Business English Vocabulary

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4 Interactive Classroom Activities to Ignite Student Participation

How interactive are your classroom activities?  Do you have less energy for class than you used to?  Do you find student grades declining semester after semetster? Are the teaching strategies you’ve always relied on not working as well as they once did?
A few weeks ago, one of my worst nightmares came true while teaching a summer session introductory course, and it made me ask these questions of myself.  I found myself talking, and talking, and talking, and nobody was engaged.  Even the “good students” seemed to have had enough.  No one was taking notes; no one even appeared to be thinking about the material.  They had just had it.  Now, it was a Monday, and it was early, and it was hot in the classroom, but this was unusual.  And since it was a summer course, I had another three hours to fill.
After sending my students off for coffee, sugar, or fifteen minutes of fresh air, I found myself thinking of a couple of my senior colleagues, who always seem frustrated with their students’ classroom demeanor.  I always assumed we just had different teaching strategies, but now I began to wonder if the real root of the cause may have to do with instructor’s failure to adapt to today’s students.
In my thirties, I could still find a lot of similarities with my twenty-something students.  But now, in my forties?  Not so much.  What I’ve started to realize is that it isn’t just the little things, like whether they’ve seen Ghostbusters.  (They haven’t.)  It’s the big things, like how they learn.  These students, for the most part, had vastly different high school experiences than I did. This is mostly due to advancements in technology, but also to evolving philosophies and paradigms that have emerged alongside technology.
My six-year-old son doesn’t find iPads amazing; to him, they’ve always just existed.  Similarly, to a lot of students today, experiences like team exercises and flipped classrooms, while foreign to many instructors, are not new.  If we care about reaching today’s students, who seem to have a different idea of student responsibilities than we had, perhaps we have to reach them on their terms.

Navigating the Digital Divide

But here’s the problem. Remember Wayne’s World?  (Your students don’t).  One of my favorite movie quotes ever is spoken by Dana Carvey’s character Garth:  “We fear change.”  These three little words explain a lot of the things that have frustrated me as an educator for the past fifteen years.  What I realized this summer, however, is that these three words explain me as well!  I don’twant to change how I teach because students are differently prepared today than in the past. I’m afraid of changing things that have been working for me. Simple as that.
It was that last thought that led to my recent epiphany.  How well are things really working if exam grades go down every semester?  How well are things working if I find that I’m more tired at the end of lecture than I used to be, or that I have less energy during it?  How well are things working if the students aren’t paying any attention?  Knowing when it’s time to shake things up is a significant challenge; but once you’re ready, here are four teaching strategies you can use.
At first I’d prepared these activities in case I needed to fill some time, but I’ve realized that planningto use interactive classroom activities intentionally can really transform the learning dynamic. Here are 4 to get you started:

1. Open-Ended Questions

This doesn’t take any planning.  All it takes is a class with at least one student who isn’t too shy.  I remember a class a few semesters ago that started with nine students.  Due to a couple of medical conditions and a job opportunity, three of the students had to drop during the semester.  The problem was that these three students were the ones I counted on to ask questions and keep the class lively!  Once I was left with six introverted people, conversations during class seemed to stop.
By luck, I stumbled on something that got the students talking again.  I said, “What has been the most difficult thing about [the project that was due soon]?”  This opened the floodgates — students love to complain, especially about us and our demands.  This one simple question led to twenty minutes of discussion, involving all six students.  I wasn’t even sure what a couple of these students’ voices sounded like, but once I gave them an open-ended opportunity to complain about an assignment, they were off to the races.

2. What’s Wrong With This Example?

Students also love to find a professor’s mistakes– like me, I’m sure you’ve found this out the hard way.  I teach Computer Science, so I will make up a program that, for instance, performs the wrong arithmetic, and have students find the bug.  In a particularly quiet or disengaged class, you can incentivize students with 5 points on the next exam, or something similar.  If you teach History, you might use flawed examples that change a key person’s name, such as “King Henry VIII (instead of King John) signed the Magna Carta in 1215,” or match a person to an incorrect event: “Gavrilo Princip is considered to have fired the first shot in the Spanish Civil War (instead of World War I).”  Beam these examples on the whiteboard, and let the students’ competitiveness drive them to get the right answer before their classmates.

