(TESOL Worksheets)
A colleague of mine, who shares my interest in Krashen and learning by comprehensible input, recently told me about this activity he has been doing in his classes.
Every class, he gets his students to all sit down in a circle, and just talks to them.
This is following on Krashen's view that "When we “just talk” to our students, if they understand, we are not only giving a language lesson, we may be giving the best possible language lesson since we will be supplying input for acquisition."
And also Mike Long's Interaction Hypothesis (W).
I'm very sympathetic to the theory behind this, but since I've started teaching young children (ages 6-7) at my new job, I've had difficulty matching the theory to the reality of classroom management.
In my previous job I made sure to include plenty of conversation practice in every lesson. But in my previous job, I was teaching mostly high level teenagers, who needed very little prompting from me to speak in English. I'd give them a topic, and they would sit in groups and happily chat away to each other for as much time as I allowed them.
Attempts to get my 6 year olds to sit in groups and chat in English, however, has been a disaster. They have trouble sitting still, and they immediately revert into their native language as soon as the activity is set up. And I had just assumed that conversation practice with this age group at this level wasn't possible.
I still gave them lost of input, but it was all passive input in the forms of Story Books, Movie Worksheets, and some TPR (W) games (Simon Says is a favorite.)
But no conversation practice. I just assumed that conversation practice would have to wait until they developed both a higher proficiency level, and gained enough maturity to be able to handle sitting down and talking in English for extended periods.
And then my colleague described to me how he did it. He got all the students to sit in a circle, and he rolled a ball to one student. "Do you have a brother?" he would ask. The student would be prompted to answer yes or no, and then roll the ball to another student.
The conversations would always start with a very simple question like this, but gradually, as the activity went on, he would build on the question. "Is it an older or younger brother?" would be the next question (accompanied by gesturing up or down to make the meaning clearer.) And then after a while, a third question would be added, ("What is his name?").
In this way, he would start with one very simple question, and then slowly but steadily expand on it until the students had receptive knowledge of several questions relating to the topic of "brother". Then, the students would be prompted to do the asking of the questions to each other.
I decided to steal this idea for my own classes, and I've been relatively pleased with how it's been working out. Like everything in the classroom, it's messy, and filled with a lot of communication stumbles and mishaps, and classroom management issues. But it did at least give the students some practice in some English conversation.
The way my colleague described the activity to me, it was completely verbal, with most of the language occurring naturally out of the interaction with the students.
But I quickly discovered that the activity would often go a lot smoother if I would first prime the students with some useful vocabulary and some useful phrases beforehand. So, I started making a short PowerPoint presentation that I would show the students before "Circle Time."
In retrospect, this was obvious. It's CELTA 101 -- Never throw the students into a conversational activity without first priming them with some useful language.
And yet, I didn't want these PowerPoints to interfere with the more personal activity my colleague had described to me. So I tried to use the best of both worlds. I would give the PowerPoint Presentation at the beginning, but then do my best to ignore the PowerPoint during the circle time. I gave the students some grammar hints in the PowerPoint, but I didn't correct any grammar during the conversation. And if the students wanted to go off topic from what had been presented on the PowerPoint, I took the conversation off topic with them.
Although these PowerPoint activities were all designed for my young learner classes, I've since discovered they work great as warm up conversations with my adult elementary classes. (The topics are designed with kids in mind, but most of them could still transfer to the adult world. Mostly.)
I don't have my adults sit down in a circle with a ball, but I do go through the PowerPoint with them, and then have them talk with a partner for a couple minutes or so about the topic. It works as a nice little warmer at the beginning of every class.
Below are all the PowerPoints I've designed for this activity so far. The activity is still ongoing in my classrooms, so I'll be going back to this post and adding to this list as I make more PowerPoints.
Update--For one class, I've started using mingle cards to supplement the PowerPoint. The students write some information on the card (the amount of information varies--in some cases it's as simple as only writing their name). Then, they wander around the classroom, and each time they have a conversation with another student, they give the other student one of their cards.
Links Here
Google Drive Folder: LINK HERE
* What is your favorite movie? (drive, slides, pub)
*What food do you like? (drive, slides, pub)
* What does your mother look like? (drive, slides, pub)
* What did you do yesterday? (drive, slides, pub)
* What did you do for Lunar New Year? (drive, slides, pub)--This topic is culturally specific, and can only be used with students from countries that celebrate Lunar New Year.
* Tell me about your best friend (drive, slides, pub)
* Pets (drive, slides, pub)
* Dreams (drive, slides, pub)
* What did you have for breakfast? (drive, slides, pub)
* Where do you live? (drive, slides, pub)
* What weather do you like? (slides, pub)
* How do you get to school? (slides, pub)
* What do you want to be when you grow up?(slides, pub) (mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* What do you do in the morning? (slides, pub) (mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* Superpowers (slides, pub) (mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* Feelings (slides, pub) (mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* What are you wearing now? (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* What are your hobbies? (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* School Rules (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* My Room (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* Holidays (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-drive, docs, pub)
* What can you do? (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-docs, pub)
* Birthdays (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- docs, pub)
* What is in your bag? (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- drive, docs, pub)
* school subjects (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards-docs, pub)
* Chores (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- drive, docs, pub)
* Playground (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- drive, docs, pub)
* What are you scared of? (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- drive, docs, pub)
* What are you going to do tomorrow? (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- drive, docs, pub)
* What do you want to do in the future (slides, pub) (Mingle cards-docs, pub)
* Summer Vacation (slides, pub) (Mingle cards- docs, pub)
* Sports (slides, pub) (Mingle cards -docs, pub)
* Being Sick (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* Sleep (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* Comic Books (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* Homework (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* Television (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* Video Games (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* My Family (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
* What Animal Do You Want to Be and Why? (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards-docs, pub)
* Shopping (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards-docs, pub)
* Fruits and Vegetables (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards-docs, pub)
* Trips (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards-docs, pub)
* First Day of School (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards-docs, pub)
* Restaurants (slides, pub) (Mingle Cards- docs, pub)
Embedded versions below:
Restaurants
First Day of School
Trips
Fruits and Vegetables
Shopping
What Animal Do You Want to Be and Why?
My Family
Video Games
Television
Homework
Comic Books
Sleep
Being Sick
Sports
Summer Vacation
What do you want to do in the future?
What are you going to do tomorrow?
What are you scared of?
Playground
Chores
School Subjects
What is in your bag?
Birthdays
What can you do?
Holidays
My Room
School Rules
What are your hobbies?
What are you wearing now?
Feelings
Superpowers
What do you do in the morning?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
How do you get to school?
What weather do you like?
Where do you live?
What did you have for breakfast?
Dreams
Pets
Tell Me About Your Best Friend:
What did you do for Lunar New Year?
What did you do yesterday?
What does your mother look like?
What food do you like?
What is your favorite movie?
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