I was at a meeting of EFL Teachers last month, which was really interesting. I learnt some cool things and I’ll post them here for you when I get a chance. At the end of the session we were broken into groups to discuss our own context and then workshop any challenges we face.
In my group, we hit the problem of engagement. One of the other teachers whose name I forget now, let’s call her Yoshimura-Sensei, was saying she has trouble getting students involved in the lesson. There was something very striking in her description of the problem that I’ll come back to at the end of this post, but for the moment let me outline the gist of my response to her.
We’d been put into groups with a simple exercise involving picture cards that I’ll describe in the following post (probably tomorrow; it’s late). My picture was of a kabuki performance (a traditional type of Japanese theatre). This is a paraphrase of what I suggested:
Okay, let’s say the lesson is about kabuki or rakugo… one of the textbooks I use, for example, has a text about rakugo. So I’d find some pictures… not spending too long, of course! Google Image Search is great (And if you’re worried about copyright issues, try Wikipedia or Flikr Creative Commons).
And I’d bring them into class and whack them up on the board. “What’s this? What can you see? You’ve got 10 seconds each to tell your partner…” (Where, of course, I’d give them about 30 seconds each in reality!)
Feedback. Should be pretty obvious.
Okay, next… I’d write the following question on the board: “Have you ever been to a live kabuki performance?” (and in a monolingual context just get a translation, in a multilingual context do some concept-checking)
Sidenote: This level of language is clearly NOT going to work in a multilingual context at low levels… BUT… you aren’t likely to have the same degree of motivation issues that junior high and high school teachers have in monolingual settings. Nevertheless, you will encounter problems like that from time to time in the average EFL college in Australia or England or the US or wherever… so you need to come up with a simpler question. For example “Do you like kabuki?” or “Do you know kabuki?” “Do you like live theatre?” etc.
Then… “Okay, in groups of 3 (or 4), you’ve got 3 or 4 minutes to answer the question and tell your group what you know, if anything, about kabuki…. Go.”
Feedback.
The next step would depend on the actual nature of the text I was leading into and what kind of lesson I wanted to do. But the basic thrust would be along these lines:
- find the main theme of the text (In relation to kabuki, for this example. So… What particular thing about kabuki is it talking about? Is it a general overview? Does it discuss particular aspects? Does it contrast kabuki with rakugo and noh and other forms of Japanese theatre? Etcetera.)
- Think of how to frame the text is such a way that the students could make some preliminary prediction questions. And then get them to do so!
An example might go something like this:Okay, we’re going to read / listen to something about kabuki. It’s a general overview of kabuki and the history of kabuki (I’d be saying this in Japanese, obviously! But in a monolingual setting, I would just make it really, really simple if I were at low levels and concept check… and make it as simple as needs be at higher levels… and concept-check)… So, um, what kind of things would you expect it to cover? make a list of at least 5 things in your group.Feedback ALL answers to the board.
- Let’s say it’s a reading task. Give them a time-limited first read-through to determine whether or not the text covered the points they suggested and/or answered their questions. They can just tick or cross.
- This covers the main points, probably. Not necessarily. But probably. Then it’s just a matter of setting my own questions (in addition to any they didn’t find the answer for in the first read-through and check with their partner) and setting a more generous time-limit (as well as allowing dictionaries this time) for the second, more detailed read-through.
By this time, you’re well into the lesson and you’ve probably got the vast majority of students engaged with it—without their even realising it! It would only be the most hardcore “I hate [insert foreign language]!” students who would still be snoozing or goofing off.
Sidenote: When I say “…without their even realising it“, I don’t mean that literally. Of course they know they’re doing the lesson. The point is that they’re just that little bit more motivated to find the answers to their own prediction questions. And they’ve been given a chance to personally express themselves at the outset, even if it is just “Don’t know nuffin bout it” (which can be turned to your advantage at the prediction questions stage by getting them to write what they’d like to know about it, or even what, for example, their grandparents would expect or want them to know about it, etc. You get the idea, right? The “Don’t know nuffin” should never be accepted as a checkmate. It’s not. It’s just a cocky Queen to K-1 with no knight in the wings. You can still rook.
