Tips for Teaching Advanced Learners
Teaching advanced learners can often feel like tuning up a Ferrari. What do you do? How do you make those students run better? This week’s show brings back Chris Cotter from www.headsupenglish.com. Mark, Ron and Chris cover how to break bad habits, build vocabulary, use dictionaries, set goals, and keep students motivated.
Discuss the show over at the ESL Teacher Talk Forum. (To register use this VIP code 7575.)
Visit www.headsupenglish.com to find complete lesson plans and materials for upper-intermediate and advanced EFL/ESL learners. The materials are based on current events in the news - what we and our students are talking about.
Game of the Week: Conversation Excitifier
This week’s GOTW is a great way to excitify dialog practice. You don’t need any extra materials, just your dialog and your students! The activity can be adapted to discussions on different topics or themes for more advanced learners.
I must say, this week’s GOTW is excitifying!
October 11th, 2007 at 9:45 am
An excellent suggestion! Students often want a safe place to discuss current events. I often ask students to find a newspaper article on a set topic (housing, crime, shopping, corruption), summarize it, find a few key vocabulary words, and be prepared to share with classmates. Students begin talking in small groups and I rove around class joining in conversations and taking notes. Then we come together as a class to reflect on the topic and news. We have dynamic group discussions - and nobody has to agree with the group. Consensus is not the goal; being authentic, learning new words, and reflecting on current events remains far more important.