Classroom activity
To get students confident at listening and talking, I taught instructional language in my ESOL class. I did exercises on how to “Tie a Tie”, “Bed Making”, “How to Make a Cup of Tea”.
The main objectives of these exercises are:
1. To help students follow a sequence of instructions.
2. To give students practice in listening to expressions of quantity.
3. To give students practice in reading a variety of instructions and writing their own instructions
Students were asked if they knew how to tie a tie. They were each given a tie, and asked to try for themselves. In the mean time they were encouraged to talk about the words and verbs that they can think of if they had to tell someone how to tie a tie. They worked in pairs and started to think aloud. I asked them to first visualize a tie properly tied around their neck, and try again. I then showed them a picture of a gentleman with a tie and asked them to try again. Later, they were allowed to read instructions on how to tie a tie. I showed them a few videos on Youtube on how to tie a tie to integrate the use of ICT as a key tool to access knowledge.
The focus while watching the videos was on their listening abilities and also on their understanding the task. They learnt the verbs needed to be able give correct instructions. They could give instructions to each other in pairs and work until everyone gets it right. They wrote the instructions in their exercise books without help, and checked if the instructions are written in proper order using proper verbs.