So, as I said to Yoshimura-Sensei, I think a lot of teachers are probably worried about or scared of doing this sort of thing at the beginning of the lesson because it seems like “a waste of time”; they “have the textbook to get through” and blah blah blah…
The way I look at it is this:
I’d rather spend 10 minutes at the start of the lesson engaging the majority of the class and “getting them on board” for the remaining 40 minutes than spend 50 minutes pulling teeth.
This is a simple way to engage them: Ask them about the topic and get them to share their experiences with it—briefly (because you will want to hold off on some of that for the “Respond to the text” phase of the lesson).
The more you do this, the more they get in the habit of doing it. And the more they realise, “Hey, this [foreign language] thing maybe ain’t as dull or difficult as I’d thought. Maybe I can do it…”
This is not a change that’s going to happen in a week. Or two. Or even three. But after a couple of months, your classes will mostly come around to this point of view, I think.
Not ONLY from doing this particular exercise at the start of the class, naturally, but by integrating this attitude into everything you do and the way you actually manage your classroom.
A perfect example of this is Yoshimura-Sensei’s comment that I said I’d return to.
She was explaining her predicament and in doing so she described the way she stands at the front of the room and watches the chaos unfold. I can’t remember exactly how she described it now, but I recall thinking (not in a nasty way either, that) “Hmm… I’m not surprised the students don’t feel engaged with the lesson if you’re demarcating the ‘teacher space’ and the ’student space’ and not crossing that bridge. You’re setting up a ‘Right, I’m going to tell you what to do and you’re just going to do it’ kind of context, which no one likes to be part of…”
Something as simple as setting up the lesson very, very quickly by engaging them with some prompts (doesn’t need to be pictures; could be a video excerpt or a piece of music or a real-live object (I won’t use the “R” word here!)) and then asking them to respond to it and offer their own ideas… and then mingling around for that 3 or 4 minutes and listening and/or commenting on what they’re discussing and then getting their feedback and allowing comments… and THEN taking “centre stage” for the 5 minutes it might take you to roll out the main focus of the lesson…
… this sort of thing is going to work wonders, I think.
But I could be wrong.
Whaddayathink?
What do you do?
I’ve written elsewhere about drilling vocab using flashcards and prompts. In this article, I’d like to look at the psychology, if you will, of drilling vocab, PARTICULARLY if you teach senior high school or adult students. The title of this article will become quite apparent as we move along (if it’s not already!).
Firstly, students don’t mind repeating vocab items aloud. I’ve met teachers who have been hesitant to drill vocab items (with adult learners) because they (i.e. the teachers) thought it might be considered “baby-ish” by their students–who were doctors and lawyers and engineers, for example.
But students are well aware that they need practice in order to “get their mouth around it”, to “test out” the sounds (particularly if those sounds don’t exist in their native language!), and to get feedback… from who else but the teacher!
Sidenote: I should point out here that most of them do, that is. Every now and again you get a student who won’t repeat after the teacher. These are usually either one of four cases:
(i) they’re the super-shy wouldn’t say boo to a goose types who barely utter a word and when they do speak it sounds more like a mouse with a gimp ball in its mouth. Their repeating after the teacher resembles vaguely moving their lips like a crazy bag-lady mumbling to herself in the park, only with no sound actually coming out
(ii) they’re simply not interested in learning the foreign language. They’re just clock-watching. These students are in your class because it’s a compulsory component of the course they’re taking, their parents made them go, they have to turn up a certain minimum number of hours per week to fulfill their student visa requirements, and so on…
(iii) they’re idiotic and really do think they don’t need to do it
or
(iv) they object to the patronising tone of the teacher and refuse to be treated like a baby
And that’s what I’d like to turn my attention to in this article.
