Welcome to twominenglish.com. Teaching you English through two-minute lessons. In this lesson you will learn how to speak in English to a travel agent. Booking a Ticket. EnglishClub: Teach English: ESL Worksheets: Conversation: Travel Conversation Worksheets about Travel. The ESL Worksheets and teacher's notes on this page are in PDF.
“All right everyone, pair up!” This sentence can be met in many ways. Blank stares. Two reaching for each other’s hands. The It’s no secret, in pairs can be hard, and it doesn’t stop with just having them pair up. ESL students doing pair activities can often try to skive off doing the activity at hand. Shyer students can be tempted to let their partner do all the work.
As far as the teacher is concerned, it can be tough making sure that the students who are actually working are Well, it’s time for all those problems to be ancient history. Here, you’ll find the ultimate guide to perfect pair work. Techniques for ESL Pair Work The first mistake many teachers make when assigning pair work is letting students choose their pairs. While that may be fun for those in the class who are already friends, your job as the teacher is to assess each student’s strengths and weaknesses and put them with someone they can work with well. In other words: you make the pairs.
If you know that two students are, it might be interesting to put them together so that they have a real challenge. If one student is exceptionally shy, don’t stick them with the class loudmouth; they’ll only be overshadowed. The best way to set up pair work in the classroom is to allow no expectations amongst students that they’ll be picking their own partners. “We’re going to go about this activity in pairs! Sasha with Kevin. Lucy with Mary.” By making it obvious that you’ll be the one deciding who works with whom, no one will get upset or try to fuss. Once the pairs have been established, it’s time for your most important role: monitoring pair work.
While most pair work should finish with a group discussion or individual evaluation, the purpose of the pair work is lost if you aren’t listening and gently correcting. While you should be wary of over-correcting and silencing a student, do wander the room, listening for errors that you know a student can correct him or herself. Then you can gently remind the student how to properly use that language. This serves two purposes: not only does it reinforce correct use of English, but it also ensures that students know you’re listening. This way, they’re sure to give the pair work activity their all.
7 ESL Pair Work Speaking Activities to Get Those Lips Flapping Not all classroom activities are designed for pair work. The best time to use pair work is during oral activities, as these activities than they would in a class setting. But you can’t just ask students to talk to each other for two minutes—you need a bit more structure than that!
Here are 7 great ESL pair work activities that you can use in a variety of ways to 1. Investigative Journalist Investigative journalist is a classic pair work activity for a reason: it works! It can be used in a variety of scenarios and tailored according to specific grammar or vocabulary points that you’ve been reviewing in class.
The basis of investigative journalist is for students to interview one another in pairs and present their findings. It can be used for groups at all skill levels from beginning to advanced, as long as you tailor it to their levels. Beginners may do a simple version, asking their partners about their family structure, favorite colors and foods, pets and hobbies. Intermediate students could use investigative journalist to practice past tense structures by asking about their interlocutor’s childhood. Advanced students might benefit from a murder mystery version of the game, where each student is assigned a character to play and the game concludes with the “murderer” being sussed out as a result of the questions. A great way to prepare students for this versatile activity, no matter their level, is with authentic videos of English conversations. Tools like they can watch either once you’ve paired them up, or ahead of class for homework.
The FluentU videos are all organized by level and come with interactive captions, flashcards and exercises to help students pick up new words as they watch. Through these supercharged English dialogues, news reports, interviews, movie clips and more, they’ll get comfortable with the types of basic English conversations investigative journalist requires. Have fun with this game, and remember: if you, they’ll surprise you! Debate Debate is another classic that can incorporate pair or group work, depending on the size of your class. Create groups and assign each group or pair a side of an argument. Use pair work time to allow students to develop their argument and conclude with a class-wide debate. Debate is made even more interesting when you to use as support for their claims.
What’s Your Secret? What’s your secret? Is a pair work activity that truly involves the whole class. In this game, which is a play on investigative journalist, each student writes a secret down on a piece of paper, things like: “I play the clarinet.” or “I have a twin.” The papers are placed in a hat and each student draws one: that’s where the game begins. What’s your secret? Can either be played by allowing students to mill about the classroom freely or by setting up a speed dating scenario, where each pair has 1 minute to speak before rotating. Students may ask one another yes/no questions—they may not ask directly if what’s on the piece of paper is true about them or not.
