Eva Buyuksimkesyan communication, dialogue, discussion, project, speaking

Skyping Discussions

discussion

 

 

 

 

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I’m thinking about a new challenge. This year thanks to twitter and my PLN, I and my students experienced wonderful things. We had global projects and skype chats now I’m thinking to move it one step further.

Sometimes we organise debates in the class. I thought maybe we could do it using skype but then I realised we would need judges and a winner team so I gave up with this idea. Now I’m thinking to find classes for my classes to discuss a given topic.

They can read and research and then we can talk about it. 5 students for each class, a student can have maximum 90 seconds. Student As sit face to face, one of them speaks and then the other. Then they leave the seats to student Bs.At the end of each session each class writes a report and prepares a post activity on the topic using one of the web 2.0 tools.

I know we have a curriculum but may be we can arrange a discussion at the beginning of each month. This can give them a chance to chat with other teenagers and I strongly belive that these types of activities will boost their confidence.

My students will be grade 10,11 and 12. They are intermediate to upper-intermediate. Let’s think about the topics before September.

We can start a wiki and add the recordings and explanations there.

Would you like to join me? Please RT this post and drop me a line here.

Eva Buyuksimkesyan dialogue, drama, fillers, fluency, fun, improvisation, pairwork, speaking

Improvising in the EFL classroom

 

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From time to time, I do this fun activity with my students and we have fun and laughter in the class.

On slips of papers write some sentences. (or tell your students to write a suggestion, regret, wish, advise, exclamation, etc)

Put the slips of papers in an envelope.

Prepare index cards. On each card, write situations and 2 characters involved in the situations.

Put the situations in an other envelope.

Ask 2 volunteers to stand up and come infront of the class, choose 3 slips of papers and a situation and tell them to start the conversation according to the instructions written on the situation card.

So each student will have 3 slips of papers and a situation card.

So you will have something like these:

What a great voice!

I wish I hadn’t eaten all the chocolate cake.

Shall I cook the meat now?

Student A

You are in the principals room with your mother and waiting for the principal to come. She asked your mother to come to school to talk about a matter. Your mum is angry and you are worried. You try to convince your mum that you haven’t done anything wrong.

Student B

You are in the principals room with your daughter or son because the principal asked you to come. You think s/he did something wrong and you are angry. S/he says s/he hasn’t done anything wrong

Tell them you will call their names and when they hear their names they have to insert the sentence on the slip of paper into the dialogue.

Continue until they use their 6 slips of papers.

This is a great filler, energizer, warm up. If they are enthused and want to participate you can even dedicate that one lesson to it. It is a great fluency practice.

Laughter is guarantied 🙂