By Carrie on June 2, 2009
Every Thanksgiving, Tinity the turkey can hear strange noises coming from the big beautiful house next door. It sounds like there is a turkey screaming or crying. Finally, he asked his mother what the noise was.
Posted in ESL, Writing | Tagged ESL, Short Stories, Student Writers, Students, Writing
By Carrie on October 2, 2008
Teaching is an incredibly rewarding and satisfying experience most days, but these last two weeks in particular have been special ones for me.
Several months ago, one of my students, Alexandria Lu, decided to start offering Chinese and English articles on her website. Most of the stories she has posted online are writing assignments that she has [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Students, Teaching, Writing
By Carrie on August 17, 2008
Some of these tips might seem obvious, but I’m always surprised at the number of new teachers I meet who forget to include these simple tasks in each lesson.
If you like these tips, you might also like: 20 Great ESL Teaching Tips
1. Teach the answer to a question to the entire class and have [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Culture, ESL, Games, Students, Teaching
By Carrie on July 7, 2008
1. Review. I know it’s boring, but it’s absolutely essential to language learning. Don’t bother to learn new words if you aren’t going to review. It’s a waste of time if you aren’t committed to reviewing your material.
2. Listen. The more you listen, the more you’ll remember.
3. Use your new [...]
Posted in ESL, Taiwan | Tagged ESL, Students, Teaching, Writing
By Carrie on May 28, 2008
There are very few days when teaching tries my patience, and today wasn’t one of them. Generally speaking, I love my job. There is one day in particular that I look forward to each week and it’s because of my creative writing class. I’ve been teaching these students for the past two years. I’ve watched [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Teaching, Writing
By Carrie on May 27, 2008
Jim Shan is a fifteen year old student, who has been studying at Gram English School for several years. This is the first of many personal narratives that Jim has written over the last three months in Super Writers. I think he’s a natural born writer. He never fails to make me [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Guest Authors, Short Stories, Student Writers, Writing
By Carrie on August 17, 2007
With all the hype surrounding the latest Harry Potter book and movie, my students seem to be talking about nothing else. I’ve used this conversation lesson over the past week to generate team spirit and conversation in English. My advanced junior high school students haven’t stopped talking about it!
Time: 2 hours. It [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Reach To Teach
By Carrie on March 7, 2007
Materials: 3 dice – Preferably the big, plush kind.
Rule: Numbers 1 and 3 are ‘death numbers’.
I use this game for teaching sentence patterns.
How to play: Divide the class into two teams.Write the sentence pattern you are teaching on the board. Have the two teams take turns making sentences. Each correct sentence gains one chance to roll [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Reach To Teach, Teaching
By Carrie on February 25, 2007
This is a great game to use as an ice-breaker and will also give you an opportunity to gauge your students’ ability. I usually use it with older students since it can be a challenge to get them talking. The spontaneous nature of this game forces students to think outside the box.
Materials:
A stopwatch
Warm-Up:
I usually warm up [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Games, Reach To Teach, Teaching
By Carrie on February 15, 2007
This is a great activity for teaching idioms or learning dialogues. I use this racing game with my intermediate and advanced level students and it never fails to generate a lot of excitement in the classroom. I’ve also used it for basic questions and answers with my advanced beginners. Example: What’s your name? My name is….
Note: This game is [...]
Posted in ESL | Tagged Games, Teaching
Subscribe in a reader