Students then must guess to whom the secret they drew belongs. It’s Your Turn: Teach a Class!
Teach a class! Is a fun activity for advanced ESL students.
In this activity, you assign each pair a grammar, vocab or culture point that they’ll have to teach to the class. The pair works together toand teaches the point to the class. Unlike many of these other activities, the conclusion portion of this activity is built right in: when the pair teaches the class, the teacher should play the role of the student, but you may evaluate the lesson at the end and feel free to correct any mistakes the “teachers” make!
Following Directions Following directions is an interesting game that offers In this game, each student in the pair draws a picture, keeping their paper shielded from the eyes of their partner. Ideally, pictures should be fairly geometric. Once the picture is complete, they explain to their partner, using words only, how to replicate the image.
For example, if a student has drawn the stereotypical square house with a triangle roof, he might say: “Draw a square in the middle of the paper that’s about a third of the size of the paper. Draw an equilateral triangle on top of the square, using the top side of the square as the bottom side of the triangle.” The goal of this game is for each partner to replicate the other’s drawing going by these spoken directions. Yes, No Many pair work activities can feel like games, but sometimes it’s fun to introduce some real games into the mix. Yes, no is a game where the only two words that students aren’t allowed to say are yes and no.
Pair students off and play. When a student loses, he or she is out and the winning partner is paired with another winning partner. In this way, you can create a tournament of yes, no. Other versions of the game also forbid “maybe” and “I.” Consider these versions when the game is lasting too long or students need an extra challenge.
Guess Who Guess who is a version of 20 questions that focuses entirely on people. Students draw the name of a famous person out of a hat (you’ll need to prepare these slips in advance!) and their partner tries to guess who’s on the paper by asking a series of yes/no questions. Like yes, no, guess who can be turned into a tournament-style game. Concluding a Pair Work Activity Remember: a pair work activity isn’t a lesson in and of itself. There should be a brief introduction, letting students know what you expect them to do during the activity.
There should especially be a conclusion. Be sure to budget it into your class time or the pair work activity will be useless. During your conclusion, you should gather the information gleaned during the activity and go through it as a group. This will allow you to correct errors and it’ll also allow students to learn from their peers. Many pair work activities also benefit from being followed up by an individual activity such as a written response, worksheet for homework or short oral presentation to the group presenting the student’s findings. Once you’ve mastered the art of pair work, your students will be speaking up (and correctly!) before you know it!
Ever tried with kids in English? It can be a fun treat! But what about when the child doesn’t even know how to say hello? In this case, trying to play games or can be just plain frustrating. It can’t be denied— is nothing like! Attention spans are shorter, and the child’s vocabulary is much more limited—even in his or her native language—meaning that the topics you can discuss are limited as well.
Luckily, where there’s a will, there’s a way! Here are five of our favorite ESL activities for children to get excited about learning their first words of English. These activities work particularly well with beginners, as the child doesn’t need to have an extensive to participate, but once you’ve integrated these methods into your teaching style, you may find yourself using them again and again, even with more advanced students. How to Use These ESL Activities for Children Attention spans in beginner classes, no matter the age group, tend to be reduced. After all, it’s hard to ask someone who barely understands what you’re talking about to follow an in-depth discussion about anything, even if it is of interest to them! But for children, this is even more true. A child has a reduced attention span even in his or her own language; teaching children English, therefore, must be done with attention to this fact.
Children should generally not be asked to do an activity for any longer than 20 minutes, so if we imagine that a class lasts between 45 and 60 minutes, each activity would be about a third or up to half of a class period. Often, however, an activity will take up much less time than this. Be sure that you are organized in your lesson in order to make the most of your time when doing these activities, and never expect an activity to take up an entire class. 5 Creative Ways to Teach Children ESL Through Fun Activities 1. Art Projects Art is a fantastic way to get your young students excited and interested in a variety of lessons to reinforce different vocabulary. The art project that goes with this lesson should either come at the end of the class or at the beginning of the following class after a brief review of the vocabulary.
