The Noun Song
Let’s try something else to teach NOUN to your students. Get your students to sing along and learn English in a fun way. Learning through songs help students to remember and understand better how to use vocabulary and grammar correctly, as compare to when you simply explain to them. An interactive process is all you need to create a meaningful lesson. So, get your students engage in your classroom and improve their English.
This video teaches the basic definition of a common noun. It contains examples of common nouns for people, places, things, and ideas.
More videos by Have Fun Teaching
Fun and Funny – How are they different?
This video helps students to understand how some words like “fun” and “funny” are different. This video will explain the differences of the two words and how to use them.
More videos by Lingua Spectrum.
Fun Mazes
ACTIVITY
Giving Direction: Solving Mazes
Time: 60 minutes
Preparation: 15 minutes
Level: Intermediate
Instruction:
- Before the activity begins, teacher had a short discussion with the students regarding vocabulary used in giving directions.
- Then, teacher explains the activity to the students and what they are expected to do.
- Students are divided into pairs.
- Each pair will be given a task sheet (maze) to be completed.
- One student will give direction whereas the other student will listen to the directions given by his partner in order to solve the maze.
- After a maze is completed, students change their roles and complete another maze given by teacher.
- After that, students compare their answers with other students.
After the activity, teacher conducted a short discussion again with the students on what vocabulary that they employ in giving directions to their friends and the difficulties encountered.
This activity allows students to practice their listening and speaking skills. At the same time, students have to incorporate appropriate grammar and vocabulary while giving instructions to their partners. Thus, this activity helps students to enhance their vocabulary as it creates an opportunity for the students to use the language in their conversation (giving direction).
There are varieties of mazes that can be found on the internet. Here are examples of simple but fun mazes that can be used for kids of lower and intermediate students. Printable Mazes For Kids
Teaching Grammar in a Fun Way
By: JOHNNY TIANG KAH HOE (A126075)
For the course work fulfillment of Action Research GV 3053, my group partner and I have conducted several teaching sessions in Impact Learning Tuition Centre with six lower secondary pupils. In our first teaching, we taught our pupils “simple past tense”. We applied two teaching methods in our lesson. Both methods used video downloaded from YouTube.
In the first video clip, students were first told what “Simple Past Tense” is. Then, examples are given to them in order to let them have a better understanding. This process is clearly a top-down approach. It lets the students to get the general idea of the past tense before they further explore the details concerning “simple past tense”.
In the second video clip, students were shown some funny actions that were done by cats. At the end of the video, we asked the students to recall the actions they saw are in the video clip. We wrote down all the students’ answer on the white board. After that, we aided the students to change the actions they mentioned into past tense form. We summarised the section by telling the students what “simple past tense” is. Therefore, it is a bottom-up teaching approach.
Our students were much more active during the session we showed them the second video compared to the first video clip. In my opinion both top down and bottom up teaching approach is useful in helping the students to learn. It depends on the students’ learning style to decide which approach is better. In our case, the students are from lower secondary form, so, there is a need for us to guide them from bottom to conceptualisation.
Teaching Aids for Grammar Lesson!
Teachers, do you have time to prepare your teaching aids for Grammar? For those who answer “No” to the question, I believe the major reason would be; HECTIC SCHEDULE, am I right? But worry no more. Today, I would like to share with you the website that I discovered and utilised to teach grammar. Teachers, say hello to Grammar Bytes. This superb brilliant website is provided with lots of attractive Grammar slideshows that can be used to aid your explanation.
Every grammar topic comes together with grammar games too! The beauty of integrating online games into lesson is not only it would attract students’ attention, but it would also help students to understand the topic better as there is a button that students can click should they need further explanation.
Click and bookmark now! Grammar Bytes Website
Till Then;
Have a nice day teachers!
Umi Athiya Yusop (A126085)
Yay, learning Grammar using Alphabet Poem!
by Moureen Padan
Alphabet poem can be used to teach parts of speech or sentence structure while reinforcing dictionary skills.
