Conditional sentences: CCQs

23
Jun
2019

Ninja Practice – the new challenge for your exam groups

Have you ever wondered how to incorporate exam practice into your lesson plan without dedicating too much time to it? Ninja practice might be the answer to your problems.

I am sure now you wonder what ninja practice actually means. Well, I learnt about it during Jim Scrivener’s talk at TESOL Spain 2018. The idea behind ninja practice is that students do a lot of mini tasks in a very short time, e.g. 1-2 minutes. I have tried out ninja practice with my PET and FCE exam preparation classes and I must say it works! I have adapted certain parts of the exam, such as transformations, multiple-choice and open cloze, word formation and even writing tasks. At first, my students were not used to the idea of doing the tasks quickly but with the passage of time, they have understood that this one is actually about the quantity of practice. Now, they do the tasks very quickly!

If my students have any questions about vocabulary or grammar, we either discuss it quickly after the activity or I prepare some activities and “a proper explanation” for the following lesson. Everything depends on the students’ performance.

I am sure you are now wondering if ninja practice has helped my students. And the answer is… YES, it has. Thanks to continuous practice and abundance of exposure to different grammar structures, synonyms, collocations, etc., my students’ results have gone up. So, why don’t you check it out yourself? Here are some examples of tasks I offered to my students at:

PET Level

FCE Level

21
Jun
2019

A summer break from English?

categories: Article, Teaching Ideas

So, all the exams are marked, the comments for parents written and you’re cleaning up after the end of year party thinking …

Exactly! What are you thinking? I am almost sure that at this point your feelings and thoughts are quite mixed. Almost certainly you feel proud of all the things your students have learnt this year and all their achievements. The memories of the challenges of this school year are still fresh and you can see all the hard work you and your students have done. Just like your students, you must feel tired and you are really looking forward to having some time off. This may probably the moment when you also realise that without your presence, everything your students have learnt will evaporate over the summer. And yes your right, summer weather, sandy beaches and lots of ice cream may have a negative effect on your students English but there are a couple of things your students can do to maintain their English level without working extremely hard.

Younger learners

There are a couple of ideas I have suggested this year to my younger learners, which they were all very keen on doing over the summer. Before I set the tasks, I simply asked my students what they thought would happen to their English over the summer. They honestly responded that they would probably forget it all if they didn’t do anything. That was the green light for me to suggest the following activities:

Make a picture dictionary of all the new and interesting things they will see over the summer or any interesting words they wanted to learn.
Read graded readers from OXFORD Owl. This platform is absolutely free and offers readers students can read and listen to.
Watch cartoons and films in English.
Play games and do activities from their digital workbook and British Council Kids website.

Teens

As you can imagine, teens are not that keen on doing any extra work or homework over the summer. But they also tend to be the age group which suffers the most from not doing any work over the summer. Imagine your students who have just passed their B1 exam and do nothing at all and then “suddenly” start a B2 course… Yeap, it’s not going to be a piece of cake for them. Those ones who realise that may want to do the following activities:

Practise English with LyricsTraining. Is there anything teens love more than music? Maybe movies:
Watch movies and series, for example, on Netlifx or YouTube in English.
Read graded readers. Every language school has a couple of them in their library, they could just take one and read it over the summer.
Write a diary in English. There is one good reason for teens to keep their diaries in English – their parents won’t know what they’re writing about (not always, though). This often makes it attractive for teens to write in English as they believe they will have more privacy and intimacy. For those teens who really don’t like the idea of keeping a diary in English
Jump at every possible chance to speak to foreigners they meet in English. This one may sound a bit crazy but it can really show our students how much they already know and what they still have to learn in order to better communicate in international contexts.
Practise English online. There are various platforms which offer extra practice. Students should find their favourite one and every now and then do a couple of activities. I particularly like British Council Teens and English Revealed, but there are many more!

I cannot promise your student will do all of these activities. Some of them will definitely ignore you and your pieces of advice. What I can assure you though is the fact that those who WILL DO some extra work over the summer, will find it easier to go back to their routines and their English will be better. They may even thank you for that! Just kidding!

19
Jun
2019