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Are you sick of making a board game for each months review week? Are you constantly looking online for the right board game to suit the lessons material? I used to do that as well. I mean, I love playing a board game to review that month’s material but it is soooooo time consuming to create a new board game every month. So I came up with the idea of making a Board Game Template that could be used with any vocabulary cards.

If you have vocabulary cards; they can become the board game spaces and the Board Game Template pieces are your rules!

This Board Game Template Includes:

Board Game Pieces (cute animal characters)

Board Game Rules (set of 9, but can print doubles for longer games!)

Start and Finish Cards

Set-Up Instructions

Get the FREE Board Game Template here: BoardGameTemplate (1)

How to Set-Up

Time: 10-15 minutes

You can use this board game to review any language pattern or review vocabulary.

Print out the board game template and laminate or tape to thick construction paper!

Set up your vocabulary cards in a snake like chain across the table (if your cards are TOO big to fit them all comfortably on the table consider shrinking the size of each vocabulary card on a photocopier.)

Then intersperse the board game pieces randomly amongst the vocabulary cards.

Review that month/weeks target language. You can do this by having the students write or repeat the sentences written on the board. This also acts as a guide to help students speak during the activity.

Next, divide the students into teams or have them work individually. *If students work individually make sure that they are paired up with a speaking buddy so they know who they must direct their questions to. Once that is finished you’re ready to play the game! You can preview the different rules so the students understand what is expected at each rule.

Now, it’s time to PLAY THE GAME and remember have fun!

Anytime Board Game Template Are you sick of making a board game for each months review week? Are you constantly looking online for the 

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How to Teach ABC's to ESL Beginners

How to Teach ABC’s to ESL Beginners

It’s great if your students can speak English but it’s not so handy if they can’t read. At the first school I taught we didn’t stress the importance of reading. We just wanted to be a conversation school and so we neglected the importance of reading and writing. Now, my schools curriculum is much more ‘school oriented’ in that we want the students to be able to read, write and speak. With my high…

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  If you read my earlier post on the importance of incorporating Basic Questions in your ESL Classroom you can see that I have compiled a variety of different questions ranging from grade 1 level to grade 6 level. You can pick and choose according to your students levels. Don’t miss the  Kindergarten Free Printable Question Cards

As I mentioned in my earlier post I wanted to include a fun and easy game with the basic question cards.

  POINTS ACTIVITY

This Activity is fast, fun and versatile; meaning this activity can double up for multiple activities. First print out the points template and then glue the paper to some construction paper and then tape or laminate the points. Then, cut them out until you have a stack of circular point cards. Print multiple times for a larger stack!

Now we are ready to play,

Show the students the points and elicit the numbers on the back, saying “These are points”. Then ask one of the basic questions.

Whoever says the answer first (correctly) will receive a point card.

Play until all the points are gone or for a really large classroom write the points of each student or team on the board and recycle the point cards until you have finished asking all the questions.

*Low level students give out more points even to the students who repeat the answer from the higher level ones.

*High level students reverse the teacher and student roles by eliciting the question and have you (the teacher) giving the answers!

Points Activity PDF here: POINTSACTIVITY

All Levels Printable Question Cards: BQVocabCards

All Levels Printable Question Cards If you read my earlier post on the importance of incorporating Basic Questions in your ESL Classroom you can see that I have compiled a variety of different questions ranging from grade 1 level to grade 6 level.

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Here are the reasons why ‘apps’ can aid or help you teach your children English!

Not to get all science-y on you but there is a large amount of data that indicates the importance of visual aids in the classroom. Most of us sift through information by ‘dual coding’ meaning that we have two systems for inputting and outputting data; a verbal and a non-verbal one. This dual-coding theory, as proposed by Paivio (1991), emphasizes the importance of these systems working in harmony for the language learner.

The former processes language and the latter processes ‘non-linguistic objects and events’ Therefore, visual aids can help support the verbal input the student receives.

So basically, if you help a student understand what the language they are learning is connected to (how it applies to their daily lives) you will be creating not only a auditory map but a visual map that could help them learn and remember the content in the future.

