• Another Conversation Activity: Listen to Partner and Ask Questions to Complete Information-Gap Chart (REVISITED)
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
1w ago
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)* At first, this pair-work activity looks like it’s about getting students to talk a lot by filling information in a chart.  But that’s not the most important value of it. Yes, students will talk a lot during this.  But by including a short pre-exercise, they will see how they should ask clarification questions when they need more information or if they didn’t understand.  Asking clarification questions is the strategy that they can use in future conversation situations in and outside the classroo ..read more
Visit website
Entering a Lesson with Predictions (Part 2: Pre-Discussion Activities)
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
3w ago
In Part 1 ( • Entering a Lesson with Predictions (Part 1: Pre-Listening Activities) , I introduced how we can help student to focus on a particular day’s materials and to become personally involved in its content. We can do it through a “prediction process.” I also described two prediction activities as entries to listening activities. In this Part 2, I’ll share two sets of “prediction activities” as entries to speaking/discussion activities. In the first one, the prediction activity is indirectly related to the speaking activity. In the second one, it is directly related to what they wi ..read more
Visit website
• Fluency Writing: Reading, Speaking In Triads, And Listening Culminating In A Writing Task (REVISITED)
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
1M ago
                                          Integrating the four skills (This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)* This is the perfect activity for integrating four skills into one activity.  And it culminates in a writing task in which students focus on controlling their grammar and on their sentence style.  It’s also one in which students can practice those two aspects of writing without having to spend time thinking about what to write. T ..read more
Visit website
Entering a Lesson with Predictions (Part 1: Pre-Listening Activities)
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
2M ago
It mat come as a surprise to any number of teachers to realize that most students do not view their ESL class as the number one preoccupation in their lives. Students come into the class with a myriad number of matters on their minds: weekend plans, family problems, the test in the next class. To foster a classroom atmosphere conducive to students’ leaving behind their outside world and to their focusing attention on the lesson at hand (not to speak of their becoming personally involved in the subject material!) can be an exacting task. Many of us as teachers have seen the otherwise well-plan ..read more
Visit website
• Short, High-Interest Readings: # 4: “Starting a Conversation With an Attractive Stranger”
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
3M ago
(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) * For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings” (#1 “For More Happiness, Keep Your Good News Secret for a While.”)  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: Categories > Reading > Short-high interest Readings. Here is the fourth article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also inc ..read more
Visit website
Short, High-Interest Readings:# 3 “Why Some Products Are Less Likely To Make It To The Recycling Bin”
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
4M ago
(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) * For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see    “Introducing Short, High-Interest Readings ” Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: Categories > Reading > Short-high interest Readings. Here is the third article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Parap ..read more
Visit website
Most Confusing ESL Pronunciation Mistake (Includes Interactive Exercises)
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
4M ago
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.) * There has been a consensus among the many professionals that I have asked that dropping the final consonants on words causes the most communication breakdowns. I’ve had to decipher things like: “I cou-n do my homewo cu I fe si.” (I couldn’T do my homeworK because I felT sicK.) “Do you wan ah to chew a new topi?” (Do you wanT uS to chooSE a new topiC?) If we just respond by asking, “What did you say?”, the speaker will merely repeat what s/he had said, perhaps a bit louder. I developed a set of exercises ..read more
Visit website
• Short, High-Interest Readings: # 2 “Animals Understand Fairness”
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
5M ago
(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) * For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings” (#1 “For More Happiness, Keep Your Good News Secret for a While.”) Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: Categories > Reading > Short-high interest Readings. Here is the second article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included ..read more
Visit website
• Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings” (#1 “For More Happiness, Keep Your Good News Secret for a While.”)
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
5M ago
(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) * Beginning with this post, I plan to share short, high-interest readings that you can use with your ESL students. I’ll be adding them to the right-hand column: Categories > Reading > Short, high interest articles. The driving force behind these articles: I wanted to motivate students to want to read. By focusing on high-interest topics no matter what the subject area, I believe that I’ve accomplished that goal. In addition, these have been successfully used these with student ..read more
Visit website
• Making a Connection With Each Student: Research-Based Technique
Common Sense Teaching ESL
by commonsenseesl
6M ago
Early in one term, I was starting a conferencing session with a new student, Anja. As she was sitting down next to me, she said, “David, I heard that you grew up in Chicago. I just had a homestay there!” I noticed that I immediately felt a connection to Anja that stayed with me from that day on. There is some amazing research that explains how we make connections with others. And best of all, there are ways that we can apply this to building positive relationships with our students. In their book Click: The Power of Instant Connections the authors, Ori and Rom Brafman, describe some enlighten ..read more
Visit website

Follow Common Sense Teaching ESL on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR