Classroom Strategies

Listening

Listen!!! Then Listen Some More! Then Listen Again!

There is an urgent need for better ways to teach students to listen. While we all know that listening is one of the four focal skills, in my own opinion it is both the most essential and the most neglected. Teachers who privilege Comprehensible Input know that students have to be either listening or reading

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Classroom Strategies

Error correction …. or not?

Animal trainers know that it is easier to teach a horse or dog what you want it to do, than to teach it not to do something. “No” is an abstract notion. In the same way, it is much easier to teach students what is right than it is to teach them not to do

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Classroom Strategies

The Alibi Game

I didn’t invent this game but found it in a text book I used many years ago. I believe it was Oxford Press material. It would take up an entire hour of class without anyone getting bored and gave students lots of practice listening for details, while giving me an easy day. I think I

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Classroom Strategies

The Mighty – Part Three

“Then the boys meet the gang again and there’s an exciting chase scene during which Kevin becomes Max’s brain and Max becomes Kevin’s legs. It’s one of the best scenes in the film.”

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Classroom Strategies

The Mighty – Part One

There are scenes that could have been left out, the knights on horseback fail to capture the wonder of a boy’s imagination. They are just a bunch of men dressed up as knights. But the story comes across, we know that Max and Kevin are seeing real knights, and the magic works every time. It has become an indispensable tool in my teacher’s kit.

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