BEST FREE APPS FOR THE ESL CLASSROOM

  Fun English by Study Cat

Time: 5-10 minutes

Why?

You can access their first two lessons for free ‘colours and animals’ as well as their ‘game of the day’ This app is great for beginner learners who don’t yet know their colours. It teaches them colours through a colour matching activity and a bubble popping game! My kids love these activities. Moreover, the animal section teaches singular and plural nouns and also has a section for the kids to record their voices! Great fun!

Charades

Time: 5-15 minutes

Why?

It’s such a fun way to start a class, especially for those Jr. and Sr. Schoolers who walk into class like zombies! It’s fun, fast and gets your students to describe the word on the screen without saying the word. It helps them to use vocabulary outside of that weeks lessons material and for the guesser, it is really challenging to decipher three – five different shouting voices! But it is usually a hit with the students. Make sure you preview the cards beforehand to make sure it isn’t too high level.

Also this app comes in Charades! Pictures, and Charades! Kids as well as just plain Charades!

The cool thing about this app is that it allows you to create your own decks under the Custom button as well in the Settings you can adjust the time limit to allow more or less time depending on how good your students are!

Questions in a Box

Time: 5-10 minutes

Why?

I find it hard to come up with new questions to ask my senior high school students every week. If your students are high level they should be able to answer most, if not all, of the questions under the ‘We Just Met’ section. For higher level students or even adults can try the ‘Acquaintances’ section! Be careful, the ‘Good Friends’ is a little personal. Preview them beforehand to see if they are appropriate for your students!

  So that wraps up my top three FREE ESL apps for the Classroom. I use some other apps in the classes and some work for some classes while others don’t. I found these three to all be winners in a variety of my classes.

My final tip would be to search what’s out there based on what you’re teaching that month. Last unit our preschoolers did an ocean theme and I found a fun matching activity as well as a cool jigsaw puzzle. So, get creative and never stop searching for some fun stuff to do with your kids to keep them and YOU having fun and learning some English at the same time.

Reference for ‘dual-coding theory’:

Link: https://www.ucm.es/data/cont/docs/119-2015-03-17-11.MariaRamirezGarcia2013.pdf

Title: Usage of Multimedia Visual Aids in the English Language Classroom: A Case Study at Margarita Salas Secondary School

  Top 3 Apps for the ESL Classroom Here are the reasons why 'apps' can aid or help you teach your children English! Not to get all science-y on you but there is a large amount of data that indicates the importance of visual aids in the classroom.

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PRINTABLE QUESTION CARDS

Why are Basic Questions Important in the ESL Classroom?

At the beginning of each of my lessons I like to incorporate basic questions. I don’t know how many trial students I have had for my ESL class where the student has studied English for more than two years and they can’t even answer some basic questions about their age, school and birthday. Although some teachers may ask a question or two per class, if you have a visual aid it acts as a guide for the student to answer. Moreover, it helps to see the question written so the students can begin to understand question and answer patterns and less frequently mix up ‘Yes, I do. and Yes, I can. as well as Yes, it is. and Yes, I am.‘ These seem like easy responses but they are difficult for the first time learner.

The pictures help teach the meaning of each question. After a few months, I urge you to try to ask the question without the picture prompt to see if they can elicit a response from memory. Please Enjoy these Basic Questions for ALL LEVELS. All levels should know these but I like to ask these questions to preschool up to grade 2 and then review them very quickly with my older students. Just because your students are older, it doesn’t mean they remember ALL their basic questions so it’s a nice reminder. And please feel free to check out the other posts about all levels of printable question cards

FREE PDF PRINTABLE CLICK HERE BQVocabularyPre-SandEUS

    Printable Question Cards for KINDERGARTEN ESL PRINTABLE QUESTION CARDS Why are Basic Questions Important in the ESL Classroom? At the beginning of each of my lessons I like to incorporate basic questions.

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3 Free Activities for Teaching Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives!!

