Implementing!

So let's be honest! We can't just throw away our coursebooks and adapt authentic materials. Students pay for these coursebooks and we're expected to cover the most. So this blog-posts will give you some ideas how to implement your coursebook and make it more interesting and fun.

• Create your own Start and End of the lesson: Warmers: I usually start with a game and brainstorm vocabulary related to our lesson.  
• My favorite activity:  Students work in pairs. In two minutes they've to come up with any words related to the topic you're focusing on (let's say an example: holidays). Then we go through the list together and discuss the meaning. The list is recorded and share (google drive).  We use the 'recorded list' in lots of activities such as 'talk about your last holiday using words from your lists', 'tick the words you've seen in the lesson today', 'write a short paragraph about your ideal holiday using words from your list' or 'add a word from the list to the reading text'. 
• Students favorite activity (teens): YouTube. You will be amazed to find out that there is a YouTube video for almost everything. Of course, first, you have to go through it and make sure is appropriate and can be used in the classroom.   

• Example: Before reading a text on New York I asked my teens to watch this short video and write down the sightseeing these YouTube went to:

• Taboo cards: Most of the coursebook have a word-list for each Unit right at the end. So I usually take words from each Unit and make Taboo cards. The objective is for the player to have his partner to find out the word on the card without using the forbidden words listed on the card.

• Grammar-based activities (gap-fills): I find that the coursebooks I'm using this year's got lots and lots of gap-fills.  I usually turn some of these activities into games. The first game you could play with them when revising more than one tense is Auction and the game is on :)

  • Write down the sentences in a piece of paper and cut it out. Make sure you have enough sentences for everyone.

  • Put Students into pairs or small groups and give them some money.

  • Students are then given time to think of their sentences and fill in the gaps. *You can even encourage them to write the rule.

  • Start the Auction! Encourage students to bid for sentences they feel confident about and remind them that the winner is the one with the most correct sentences.

  • After everything is sold, go through the answers together.  

  ** Alternative: change some sentences so that they are incorrect and then students only have to bid for the ones that are correct.