Classroom Strategies
The Mighty – Part Four
“Don’t think of it as a friendship. Think of it as a partnership. You need a brain and I need legs.”
Reading
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.”
Classroom Strategies
The Mighty – Part Two
Grammar is only relevant when it gives us information about the characters and their situation.
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.
Classroom Strategies
Using Proverbs
Through acquisition they were sufficiently aware of which structures were possible and which were not, without having had any explicite grammar training.
Classroom Strategies
A New Twist on Embedded Readings
I have found Embedded Readings, as developed by Laurie Clarq and Michele Whaley, an excellent way to encourage students to read. The idea, like all great ideas, is quite simple. You make three or more versions of the same text which increase in difficulty.
Classroom Strategies
The Verb Flower
Some days, if I want to have some fun, I ask my francophone students how many verb tenses there are in English. Their guesses are all over the place, usually somewhere between ten and twenty. And they are guesses; no one is really sure that they know the answer to my question.
Classroom Strategies
Rachel and Phrasal Verbs
In Besançon Teri and I were hosted by Rachel, a lively English girl who gives private English lessons and teaches in a business school. She has given her company the very appropriate name of Smile, since it’s difficult to think of Rachel without seeing her radiant smile.
Classroom Strategies
Reading a Novel
Once students have acquired enough vocabulary that they can read short texts with ease and pleasure, it’s time to start thinking about reading a novel with them.