Hey all, quick question here, after some ideas. I just wondered – do you have any routines or activities you use to engage learners at the start of class?
I don’t use anything special with my teens (aged 15+). This is my standard first slide:
I teach these kids once a week for 2 hours. I don’t like to waste time. They come in, sit down, I point at the board and they turn to a partner and start this general chit-chat. I just want them to ‘get into English-mode’ basically.
I know it’s simple, but not everything has to be all singing, all dancing! They’ve learnt to extend their conversations a bit and ask relevant follow-up questions over time, and sometimes this leads to a bit of class discussion about a big event that happened in the week (usually some K-pop band visiting Bangkok…!).
So, how do you start your lessons and get your students speaking English from the outset?
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Categories: Lesson Ideas, other, Uncategorized
ELT Planning 
I often do something similar but using questions relating to what we did last class. Eg If we are looking at the past continuous “What were you doing a 7.00 pm last night? Etc… I also have a question box which I often bring out to start a lesson and recycle vocab and structures. I agree that the mos important thing is to get them in “English mode” asap as we we have so little time with them…
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I always greet my students in English, welcoming them with hopefully a positive compliment, or fun question, or even about the weather. It can be great. sometimes its a disaster, some kids monopolize the small talk, while another kid shuts out, and doesn’t want to try. sometimes its a better choice to get out the books and pencils. thank you, tamar
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One of the best lesson starters I’ve seen is to have them tell me their ‘new news’ which can be anything new about themselves: what they are doing this weekend, what they did during the school day, etc. I’ve noticed that most kids like to talk about themselves and it is nice to start off the class doing so. Better for older groups, obviously.
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