The document provides examples of how to use various teaching materials and props to enhance language lessons in creative ways. It describes using a blackboard to introduce new language and check understanding, using flashcards for vocabulary practice and guessing games, and using real-life objects like scissors, a corkscrew, and a stapler to illustrate grammar points through metaphorical demonstrations. Pictures, photos and other visual materials can be used for descriptions, information gap activities, and developing storytelling skills.

1. FIRST PARTIAL MATERIAL<br />BOARD, REALIA, FLASHCARDS, POSTERS, NEWSPAPER ARTICLES<br />The blackboard/whiteboard<br />This is your main piece of equipment in most schools and it is vital that you<br />use it well. Not every school provides unlimited access to photocopiers!<br />However, the amount of English acquired by students is not linked to the<br />amount of equipment at the teacher’s disposal. So don’t despair if you have<br />little more than a blackboard to work with.<br />Board Uses<br />The board is for drawing students’ attention to new language, checking<br />understanding and summarizing your lesson. Consider that what you <br />write on it and how you write it will be copied into notebooks and imprinted<br />on students’ minds. It therefore needs to be uncluttered, well organized <br />and useful for study purposes. Random jottings which end up covering the<br />whole board are not effective. We also need to practise writing clearly and<br />simply on the board, in a straight line, large enough to be seen at the back.<br />Disruption is caused during classes when pupils can’t read or understand<br />your notes and when you spend too much time at the board without involving<br />them. The two key factors are presentation/layout and organized and<br />selective content.<br />DO<br />maintain eye contact with the class while writing, standing sideways without hiding what you are writing.<br />write as quickly and clearly as you can. Limit the length of texts or instructions. If possible, prepare a text beforehand if you have access to an empty room.<br />while writing, keep their attention by reading key words and phrases and getting choral repetition at each pause. <br />tell students at which point you want them to copy, such as at the end. ‘Don’t copy this yet. You can when I have finished’ or ‘This is on your handout. Don’t copy it’.<br />remember to stand back and give them time to copy.<br />divide the board into distinct sections with the centre for main structures or language points, one side margin for key vocabulary and a space for temporary items (to rub out as you go along).<br />DON’T<br />write with your back to the class in silence (as students can take this as a chance to chatter).<br />spend a long time at the board (as it can cause boredom and disruption). <br />hide what you are writing with your body.<br />fail to involve students.<br />start writing with no instructions to the class (otherwise they will try to copy, not listen and struggle to see what you are doing).<br />write everything that crops up in the lesson so the board becomes overcrowded and messy (this leads to disorganized note-taking – no matter how much you tell students not to copy everything, they will think it is all vital).<br />GOOD AND BAD USE OF THE BOARD<br />1. Untidy and bad organized board.<br />2. Well presented and organized<br />Tips for making best use of your board<br />• Underline important features or use different coloured chalk/pens.<br />You can highlight points which might be difficult for your students, such<br />as, auxiliaries, irregular endings, use of pronouns or contracted forms.<br />• Use tables for prompting. You can build these up with students and<br />can use them for controlled practice<br />• Use diagrams, mind maps and time-lines to clarify abstract<br />concepts such as time, space, quantity. <br />Blackboard drawings<br />You don’t need to be a great artist to draw on the board since the drawings<br />are best kept simple, showing only important details. Stick people, simple<br />objects and faces with different expressions can become part of your<br />repertoire. Refer to Andrew Wright’s 1,000 pictures for teachers to copy,<br />published by Longman ELT. This is an excellent resource. It is practical and<br />comes with good ideas for using the drawings<br />CHARTS<br />How to Teach Students to Use Charts to Self-Monitor and Self-Reinforce Behavior <br />quot;
Self-Recording Chartquot;
can be used to teach students to monitor their own behavior. An advantage to charts like this is that students can observe and record more than one behavior at a time. In the example, a sales associate, Jefferson Lopez, is monitoring four of his behaviors: working hard, keeping the children's section clean, the number of customers greeted, and the number of items sold. These behaviors can be personal goals that a student has chosen to work on. Notice that Jefferson has stated a goal for each of the behaviors for his morning shift. For example, he has chosen as a goal to greet 20 customers from 9:00 to 10:30. After observing and recording the number of customers he greeted in 15-minute intervals, Jefferson counts the total number greeted. He records on his chart that he met his goals and chooses 28 customers as his next goal. <br />Meeting your goal on a self-recording chart can be rewarding in itself. Just filling in the chart and knowing you met your goals can be enough to keep you continuing to perform your desired behavior, even without praise, recognition, or assistance from others! If self-recording is not enough to maintain your behavior, however, you can try reinforcing yourself for meeting your goals with a desired reward like dining at your favorite restaurant at the end of the week. <br />Students can be taught to use self-recording charts to monitor and record their behaviors much in the same way they learn to use checklists--through the application of proven learning principles such as modeling and corrective feedback. As students acquire their self-monitoring skills, of course, your assistance should be withdrawn. <br />In designing a self-recording chart, be sure to keep it attractive, easy to use, and easy to carry around. Use words, pictures, or symbols to match the strengths, needs, and preferences of your students. Involve your students as much as possible in constructing their charts--they are more likely to use them if they've had some choice in the behaviors and goals included!