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vocabulary

Linking words: Who am I?

Astrid van Houwelingen

Students are often asked to study new words from vocabulary lists. If they are lucky, these words have been presented to them in a reading or listening task. More often than not, these words are studied in isolation and are produced only in translation or gap-fill activities. Yet, we want students to be able to reproduce them in their own speaking and writing.

This activity invites students to consider when and how words are used. It also invites them to create new contexts in which they can incorporate these newly learnt vocabulary items.

The Basics

Level: A2-C2 (Elementary – Advanced)
Focus: Learning new linking words, using linking words, speaking, writing
Time: 30 minutes
Materials: Post-its, overview of linking words, white board, several markers

Aim

Adding to student’s knowledge of linking words. Knowing a variety of linking words will allow students to become more proficient readers, writers, speakers and listeners. It will become easier for them to make and follow an argument.

The Task

1. Before starting on the assignment, ask students what they already know about linking words. Let your students complete a mindmap, focussing on what linking words are and why the students should become more familiar with them. This should give both you and your students a chance to reflect on what they know and why the upcoming assignment is important.

When everyone is up to speed on the what and why, it is time to dive a little deeper into the material.

2. Provide students with an overview of the linking words you would like them to become more familiar with. This can be taken from the course book or an online list of words such as this one.

3. Hand out sticky notes and invite students to choose a linking word from the list. They should keep this word secret and stick it on their fellow student’s back or forehead.

4. Now the fun starts. Students walk around and ask their fellow students questions such as: ‘Can you use my linking word when you want to connect ideas?’ or ‘Would you use my linking word if you want to give a reason for your argument?’ The fellow student can only answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Note: Because you would like students to be confronted with as many linking words as possible, you should stimulate your students to ask only one question to one student. This requires them to think about the function of multiple linking words. It also allows them to move around, which energizes them and lets them blow off some steam (if necessary). Feel free to explain the reason for this rule with students who are hesitant to move around.

5. Once a student knows their category, they can start to find out which specific linking word they have on their sticky note. Students should request a gapped sentence from their classmates: ‘Could you create a sencence where my linking word could be used?’ This forces both students to consider the function of the linking word in context. Struggling students could enlist the help of a dictionary to find an example sentence.

6. Once a student knows which linking word they have, invite them to the whiteboard and let them create a sentence with the linking word underlined. Ask them to go back to their seats when finished.

7. When everyone has written down their sentences, review the most remarkable or difficult ones with the class. Does the class feel the linking word has been used correctly? If not, how can the sentence be improved?

Note: With larger classes you could ask students to share their sentences in small groups and give each other feedback on them. The students could provide you with their most remarkable sentence or a sentence they were unsure about. These could be discussed with the whole class.

8. If present, you could ask students to do the assignments from the coursebook to check their understanding. Alternatively, let them write a paragraph including some of the linking words that they have learnt that lesson.

Additional ideas

Who am I? works well with linking words but could also be applied to reviewing vocabulary. Students pick a word from the words they studied previously and go about asking ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions as well as gapped sentences to figure out which word is on their sticky note. Asking them to create their own sentence with the word allows them to consider when and how a word could be used.

Over to you: Do you have fun ways of teaching linking words or other cohesive devices? I’m always up for a great new idea to try out with my students.

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid

Teaching Reflections

This one is for the doubters

Astrid van Houwelingen

Yes, but what if it all works out?

— Omdenken.

But I have to…

First and foremost, we want our students to learn. But how that is done is often not determined by a teacher’s or student’s needs. There are governmental regulations, curriculum demands, schoolboard requirements, coursebooks, standardized tests, colleagues that have decided that their way of teaching is THE way of teaching and parents who need their children to score particularly well on your subject and know exactly how that should be done.

These conditions are all real. We as teachers have to manage these demands and requirements every lesson. It is easy to forget that learning is about student growth rather than following a curriculum. Yes, the curriculum is designed to instigate that growth, but let’s not forget there are many ways to get there. There is the coursebook’s way, the standardized test’s way, the way your colleague has been doing it for years and there is your way. A way that suits you and your students.