Teaching Points
- Verbs
- Past Tense – To write the poem, students had to start each letter with a verb in the past tense. This enabled the class to revise their verbs in the simple past tense while writing some wacky and often hilarious group poems.
- Extensive dictionary Usage – The writing of the following poem requires students to use their dictionary extensively
- Cooperative Learning through group work -Students are to work together to collate group ideas into one group poem
What I Did The Last School Holiday!
(Verbs + in past tense form)
Accessed information from the internet
Babbled with my friend
Conversed with my teacher
Donated some clothes to the orphanage
Escorted my best friend to see her boyfriend
Fought often with my sister
Gave my football cards to my friends
Hacked into the computer system
Insisted on colouring my room pink
Joined the army for a week
Kicked my neighbour’s dog
Learned how to cook
Murdered my a mosquito
Nagged my neighbour’s daughter
Opposed my parents’ plans to go to Langkawi
Puzzled why my parents went to Langkawi without me
Qualified to join the Newboyz group
Rebuilt my tree house after my brother threw stones at it
Sold my hand phone because it was broken
Took my young brother to his friend’s house
Unfertilized the soil behind my backyard
Vandalized a bus stop with my friend
Waited for my girlfriend at the bus stop which I had vandalized
X-rayed my body
Yelled at the field
Zapped my discipline teacher’s car!
(Adapted from Mohd Zarif, Mohd Khairy, Nur Dalila, Mohd Khairul, Nur Syahida)
It would be fun to play words using all the alphabets! So, try it out with lower secondary school!
Let’s teach grammar via interactive games!
Teacher Patrizia
Hello..
For this week, I’ll introduce an interactive game which teachers will find it very interesting to be carried out as grammar lesson in the classroom. I believe that teaching grammar via games will get students to participate in the lesson more and will definitely change their perspective that learning grammar is actually not boring and mundane. I have found this website:http://www.shareup.com/game/ which offers tons of free downloadable interactive games which can be manipulated and can be used to make learning grammar so much fun! Below are few snapshots that I’ve got from the website and it is called ‘Grammar Quest’ and trust me, the games are all very user-friendly. Why not check it out and give it a try? It wont hurt..:)
Enjoy!
Fun Grammar Games and Interactive Exercise Online
Hello and welcome to our website.
I am Umi Athiya Yusop, a teacher in the making and I am one of the authors of this blog. Since this blog aims to help English teachers to find learning resources, today I would like to share with all of you a useful website that could motivate students to learn grammar.
For the past week weeks, I have gone to a primary school in Bangi once a week to complete my Action Research assignment. Just so everyone knows this assignment requires me to select a teaching technique, teach a few students who are willing to participate, and see the effectiveness of the chosen technique in at least a month.
From the ice breaking session I had with the students, I found that the students hated grammar. Mundane teaching technique adopted by their teachers seems to be the major reason of their fear and hatred of grammar. According to them, their teachers teach grammar by explaining the forms and rules and then drilling students on them. And normally, when the teachers think the students have grasped what has been taught, the students will be given countless grammar worksheets to be completed, in order to test and enhance their understanding- which I believe the part that bores the students the most.
Since grammar is their major problem, I opted to teach them grammar.
I consider myself lucky because while I was cracking my head thinking of alternatives to make my lessons memorable and fun, I came across this website called ESL Games World. ESL Games World is a website for English teachers as well as for students. This website offers a range of interactive grammar games and exercises.
The below is present tense vs. past tense game
Some games in this website provide explanations if the students make mistakes.
I have integrated the games provided in this website in my lesson and the feed backs that I got from my students so far are all very pleasing. They are more motivated to learn grammar and it seems to me that my students have somewhat improved their grammar. Therefore, I highly recommend this website to all English teachers especially those who wish to integrate technology into the teaching of grammar.