<br />Flashcards<br />After making very colourful flashcards for key topics and lexical sets, it is easy to under-use them. The advantages of flashcards are:<br />1 You can use them as an introduction/warm-up to reactivate students’ language. <br />• Get students in pairs to guess the words or phrases that the pictures represent. <br />• Make a team game. Partially cover each picture (with black card with a shaped cut-out which gives a keyhole effect) and challenge teams to guess the word. Further points can be added or gained by making a sentence about the picture or asking a question about it.<br />• You can use sets of pictures and ask what they have in common, e.g. all modes of transport; all objects you might find in a bedroom; all uncountable foodstuffs; all countries in the Southern Hemisphere; all spare time activities, etc.<br />2 You can use the flashcards as cues for substitution in dialogues, e.g. a lexical set of pictures of drinks on the board. <br />Teacher offers the drinks: ‘Would you like a cup of tea? sugar? some milk?’ Students respond and continue practising: ‘Yes, please.’ The teacher then elicits questions from students using the cards and invites others to respond. The dialogue can be further refined until the flashcards serve as prompts for students working alone.<br />Small cards<br />Nearly all the activities possible with a whole class using a flashcard or set of flashcards can also be done as a card game with students working in pairs or small groups. <br />Pictures, photos and postcards<br />Using one large picture<br />Two types of picture:<br />1 a scene with lots happening in it<br />2 one simple picture of a street; room; house.<br />Different task types:<br />• ‘Describe what you can see.’<br />• ‘Find someone who is ...’<br />• Dictation: ‘Listen and colour,’ or ‘Add things to your picture’.<br />• Vocabulary searches: ‘Find five things beginning with ‘s’. Write all the verbs to describe what is happening.’<br />• Memory: ‘Look at the picture for five minutes and answer your partner’s questions, e.g. Is there a man sitting in a deckchair? How many people are playing with the beach ball?’<br />Using information gap activities<br />Using two very similar pictures <br />These could illustrate: rooms; people; machines; busy scenes (e.g. airport, classroom).<br />This works very well with the whole class or pairs working back to back so that they cannot see each others’ picture, and have to ask questions to find differences or exchange details.<br />Different task types<br />1 Spot the difference<br />Find four differences between your suitcase and your partner’s by asking questions: ‘Have you got a hair brush in your case?’ ‘Have you got any shoes?’ ‘Is the mirror in your room round?’ ‘No, it’s square.’<br />2 Find the missing things to complete a picture<br />It is best if both the pictures provided have missing objects. This means that both students have to ask questions to arrive at a complete picture. Students ask each other directions to complete a map. Students have a list of objects and ask questions to draw them into their picture: ‘Have you seen my pen?’ ‘Yes, it’s over there on top of the television.’ You can do these activities with a whole class too. The teacher has the main picture and the students have to complete theirs.<br />Using a sequence of pictures which represent a story<br />These are useful for practice in describing events, past, present or future.<br />Different task types (small groups/pairs/individuals or whole class)<br />1 Students re-order the pictures into a coherent story and then tell it orally.<br />2 Students each have a different picture in a four-part story.<br />All four students must describe their picture without looking at the others’ to decide on the correct order (more challenging). This generates a lot of speaking practice and questioning.<br />Building a picture collection<br />3 Students have a picture missing and predict how the tale will end or what happened in the middle (missing picture).<br />4 Students listen to or read and re-order the pictures to follow the story. They then try to retell it.<br />5 Students complete the missing words in the speech bubbles of a cartoon story (some bits missing or last exchange). They act out the cartoon story. They could then act out a similar situation.<br />6 Students match words to the pictures and make sentences.<br />Using two contrasting photos, pictures or postcards<br />Suitable types are two children (one developing world/one Western European), two places (rural/urban/hot/cold), two photos of a town taken many years apart (this century/last century), two offices (hi-tech/last century), two styles of teenage room, two works of art on the same theme, two postcards of the same place, two Christmas cards, two advertisements for the same type of product, two photos of famous people with something in common.<br />Exploiting the contrast can give students practice in switching and contrasting tenses and using the language of comparison and speculation.<br />Different task types (to be used in varying combinations)<br />1 ‘Think of adjectives to describe each photo.’<br />2 ‘Describe four differences between each photo.’<br />3 ‘Say which photo you prefer and why’ <br />‘Which is the most effective advertisement?’ <br />‘Which place would you rather visit?’<br />Contrasting photos<br />4 ‘When do you think the photos were taken?’<br />‘When do you think the paintings were painted?’ <br />‘What makes you think that?’<br />5 ‘Give each photo a title, or write a newspaper headline for an article which uses both photos.’<br />6 Use the photos to widen the discussion.<br />‘What improvements can you see in the town?’<br />‘What do these pictures show of changes in office work?’<br />‘How different is life in the developing world compared to your life?’<br />‘What aspects of Christmas do these cards emphasise?’ <br />‘Is it too commercialised?’<br />REALIA<br />Realia and Pictures<br />The use of realia is well known to teachers. However, there are different ways of using realia. By thinking creatively we can find new teaching uses for the everyday objects that surround us, by relating them to language and looking at them in new ways.<br />We like using realia, i.e. objects in the class because it adds interest and relates language to the real world. I have found my use of realia fall into three main areas, first for descriptions, and second as props in drama and another type of activity is a creative thinking exercise, finding different uses for an object, e.g. a ruler could be a weapon, musical instrument, a symbol of authority and so on. However, there is another possibility suggested by this last use. If we ask our students to find other uses for everyday objects, why shouldn't teachers find uses for objects for teaching? This means making a connection between objects and language. Here are some ideas, looking at specific grammar points, drills, and free speaking.<br />The use of pictures and realia (physical objects that are related to the target culture) is another way of providing students with cultural knowledge. The classroom , where they learn should reflect the culture of English speaking world. It should become a kind of cultural island. The walls can be covered with <br />advertising posters, maps, charts. Tables and shelves may be filled with books, current magazines, newspapers. All kind of realia : postcards, stamps, coins, calendars, menus, tickets, toys,souvenirs,and other artifacts should be attractively displayed . The teacher should also collect pictorial materials to illustrate the topic of the lesson. It is easy to make own collection by cutting out the pages of glossy magazines. Cultural objects can be used in almost every aspect of language teaching and they can enormously contribute to attractiveness of the lessons.<br />1. Specific Grammar Points<br />Scissors and the Present Perfect Tense<br />Write three sentences representing different uses of the present perfect tense on the board. Hold the scissors pointing up, so the class can see, with one hand on each handle. Open the blades by moving the left hand up, keeping the right hand still. Now say the first sentence, 'I have lived in London all my life', slowly closing the blades with your right hand. Open the scissors as before, read the second sentence: 'I have seen that film three times', but this time stop the blade three times on the way, to represent the three times. For the last sentence, 'I have just had lunch', open the scissors slightly then snap them shut. Note: The upright blade represents the present and the moving blade represents time moving between the past and present. By moving the blades you can show that all three sentences have the connection between past and present in common, even though the last sentence is dealing with a very short time ago. As you are facing the class, you should move your left hand, not right, so that the students will see the 'past' blade moving toward the present, from their left to right.<br />A Corkscrew, a Bottle Opener, Action and State Verbs<br />The different ways of opening wine and beer bottles can be related to state and action verbs. Explain that when you open a beer bottle the bottle is either open or closed, i.e. it is in one state or the other. Compare this to the opening of a wine bottle. This is a process which you can see, as the screw is pushed in and pulled out. Hold a corkscrew in one hand and a bottle opener in the other. Say a verb and hold up the appropriate instrument (bottle opener for state verb, corkscrew for action verb). Get volunteer students to do the same. (NB some verbs e.g. 'think' can be both, so you may need a tool that does both!)<br />A Pencil Sharpener and Reduced Relatives Clauses<br />Again, metaphor can make the unfamiliar more familiar. Students may not be familiar with reduced relatives such as 'The man (who was) killed in the accident was my neighbour' where the words in brackets can be omitted. Explain that by taking out the two words, you make the sentence better, more economical, and sharper, as a native speaker would. The metaphor of a pencil sharpener works like this: you cut off something to make the pencil sharper and more efficient.<br />A Tie and Prepositions.<br />Show the students how to tie a tie. 'Put the tie round your neck. Cross the ends in front of you, then pull the smaller end under, then over, then under again, over again, then up, behind the knot, through the knot, then down. Pull the knot up.' Get the students to tie the tie, (real or imaginary) with you, chanting the prepositions as they do so. <br />A Stapler and Relative Clauses<br />Write two sentences on the board, an object and a subject relative clause, as follows: 'The man that I saw was crying.' 'The man that cried was taken to the police station.' Point out that the first sentence has two pronouns (personal and relative), 'that' and 'I', and the second has one, 'that'. Now take two pieces of paper and staple them together twice. This represents the first sentence. Staple two more pieces of paper, just once. This represents the second sentence. Remove one staple from the first two pieces of paper and they will still be joined together. However , if you remove the staple from the second pair of pieces of paper, they will come apart. The conclusion? The relative pronoun is unnecessary in the first sentence.