Pacing and Variety in English Teaching

[Niko]

Classroom Activities for ESL Students

Whether you are teaching adults or children, variety of activities and pace of teaching is important. When students become bored, start to yawn, then that's an indication we need to re-look at our lesson plans and resurrect our classes.

In a 1 hour class, you should be using approximately 8~10 different classroom activities. An activity does not need to be long to be classified an activity. Eg: As students enter the classroom, having them knock on the door and announcing themselves is an example of a simple, yet fast classroom activity for your students.

Classroom Activities include:

• warm up
• listening
• choral repetition
• pair task
• dialog practice
• writing
• review
• grammar awareness and grammar correction
• info gap
• role play
• TPR (third-party resources)
• storytelling
• game
• paraphrasing
• mime

Remember, students will show you that they are not interested in your classes through their body language. So, you do have this warning before your student numbers start to dwindle away. Do something about it while you have the chance, and offer exciting and meaningful lessons.

[Tutor]

I agree that variety in lessons for english is very much required. Teaching is a continious activity and people tend to follow a specific methodology for teaching.

This can be boring for students if the same process is followed everyday. Hence changes to learning process - outdoor activities, games, quiz, group discussion, public speaking, debates etc can be used to make sure the students enjoy the learning experience.