All You Need is Paper (and a little love) ESL/EFL activities

And so we are back again! I made these paper bracelets for the first day of my second grade group. The intention was for the students to have a fun reminder of their every so often scary first day. I used a heart shape puncher for the word love and wrote the rest, of course, you can also print the bracelets and have the kids color them. The best part of the class was while I was placing the bracelet on a little boy and explaining to him what it meant, he said, "It's true. I really did love it." Aaaawwwnnn heart melt :)

Today I worked with a group of adults who were lower intermediate or maybe high beginners. Well, feel free to name them whatever you want. The topic of the class was places in a city, there is/there are and can. The tricky part was that I had 4 hours with them. So, after the usual homework correction, I explored some pictures with them of some common places in a city. After they showed me they had understood all the vocabulary, I asked them to draw their own cities in groups of 4. They had to draw some but not all of the places mentioned in the book. One of the good things was that they asked a lot of questions and came up with a lot of words on their own. When they were done, each group had to present their city to the class using there is, there are and the negatives: there’s no or there aren’t any . Everybody in the group was supposed to say at least 2 sentences about their city, most said more. They also had to make up a name for their town. After their presentation, I gave t...

Asking students to correctly put the lines from a dialogue in order is nothing new, so I added a sentence which was not from the original dialogue to give it a twist. I divided my group of teens into 3 and gave them each the lines of the dialogue all in the same color. They had just a few minutes to order the lines and discover the odd one out. They all then compared their answers and noticed their odd lines were different but they were right. I had written different wrong lines for each group. When they were done comparing, I asked them why they had chosen their specific sentence and why it didn’t fit in. Last, we listened to the dialogue as they followed along with their lines.

I always like to use what my students make as flashcards. They’ll pay a lot more attention and be more engaged if it’s their work you’re talking about. We’ve been studying food and we also listened to a story about a giant and his hunger for a big sandwich so we made giant paper sandwiches.  At the beginning of each class, I use one of their sandwiches to review vocabulary. I not only ask what is this? but also how many, what color, do you like and what’s your favorite. Their favorite question is: Whose sandwich is this? because then they get to proudly answer: It’s my sandwich.   Here are some before and after pictures. 

My fourth grade bilingual class read a story about the life of Ida Lewis, a famous heroic lighthouse keeper who lived in Rhode Island. After we read and discussed the story, I had them choose four important parts of the story. They had to draw these important moments on a paper circle divided into four parts. We then cut out another circle the same size as the first with an opening so we could see each drawing separately. The students put the circles together with a brad. When they were done, they shared their circles with their classmates and had to retell each part of the story to their friends. It was a great way for me to check they had understood the story and knew how to use the new words.

My little ones are now studying food. We started with a salad and a cookie for dessert. I plan to use their work as flashcards in the following classes. Kids are always much more engaged if it’s their work you’re using to teach and review. I also plan to have them ask each other questions about their delicious colorful salads. I was amazed at how much effort they put into making these. Very pleased with the results and the many opportunities of classroom practice they offer.

O ur new unit is about sea creatures and going to the beach. In one class, we made pails and decorated them with the different sea animals we were studying about. Each student got to say what was on their pail. The following class the students helped me count seashells. If the student said the number of the shell correctly, they got to place it in their pail. We later looked for some seashells which were hidden around the classroom. At the end of the class, each student made their own seashell to add to their collection and take home to count with their families. Aren't all the colors beautiful?