http://www.eslteachertalk.com/2006/10/teaching-small-groups/ A Podcast for ESL & EFL Teachers - Games, teaching techniques, activities, etc... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 05:28:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 http://www.eslteachertalk.com/2006/10/teaching-small-groups/#comment-265 Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:06:17 +0000 http://www.eslteachertalk.com/2006/10/teaching-small-groups/#comment-265 [...] I recently listened to a few of the podcasts on the main page, including Small Groups and Motivating the Motivationally Challenged. There were plenty of practical tips for situations that most teachers can relate to, such as kids who don’t pay attention. Their advice depended on age: for younger kids, keep them in suspense for more of your slap-stick behavior (kicking the wall and nearly falling over) and sneak in bits and pieces of what you need to do. Don’t come with the expectation that you should spend the full time focused on English as you might with adults. For slightly older kids, the slap-stick stuff becomes less important, but still essential is engaging them with intrinsically motivating games – not games that simply aim to produce English sentences for points, but fun ones in which the use of English is a necessary tool for doing whatever they need to win. [...] […] I recently listened to a few of the podcasts on the main page, including Small Groups and Motivating the Motivationally Challenged. There were plenty of practical tips for situations that most teachers can relate to, such as kids who don’t pay attention. Their advice depended on age: for younger kids, keep them in suspense for more of your slap-stick behavior (kicking the wall and nearly falling over) and sneak in bits and pieces of what you need to do. Don’t come with the expectation that you should spend the full time focused on English as you might with adults. For slightly older kids, the slap-stick stuff becomes less important, but still essential is engaging them with intrinsically motivating games – not games that simply aim to produce English sentences for points, but fun ones in which the use of English is a necessary tool for doing whatever they need to win. […]

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