3 Free Activities for Teaching Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives!!

I was teaching ‘parts of speech’ to my high level grades 2-4 boys last month and I found that while some of them understood the material instantly, it took some of the younger ones a few weeks for the meaning to really sink in. In this blog post I will write how I introduced nouns, verbs and adjectives as well as a few simple and easy ways to play activities and have your students speaking a lot…

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Reading Explorer 1

reading-explorer-1      

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What is Jeopardy?

This is a fun and versatile trivia based activity. It can be used as a warm-up before class or it can extend to a full lesson! I’ve played this game numerous times and every class loves it! If the questions are too easy or difficult you can tailor them for your class or even mix and match the categories. The most important thing is that the students have fun and use their language skills (and a little bit of their brain, too!)

This Jeopardy lesson is geared towards junior high school  ~ high school ESL students.

ESL Objectives:

To have students draw upon a variety of disciplines ranging from geography, pop culture, history and general knowledge!!

This can be a short or even a full class activity. Within this lesson there are multiple categories used. For a shorter lesson, use less categories. For a longer lesson, use all the categories or feel free to create your own based on your materials and objectives.

Disclaimer: All questions have been researched and compiled here by me. I have not copied anyone else’s work. The final question has been taken from this free website: http://www.free-for-kids.com/trivia-questions-archive-1.shtml

Sneak Peek Inside:

Click here to download the full free PDF:

jeopardy-1

Jeopardy What is Jeopardy? This is a fun and versatile trivia based activity. It can be used as a warm-up before class or it can extend to a full lesson!

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  Download The School of Rock Lesson Plan Here: SchoolOfRockLessonPlan

I researched all of the questions myself and wrote the Summary. Please feel free to use this in your classroom. I really wanted to find a free one but I had to SIGN UP for like a million things and even once I signed up I had to contribute my own lesson plans in order to receive others. I mean I understand the situation ~ give a little and you get some in return but HOLY MOLEY… and then you have to wait two days to get your points, well that wasn’t going to work with my deadline of OH two hours so I made this. Hope you all enjoy the freebies!

School of Rock Movie Trivia Questions Download The School of Rock Lesson Plan Here: SchoolOfRockLessonPlan I researched all of the questions myself and wrote the Summary.

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Who doesn’t like to see their students sweat a bit or A LOT. This game is hilarious and will have all your students thinking up creative ways to pressure their classmates into some pretty tough life situations.

Would you rather live in a toilet? Eat a rat? Go to school for a month straight? Sing a song in front of your whole school? Be single for the rest of your life? Or not be able to use social media?

These are just some real examples of what my students wrote for this funny and kind of devilish ESL Warm Up Activity.

What’s Inside:

Teachers Instructions

Materials List

Would You Rather Question Examples

Would You Rather Blank Card Templates

 How to Teach

and a few extra tips!

Because things that are good for us are meant to be shared.

So help yourself to this FREE WOULD YOU RATHER TEMPLATE

HERE:

WouldYouRather

    Would You Rather ESL Warm Up Who doesn't like to see their students sweat a bit or A LOT. This game is hilarious and will have all your students thinking up creative ways to pressure their classmates into some pretty tough life situations.

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  So here we have the first book review, she is shiny and brand new and she is now up for grabs. But the best part is that this teacher’s study guide is completely free.

I decided to do The Hunger Games Book Report with a group of high level ESL students at my school in Japan. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to see the students learning more ‘outside’ of the classroom instead of just 50 minutes inside the classroom.

Of course this book was suited for one lesson a week, but in all honesty we didn’t have enough time to cover everything, so I think it could easily be stretched out to 12 weeks or every week could be broken down to suit your needs! Remember this is just a template. I hope you can get some good ideas and make it your own!

If you haven’t read The Hunger Games I must warn you, there are a few gruesome scenes and therefore you should understand the level and sensitivity of your students. All my students were fifteen years or older.

The books grade level is grades 7-9.

Here’s what is inside: 

a detailed 8 week lesson plan

week by week teacher’s guide

homework assignments

discussion questions

2 assignments with templates

and multiple choice questions

Get it here: HungerGamesBookReport

    THE HUNGER GAMES TEACHER’S STUDY GUIDE So here we have the first book review, she is shiny and brand new and she is now up for grabs.