|
ESL Forum:
Techniques and methods
in Language Teaching
Games, activities
and teaching ideas
Grammar and
Linguistics
Teaching material
Concerning
worksheets
Concerning
powerpoints
Concerning online
exercises
Make suggestions,
report errors
Ask for help
Message board
|
ESL forum >
Message board > Need your advice people...
Need your advice people...
|
Vana
|
Need your advice people...
|
When it come to speaking, my students are quite shy and blocked. There are a lot of activities concerning speaking but I was thinking of giving them some sort of projects to prepare at home and then to present it to others (there are only 5 - 8 students per a group so I don�t think it should be a problem). Has anyone done anything similar?
Vana
|
5 Feb 2009
|
|
|
|
escolapia
|
|
Hi Vana,
what I did once, was that in pairs they prepared their project and presented it to the class. The rest of students had a grid in which they had to evaluate their partners.
They had for example: I understand the presentation or they use the vocabulary worked in class... ( and they had to choose among a Happy face - Yes, a Sad face - No, and a face with a straight mouth - 50/50).
It worked very well and apart from that all the students were listening to each other.
|
5 Feb 2009
|
|
|
BRAHIM S
|
|
Dear Vana,
With shy studenst, there are always some in each of my groups, my favourite activities are related to pair work
It is always the first step to beat shyness, where a student has only to talk to his partner, not to the whole group
I have an excellent pair work manual for beginners "Longman Pair work 1" and another one for advanced learners "Longman Pair work 2" (PDF format) which I can send you
In this case I will obviously need your email address
There are lots of other things to do to make those lovely shy students speak
Hope this helps |
5 Feb 2009
|
|
|
Ivona
|
If your students are very shy and don�t feel confident, why not start with sth they would have to read in a particular manner
(e.g. as if with a terrible cold, angry, flirtatious, cheerleader,
politician, etc.) It can be a dialogue that you would provide (in a restaurant, in the street, in an office, etc.) and both students would have a task to read their lines in a certain way. You can make slips of paper with the situations and
give them a little bit of time to practise it. Maybe even assign it for homework
so that they don�t get frustrated in class.
If they are better at English, you can take escolapia�s advice. What i do is set a time limit - 60 seconds to talk about a particular topic. And they practise to say as much as they can in 60 seconds. The others evaluate the language, content, body language, eye contact with the audience, etc. We write the marks on the whiteboard and always reward the student with big applause!
|
5 Feb 2009
|
|
|
BRAHIM S
|
|
JUST A POINT OF VIEW
"It can be a dialogue that you would provide (in a restaurant, in the street, in an office, etc.) and both students would have a task to read their lines in a certain way. "
What I objet to activities involving learners reading and repeating lines like these is that this sort of teaching is considering students like parrots, they only have to repeat, whereas in real life situations they should be spontaneous
|
5 Feb 2009
|
|
|
Ivona
|
I agree. But the aim of reading such dialogues would not be production and practise of new language, but relaxing the students and making them feel less frustrated with speaking the language. It should be an easy dialogue which would give way to body language and facial expressions corresponding to the manner that was described on their slip of paper. It�s a great laugh for the students and very relaxing. Then she can proceed to more challenging tasks. I do those speaking activities very often and the students make progress. That�s why i suggested it.
She can always have sentences that the students may finish to their own liking, and the activity would be only partly guided.
If she has students who are not that good at English, and if they do the writing and speaking practise at home, it�s very likely that their sentences be full of big grammar mistakes when they come to class to do the presentation. If the ss are good at English, but just shy, that�s another story then. She can jump to those presentations you�d like them to give.
A suggestion to Vana - when doing any speaking activity, ask of your students to dramatise, exaggerate, use body language, speak up, cheer. Always create a show out of the class. It guarantees success.
|
5 Feb 2009
|
|
|
karina7777
|
|
Like Ivona, I also think it�s a really good idea for insecure learners to memorize dialogues and the like. The idea is to get "chunks of words" incorporated in one�s vocabulary - and it really works in my opinion.
I have very recently started learning Arabic at an evening school class and I use the same approach when practising at home - I try to learn these "chunks of words" and different sentences and expressions by heart. It makes me feel more familiar with the language.
Of course, it should be mixed with activities with spontaneous use of the language. Speaking of which, I just visited your profile, Brahim, and found your "Pair work" activities, which I really liked. THEY would be great for encouraging spontaneous and "unplanned" speaking.
I think that these two approaches can be combined with success : ) |
6 Feb 2009
|
|
|
wolfy
|
|
Students in Japan are memerizing the speeches of Barrack Obama: |
6 Feb 2009
|
|
|
penbwl
|
When you say they are shy and don�t really speak, during what kind of activities are you talking about?
I find that often with shy students it can be for a number of reasons...
Also the advice can differ depending on the reasons/situations...
|
6 Feb 2009
|
|
|
penbwl
|
Japanese students are often very shy from Junior high school onwards. Something I was advised to do and helped me a lot was to give my students role cards to use. Having a mask to hide behind seemed to really help my students come out of their shells. I have just uploaded some recent role cards I made so feel free to have a look at them. It may not be what YOU need but it may give you some ideas yourself...
|
6 Feb 2009
|
|
|
cookingongas
|
|
Hi Vana, PLAY GAMES!! My favourite - one minute charades. Put the students into either two teams or pairs. Then one student has a minute to act out as many items as possible while their partner (s) guess what they are. Print a stack of pictures, words, whatever you�re studying, nouns, verbs, emotions, whatever, and go through them as fast as you can. Get a student from another team to time the minute, while you present the cards, one by one, to the �actor�. My students love it and sometimes the shyest people turn out to have the best sense of humour... Any game gets them going. Memory, Happy Families... after all, we often turn to games in social gatherings as a way of getting everyone, regardless of shyness, to interact equally, don�t we? My students are illiterate, so I can�t do any exercises involving writing. SO I play games most of the time. If you can suggest any, pleases let me know. Recently I printed a load of money (I�m in India, so I Google Image searched �Rupees�) and I give cash prizes. My students love that, too. |
6 Feb 2009
|
|
|
