Teaching upper elementary - junior high school students (ESL)

[Akya]

I want to share a few things I found successful! I have a student who's about 13 and she find's it hard to focus. I've done find a words and crosswords and they seem to be very helpful and fun for her to learn vocab from a short story she reads. I also do a bit of comprehension on the story as well and help her with her pronunciation.

Anyone else have tips for other people? I find this age group one of the more stubborn and difficult groups to teach.

[rgaz83]

For a more group activity, what about hangman?

[angelicagapit]

Try creating an English game!

It would make the class fun for your students and they would be happy to participate.

I hope my suggestion works.

[Trellum]

I always gave classes in which he student had to participate actively, a lot fun activities for ESL teachers out there!  I always planned mine ahead, I planned my classes with exact timing, I had one of those sheets where I wrote my class plans and so on.

I used a lot games and engaging activities to teach and practice English, this was super useful with classes that had young students mostly.  Since young kids and teens are such a challenge sometimes!  Do something wrong and they'll never fail to remind you that by not obeying you or paying attention.

[Hemikune]

I had a great game that I either modified, or just outright stole, called Grammar Casino.

  As a class activity, you have two teams and write about 10 sentences on the board. You of course, add a few grammar errors of various a kinds to a few sentences.

Then, each team gets to 'bet' (you may want to choose another term) on whether or not each sentence is correct or not from their start points, about 500. The team that chooses the right answer "Is this sentence correct? Yes, or no?" Wins the points.

Bonus if they make the corrections.

[xTinx]

I think learning through fun and games is an effective method. How about dividing them into groups and asking ESL-related questions. Students who earn the most points receive a reward. In psychology, they call this classical conditioning. Do this regularly and your students will attempt to win your "English" tournaments. In so doing, they'll also try to learn more about English so they can answer every game time.