But often we forget there is a ‘your way’. We whip out the coursebook and assign a task which teaches the students to fill in the right form of this or that grammar item. We let them read a text and ask them to answer some questions on it, checking their understanding of what they have read. We check the work, assign some homework and move on to the next lot of students to repeat this once more.

Pretty boring if you ask me. But like many other teachers, I felt there was little room for ‘my way’. There was a planning to adhere to. Parallel classes to keep up with. A standardized test to prepare them for and a school board to convince that I am a ‘proper’ teacher.

My epiphany (and hopefully yours as well)

With a boring lesson, I did convince my superior that I was a ‘proper’ teacher. I was lucky enough that he tasted some of my unhappiness about the lesson that I had just let him observe. When I grieved my concerns about trying to not fall out of line, he reminded me of the simple fact that there are many ways to achieving the same result. A fact that I had totally and completely forgotten.

I was so concerned with all of the requirements that I had forgotten to have fun with it. And it showed. I felt uninspired and my students dreaded going to my classes. Something needed to change.

I am going to teach English my way. With fun, exciting assignments that make students want to come to my classes and make me excited to teach them. Yes, there are standardized tests, a curriculum and a final exam to work towards. But there are also many ways to get there. Let’s have some fun while we’re at it, shall we?

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid

Teaching Reflections

This is us

Astrid van Houwelingen

Hi! We are Astrid and Erik from The Netherlands and we are excited about teaching teenagers English as a Second Language (ESL) and having fun while doing it. Because life is too short to have a boring day in the classroom.

Learning and teaching any second language is easiest when lessons are enjoyable and students want to come to your classroom and actively participate. However, we often find ourselves working with what we have, rather than what we would like to be doing.

Why?

There are many good reasons to trudge through your teaching days uninspired. We as teachers are overwhelmed as it is. We are scared to let go of our feeling of control in the classroom (there is probably a curtain climber or two in every class, even if you have no curtains to climb within a two-mile radius). You might have no idea how to make this bog standard grammar activity fun. And besides, we have to follow a fixed plan and do what our colleagues are doing because there is a standardised test at the end of this unit of study and we really must all do the same thing. Right?!

Whatever your reasons might be for feeling stuck in a rut and not having fun with your students, spending your days doing something you do not love is exhausting for anyone.

Let’s have some fun!

We believe that teaching can be fun and students can have a blast while also learning a thing or two about English, or French, or German, or Spanish or any other second language they are learning. With this blog we would like to inspire you and invite you to go off the beaten track and introduce a little playfulness into your classroom. Get students working on creative assignments which gets them excited while also learning a new language.

We would like to show you how you can make minor changes to your lesson plans to get students excited about reading, writing, listening, speaking and revising grammar and vocabulary. We would also like to show you how you can incorporate these skills into a larger piece of study which involves a task based approach. Some activities will be very easy to incorporate into your everyday lessons while others take a little more work to organize. It’s up to you to decide what you are comfortable with.

Start small

Whether you are new to teaching a language or you are the been-there-done-that type, we hope to give you some teaching inspiration and invite you to try out some of our ideas. Start small. Try it with your nicest kids first. Get their feedback and reflect on what went well and what needs work. Try another activity and see how that works out. Slowly, you will see your confidence growing and your students will walk into your classroom excited to find out what is next.

Have fun teaching! ^_^

Love,

Astrid and Erik

Astrid has an MA in teaching English and Bilingual and International education from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Her passion for English was sparked when she became a bilingal student at a Dutch secondary school, attending most of her classes in English. As a student, she thoroughly enjoyed the IB English A: Language and Literature programme and set out to become a teacher in that same programme. She has been teaching the IB programme and the non-bilingual programme since 2012. Currently, she teaches ESL to Dutch students between the ages of 15 and 18 years old at a secondary school in Gorinchem, The Netherlands.

Erik has a BA in English Language & Culture from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. His passion for English and eventually getting a knack for the language came from video games and comics. The idea for teaching the language he loves came later, at university. He has been teaching ESL to Dutch students between the ages of 11 and 16 years old at a secondary school in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands.