Workshop for ESL teachers

1. It´s time
to
learn!

2. Creativity
in class for
outstanding results
August 28th
, 2013

3. Off-line Ideas

4. List –O-Mania
e.g.
List as many...
family members / classroom items / kinds of TV
shows / city words / human or natural
wonders...
as you can.

5. Show me the answer!
Using true/false cards, hand signals,
different colored cards etc.

6. Pictionary
e.g. Give students concepts/ideas/things to draw
while others have to guess what they are

7. Freeze Frame
You are working on a farm in Africa supplying Cadbury’s
with cocoa to make chocolate. The weather is hot, the
work hard and you are paid very little.
Individually/pair/group produce a freeze frame
showing the scene.
- Could adapt to all manner of scenes, or give pupils the
topic area and ask them to produce an appropriate
freeze frame that other students must then try and
decipher.

8. Freeze Frame

9. Pupil as Teacher
e.g. One (or more?) pupil is the teacher.
They have to summarise the last lesson(s) and
question the class on what was studied.

10. A - Z
e.g. Write down a key/related word for our topic area
for as many letters of the alphabet as you can.
Arms
Bay
Conflict
Darfur
Earth
Freedom
Guantanamo
Harm

11. Tell me three things...
...about the topic we are studying.
...you learnt in the last lessons.
...that help explain present perfect.
...to make your personal information safe.
...that are happening in your life these days.
...to stay in shape.
...that the students are wearing.

12. 10 words
Give me ten words related to…
.

13. Uncover
Can you
guess what
it is yet?
Can you
guess what
it is yet?
Can you
guess what
it is yet?
Can you
guess what
it is yet?
Back To Starter

14. Silent Instructions
Students are in pairs. One receives an instruction and must
convey this to their partner without speaking (or writing).

15. Pass the Parcel
Wrap up an object related to the lesson and play pass the parcel.

16. Mood
Decide on a particular mood you would like students to begin
your lesson with – calm, attentive, enthusiastic etc.
Ask them to role-play this mood; take them through a series of
different scenarios in which they must maintain it. Then slip into
the lesson itself and return to the role-play if and when
required.

17. Summary
Ask students to provide a summary of what they learnt last
lesson or across the unit asking for different styles,
i.e. a newspaper report, 60-second news-flash, mime

18. Venn Diagram
Make a life-size one using rope and words written on A4
paper for students to hold.

19. Venn Diagram

20. Top Ranking
- An action movie
- An animated film
- A horror movie
- A musical
- A romantic comedy
- A science fiction movie
- A thriller
- A war movie
Rank these kinds of movies in order of fun.
Be prepared to justify your answer.

21. Recipe Time
• A verb with the -ing form
• A complement
• A subject
• Verb to Be in present
What is this the recipe for?

22. Take a bag into the classroom that
contains an object which has a
connection to the lesson.
Pass it around and let the students
feel the object inside the bag.
The first person to guess
what it is could be rewarded
with a merit.
Mystery Bag

23. What’s the topic?

24. Just a Minute
One pupil starts to speak about a topic. At the
first repetition, pause or mistake another
takes over - and so on until the minute is up.

25. Animal Madness
- Think of five ways to make a snake happy
- If hippos ruled the world, what would we see?
- Explain five differences between a giraffe and
an elephant
- And five similarities
What animal would make the best teacher
or police officer? Why?

26. What would win?
Choose any two items...
Trevor and Monty
A dolphin and a snake
Harry Potter and Sean Penn
Then...ask why!

27. What’s the Story?
Give pupils cards with words or pictures on and ask them to
sequence this to tell a story (or could put words/pictures on
board).

28. Continuum
Make a continuum in the room with strongly for and strongly
against at either end. As students come in tell them the
proposition and that they must justify the position on the
continuum they choose.
Do you have a busy week?
Do you have good
neighbors?

29. Have I seen you somewhere before?
Give students key word cards to sort and ask them to place in
piles of –
I know you
I think I’ve seen you somewhere before
We’ve never met!

30. Connections
Ask a student to suggest a word. You say a word that is related.
(E.G. if the word is ‘football’ you might say ‘goal’. )
The next student says a word connected with the previous word.
(E.G. ‘goal’, ‘net’ and so on.)
Players take turns.
They are allowed thinking time, but can be challenged by any
other player to explain the connection between their word and
the previous word.
Back To Starters

31. Get In Character
Set a few questions ready on the board.
As students come in, hand them character cards
(could be generic e.g. Businessman, teacher, student
specific e.g. Gordon Brown, George Bush, Boris Johnson
emotional e.g. An angry, impatient, happy person
Or whatever you want!)
and ask them to answer the questions in character.

32. Pair It Up
Hand out a set of cards that students have to sort into matching
pairs.
e.g. adjective blue
verb seven
noun luckily
color beautiful
number tree
adverb work

33. My Word!
Students are given (or choose) a word related to the topic. They
must stand up and point to someone in the class who must
then give the meaning. That person then chooses the next
person to pose a word.

34. Analogies
Petra is to Jordan
as
the Copper Canyon is to ______
Give students two lists that they must form into analogies
e.g. vocabulary adjective
verb verb form
pronoun auxiliary

35. Sculpture
Start the lesson by handing out some materials to groups and
asking them to sculpt a concept, idea, lesson objective from
earlier.
Develop by setting a specific design (i.e. an animal, the end of a
story or Henry VIII
with success criteria – can be esoteric as well as literal.)

36. Sculpture
Writing Activity
Most people throw away...

37. Genre
Take a story from the book and ask students to re-
write or re-act it in a given genre.

38. Genre

39. Online Ideas

40. Livebinders

41. Voki.com

42. TodaysMeet

43. Gracias
Http://MissNataliaGonzalez.pbworks.com