<br />2. Drills<br />A Whistle and a Pronunciation Drill<br />Write the vocabulary that you want to practise on the board. Mark the stressed syllable(s). Now use the whistle to demonstrate which word you want the students to repeat by blowing the syllable pattern, e.g. blow 'long short short' to elicit 'confident' and 'short short long short' for 'population'. You need a variety of word lengths and syllable patterns for this.<br />A Ruler and a Drill<br />Use a ruler or any similar object to 'conduct' a drill as follows: Write a sentence on the board. Practise the sentence, marking the stressed syllables. When the students can remember it, go to the back of the class, and ask them to turn and face you. Now conduct the drill, using the ruler as a baton. Looking at the board, beat the stressed syllables with the ruler while the students take their cue from you.<br />An Empty Bottle and a Drill<br />Say a sentence into a bottle. Screw the lid on and tell the class that the sentence is in the bottle. Now open the bottle and let the sentence out one word at a time, that is, students repeat the sentence one word at a time. Put another sentence in the bottle, and tell students to pass the bottle round the class, letting one word out at a time, one word per student. Then let students fill the bottle in the same way. The point here is to get students to listen and focus on word order.<br />3. Free Speaking Activities<br />Discussion and a Microphone<br />This is suggested by television programme hosts, who control conversations by the use of the microphone. Put students in groups, and give one student the microphone (imaginary, or a real microphone, disconnected, or something to represent a microphone). Say a group of six students are talking about 'holidays', the person with the microphone can move around the group giving different people the chance to speak, ensuring everyone gets an equal chance to contribute.<br />Tennis Balls and Conversation<br />A tennis match can be a metaphor for a conversation. Put students in pairs facing each other, as in doubles tennis. They should be about 1 meter apart. Give one student a tennis ball. He starts talking about a subject then throws the ball to someone on the other team, who should continue on the same subject, before returning the ball to someone on the other team. They should keep the conversation moving swiftly. You can have a referee to penalise slow turns, 'foul' throws and dropped balls, and keep the score as in tennis, e.g. 15 love.<br />Newspaper<br />Newspaper Articles<br />Students often read newspapers for a wide variety of reasons, not least of which is to keep informed in English. As you know, newspaper writing style tends to have three levels: Headlines, leading phrases, and article content. Each of these has its own style. This lesson focuses on calling students' attention to this type of writing style on a deeper, grammatical level. It ends with students writing up their own short articles with a follow-up listening comprehension opportunity.<br />Aim: Improved writing skills and understanding newspaper writing style <br />Activity: Writing short newspaper articles <br />Level: Intermediate to upper intermediate <br />Outline: <br />Use the provided example newspaper article, or take a newspaper into the class. <br />Ask students to read the newspaper article and summarize the contents. <br />Have students analyze the difference between the headline, leading sentence and article content in terms of tense usage and vocabulary in small groups (3-4 students). <br />As a class, check that the differences between headline, leading sentence and article content are clear. Here is a short guideline to the main differences: <br />Headline: Simple tenses, idiomatic, flashy vocabulary, no use of function words <br />Leading sentence: Present perfect tense often used to give general overview. <br />Article content: Proper tense usage, including a change from present perfect to past tenses to give detailed, specific information about what, where and when something happened. <br />Once the differences have been understood, have students split up into pairs or small groups (3-4 students) <br />Using the work sheet, small groups should write their own newspaper articles using the headlines provided or come up with their own stories. <br />Have students read their newspaper articles aloud allowing you to incorporate some listening comprehension into the lesson. <br />Despite the existence of the quot;
Newspaper in Educationquot;
(NIE) program in many elementary and secondary schools, the newspaper remains an often overlooked resource which can be incorporated into almost any teaching curriculum, and which is particularly useful for teaching older remedial students and adults. This Digest discusses some ways in which newspapers can be used in teaching language skills and basic literacy to adults and learning disabled students, as well as to students of English as a Second Language.<br />Newspapers can be a valuable tool for teachers who work with adult education students. Fenholt (1985) outlines a series of activities that employ the newspaper as a learning resource to develop both reading and life skills<br />Her contention is that regular elementary level reading materials fail to motivate readers at the adult level and might be embarrassing for some adults to use. She sees the newspaper as a more comfortable instructional fit for adult learners. Fenholt's activities booklet is aimed at adults who want to read on an intermediate level and pass the graduate equivalency diploma (GED) test.<br />Newspaper articles are used in groups of advanced students to <br />enrich their vocabulary and challenge their reading skills.<br />Frequent use of newspaper articles as reading tool can make <br />students enjoy reading and make it a habit.<br />3500120207645Sugested activities:<br />matching titles.<br />role-play<br />analysis: social impact<br />retell or rewrite a story<br />propose a title.<br /> <br />