ESL Activities to Get your Classes More Enjoyable

Both teaching and learning English has been a very enjoyable activity for teachers and students but sometimes the hours we spend on teaching and learning may turn into nightmare because of the boring course books, grammar topics and listening sessions. At that point comes the importance of using out-of-classroom and authentic activities in ESL classrooms. By using these activities, you do not only get your students immersed in the lesson but also you enjoy yourself and turn your profession into a hobby.

OK, you have decided to take authentic activities to your classroom instead of studying those mechanic and boring course books but can not find them. Then, you must look around more carefully because everywhere is full of those activities on the internet, even it is possible for you to create your own activity. Just focus on the skill which you want your students to acquire and try to be a little bit creative and you will find out that the rest is as easy as a pie.

Is finding activities on the internet enough? Of course not. There are different considerations you should carefully think on before you take your activity to the classroom. For instance first and the most important one is the level of your group. If you happen to take a very difficult activity to a beginner’s class it may discourage your students or if you take a very easy one to an upper intermediate classroom you may lead them to lose their concentration. So always take the level of your group into consideration.

Other two important points are age and sex. You do not try to teach an adult group aged over thirty with a child’s play and you can not discuss world’s politics in a children’s classroom. On the other hand, from the point of sex, you should not try to talk about soccer with the girls, whereas boys do not like to talk about fashion most of the time and you would not talk it with them.

The last but not the least advice is, never forget to update your activities. And try to be up to date as much as possible. At the time of Christmas it would be a good idea to talk about Christmas and teach your students a couple of words about it or sports organizations such as football championships or the Olympic Games always takes the attention of the language students. If a song hits the lists in the country, just take that song to your classroom and a complete the gaps activity with some missing words on a worksheet would be very useful. Such activities keep the language classes alive and everybody is interested in a popular song. You can even use translation method to get your students understand the song better.

Sometimes, a little article from a newspaper is a great source in the classroom. Read today’s paper and if you run through a story which can make your students talk about it do not hesitate to use it as a teaching material.

Language is not only a science but also a living thing, thus, it always changes. And a language can not be jailed in the course books. That’s why, out-of-classroom materials must be used in a language classroom.