High School ESL lesson plan - Bourbon Street.

This is an intermediate conversation game lesson that I found at  http://www.eflsensei.com/Bourbon-Street/?path=52. Around this time of year lot's of my lessons are changed around due to midterms, school trips and sports days and this lesson is great to use for a fun one off filler. I have extended the original 30 minute lesson found at eflsensei into a 50 minute lesson suitable for use in a High School. The lesson works best with 20 students but if you need more you can either split up some of the more complex clues, or add some of your own.

Lesson aim.

To improve conversational fluency.

Time.

50 minutes

What you need.

A game board for each student.

A copy of the clues, cut out and given to each student.

PPT presentation.

What to do.
Activity one. (Introduction)
Introduce the key vocab to the students, my students are quite high level so you may need to add a couple of words to the slide. Go through the game rules and check the students all understand what they have to do  (5 minutes)

Activity two.
Let the students play the game! Walk around to check that they are asking the questions in English, not just copying from each others paper. Once the first few students have finished and are all correct put the answers up on the screen and let the other students check their answers themselves (25 minutes)

Activity three.

To extend this game into a full lesson I then ask the students to make their own Bourbon Street game. I let them choose their own categories and fill in a blank game board, then challenge them to see if they can be clear enough with their instructions that someone could guess their street correctly using only 20 clues. I also say that only 4 clues can involve house numbers. It is very important to say that you are 'challenging' them to make the game in 20 questions, as every time I made the activity sound like a challenge the students were significantly more motivated.  (20 minutes)

ESL lesson plan - A Question of Sport Quiz

This is a sports quiz ESL lesson based on the tv show A Question of Sport. My students loved it and it the theme was perfect as sports day is just around the corner. Most of the questions are pretty general but a few are aimed at Korean students, so if you teach in a different country you should change them to something that fits sports they like.

Lesson aim.

To review sports vocabulary. To practise talking about sports

Time.

50 minutes

What you need.

Quiz presentation.

Quiz questions.
What happened next videos.

What to do.
Activity one. (Introduction)
First put the class into four groups and go through the games rules on the PPT. Then start the picture round. Basic instructions for the students are in the PowerPoint are in the PowerPoint but here is a more detailed explanation. You should ask one team at a time a question from the list, if they answer correctly they can choose to remove a square from the picture. Once they have removed a square allow them to have one guess as to who the person behind the boxes is. If they answer correctly give them 3 points, if not go to the next team. A team can only answer who they think is behind the boxes when it is their turn   (15 minutes)

Activity two.
Observation round. Show the first team the first video, make sure you then close the window and ask them the three questions on the sheet. If they answer incorrectly I then pass it to the next team along. repeat with all 4 videos. (10 minutes)

Activity three.

What happened next. Show the first video to the class, then shown them the options and make them guess what happens next. Show them the video of the answer and give all the teams that answered correctly 2 points. Repeat with all the videos. (15 minutes)

Activity four.
On the buzzer. Ask the group the first on the buzzer question. The students should raise their hand when the know the answer. Choose the first student to raise their hand. If they answer the question correctly give them 3 points and ask their team the next three questions, each worth one point. Repeat with the next set of on the buzzer questions. (10 minutes)

ESL lesson plan - adverts

This is a conversation based lesson that contains plenty of videos to get the students talking. I have done it with a few different classes and found this to be the most fun and interesting way to teach the students about adverts.

Lesson aim.
To learn vocabulary related to advertising. To be able to talk about adverts.

Time.
50 minutes

What you need.
Adverts presentation. (To watch the adverts just click on the link in the ppt) 

Internet connection.

What to do.
Activity one. (Introduction)
Show the first slide and ask the students to read the sentences. In groups ask them to try and guess the meanings of the highlighted words. Check they are guessing correctly and then finally tell them what the words mean. (10 minutes)

Activity two.
Put the students into pairs with one of the students facing away from the screen. Play the first advert and while it is playing the student facing the screen should explain to the student what is happening (in English). Then show the next slide with the stills from 3 adverts on it and ask them to guess which one they had described to them. Finally show the students the questions on the next page and ask them to discuss it in their groups. Repeat this with all three adverts. (20 minutes)

Activity three.
Show the next advert. You should make sure you start and finish the advert at the times shown in the slides so as not to give the answer away. The students should then guess what they think the advert is advertising and answer the questions on the slide. Then ask the students to tell the class about what they think the product is advertising. (10 minutes)

5 ways to boost your ESL students speaking confidence

This is a link to a blog post I wrote on the British Council website. It focuses on how to improve your students confidence during speaking and conversation activities and also aims to show why improving speaking confidence is such an important thing to do. I also included my favorite 5 ways to build students speaking confidence. Hopefully you will find this article useful and get some ideas for your classroom!

