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Archives for the ‘Using Coursebooks Creatively’ Category

Games with Gapfills

By Simon Thomas • May 13th, 2009 • Category: 2 - Elementary, 3 - Pre-Intermediate, 4 - Intermediate, 5 - Upper-Intermediate, 6 - Advanced, Using Coursebooks Creatively

Note: the ideas for most of these activities come from Jim Scrivener’s excellent Straightfoward Pre-Intermediate Teacher’s Book.
Suggested levels: elementary to advanced.
Aims: to enliven gapfill tasks in coursebooks.
The One-Minute Gap Fill
This can cause a few laughs from students. Present the gapfill in the usual way, but set a strict time limit of one minute for students [...]


Using Word Search Grids

By Simon Thomas • May 6th, 2009 • Category: 1 - Beginner, 2 - Elementary, 3 - Pre-Intermediate, 5 - Upper-Intermediate, 6 - Advanced, Using Coursebooks Creatively

Suggested levels: beginner to advanced.
Aims: to revise vocabulary and the spelling of newly-acquired words.
Materials: a word search grid on a familiar coursebook theme for each pair of students (a crime one is here); a blank word search grid (here).
Preparation: photocopies of the two grids.
This is a good vocabulary revision exercise, wherein students focus on word [...]


Listening/Speaking: 4-Way Dictation

By Simon Thomas • Oct 2nd, 2008 • Category: 2 - Elementary, 3 - Pre-Intermediate, 4 - Intermediate, 5 - Upper-Intermediate, 6 - Advanced, Using Coursebooks Creatively

Note: This idea comes from Humanising Your Coursebook by Mario Rinvolucri (used with permission). I’ve found it to be a very useful way of practicing clear articulation, splitting sentences into meaningful chunks (“connected speech”), listening, writing, and various vocabulary, spelling and grammatical points.
Suggested levels: strong elementary to advanced.
Aims: to encourage attentive listening; to experiment with [...]


Grammar/Vocabulary Revision: Text-Stripping

By Simon Thomas • Oct 1st, 2008 • Category: 3 - Pre-Intermediate, 4 - Intermediate, 5 - Upper-Intermediate, 6 - Advanced, Using Coursebooks Creatively

Note: this idea comes from Humanising Your Coursebook, by Mario Rinvolucri. It is used here with permission.
Suggested levels: strong pre-intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to listen for detail; to practise clear articulation of English sounds; to revise grammatical points; to revise vocabulary; to focus on English sentence construction and cohesion.
Preparation:
Make copies of a reading passage from the [...]


Speaking: Circles Coursebook Topic Discussion

By Simon Thomas • Sep 28th, 2008 • Category: 3 - Pre-Intermediate, 4 - Intermediate, 5 - Upper-Intermediate, 6 - Advanced, Using Coursebooks Creatively

Note: I found a close relation to this activity in 700 Classroom Activities by David Seymour and Maria Popova (Oxford: Macmillan, 2005)
Suggested levels: pre-intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to revise vocabulary; to practise polite turn-taking and the structures of informal conversation in English; to practise summarising information and giving opinions succinctly.
Preparation: A coursebook topic title; some questions. [...]