Let’s start with tone of voice and then we’ll move on to gestures.
1. Tone of Voice
I couldn’t count the number of times I have walked past a classroom and cringed! The teacher is talking to his/her students in that really patronising tone of voice that, frankly, isn’t even appropriate for children!
It always reminds me of the (Australian) film “The Sum of Us” starring Russel Crowe, John Polson, and Jack Thompson. It was originally a stage-play and there is one point I distinctly remember in the film which employs the theatrical technique of “breaking the frame”, that is speaking directly to the audience. In cinema this is known a “looking down the barrel of the camera”.
The father has had a stroke and is paralysed. He has lost his ability to speak and is sitting in the bed. His son comes in and talks to him in exactly the tone I’m talking about and fusses around and then leaves. The camera moves in and the father “breaks the frame” and addresses us directly “Jesus! I may have lost the ability to speak, but I haven’t turned into a fuckwit!”
And that’s the way I feel about that tone of voice (in fact, whether it’s drilling vocab or just generally talking to the class): these students are not necessarily fuckwits (yes, some actually ARE, but the tone of voice I’m objecting to is STILL not warranted!), the fact is they are just not (yet) proficient speakers of the foreign language under instruction.
End of story. I’ve had high court judges, university professors, CEOs, you name it in my class! And if you teach adult EFL, you probably have too.
So if you’re guilty of this (and if you have to pause and think about it, I would suggest taping your own lessons now and again and then listening back to them to see if you cringe)..
…stop it!
Right, now onto the next one:
2. Gestures
Personally, I am a fairly animated person and I have no problem with looking a bit foolish. I think most language teachers are probably the same. This is NOT to say, however, that you have to be swinging off the light fixtures to try and elicit “orang-utan”, for example!
What I would really like to comment on here is the gesture to repeat after the teacher. It’s only a small thing, but it lets students know what you expect them to do. They don’t mind repeating, as I’ve already mentioned and as I’m sure you know.
But they don’t always know whether they should repeat or not. And who wants to be that dude who chants out “orang-utan” when no one else does?
So you have to give a CONSISTENT cue to your students to let them know you want them to repeat the vocab.
A simple, slightly sweeping gesture than includes the whole class works beautifully. It needn’t be as wooden as the models on game shows showcasing the wonderous prizes on offer tonight, but just a little gesture like that–used whenever you want them to repeat–will elicit greater compliance with your (and probably their) wish to orally drill the vocab.
I once observed a lesson (not from a newbie teacher) who did this outrageously dramatic lunge forward with his body and a huge sweep of his hand as he cried out whatever the word or phrase was! It was all I could do to keep a straight face given that I was, essentially, a guest in his classroom!
Now, dramatics are fine… up to a point. How could he POSSIBLY have been listening to the students with all that lunging and roaring?
And that is, of course, the other half of having your students repeat after you: To listen to them so you can offer them feedback!
For choral drilling, this is my usual method:
1. I get them to listen to my model TWICE
They will almost always repeat along with me the first time so I just hold up my hand, smile, and say “Just listen twice, okay?”
Then I model it twice and point out any features of the sounds or stress or intonation or whatever.
Then I model it again.
2. I then say something like “Your turn!” and gesture for them to repeat.
The first time I model along with them.
Then I repeat my gesture once or twice and just listen. Then I offer feedback and more modelling and tips for tongue placement, etc. as necessary. It’s not always necessary.
3. One more time together
4. Then I select individual students at random by gesturing to them with my open hand. Not pointing. Not saying their name. Not nodding at them. Clearly indicating who I would like to repeat the target language (TL) in a non-threatening way.
Any individual repetition and practice at this stage is fine as long as it’s not extended. Don’t expect students to “get it” right away with difficult phonological aspects. Just give them some feedback and another shot at it and move on.
5. Without breaking the pace, after three or four individual drills, return to the first gesture (i.e. Okay, class, everyone repeat after me!)