3. Let Students Critique Each Other

This can go badly if you don’t set some ground rules for civility, but done well, it can really open a class up.  One of my colleagues devised a great exercise: First, give students about half of the class time to write instructions that an imaginary robot can understand to draw a recognizable picture, like a corporate logo, without telling students what will happen later.  Then assign each student’s instructions to a randomly-chosen classmate, and have the classmate pretend to be the robot, attempting to follow the instructions and draw the same logo.
After a few minutes, call on a specific student to share their results with the class, then ask their partner to share the initial instructions.  This method gives students a chance to communicate with each other — That’s not what I meant! — and laugh, and bond, while learning an important lesson. This exercise teaches Computer Science students the difficulty and importance of writing clear instructions.  I have seen this exercise not only teach pairs of such students meaningful lessons, but encourage friendships that extended beyond my classroom.

4. Embrace Technology

I know how some of you will want to react to the idea of learning about new technology to use in the classroom.  “Easy for you to say!  You’re young, and you teach Computer Science!”  You don’t have to say it; my colleagues already have.  But technology is here, and it isn’t going away.  Computers and the Internet are as natural to our students as a blackboard is to us.  Using the tools they find in their world can help students to feel more comfortable in class, which can help them open up and interact.
I have heard colleagues of mine recommend the use of student engagement systems like Top Hat in their classes.  Even Twitter can be used to improve student interaction. Since you and your students are probably already coming to class with laptops, tablets, and/or smartphones, digital tools like Twitter and Top Hat are easy to roll out and adopt.  Some professors use EdTech like Top Hat to ask multiple-choice questions during class to gauge student understanding and harness students’ attention.  Others use Top Hat or Twitter as a way for students to provide feedback during class without having to raise their hands or speak out loud.

Interactive Classroom Activities In Short

Making your classes more interactive should help your students want to come to class and take part in it.  Giving them a more active role will give them a sense of ownership, and this can lead to students taking more pride in their work and responsibility for their grades.  Also, many people tend to learn better by doing than by watching or listening.
A more interactive class can also make things easier for you–the more work students do in class, the less you have to do.  I’m not telling you to be lazy; I’m telling you to use your time wisely.  Even two minutes of not talking can re-energize you for the rest of the class.
These 4 methods outlined above don’t require any large-scale changes to your class prep.  Set up a couple of activities in advance here and there, to support the stuff you’ve been doing, and plan which portion of your class will feature them. This small investment of your time should result in making everyone happier to be in the classroom.

School Vocabulary Word List

A answer arithmetic assignment atlas B backpack ballpoint pen binder blackboard book bookmark C calculator calendar chalk chalk board classroom clip board colored pencils compass composition book computer construction paper crayons D desk dictionary dividers dry-erase board E easel encyclopedia english eraser exam examination experiment

F flash cards folder G gel pen geography globe glue gluestick grades gym H highlighter history hole punch homework I ink intelligent K keyboard L language laptop learn lesson library looseleaf paper lunch lunch box

M map markers math mathematics mechanical pencil memo pad memorize mortar board N notebook P pad of paper paper paper clip paper punch paste pen pencil pencil pouch pencil sharpener physical education portfolio poster paint principal printer project protractor pupil push pin Q question quiz

R reading recess rubber bands ruler S science scissors sharpener smart spiral notebook stapler staple remover student T tape teacher test thesaurus think thumb tack V vocabulary W watercolos whiteboard word problems word processor world map writing Y yardstick

The History of English in 10 Minutes

5 Fun Activities for Practicing English Adjectives

Twenty-One Questions

Twenty-One Questions is one of my go to games in my ESL classes. It takes no preparation, and students enjoy it. Plus you don’t have to take a lot of time to play. One round can take five minutes or several rounds can fill an entire class period. The standard rules make it great for ESL students, but don’t stop there. You can play this game with a twist that will emphasize the use of adjectives, especially for the person who picks the object.

