ESL Teaching Ideas

ESL Games - Go Fish

I was playing cards with the students the other day, and I remembered the old game, Go Fish. It turned out to be a great game for my beginners and gave them lots of chances to practice basic questions with "do".

For those of you that don't know the game:

Go Fish

Each player is dealt 5-9 cards depending on the number of players. The rest of the cards are spread out face down in the middle of the table. This pile acts as the fish pond.

When players have two of the same card, they throw the pair away. As they continue to throw pairs away, the first person to get rid of all their cards wins.

The first player may ask any other player for a card. As an example,

"Do you have any 10s?"
"Yes I do." (passes the 10 to the first player)

or,
"No, I don't. Go fish" (The first player chooses a card from the fish pond)

The game continues to the left with all the players asking for cards.

Again, this is a great review of questions with do. Make sure the students are actually asking the questions.

ESL Logic Problems - Shopping

Here is another ESL logic problem.

These are wonderful for practicing listening skills, and getting students to think a little more. Simply read the instructions in class and have the students try to solve the answers.

This logic problem works well with a shopping unit as it has some different items to buy.

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6 friends went shopping last weekend. There names are Susan, Sam, Michael, Melissa, Andrew, and Alisa.

They each bought one item, including jeans, socks, a jacket, a video game, a blender, and an iPod.

Listen to the clues and try and decide which person bought each item.

Clues:

1. Melissa did not buy clothes.
2. The person who bought the blender does not have a name that starts with S.
3. Andrew did not buy anything electronic.
4. Alisa did not buy a kitchen item.
5. The jacket was not bought by someone with a name that starts with A.
6. Sam did not buy clothes.
7. Michael did not buy the video game.
8. Susan did not buy any pants.
9. The person who bought the iPod does not have a name that starts with M.
10. Alisa did not buy anything for her feet.
11. Michael didn’t buy jeans.
12. Susan did not buy a music player.
13. The video game was not bought by a person whose name starts with S.
14. Alisa did not buy the video game.

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Answers:

Susan - Jacket
Sam - iPod
Michael - Blender
Melissa - Video Game
Andrew - Socks
Alisa - Jeans

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For more ESL logic problems, check out the links on this page:

ESL Logic Problems

ESL Vocabulary Ideas

The Most Important Verbs

Get

Movies

Just

ESL Book Reviews

ESL Teaching Books

How to Teach English - Jeremy Harmer

Discussions that Work - Penny Urr

ESL Student Books

Focus on Grammar

Pronunciation Plus

ESL Grammar Ideas

Grammar is an important part of English teaching. But it is often boring for students.

How can you make it more fun? Try some of our games and activities.

The links below are for grammar activities for each topic.

Gerunds and Infinitives

Indirect Speech

Modal Verbs

Passive Voice

Past Continuous

Phrasal Verbs

Questions

Rather/Prefer

Simple Future

Simple Past

Should

Verb Tenses

Comparative and Superlative Games - ESL Grammar Ideas

Comparative and Superlative adjectives are a very important part of learning English. This is especially true for beginners, as knowledge of these grammar forms is really a prerequisite of advancing to intermediate.

While grammar lessons and exercises are beneficial, we all know it is important to get the students communicating and using the structures in realistic situations.

For me, the first way I do this is have them discuss the differences between their countries. This includes their home country and the country they are now studying in, but it also includes comparing their countries with those of their partners. As we know, students love to talk about their home countries, and this is a perfect time to do that.

I simply write a number of adjectives on the board that are used to describe places: hot, cold, big, small, clean, dirty, safe, busy, etc. I then have them work in partners to make sentences with the comparative adjectives.
Ex: My city is colder than this city.

Comparative/Superlative Trivia

Another activity I like, is to create a superlative/comparative trivia. Although the students do not use the structure in speaking as much, it is a great chance for them to see the comparatives/superlatives in context. Some example questions I normally use are,

What is the biggest country in the world?
What city is colder, Toronto or Vancouver?
Who is older, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie?

As you can imagine, the questions can be created to suit any purpose you like as well as any difficulty.

Bring Me Something....

For younger students, I like to play a game where they search the class to find an item I have requested. The students are in groups, and I stand in front of the class. As an example, I ask for something smaller than a pencil. The first group to bring me an item that fits the request gets a point. Other examples include,

Something bigger than the textbook
Something older than the desk
Something newer than a new notebook
Someone better looking than the teacher (That always gets some laughs)

Does anyone else have any ideas for comparative or superlative games?

As a general note, I find in speaking students need the most help with using "than" with comparatives, deciding between "more" and "er", and choosing the superlative vs. the comparative. I am always conscious of these issues, and try to make corrections whenever possible.

Here are some tests that can be copied and printed:

Comparative Adjectives Test

Comparative Adjectives Test

Superlative Adjectives Test

Comparatives vs. Superlatives Test

Comparatives vs. Superlatives Test

New Interchange - ESL Book Reviews

Interchange is one of the best selling English language series in the world. Written by Jack C. Richards, this series contains 4 levels, and helps students improve reading, writing, grammar, listening, and even speaking. It was originally called New Interchange, but the "New" was dropped with the Third Edition, so now it is simply Interchange. The book is published by Cambridge University Press, and you can see the book details on their website.

The books are designed to be used in a classroom with the help of a teacher. For this reason, they are very popular course books for English programs. Even beginner teachers can open New Interchange and begin teaching English.

It is an integrated skills program, and the value comes from their ability to teach all the English skills.

Grammar
While the grammar explanations are limited, they do provide a number of good examples and the opportunity to practice with exercises. The workbooks are excellent resources for extra practice as well.

Reading
Each unit contains a reading exercise found at the end. These readings follow the content of the unit, and are followed by comprehension questions. The comprehension questions vary, but mainly include fill in the blank, matching, or short answer. There is also usually a discussion section where students can work in pairs to extend the lesson.

Writing
Each unit has one writing assignment that can be administered by the teacher. It is based on the unit topic, and normally takes about 1 hour of class time.

Listening
There are several listening exercises throughout the book, often more than one per unit. It is necessary to have the audio CDs to perform the listening exercises.

Apart from the 4 skills, the Interchange series also has a variety of sections throughout the books.

Snapshot
This is opening of the unit, and it contains discussion questions about the theme. The Snapshots are a good way to introduce the theme and the unit, and htey are very communicative.

Conversation
The Conversation section is a model conversation using the target grammar. The class CD has the audio script.

Word Power
The Word Power section is for vocabulary, and it usually has words related to the theme. For example, in the unit on professions, there is a list of jobs. The books don't simply include a list, but some type of vocabulary exercise for the student to gain a better understanding of the words.

Interchange Activities
These are perhaps the best part of the book. In the back, ther are 16 activities corresponding tothe 16 units. Each exercise is a communicative activity that really gets the student speaking. In many ways they are task-based using techniques such as information gap. There are lots of interviews, surveys, and missing information games.