Hello from Argentina!

[Cecilia]

Hi everybody! Glad to join the group. I am a teacher of English at secondary school. I have 40 students in each class and I need some help on games that could be done with a crowded classroom. :?
We practise mainly verb tenses and drills have become useful and funny.
Any suggestions?
Thanks a lot.
Cecilia

[nimloth]

Hello Cecilia,

Verb tenses made me think of a game that we played in German when we learned them all.Maybe you can do it with your class as well( I hope you don't know it yet)

You devide the class into two groups. One person of the first group says an infinitive, such as to look, a person like he and the tense,maybe simple past. So one person of the other group has to say he looked.
If the student knew the right answer, his group gets one point. if not,the other group.
Then it the second group's turn.

Greets from Germany,
nimloth

[Cecilia]

Thank you very much for this soon reply. I'm afraid that's what I've been doing and a bit more, I divide the class into several groups and they are in charge of a "tense". I say the infinitive form, and each group, aprox 6, says the verb in the tense they have to.
It is very simple and funny. I am planning to take a sand clock with me so that they don't have too much time to answer.

Of course I think of different rules for this game each time we play, for example, the students in each group must take turns to answer (I want them all to speak, even those who are very shy).
Another rule is to change tenses and groups every three verbs according to a diagram on the blackboard. They have to pay a lot of attention to the verb and to the tense!
The result: we have a nice time, we laugh a lot and, I hope, they learn!

Thanks again,
Cecilia

[taobao]

great to have you here ,I know a little of your country , but I know your coutry 's football is excellent l: do you like football?
do you tell something about your coutry and yourself?thank you!

[Kid A]

Hello and Welcome!
How old are your students? I've started to learn English in grade 9, when I was 15 years old. Our teacher tried to speak as much English as possible with us and we often have to do presentations.
The best thing we've done was a discussion. He gave us a topic and we had different parts. The question we had to discuss about was a politic one, and so we were members of different political groups.
He filmed our discussion and showed it to us later. It was very funny and we had the chance to hear ourselves speak.
I don't know if that is a good suggestion for you, but we haven't played any games yet. But we don't have to learn every single verb and its tenses by heart. Our teacher talks so much English to us, that you somehow know them automatically.

Let's hear something about yourself!
Isabel

[Cecilia]

Hi again!

Well, don't know if it is the answer you've wanted but here it goes.
I have been teaching for 20 years to different levels and ages, privately and at schools, in my own city and out of it.

Now I am teaching at secondary school to teenagers aged 15 to 18.
I really love what I do, I enjoy it and they seem to do the same.
We follow the text units (syllabus) (Lifelines Pre Int. is the name of the book) but I try to play games or do something different every class, sometimes we can, sometimes we cannot.
I think that our good relationship is so because they see they learn every class and that without work in class and at home, this process is not possible.

I've found it important to connect what they do in the other subjects and in the English classes. We have a project for the second part of the school year.
We've chosen "Important women through History" and yes, I want them to speak as much as possible, so they'll choose a name from my list, they'll do some research and they'll speak about her (in groups of three the most).
It's something I haven't done before and if it is successful we may change topics. (boys don't like to speak about women... ) May be "Important men", or sports later on.

Football. :? mmm... I'm afraid I don't like it very much, but I watch the important matches on TV with my husband and my little daughter. They both are Boca fans where our Maradona used to play.

Please feel free to ask what you want, I hope I can be of help.

Cecilia

[Kid A]

Hello!
What you've told sounds pretty cool. Did you move to Argentinia or have you been born there?

Well, your idea with the different topics and the groups is exactly what we do often in our English lessons. I'm a student and so I can tell you that I love that way to learn the English language. But in my class there are also many people who hate that, because they don't want to stand in front of the others and some of them are too shy to talk without a text in their hands. But to talk without notes or help is the most useful way to learn.

What I do in my freetime (because I love the English language) is to read English books, to translate Englisch lyrics and to watch English TV-shows. At the moment I'm absolutely in to the Tour the France on International EuroSport, because they've got great (I don't know the word for "Kommentator") speakers(???). And because I've got summer holidays I watch the Conan O'Brien late-night show on CNBC Europe. I love this man, sometimes he's just so stupid that you have to laugh.
But sometimes I cannot understand his jokes, because he takes the mickey out of American stars I don't know.

When do you have summer holidays?
Isabel