Till then,
Have a nice day!
Umi Athiya Yusop (A126085)
5 interesting ideas on how to teach Grammar to ESL students.
I found this website which is pretty interesting: http://busyteacher.org/2873-5-new-fun-ways-to-teach-grammar-to-esl-students.html
Grammar shouldn’t be taught “by the book”. At least not in teaching English as a second language. That’s not what students are there for. They don’t want to know all of these rules; they’re not interested in them. They want to learn English. They want to speak, read, and write in English. So, how do we as ESL teachers teach them essential grammar and give them what we need, rather than boring them to death with “the rules”. So, here are 4 fun ideas to teach grammar:
1. Action!
Nothing shakes them up better than getting them out of their seats. When you see your students daydreaming, not paying attention, or simply bored, tell them to get up and form a circle. Now, this simple exercise works great to teach numerous grammar points, but here’s an example:
Say you want your students to practice the simple past of regular or irregular verbs. Grab a small ball or bean bag and say a verb out loud; toss the ball to a student who will have to say its past form. He or she tosses the ball back to you and you choose another student. Whenever a student makes a mistake, he or she has to leave the circle. The last student left standing gets a reward sticker or other prize. You can say a sentence in affirmative, and they have to supply a question, or vice versa; this activity can be adapted to any grammar point.
Taken from :
2. Celebrity Profiles
An awesome way to teach and practice any verb tense is through biographies. Try this activity to contrast the simple past and present perfect tenses. Find out which celebrities or sports stars your students admire. Then find a short biography or write one yourself summarizing a celebrity’s main achievements. Read the bio with your students and make sure they understand the differences. Point out examples that clearly illustrate this: “He starred in his first hit film in 1985. But he has worked in 20 hit films throughout his career.”
3. Celebrity Photos
Another way in which you can use your students’ interest in certain celebrities. Cut out celebrity pics from entertainment magazines (in fact, I recommend stocking up on a big pile of photos to use in a variety of activities). Use these pictures to teach comparatives and superlatives: “Katie Holmes is taller than Tom Cruise.”; “Shakira is more talented than Ricky Martin.”; and it works great with comparative adverbs: “Shakira dances better than Ricky, too.”
4. A or an?
This activity works great with beginners, including small children. Cut up a list of several words that either take “a” or “an” and mix them up. For very young learners, you may use pictures instead of words. Then divide students into pairs of groups, and have them put the words in two piles, depending on the article. Once they have their piles ready, ask them if they can figure out the rule by themselves.
By far the best ways to teach any type of grammar is through the use of either realia or real life settings and contexts. Why would a student be motivated to learn the conditional tenses if he has no idea why he’s learning them, in other words, he doesn’t understand when and where he’ll have use for them? When teachers use real life settings and objects students will know the grammar structures they learn will be useful for them.
Taken from :http://busyteacher.org/2873-5-new-fun-ways-to-teach-grammar-to-esl-students.html
Adapted by Manpreet Kaur
Learning English through songs
Incorporating songs as part of English lesson activities are extremely helpful especially when you want to create a fun and less stressful way to teach English to your students. My partner and I had a short teaching practice last Thursday and we used songs as an English learning activity in the class. The students had fun and they were very interested and eager to participate in the activity. Here is how we conducted the activity. We had sources from the internet to help us as well. These activities are used to teach GRAMMAR to students especially tenses, prepositions as well as word meanings. Using songs also help the students to practise their listening skills. This will enhance and enrich their vocabulary where they can learn new words from the songs. The activity is designed using the song lyrics whereby students are required to fill in the blanks. The song will be played in order to help the students to complete the task given.
Skills : Listening Skill
Songs: 1. This Love by Maroon 5
Procedures:
1. Students are required to form groups of 3.
(It is better to keep them in small groups so that everyone will get the chance to contribute and take part in this activity. The reason for having this activity to be done in groups is to incorporate teamwork or cooperative in this activity. Students get to work with each other to complete the task. Therefore, it is important to have students with mixed ability to work with each other so that fast or advanced learners can help their friends with low level of English competency)
2. Every group will be given a copy of the task prepared by the teacher.
3. Give students time to read the task (lyrics)
4. Play the song once. Give the students time to fill in the blanks before you play the song for the second time.
5. Once the task is completed, ask for volunteers to read the (answer) lyrics of the song.
(Instead of teacher giving the answer, ask volunteers from the students or choose students randomly to read the answers. Get them to sing the lyrics out to their classmates. This does not only create fun and less stress environment in the class but also to get them to speak in English even though they are just reading the lyrics. )
6. Teacher discusses the answer with students to ensure that they understand the activity they have just done during the lesson.
This activity requires teacher to have the song in hand and equipments ready (that are working such as speakers) to ensure that students can listen to the song clearly. Ensuring that every students are able to the song clearly will help them to complete the task as well as to help them improve their listening skill in English language learning.
Worksheet: This activity requires students to fill in the blanks with tenses. >>click here to view the worksheet
Worksheet: Learning English through songs-an example
TASK 1
THIS LOVE
(sung by Maroon 5)
I ………………..(be) so high I ………………..(not recognize)
The fire burning in her eyes,
(Nor) The chaos that ………………..(control) my mind.
(She) ………………..(whisper) ‘goodbye’ and she ………………..(get) on a plane;
Never to return again,
But always in my heart
<>()<>
This love ………………..(has taken) its toll on me;
She ………………..(say) ‘goodbye’ too many times before
And her heart ………………..(break) in front of me.
I ………………..(have) no choice ’cause I
………………..(say) ‘goodbye’ anymore.
<>()<>
I ………………..(try) my best to feed her appetite,
Keep her coming every night.
(It was) So hard to keep her satisfied;
(She) Kept playing love like it ………………..(be) just a game,
Pretending to feel the same,
Then turn around and leave again.
<>()<>
This love ………………..(take) its toll on me;
She ………………..(say) ‘goodbye’ too many times before
And her heart ………………..(break) in front of me.
I ………………..(have) no choice, ’cause
I ………………..(say) ‘goodbye’ anymore.
<>()<>
I………………..(fix) these broken things;
(I’ll) Repair your broken wings
And make sure everything………………..(be) alright.
My pressure on your hips,
Sinking my fingertips
Into every inch of you,
‘Cause I ………………..(be) that………………..(be) what you ………………..(be) me to do
© Pedagogic Copyright 1994-2007 Bibi Baxter
For more activities, please go to http://www.musicalenglishlessons.org/
Second lesson
By,
Teacher Patrizia
Hello…
Lets do some recap..For last week, I ve posted a video on a verb lesson..It’s a sing-along video…While we teach our students to learn the grammar of English, at the same time, we teach them how to speak correctly through singing. It’s a fun activity especially for lower secondary students.
So, for this week, we’ll have a look at most common english mistakes among ESL learners.. I hope that educators out there will find this video very useful in introducing grammar lesson to the students. This video is pretty good as an induction set..Bear in mind that this video is not produced by me but I believe it’s good for future reference in teaching common english mistakes on three often most confusing verbs which are advise,recommend and suggest because this video is really helpful.
using video to introduce parts of speech
using video to start a lesson is very interesting. it attracts students’ attention BUT make sure that the video is appropriate. Enjoy~~!
by Qadariah bt Jalok
Introducing Parts of Speech
Parts of speech or word class in English is very important in improving writing, reading, listening and speaking. It is advisable for a leaner to master all parts of speech to ensure a better understanding of how each word works in a sentence. Here is a short video clip introducing 9 word classes – Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Conjunction, Preposition, Determiner, Pronoun and Interjection. Mastering the 9 word classes will help you to catch up easily on the next post. Here you go.
English No More Worries 