Normally when you play, one person picks an object, and the rest of the class asks yes/no questions, up to twenty-one of them, to try and narrow down what the object is. By question number twenty-one, the class has to guess what the object is or the individual who chose it wins the round. To stress the use of adjectives, change how the individual answers the questions. Instead of a simple yes or no, she has to use an adjective in her answer. She might say the object is bigger than that or it’s black or whatever comes to mind. The guessers will have a great advantage with this information, so cut the number of questions, too. I recommend giving them eleven questions to guess the object, but you can do whatever works best for your class. The important piece is that the individual answering the questions gets plenty of practice using adjectives during the round.

What’s in the Room?

What’s in the room: students play this game with a partner. One person secretly chooses one item in the room, and the other person must guess what that item is. The first player gives an adjective that describes the object. Then the second player gets to guess what it is. If the second player is wrong, the first player gives another adjective and the second player guesses again. Play continues this way until the second player guesses the correct object. The goal for the first player, however, is to stump their opponent for as long as possible. When the second player finally guesses the correct object, the first player scores one point for every adjective she had to give before the second player got the answer right. So if she gave five adjectives before the other player guessed the object, she scores five points. Then players switch roles. The person with the most points at the end of the game wins. This is a great way for students to practice less common adjectives. You might even want to use this game as a tie in to teaching students how to use a thesaurus.

Like Peas and Carrots

If you make flash cards with vocabulary words, this is a great way to challenge your students to review their vocabulary while thinking creatively. You can also use a picture dictionary, photos from magazines, or any other source of nouns. If your items are on cards, gather several cards with nouns on them and shuffle them into one stack. Then have a student choose two cards. That person must then make a comparative statement that ties the two nouns together. For example, if the student drew elephant and spaceship, she might say an elephant is slower than a spaceship. If you are working with a dictionary or magazine pictures and you don’t want to cut up your pages, have students close their eyes and put one finger from each hand on the picture. Whatever their fingers are touching are the two objects they must compare.

The Longest Sentence

This is a fun game for the entire class to play. Start with a very simple sentence that has at least two nouns. For example, the man found a goat. Then challenge students to add one word to the sentence at a time making the sentence longer and longer. If it is your turn and you cannot think of another word to add to the sentence, you are eliminated for this round. This is a great activity to talk about order of adjectives in English, especially since many ESL students may think all adjectives are equal in English. If you are unsure aboutEnglish adjective order, it is generally quantity/number, quality/opinion, size, age, shape, color, proper adj., purpose/qualifier noun. The more adjectives you add to a sentence, the more careful you and your students will have to be about where to place it.

Opposite Adjectives Race

Your students will have fun competing with their peers and practicing their antonyms in the process. Divide your class into two teams, and have each team line up facing the front of the classroom. You give an adjective to the first person in one of the lines, and that person has three seconds to give you the opposite adjective. If you say old, they say young. Happy/sad, big/little, dark/light, fat/skinny, etc. If they give you the correct opposite, they get to return to their seat. If they do not give the correct opposite, they go to the back of their team’s line. Then go to the other team and repeat the process. The first team to have all of their students sitting back in their seats wins the game.

6 Keys to Students Solving Language Struggles on Their Own

Do Nothing

Yes, that’s right. Sometimes the most effective feedback you can give your student when they make a mistake is to do absolutely nothing. Maintain eye contact as if waiting for them to continue after they make a mistake. When you do, the silence in the conversation will signal your student that something is wrong, and the feedback mechanism in the brain will kick in and review what they just said. Often that is enough for your ESL student to find her mistake and correct it. If not, you can try prompting her a little more directly. Repeat what she said up until the mistake and then wait. For example, if she said, “I will go to the mall in Sunday.” You might follow up by saying, “You will go to the mall…” That will signal where the mistake in the sentence occurred and help your student pinpoint what they need to correct if they didn’t discover it during your intentional silence.

