Well, after a while you want to give her a break and do something fun. That’s why whenever I start a class I always put up a list on the board of things that we’re going to do in the class. I always ask them what they want to do, and I always put some things I want to do up a well. You’ve got to put some fun things, like games and videos in the list as well.
What is it, already?
So we were doing descriptive adjectives and one of the things in the book was to do the following activity:
- Cut out a picture from a magazine of a star you like;
- Describe what your star looks like and likes/dislikes;
- As your star 3 interview questions.
Pretty easy, right? Well, we just happen to have a lot of American magazines in our teacher’s office (thanks you) so I grabbed a handful and we got to work.
We ended up cutting out three pictures each. I labeled mine with a name, a job title, and a short sentence on what they looked like or had with them in the picture. I then wrote three questions and answered them as if I was that person.
Here is my model:
- Keith Richards, Musician
- He has long black hair and a guitar.
Do you like music?
Yes
Do you like ice-cream?
No
Why is there a tongue on your shirt?
I’m with the band, mate.
Why are your eyes red?
Don’t be a wanker!
Remember, humor is important for an ESL teacher’s sanity. In the above example I also used a painter and for fun, a dog I named Gus.
Well, the activity went over well, she liked it, and most importantly, it killed time. I’d say we spent about 25-30 minutes on it in total, from presenting the idea to her to her and I reading each other’s characters off.
It was pretty fun and I highly recommend this simple, easy, and slow ESL grammar activity.