BS: Help! Fun With English

Subject: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:52 PM

I teach English as a second language. Most of my students are very serious though they are taking the classes more for personal improvement than for any driving need. I want them to relax and enjoy using English but I can't seem to get them to understand there are no Language Police.

I am looking for ideas to make English fun. One of the exercises I am using currently is a sentence format where we make up silly sentences, e.g., I am washing my lunch.

I am looking for ideas to add more humor and enjoyment to these classes.

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:59 PM

Have a part of your time to learn the latest slang. Get the adults to do the motions, too. Let them know it is slang.

I take it you are teaching SVO structure. That's good.

Short oral presentations (initially a minute is good, but allow prep time of a half hour) work. When they are comfortable speaking in front of their peers, have them reach in a bag, remove an object and give an extemoporaneous talk on it in which they have to describe it, speak to its utility, etc.

Take simple songs and rewrite the lyrics.

I neglected to ask, how long are the classes?

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:01 PM

Write silly rhyming poems, play games like--washing machine/machine made; made in Taiwan/tie one on (that is cheating!), etc...

Sudoku puzzles with letters?

Create puns? (See Severn about this, he's GOOD at it)

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:06 PM

Oh, yeah, have your students act out personas. Get someone to imitate, line for line, a character from a movie. You have scads to choose from--Bogart, Wayne, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Morgan Freeman, Sigorney Weaver (Alien), Katherine Hepburn--short scenes. have them dress the part. If they are portraying a bad guy or gal, get them to LOOK bad! Props are great for that kind of thing.

Short but important speeches. If the guy/gal is gonna do the Gettysburg Address, have that guy/gal dress up like Lincoln: beard and top hat. All the props can be made in class while using English to talk about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:08 PM

While most of what is on this site might be too simplistic, you might be able to get some good ideas from it : clickety. I just found it last night and have not explored it very much, yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:17 PM

Icebreakers that have worked well in English, adapted for you into ESL.

~Susan


MEMORIES GAME

Ask them to share favorite memories. But in a different way: Ask Student A to tell you a favroite memory about a [color] [piece of clothing]. For example, a red dress for a woman or a blue shirt for a man. "Tell me about a red dress you remember." They will suddenly recall something that feels wonderful to tell about, that may drag them over the language barrier. Try it before you dismiss it as a good idea, really! The trick is, you do want to go around the room, but ask each person for a different memory. Ask Student B to tell you a memory about a ball. C, a pet. D, a job. E, a holiday. And so forth. That way, they will not be trying to think bilingually, and owrrying about their English, as they listen to each student speak THEIR story.

And you don't need to ask for the whole story. It can be just, "Tell me five words about X" (whatever you've asked them to tell). Not if they mess up with the harder, stroy version, but as a warmup. Telling thes in series, each student's contribution can be scribed by the student who just took their turn. They give the notes to the teller. The teller can then be asked to develop more on that theme, outside of class.


COLOR FOCUS

Easy: "How many things of this color do you see?" [specify the color for the day and hold up a card with the color] Hands go up. Take the first turn yourself to get it going. "Look around the room. How many things of this color do you see?" Numbers can be given, or fingers held up to start getting comfy with the idea of the game. Next level: "What are the names of the things you see, that are [color]?"

A little harder: "Who saw this color sometime today?" [specify the color for the day and hold up a card with the color] Hands go up. Call on them in turn to say where they saw it, and what it was. As they get more comfortable, mold the sentences. Speak for them, "I saw [color] today at the....." "I saw a [color] [item] today, at ..... [they fill in the place] This can be expanded as an exchange with the more proficient/gutsy students, with you trying to repeat back each detail as you re-ask a succession of questions. "Where were you going when you saw the [color] [item] at the [place] at [time] o'clock when you were wearing a [color] [clothing item]?"


MAD LIBS

They can learn the parts of speech in their own language-- the definitions of the parts of speech, then supply ANY vocab they have that fits and they will laugh, laugh, laugh at the results. Not only will this help them practice the known vocab, they can ask each other what any mystery-words mean, and get the def in their own language from the contributor. More words learned! And the laughing will spread and spread, making a considerable dent in the tension and worries. A good opener for a nervous class. There are no wrong answers!


Report back, please.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 May 07 - 08:40 PM

This sounds like fun! Can I come take your class?

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:41 AM

Didn't anybody think about a song here and there?
We did it in our English classes; if I remember right we started with "Little Tom Tinker" and considered it very funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 May 07 - 06:06 AM

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll have to put some of them to work.

I forgot to mention that most of these classes are one-on-one. I only have one class with two students. The students are mostly adult women though lately I have had a couple of young teenage girls to teach. Most of my students are Japanese with a few Chinese and one Indonesian woman.

The classes are fun. The women are housewives. I think they are bored and want to improve themselves. One of my Chinese students was manager in a company in Taiwan but now is "only" a housewife. I think she is frustrated at the hand she's been dealt.

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 07 - 11:57 AM

Mad libs wasgoing to be my suggestion until you said one-on-one - I think those are funnier with groups.
How about those memory songs? Tree in the hole and the hole in the ground? Or the memory game, where you say A then student says A and B and you have to say A and B and C and so on.

Subject: RE: BS: Help! Fun With English
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 May 07 - 11:05 PM

One of the things I did as a tutor is to before class write sentences then cut them apart by words and phrases to be put back together or mix and match. (You can buy refrigerator letter magnets but I made my own.)

It works for multiples or for just one person. Some things that are difficult tp learn in a language are prepositions and tenses and this exercise is great.

Something else that I did was not a game but was an aid to learning homonyms. I pointed out that frequently a word has the clue inside it. For instance, 'hear' has 'ear' inside it; 'here' and 'there' have the same root, etc.