6. Move onto the next item.
This takes a bit of practice believe it or not! I didn’t naturally reel off this technique when I first started teaching. The basic framework was taught to me and I’ve refined it a little bit over the years.
It won’t take you long to internalise it, but you will need to clearly visualise the steps before you head off to class to drill a bunch of new vocab. Then when you come back think about whether you nailed it or whether you missed a step. Not the end of the world if you did. Just keep going through the steps and this–very effective and non-patronising–method of choral drilling will become second nature to you!
Good luck with it!
First off, I’m really sorry if this article seems to be stating the obvious. Maybe I’m just a bit thick; You see, I learnt a number of these things the hard way! And given that making these little cards can easily eat up a LOT of your time, I’ve decided to spell it out step-by-step.
***VERY IMPORTANT GENERAL TIP***
You should ONLY make flashcards of things you know you can
use and re-use often! Or for special events that you know
will be worth the extra effort. Really.
If you’re not sure what Pelmanism is, please read my article What is Pelamanism? first.
1. Print out your cards and then cut out the main blocks (i.e. not individually; around the outermost border)
2. Turn on the laminator now; they take forever to warm up.
3. Stick them onto coloured paper. You only need a quick swipe of the glue stick through each box. They don’t need to have all the corners stuck down; remember you’ll be laminating them in a minute.
Also, the trick here is to have different coloured paper for each set of cards you want to make. So, for example, if you want 4 sets of cards, you’ll need, say, a green, pink, yellow and blue sheet of backing paper.
There are two reasons for this:
(i) It makes it much, much easier to keep the sets together. If you don’t do this then you will end up with the cards being all mixed up and you will spend a ridiculous amount of time preparing the next lesson because you’ll have to go through and make sure each set only has two of each card! With colours, you just count that you have the required number of cards and hey presto ready to roll!
(ii) The other reason is that without the backing sheet (which you can also do with white paper; just put a coloured spot in one corner of each card with a marker before you laminate them) is that you can see through single-layer cards when you lay them out on the tables! Which kind of defeats the purpose of playing the pelmanism game.
4. Cut out your cards individually at THIS step.
5. Find something rigid. A clipboard or folder is good. Put your laminating pouch on this ready to load your individual cards.
Now, what’s this all about? Well, this will make it easier to move your laminating pouch with your pelmanism cards in it to the laminator without it all going pear-shaped. It will also give you something to butt up against the laminator’s “feed platform” (like I know what it’s called!) so that you can feed your pouch through without the cards going everywhere—It’s too late once the machine is in motion! (Yep, I’ve done that one!)
One final precaution to help avoid the cards going everywhere and your having to start again: Take your glue stick and give the back of each card a quick dab as you lay them out in a grid (in the laminating pouch). Make sure it’s not that stupid purple glue stick because it won’t become transparent like it claims to do! So you’ll end up with these horrible purple smudges on the backs of your cards (which not only looks ugly, it again defeats the purpose of the game!).
6. Use the edge of the clipboard to keep your cards lined up so that they have more or less the same margins. Remember that the space you need between cards is double what you want the margin to be! So, for example, each card need a few millimetres space for the laminating to seal correctly. So… you’ll need to leave double that space so that both cards (i.e. to the left and the right, above and below) get a good seal.
7. Once you’ve fed your pouch into the machine, don’t let it just roll out the other side and flop down otherwise your cards will be permanently bowed—again not so good for pelmanism because students can then see under them and/or tell the difference! So lay the laminated sheets out flat ASAP. (Be careful if it’s your first time using a laminating machine; they can be REALLY hot!)
8. Cut them up and give them approximately the same margins. As you do this, make sure that you also round the edges of each card. This is really important when you work with little kids because… there’s always some boy (yes, a boy; no, almost never a girl) who wants to flick the cards at another kid. And if you’ve never made laminated sets of cards before for class, you won’t appreciate just how sharp they can be on the corners. No, really. Eyes are very easily damaged. Round the corners!