Put Student’s on Their Guard

If you have taught for any length of time, you have seen that speakers of certain first languages tend to make the same mistakes when learning English. For example, Japanese students often drop their articles or the plural -s when they are learning English. You can put your native Japanese speaking students on their guard for these errors by simply pointing out the tendency. Take your Japanese students aside and teach them the errors common for Japanese speakers learning English. Then encourage them to pay particular attention to those areas of English when they talk. On another day, take your Spanish speakers aside and point out to them the errors that native Spanish speakers tend to make while learning English. You can do this for every group of first language speakers in your class. And if you are teaching English overseas and your entire class speaks the same first language, do the lesson as an entire class. Just by pointing out what to look for, your students will be able to avoid many mistakes that might otherwise trip them up.

Maintain a Student Centered Class

As teachers, we naturally fall into the trap of doing too much talking. We are the ones with the information. We know what our students need to learn. (We have to cover the material on the syllabus.) All of this can make for a very teacher centered class – one where you are the focus. A better atmosphere in an English as a second language class is a student centered class. This means that your students are the main focus in class. They do most of the talking. They are up front. They take a greater part in their own learning. And as a result, they will take a greater part in making sure their English is correct. When students are constantly looking to you for approval, direction, and correction, they will also look to you to find their mistakes, and their awareness of their own errors decreases. So be sure that your class is student centered, that you keep teacher talk time to a minimum, that your students are speaking to each other more than they are speaking to you, and that your students have some input as to what you do in class. In so doing, they will take greater responsibility for their language learning including correcting their own mistakes.

Teach Students to Use a Dictionary

How can students look up correct information in English if they don’t understand how to use a dictionary?And by dictionary I mean an English only dictionary, not a translator. Teach your students how to check a dictionary to learn or confirm spelling. Show them how words are arranged on the page. Teach them the system by which word pronunciation is notated in the dictionary. If you can, teach them English phonics which will help them spell out and then locate unfamiliar words. It will take some time at the start to teach your students how to smoothly navigate a dictionary. But if you take the time up front, it will pay off in the long run when your students are able to identify and correct the words they hear and use.

Do Error Corrections

You might be surprised how many habitual student errors can be dealt with by having students correct sentences at the start of your class period. They key is getting the right sentences on the board for students to correct. Pay attention to the errors you hear from your students. Make note of the exact sentences they use. (Try jotting them down on a sticky note when you hear them and then coming back to them at a later time.) Then put one or two of those sentences on the board each day. Don’t say where they came from. Just tell your students that the sentences contain errors and they should correct those errors. If you like, tell students just how many errors are in each sentence. This process will give you a quick and easy way to clarify grammar points and make students are more aware of those same mistakes. After using this system for a while, you will see student errors decrease and self-correction of those errors increase.

Peer Policing

Policing is probably too strong a word to describe having your students note the errors of their classmates.Perhaps monitor is a better choice. Regardless of what you call it, putting your students in charge of finding errors in their classmates’ speech will increase self-correction among your entire class. The next time you are doing a group speaking activity such as a discussion, put one person in each group in charge of noting the errors the members of his group make while they discuss. After the discussion, ask each of your monitors to share some of the errors they heard without sharing the name of the person who made the error. You can take a mere ten minutes or up to thirty minutes or longer to discuss the errors your students made during their discussion period. When the monitor makes a point of noticing errors in others’ spoken English, they will naturally become more aware of errors in their own as well. Make sure you rotate the monitoring responsibility so all of your students get a chance to play good cop (or bad cop), and you will see a positive effect on each person’s ability to self-correct.