How to facilitate speaking in the ESL classroom

Upper Primary Level. 

How difficult is to teach conversation in the ESL classroom! How difficult is to stir spontaneous speaking!

Repetition kills motivation!

If you are using a textbook you will realize that the material found in ESL textbooks are dry and lack the variety and authenticity of real-world conversations. Teachers need something that can stimulate students and get them motivated to speak English in the classroom.

A good way is using video clips as a conversational prompt. They provide students with authentic situations in which the English language is used and can help them speaking in the classroom. 

First problem:  To find one that is appropriate. Just ask you few questions:
Is the content suitable for the students?
Does the content appeal to the students?
Is the length of the clip too long?

Clips shorter than two minutes may not provide enough substance from which students can create a narrative. On the other hand, clips more than five minutes in length may be too challenging for upper primary students.

Second problem: Where to find suitable video clips? You can search popular video sites such as YouTube.com, Vimeo.com or Google videos for the video clips.  In these sites, video clips are abundant and are easily accessible in the classroom (type "animated short films" or "animated commercials"... you will get some good stuff to use in the ESL class).

Personally, the ones I like the most are: the YouTube Pixar channel and Ringling College of Art Design channels in Vimeo. 

I recently used this video from the YouTube Pixar channel in Year 5, just after reading the Heinemann book "Castles. King Arthur Treasure"

Third problem: What to do with it? It is a good idea to create a worksheet that has sections in which students can write down ideas, single words, new vocabulary, actions (verbs), and things they don’t know or they do not understand, that will later be used in speech. At the bottom of the worksheet, just add a few lines so that students can write a short narrative, both in L1 or L2, depending on the level.

My students usually work in small groups. I distribute a specific worksheet and introduce briefly the video to them. Take care to not give away what is happening in the video, otherwise they will not have much to write and later narrate. Simply inform the students of what are they going to do, the name of the video and some clues to watch it.

Lets talk about clips

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The first time I play the video, I ask children to do nothing: just watch and listen. The second time I ask them to write down, on the worksheet, what they see in the clip.

This video is from the student gallery of Ringling College of Art and Design.


Carrot Crazy! from Ringling College of Art + Design on Vimeo.

Once the video clip has been played I ask some questions regarding the clip:

What did you see in the video clip (objects, places,)?
What was happening (actions, verbs…)?
What emotions, do you think, the actors felt (feelings, adjectives…)?
Why did the characters do this or that?
…

Now, here it comes the most amazing part of the activity: students are asked to write a small narrative that will accompany the actions in the video. 

Students can write the narrative in the third or the first person: just they are different ways of expressing what is happening in the video.

Play the video again without sound. Give ten minutes to groups to come up with a narrative for the video clip. While students are writing, walk around and assist as necessary. When the groups have completed their narratives, choose alternative groups to narrate the video clip while it is being played.

Make sure each student from the group has a chance to read a few lines of the narrative.

You can conclude the session by asking their opinion, comment or just giving an adjective for the video.

With a little extra work you can add the narrative to the video by using Overstream or another subtitle adding app.

Watch an example in vimeo

Los Pistoleros de la Paz

Do you remember Den Haag, Netherlands, 2009?
Do you remember our visit to the International School of The Hague?
Do you remember as well our handsome "teacher guide" in there, and how many thinghs did we learn from him?

Berenguer Gaston has made a dramatic change in his life full of Rumba flavor. He left the school last year and started a new "life project" in which he is has been involved for many years. Now is time to listen to their outcomes.

Los Pistoleros de la Paz come to infect us with their sound full of different musical influences. A cultural mix that explodes with ritmo latino. The band formed early 2008 as an initiative to be part of the festival "Pieter van der Doesstraat" held in Amsterdam in order to unite the diverse cultures prevailing in the Netherlands. The idea caught the attention of several friends who joined the group to continue the goal of the festival, as a band. Catalan, Colombian, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Dutch, making the best of their worlds, reflected in their music. Los Pistoleros de la Paz, carrying the flag of hope in the air with as always their motto: Smile, and things will be better!

Find them in Facebook
Find them in My Space



Berenguer Gaston (saxophone) and Genis Navarro (trumpet), both exalumni. How proud!

Crossing the river

-Resources: A picture or flashcard to represent each vocabulary item or selected letter of the alphabet.

Time guide:10 minutes

Preparation: create some space across the middle of the classroom.

Activity: Use the cleared space in the classroom and place the flashcards in a line on the floor with the pictures facing up.

Divide the class into two teams, with one team standing at each end of the line pictures.

If necessary check that the children know how to play ‘Rock, paper, scissors’ by practising this with the whole class.

Each student stand opposite another child with their fists clenched. They both move their fists up and down as they count 1, 2 3 together and out loud. On the third count each child chooses between showing rock, paper or scissors with their hand.

One child wins , rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, and scissors beats paper. If the same gesture is chosen by both children, they simply repeat the game until one of them wins.

 The first child from each team walks along beside the line of pictures, each starting at opposite ends line. They have to take turns to say what each picture or letter is as they reach it. The rest of their team can join in by saying each item.

When the two players meet the play’ Rock, paper,scissors’. Whoever wins stays where they are, and the other player goes to the back of their team’s line.

The next player in the losing team now starts walking along the line of pictures saying what each picture is,and the winning player also continues. When they meet, they play ‘Rock,paper,scissors’.

This continues until one team member manages to cross the river, in other words, reaches the opposite end of the line of pictures. A point is scored for each child that crosses the river.

The game can end when all of one team reach the other side – but that could take a very long time! Or you can play for a set period of time, stopping when choose, and the winning team is the one with the most points or with the player furthest along the line.

Play with me!!!

Play with me is a Comenius Project which involves four countries from the European Union: United Kingdom, Italy, Greece and Spain. In Catalonia this project is been leadered by Melin Masdeu, one of our teacher members in our ICE group of work.

The main intention of this project is to know and share traditional games from their countries, while they are experiencing other languages and cultures.

They want to develop the children within the partnership schools as fit and healthy individuals who enjoy playing traditional games as much as plugging themselves into computers. Through a range of hands-on enjoyable activities they can experience other cultures and be given a European dimension to their learning. A Comenius Club is developed in each school where skills learnt can be used further.

Different types of traditional games are shared across the countries. They are evaluated and also support teacher professional development. It enables teachers and students across the network to network and create further learning opportunities.

Parents and the wider community are involved in collaborative work across the projects. Ultimately it will lead to the development of a learning platform where teachers and learners will be able to keep all members aware of the progress being made towards the final outcome.

 

Concentration. A five minutes warm up activity

"Concentration" is a 5 minutes warm up activity to foster concentration and to involve children into oral production. It is a very good way to start the class when you need to focus in one particular topic, working out abilities such as listening and social skills.

Depending of the level you can increase difficulty by demanding the right phonetics, working out grammar items (adverbs, prepositions...) or increasing speed.

Concentration

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Three minutes teacher

"Three minutes teacher" is a warm up activity that can be done in upper primary ESL class. It is an activity to promote speaking, oral autonomy and interaction.

Once a week a student presents the class for 3 minutes. Voluntarily, she or he prepares a warm up activity to get into English. For example, asking questions about the weekend, showing a picture, telling a story or any personal information, a song, a chant, a video…

Any possibility is fine. They have to tell the teacher in advance what they are going to do. We can record the presentation or take a picture of him/her being a teacher.

3 minutes teacher

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Hi everyone!!!

After a lovelyand sunny day...warm regards from Valldoreix
Melín