Eva Buyuksimkesyan activities, creative tasks, creativity, efl, ELL, elt, esl, exercises, fun, fun activities, games, online games, pair work

Looking at Digital Games and Heroes

image taken from yahoo images
image taken from yahoo images

 

I am not a fan of online games. I don’t play any but my son spends most of his free time playing online games. I have lots of students who do the same and when the subject is online games, even the quietest one starts to speak. A few years ago I had three students in my class. They were very much interested in games. They were very interesting boys because they were not ordinary players as they learned a lot about mythology and literature playing these games. One of them is writing stories and probably he’ll become a famous writer one day. That’s my hope for him.

I was clearing my files during the break and I came across a handout I coped from a book (unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the book) on literature. There were questions about favourite titles and characters. I put the handout among the ones I’d like to use this year but then suddenly I thought about another activity. Why shouldn’t I adapt it to games that the students are fond of playing and would work on the activity eagerly?

So here are my questions. I’ll be very happy if you can suggest other questions for this activity.

Think about the online games you love playing. First finish the sentences then compare your answers with your partner.

  1. I think I’m like the character ————————– from the game ———— because ———————-.
  2. I like the title of the game ————————— because ———————-.
  3. The game which I find very challenging is ———————————.
  4. I want to meet the character ———————- from the game —————- because ————————-
  5. The character whose action I admire is ————————– because ——-
  6. For me the most interesting 3 online games are ———————————.
  7. It is easy to win a game in ————————– because ———————–
  8. It is difficult to win a game in ———————– because ———————-.
  9. The game ——————- is set in a ——————————. It is —————–.
  10. 10. In the game ———————— you need to be a team to win.

Here you can find the handout I prepared for the activity.

Links to some blogs and interesting posts on online games

 

 

Eva Buyuksimkesyan connecting words, efl, ELL, esl, linkers, mixed ability, narratives, sequencing, writing, writing a paragraph, writing a story

A Drill-like Narrative Writing Activity

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We were working on narrative tenses and the writing task of the lesson was ‘writing a story’. My class is small and it’s a real mixed-ability class. although it’s small, it sometimes takes very ages for the students to master something. The book we’re using organized the activity very well – first making students to know and use the connectors to make them aware of the sequences in a story. We did the exercise on the book and wrote a paragraph using At First, Then, After that, Eventually, Finally but some of the students had problems writing their own paragraphs so I decided to continue.

photo credit @AClilToClimb #eltpics

I divided the group into two and told them they would write a story using At First, Then, After that, Eventually, Finally.

Each group now had a good students to help the others.

I changed one student from the groups and exchanged them with each other after they finished writing and reading their paragraphs aloud.

I left the good ones in the group, changing one students after writing a paragraph for four times.

In the fifth round, all the good ones were in one group but two groups managed to use the connectors and produced their own sentences.

Then they all went back to their seats and wrote their own paragraphs.

As a follow-up, they wrote another paragraph, creating a book with bookr.

 

 

 

Eva Buyuksimkesyan 37th ELT Blog Carnival, blog carnival, celebrations, efl, ELL, esl, esl ell efl blog carnival, ESL. ELL Carnival

#37th ELT Blog Carnival

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Welcome to the 37th ELT Blog Carnival. Many thanks for the colleagues who shared their lessons here and Many thanks to my PLN who spread the news of the carnival when I tweeted or FBed about it. OK, Folks… Let’s begin … Do you hear the merry sounds, songs, giggles of a happy moment from a celebration. Life without these days will be ‘like everyday‘. Right …. Here I go …. Let’s celebrate all together.

I’ll start from the first entry I received …

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1. Vicky Loras sent and amazing entry for the International Book Day. Vicky, as a book enthusiast, describes ways how to make this day memorable and promote reading at the same time.

2. Then we have 2 wonderful ideas from Movie Segments for Warm-ups and Follow-Ups by Claudio Azavedo, You have a look for “Four Christmases How Grinch Stole”  and “New Year’s Eve When Harry Met Sally”

3. Teacher Marija is present at this blog carnival with a Christmas Test that you can print and use in the class.

4. A Christmas classic that most of us use in our reading classes during the holiday season is The Gift of magi by O’Henry. You will like the lesson Ceri Jones  wrote and shared on her blog.

5. When I posted about the carnival on celebrations I did hope to find more resources on various celebrations. Larry Ferlazzo’s famous “best” list is for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa can be bookmarked for numerous visits.

6. Carissa Peck contributes to the blog carnival with lessons for all seasons. Clicking on the links you can find great ideas to use with your own classes.

7. Claudie teaches people from all over the world – many different countries, different religions and she describes how she uses December in her classes in her post.

8. EFL Classroom 2.0 has loads of holiday related materials. David Deubelbeiss presents 50 Holiday Activities for Teaching English.I’m sure we can find something that will appeal our students.

9. My contribution to the carnival is a post I wrote last year just after Christmas and New Year and I hope this time I’m not too late to share it.

10. I really don’t want to finish the list with an odd number so I’ll add a project I and a very creative and enthusiastic teacher, Alexandra Fransisco started back in 2009 and continued for two year. With Celebr8u&medigitally, I had the chance to meet the students’ of my PLN. The wiki is full of web 2.0 projects for many celebrations.

I hope 2014 will be a happy and prosperous year and there will be peace and calm everywhere. Enjoy the holiday season.

You can always revisit the previous carnivals to get inspiration for your lessons from The ELT Blog Carnival home page  

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Wishing you a Happy Holiday Season 🙂

 

 

Eva Buyuksimkesyan drill, efl, ELL, esl, web 2.0 tools

Happy Drilling in EFL Classroom

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WHY?

Drills are the most important exercises at the 1st phase of learning a new structure. They may be neglected thinking that they are mechanical and meaningless but they may be very effective for some learners. They are repetitive so they can make the form memorable. Making a drill type of exercise a little bit meaningful and adding a pinch of creativity to it can be challenging but it is worth it. I want to list some ideas here and I’ll divide them into two categories. Tools and the Activities …

TOOLS?

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1. Ask students to take photos of people or pets at home,in the street or give them your own photos or tell them to draw.

2. Give them an A4 size paper and show them how to fold it as a tiny book , or show them how to fold as 6 equal rectangles, or see more foldables here 

3. Introduce them some desktop tools to work with or some web 2.0 tools like bookr, bubblr, imagechef, animo to, glogster, 

4. Buy colourful post-it notes with different shapes.

ACTIVITIES

1. Tell them to write what they were doing/ had done / did when,after before the photo was taken ( I was —ing when my mother took this photo) / I had eaten my sandwich before this my mum took the photo.

2. Give the skeleton and ask them to write a poem. You can see another example here.

Eva Buyuksimkesyan blog carnival, celebrations, ESL. ELL Carnival, holidays

Ready for a Fun EFL Blog Carnival?

 

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Once again you are kindly invited to the next ELL, ESL, ELT carnival on this blog. The theme of the 36th carnival will be All about Holidays. It will be published on the 1st week of December.

You can share a lesson on holidays and celebrations, not just Christmas or New Year that are waiting for us. We will be rich if you can also share lesson ideas from your culture or other cultures that.

Let’s make a jolly, energetic holiday carnival that we will visit all year long.

If you want to participate, you can use the easy submission form and send me your blog list or you can contact me from here or twitter (I’m @evab2001) if the form doesn’t work.

If you don’t blog, you can still participate. I’ll be glad to host your song lesson posts on my blog.

And don’t forget to visit the 35th Blog Carnival hosted by dear Vicky Hollet.

You can read all the previous entries from here.