9. Get some of those magnetized sheets which sort of feel like linoleum and which you can cut with scissors. I also see it from time to time in rolls rather than sheets. Just cut off a small chunk and attach with scotch tape (you actually need much less than you originally think! Test whether it will stay on the whiteboard/blackboard by throwing it on the door of your fridge!).
10. Put elastic bands around each set, put them in a large envelope along with your set of larger Teacher’s flashcards and label the envelope. Put the envelope in an alphabetically arranged filing system of other flashcard envelopes (I just use a box and I prefer to file the envelopes by title of lesson or subject area).
That’s it!
As I said at the outset, a lot of these steps might seem really, really obvious, but they’re only obvious in retrospect or once you’ve omitted them a couple of times and had to throw your efforts in the bin!
And as for the filing system, trust me! This will save you time once you start to build up a large set of resources and need to be able to lay your hands on a particular set of cards. I couldn’t count the number of times someone has called in late or sick and my Director of Studies has asked me to cover a class, like “Now!” With your favourite games all nicely filed you should be able to select one or two envelopes and be off to class, ready to give a perfectly educational and fun lesson at the drop of a hat!
Best of luck with it!
P.S. If you like stress, feel free to omit the advice about the filing system.
Karuta is a Japanese word for a game that is, I’m quite sure, played everywhere. It’s basically “Snap!” but without turning the cards over.
It’s really quite simple:
1. Lay out all the cards face down on the table or floor
2. The students put their hands on their heads
3. The teacher calls out one of the cards
4. The first student to “snap” the card keeps it.
5. When there are no more cards, the winner is the person with the most.
That’s it, in a nutshell.
—————————–
Of course, Karuta wasn’t originally intended for teaching foreign languages! So, here are a few things you might like to consider when playing it:
* The way to play it outlined above is really just a “Receptive Skills” game. That is to say, all the students have to do is be able to process what the teacher says and correlate that to a particular picture. Listen –> Snap!
Nothing wrong with this. This is the way I play it the first couple of times with a particular lexical set.
But once you’ve done it a couple of times–unless you work with younger elementary kids–you’ll want to start getting them to practise PRODUCING the language as well. There are two ways that I do this:
1. I tell them we’re going to play Karuta. But first they have to go through the vocabulary and check, in groups, that everyone in the group knows all the vocab. I set a time-limit of 3-minutes for this. It always takes 5 because they realise after the first minute or so of “Yeah, sure, no prob, I know all this” swagger that, they actually DON’T know all the vocab and that means they won’t be able to win the game! Then as you start saying “30 seconds!” they start shrieking “No, no! We need more time!” So you comply after much frowning and give them another minute or so.
Ha ha! Too funny, huh?
You might also like to point this out once or twice to your class, letting them know that the reason you’re giving this extra time before you start playing is so that everyone has the chance to do some last minute revision and has a more even chance of winning.
2. Once you’ve finished playing and they’ve “snapped” up all the cards, the only way they can legitimately keep the cards for the final tally is to be able to SAY what they are (or whatever target phrase or sentence you set for this stage. An easy example might be with “jobs”, say. For this stage they have to say “S/He’s a ________ ” in order to keep their card).
The other members of the group monitor each other and if someone who managed to “snap” the card can’t produce the associated language, they forfeit that card. It DOESN’T go to another player who CAN say what it is, that player just loses that point.
You THEN tally up the final points.
2a. As an extra option–and this one needs to be done delicately (which I’ll come back to in a moment), you can also set a rule that anyone who scores ZERO (or one or two or whatever is reasonable with a large set of cards) has to come out and recite X number of cards chosen at random by the teacher.
Now, this note about doing it delicately: This should never be done in order to humiliate someone. And it should never, ever, ever be done as a “surprise!” at the end of the game. No, no, let them know this rule right up front if you decide to play it and let them know that the reason you’re setting this rule is because you want everyone to try their best. Nobody’s perfect all the time. Not even the top-scorers (what’s that thing about Babe Ruth? Struck out more times than he hit home runs or something…)
The POINT is to TRY!
