Have fun with English
Enjoy learning English with a wide range of activities for foreign learners!!
Welcome to HAVE FUN WITH ENGLISH
I would like to welcome all students at the EOI Pontevedra to a blog where they will find a lot of information about the school together with a wide range of activities to practise and improve their English. I´m sure most of them will find the activities in the blog both amusing and enjoyable! Hope you learn a lot... and please, let me know if there is anything you want me to include!!
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
WHY TEACHING SHADOWING IS A MUST FOR TEACHERS!
Saturday, 11 March 2023
AI IN THE CLASSROOM: GIVE CHATGPT A TRY AND YOU´LL NEVER REGRET IT!
No wonder why #ChatGPT is all the rage among ESL teachers right now! It is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to generate human-like text and assist various teaching tasks such as creating content, generating dialogues in English, providing language exercises and quizzes and even helping with pronunciation and grammar. You name it!
I have been trying it lately to enhance my teaching practice and provide my students with rich language-learning experiences. In fact, I have noticed that I am slowly adopting it as a great new tool to obtain quick accurate responses to a great number of queries, among other interesting ideas that I am also exploring!
My last attempt was aimed at my C1 students, as we were about to wrap up a unit on consumerism and fast fashion. I asked Chat GPT to come up with a list of five short advantages and disadvantages of built-in obsolescence. For me, this should be a practice that we might tend to avoid when it comes to production. That was why I found it really hard to make up some real advantages! As Chat GPT did the trick for me, I eventually gathered ten wonderful statements that I have used to create a #Genially presentation where students will be asked to drag and drop the prompts into the right column (for or against), trying to reach an agreement first. Just as easy as pie!
Hopefully, it will spark discussion in class as I will definitely ask the group to take a clear position on the issue using the vocabulary presented and also some other expressions we have already learned, once they have completed the columns.
I hope you find this board useful! Enjoy!
Wednesday, 1 March 2023
RETRIEVAL PRACTICE: HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE ESL CLASSROOM
Some of you, maybe my most beloved followers, already know that yesterday I took part in a webinar by @linguascope. I was privileged enough to share knowledge and expertise with @CristaHazell and I am still thrilled about the experience.
I had always been keen on retrieving information in class, even before I knew what it really was and the great benefits it provides both students and teachers with. So, when Crista asked me to join the Linguascope webinars, I did not doubt it. I knew retrieval practice would be my thing! I have read a lot about the issue, also implemented a lot of strategies in class, being and the big three (Brain Dump - Cops and Robbers and the Elimination chain) my favourite ones, of course!
If you are interested, you can watch the webinar through the Linguascope app and also have a sneak peek at my presentation below.
Monday, 10 October 2022
OUR SCHOOL LIBRARY PAYS OFF, DOESN'T IT!
Hi there!👋
As you all know, our school library has already opened its doors and we want you all to come and pay a visit! That is why you are more than welcome to take the school library quiz: Just visit the library any time you are at school and have a look at all the books and amazing things on offer. Once you are ready, fill in the quiz you will find on one of the tables and keep your fingers crossed! You might get a stroke of luck and become our big winner! 💪
Have a look at the school library blog for more info. Do not hesitate to visit! Coveted prizes are at stake here!
Please, enjoy your reading adventures!
Monday, 19 September 2022
WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL!
As usual at the beginning of the course, I have been figuring out how to welcome my C1 students as we arrive in class. I have even been scanning previous posts looking for a flash of sheer inspiration and I have been lucky enough to bump into it! I am going to re-use an activity I did a couple of years ago to re-think the classic getting-to-know-each-other idea. Hopefully, my students will be able to set their own learning goals together to progress over the next ten months. Although it looks like a long time... time does fly! So, let's get ready to give the new school year our best shot!
Friday, 20 May 2022
END-OF-THE-YEAR REVISION GAME
All good things must come to an end... and this school year is no different! That is why I usually tend to finish my last class of the year on a happy note. If that does not get my students into the right mood to enroll in our school again, I have no idea what will!
Since this year I am into #RetrievalPractice and boosting long-term learning, I decided to put a new class game into practice: a Retrieval Bingo Game. Also, I added an unexpected twist by using wheeldecide.com, which spiced up the atmosphere. I must say it worked out quite well in the end! Here is how we played:
Go to wheeldecide.com and create a wheel with the titles of all the units you have covered in the year. Just in case you need an example, this is what the roulette looked like for my C1.1 "Blended" students.
When in class, give each student a bingo card like the one below (click here for a sample model in Spanish that you can customize to your own needs!) and explain that, as in any bingo game, the final aim of the game is to complete their card so that they shout bingo! as loud as they can.
First, students should be asked to fill in the questions themselves before they start playing. To do just that, ask them to spin the wheel one at a time to write one question for every single unit in the year. Students complete their cards individually as units pop up on the screen. They can write true-false questions, multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions... on anything in the units: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation... you name it! Here is one example: I know little about mediation. Re-write the sentence using inversion. Promise your students will come up with much better questions! Let them know that creativity is power and, when it comes to learning a language, it also means progress!
At the end of the game, I awarded a certificate to the student with the highest number of correct answers and covered the questions that were left unanswered. It was a fun, furious and very compelling way to retrieve course content that students had almost forgotten!
Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
Tuesday, 26 April 2022
POETRY WORKSHOP AT SCHOOL
👋 Dear all,
As you all know, poetry is one of the most elegant forms of human expression. From the Iliad by Homer to the Road not taken by Frost, there is a poem for every purpose.
As with any form of writing, a poem can be hard to create but also enormously pleasant... So, up for a creative challenge? With the right approach and the necessary help, you can easily start writing a poem of your own.
Connect with other students at school in our poetry workshop with the Galician writer, Tamara Andrés, next Tuesday 3 May at 18.00 and unleash the poet in you!
Hope to see you all there!