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/crossthebreeze/5-great-ways-build-your-students-confidence-why-it-most-important-thing-you-can

ESL lesson plan - Movie reviews

This is a low level high school ESL lesson that could also be easily used in an advanced middle school class. All my students recognized the films although most of them needed help with the actors names. The key phrases don't allow for much sentence expansion, although any high level students could expand a bit on the final question.

Movie review lesson from Duncan Elder

Lesson aim.
To be able to write a movie review. To be able to talk about movies. To learn the names of movie genres.

Time.
50 minutes

What you need.
Movie Review presentation. (To watch the movie trailer just click on the number in the corner of the slide)

Movie review worksheet. 

Internet connection.

What to do.
Activity one. (Introduction)
This is the first two slides of the presentation. Explain to the students what genre means and ask if they know any in English, explain to the students what the genres on the slide are. Check the students understanding by asking them to name films in that genre and by asking how films from a certain genre make them feel. Next explain what a movie review is and ask the students what they would normally read about in a movie review (7 minutes)

Activity two.
Introduce the four key phrases and check the students understanding. Show the first trailer then ask the students the key phrases, ask the students to get into pairs and ask and answer the questions. Do this with all four slides. (20 minutes)

Activity three.
Ask the students to review their favourite movie. They should do this by answering the four key phrases on their worksheet. (10 minutes)

Activity four 

Put the students into teams, one at a time one person from each team should read their movie review. The other teams should try and guess what the movie is. (13 minutes)

High School Esl Lesson Plan - What Happened Next.

This is a fantastic lesson for practising the future tense and the phrase 'I think that ..' I used it with my lower level class and they absolutely loved it. Honestly this is one of the most fun lessons I have ever used. All credit to the author. You can find the full lesson plan at
http://fourfootprints.com/2011/10/esl-lesson-predictions-middle-school/

The 5 best ESL conversation activities

One of the most important things to do as an English teacher is to get your students talking. However students can often appear shy and withdrawn when faced with the task of speaking. These are the 5 best activities that I use to get the conversation flowing in my classroom.

1. The introduction.
Just after introducing the topic of the lesson, I always ask my students to think about what questions they could ask each other about the topic. This gets the students thinking in English whilst also giving them practice in initiating a conversation. It also gives them control over what they are speaking about, so the questions will always be at the right level, and hopefully more interesting to them. I usually write the questions they come up with on the board and then give them 5 minutes to ask and answer the questions. Once they have finished the activity I choose a few students at random to  talk about the answers their friends gave. This means that they will all take part in the activity. One last word of advice, make sure the questions are open questions that induce conversation.

2. The game.
There are many games that can be used to start conversations, but this is definitely my favorite. First use the word grid game template found in this lesson. Then fill the grid up with words related to the topic of the lesson. Put the students in pairs and give them one grid each. One student will be O and one student will be X. The students should then take turns saying sentences using one or more word from the grid, marking the words off as they say them. The first students to say every word in the grid wins. This is a great activity as the students can practice using words they would not normally say.

3. The best way to get students to use their imagination.
Hypothetical questions are a great and interesting way to get the students to talk about subjects that they are not used to talking about. They can be anything from traditional role play such as 'What would you do if you lost your wallet?' to much more fun made up questions such as 'If you where a Superhero what power would you have?'. I usually ask one question to all the groups in my class and give them a couple of minutes to think of an answer. I then get them to say their answer and make the other groups ask a follow up question that the group has to reply to on the spot.

4. The debate.
For this activity you should again put the students in groups. This time say a controversial statement and make each group choose whether they agree or disagree with the statement. Like in the hypothetical questions activity, once the group has said their answer you should make all the other groups ask one question challenging part of their answer. This makes the students think quickly on their feet and can lead to some very interesting discussions.

5. The challenge.
At my school at the moment I have an ongoing speaking challenge. I have a set of topics that I have folded and put into a box. At the end of each lesson I ask one student to come to front and choose a topic from the box. The student then has to speak for as long as they can without breaks or repeating themselves about the topic. I then write down how long they were able to speak for and once every student has spoken about a topic I will be giving the winner a prize. So far my high level students have become VERY competitive about it as they all really want to be the class winner.