the kids love it when you get fully involved in the action!

Photo by , hellosputnik via Compfight cc">some rights reserved.

Wanna Buy A Duck?

Do You Wanna Buy A Duck? This is one of my all time favorite and highly successful lessons to use in any classroom, be it ESL or regular learning.

Why is this lesson so good? Oh only because it works on just about everything in one fun filled 45 minute lesson. We're talking about group work, questions and answers, slang, thinking of appropriate verbs to go with selected items, selling and buying vocabulary, pronunciation and buying and selling sentence structures....Sounds to good to be true right? Or at least too good for them to enjoy? WRONG....They eat this activity up, they really love it.

 I first came across this activity on the "Ultimate Camp Game Resource" site. I'm all about taking great games and converting them to useful and fun lesson activities. This one in particular, works amazingly well.
Check out the camp Game Resource team running the activity here Wanna Buy A Duck Ultimate Camp Resource Video




Then I took it a few steps further and designed my own animated video and lesson material (the snip of the animated video you see at the start of this post being  a part of the pack) to make it the most super powered, A1, best ever (in my opinion) ESL activity that in 7 years of ESL I have taught. The added material also now makes this suitable for younger age groups...challenging, but certainly doable. Buy The Pack Here.

After watching the videos, the kids are usually ready and rearing to have a try, so I like to get a team of 5 to come up the front of the class and give it a whirl. This is really useful because it highlights to the rest of the class watching, what mistakes to watch out for. When the first "sitting ducks" have finished I get another team of 5 up front for another demonstration. The second group has usually watched enough to really get the hang of what is happening, and "mostly" put on a good show for the class to laugh and enjoy.

• I get the whole class to split into smallish groups of about 5 and get them to spend about 10 minutes practicing. Each time they do a run through, they should try and think of different things to sell and the appropriate responses for what they are buying. The cards in the activity pack are great for this (there are also worksheets to prep them for the dialogue)


• I usually play this activity in a line (like on the video) not a circle (like they suggest). Make sure that the line (or circle) is not too big otherwise some kids will become bored waiting.


• The last thing I do is organize a time trial race and get kids to compete in their teams to see who can complete the whole sequence the fastest....BUT, make sure that the dialogue is not so rushed that it becomes impossible to understand. I threaten to add 5 seconds for every person who doesn't speak clearly!

SUGGESTION : An extra thing you can do to make sure your lesson runs smoothly is to write or show the basic dialogue up on the blackboard or smart screen for the students to refer to if they forget the sequence...or purchase the Flashcards with prompts and worksheets which are all a part of the Wanna Buy A Duck? Lesson Pack.

Now... do you Wanna Buy A Duck Lesson Pack? :-)

An example of the Dialogue

Round 1
S1 - Do you wanna buy a duck?
S2 - A what?
S1 - A duck.
S2 - Can it quack?
S1 - Of course it can quack, it's a duck!

Round 2
S2 (to S3) Do you wanna buy a kangaroo?
S3 (to S2) A what?
S2 (to S1) A what?
S1 (to student 2) A duck.
S2 (to S3) A kangaroo.
S3 (to S2) Can it jump?
S2 (to S1) Can it quack?
S1 (to S2) Of course it can quack, it's a duck!
S2 (to S3) Of course it can jump. it's a kangaroo!

and so on down the line...

Have Fun!

Animal Sounds: Circle Game Fun

You may think that teaching animal sounds to your class is just too easy. We learn those things before we go to school right? But for kids in countries like China, they have never heard the descriptive words we use for the noises that particular animals make. In fact in China the kids don't even know the names of half the animal sound in their own language of Chinese. A lesson in animal sounds is informative and fun. Having spent a lot of my childhood mimicking and perfecting the sounds of animals such as the roosters, ducks and dogs, the kids love it when I also give an imitation of the animals. Anyway lets get to the game.

Animal Sounds Circle Game

Step 1 : Have the chairs all set up in a circle and when the kids arrive get them to sit down

Step 2 : Run through the vocabulary you will teach them. I have just recently done this activity and used these 10 animals (but you can choose your own)

• Dog - Woof Woof


• Cat -  Meow


• Rooster - Cock-a-doodle-doo


• Pig - Oink Oink


• Cow - Moo


• Monkey - Chitter Chatter


• Duck - Quack Quack


• Bird - Twitter/Tweet


• Wolf - Howl


• Mouse - Squeak Squeak

Don't rush through the learning section, make sure they write down the words and get them to repeat the animals sounds. If you can, do some of your own imitations of the animal sounds, the kids love this!

Step 3 : Get the kids to hold on to their books and pens (if they have them on hand) and stand up. Tell them to walk around in a circle in an orderly fashion. As they do this count down from 10 to 1, say STOP and then say SIT DOWN. This has made the kids all move around to new positions within the circle. To make sure they do this correctly, do it again. Tell them to walk in a circle, count down from 10, then tell them STOP and SIT DOWN. If they do this correctly move on to the next step

Step 4 : Tell them that one person will come and stand in the middle of the circle, blindfolded. This person will spin around and stop, pointing their finger at someone in the circle (demonstrate as you explain).

Tell them the person that is being pointed at, must make one of the animal sounds they have just learned and the person who is blindfolded in the middle must guess two things -

•  What animal sound they can hear


•  who is making that sound.

Step 5 : Give the person a few guesses and a few chances to listen to the sound, after they guess or time out,

get the person who was making the animal sound to now step up and be the person in the middle and start again.

Animal Sounds Circle Game Video

Have a look at the game in action -

Your class may end up sounding a little like a zoo, but it's great fun, little preparation and teaches the students animal sounds in a super fun way adding some new describing words to their vocabulary. This is an awesome activity for little and big kids alike!