Students can draw pictures independently, but you should walk around the room and encourage them to talk to you about their work. Let’s say you’re using an art lesson to follow up acquisition of different color words; you could ask students what color they’re using with the phrase “What color is this?” The same sort of lesson can be used once students become more advanced with other sorts of vocabulary, from fruits to careers to animals, by having students draw pictures using the vocabulary that was introduced in class and then helping them to label their drawings using the words they learned. Get some ideas for more art projects to reinforce vocabulary from, a teacher-approved site filled with resources and ideas. We also love these fun ideas from the, craft ideas from and the themed crafts from.
2. Active Games You’ve probably already witnessed the awesome power of kinesthetic learning in the classroom, and active games can be a great way to get beginners up and moving. One of the best for beginners is Simon Says, or a variant thereof.
Simon Says can be a very useful way to reinforce new vocabulary while also upping the energy. That’s why it’s a great choice either at the beginning or in the middle of a class. The obvious way to use Simon Says is to reinforce a vocabulary lesson involving body parts. But what you might not think of is using Simon Says to reinforce the use of action words, like “dance,” “jump” or “clap.” Always be sure to introduce the words you plan to use in lesson format before introducing the game. Students can always assume they understand what you’re saying, particularly if they’re following the rest of the group.
That’s why it’s important to use Simon Says at the end of a lesson and to make sure that you’re not giving them any hints with your own body language as to what they’re supposed to do; let the ESL lesson be their guide! To try with your learners. Singing Songs Songs are a fantastic mnemonic device for new vocabulary, and the Internet is a wealth of different song ideas. The best time to use a song is once the vocabulary has already been introduced. Some songs are simpler, ideal for using the same day or the same week that the vocabulary is introduced:. — for learning the days of the week. (simplified) — for learning emotions.
— for learning clothing words. — for learning colors Other songs are more complicated, making them better for students that already know some vocabulary in English. They’re great for reviewing!. — for reviewing animal words. — for reviewing colors. — for reviewing body parts.
— for reviewing colors But don’t limit yourself to simply singing the songs. Use them as a way to get kids participating—even your —by coming up with ways for the class to respond to the song.
For example, when using songs to reinforce vocabulary, once the song has been acquired, you can call on an individual student to fill in a “blank” with the appropriate word. This is great for songs like “Old MacDonald,” where the verse is the same each time with a slight modification—in this case, the animal’s name and sound it makes. Here are a few other ideas to keep your students engaged while singing:. Have students make up hand gestures or a dance to go along with the song.
Ask students to illustrate the song as an art project. Have students make up their own verses (when appropriate to level). Have students so they can play along as they sing! Labeling Labeling can be a great way to remember new vocabulary. We already discussed a bit how labeling can be used during an art project, but you can also use labeling in a classroom or with photographs. If you’re trying to teach the names of different things in the classroom, tasking your students with creating labels for them can be a great way to get them up and moving—and speaking! Once the labels are created, be sure to laminate them.
You can use them with all sorts of games, from treasure hunts to interactive matching or memory games. You can also use labeling with photographs, particularly if you can project them on the wall. Find photographs or images of different scenes containing vocabulary that you have covered in class. Make the labels yourself or have your students make them, and then allow students to come up and affix them on the projected image, either using magnets or putty, depending on what’s appropriate for your classroom. Labeling of this kind is great when used in tandem with an art project, as students first identify items as a group and are then encouraged to label things on their own. Educative Play Particularly when your students are very young, educative play is a useful technique for teaching them without ever letting on! Students can be encouraged to play with one another in a variety of ways, either with board games or in a playroom or space, depending on the way your school is laid out.
The idea with educative play is for teachers and assistants to participate in the play in English, asking questions that students can answer. Examples of such questions include:.
What are you doing?. What are you playing?. Can I play?. What’s that?.
Would you like this (block, ball, doll)? The key to making educative play fun and useful is to make sure that you engage students without frustrating them. Asking them repetitive questions or simply asking too many questions can be frustrating and counterproductive. Ask about one question every minute or so. Encourage students to answer you in English, but don’t force them to speak to one another in English.
As things progress, they may speak to one another in English of their own accord—which is proof that your efforts are paying off! There are lots of different ways that these five types of activities can be integrated into an ESL classroom with children. Try adapting some of these ideas into your own lessons today!