Also, the “penalty” should be conducted in a light-hearted way, with a lot of:
Shucks, y’know, Peirre, that’s too bad! I know you know this vocabulary, but maybe you’re not a gunslinger, y’know… [obviously I wouldn’t use the word “gunslinger!]… so, uh, let’s see… you have to name any five cards…” [fanning the cards and hamming up the secrecy element, go to another group and get them to pick one]… then pick a couple of REALLY easy ones that you know the student will get… and then one more “secret crowd pick” and then another easy one….
And so on…. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
Then END by saying something like
“Okay, not bad, Pierre. Next time I’m sure you don’t want to be up here again so, uh, y’know do a bit of study, eh?”
This last comment is somewhat barbed, and it’s meant to be. To show the students that I mean business; that if I’m going to go to the effort of preparing cards and props for fun stuff, they had better be bothered to actually do some study.
If they don’t want to do that, that’s okay, we can just work through the book one page after the next. No skin off my nose. They need to understand that it’s a two-way street. But this is stuff for another article.
The point is that you end with a “You need to pull your finger out, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like you as a person or I think you’re ‘bad’ in some way” kind of message to both the “penalty receiving people” and to the class as a whole.
Okay, another point that I think worth mentioning is whether or not you can play karuta with adults. Actually, I haven’t tried to be perfectly honest! But I see no reason why you couldn’t. I definitely would not have them put their hands on their heads, though! This is something children have to do and I would feel strange doing it (in fact, I demonstrate for the elementary kids while doing the gestures “hands… hands… on your heads… heads….” and even that makes me feel a bit weird as an adult!). So definitely no hands on heads. Maybe “hands behind your backs” or something?
Right, final point about Karuta: There is a penalty for “bezerker snappers”. This game in the language classroom should be about listening, processing the input, and then doing something with that input, in this case selecting the correct card before other players.
But there’s always some kid (adults are probably the same, I’ll have to test it and see) who just randomly snaps one card and then the next and then the next until the body language of the other students lets him (usually a boy) know that he’s hit on the right one. So…
… there is a rule of the game that says “If you snap the wrong card, you miss a turn”. That is, you have to sit out of the circle for the next round.
It’s a good rule. It reduces beserker-snapping and I use it to my advantage in the following two ways:
1. If there are items of vocab that are similar-sounding (e.g. “angry” and “hungry”) or which use the same starting sounds (e.g. “snow” and “snowman”), then I do the following:
(i) if, say, “snow” is left on the table (i.e. we’ve already done “snowman”), then I say “snowman!” There will always be one “beserker-snapper-in-training” who gets caught out on this. It’s never intended to make anyone look stupid or anything like that. In fact, the kids LOVE it when I do this! They giggle their heads off! But they then listen even harder for the remainder of the game and the next time we play.
(ii) I almost NEVER say the last card without doing a few “stooge” runs before it. Two or three is enough. They love this too because it’s down to the wire, y’know… it’s the last card… who will get it? They’re leaning in as close as they can… and then suddenly… STOOGED!
2. Anyone who misses more that X-turns (I usually set it to 3 or 4) has to come out the front and go through all the vocab with me! Of course this reduces the instances of little vikings on drugs in my classroom. But there’s often one so the way we do it is to show the card to the now more meek bezerker and if he can’t tell me what it is, I show it to the class and they all yell it out. Move onto the next one.
Once again, this should not be done in a way to humiliate the kid! It’s just a nice little way to kill two birds with one stone:
(i) it goes some way to reducing subsequent bezerker-snapping because he knows he
needs to pay attention when you’re drilling the new vocab
(ii) it makes for a nice little final-drill / wrap-up to the activity
And that’s it! How to play Karuta and get the most of it in your language classroom. If you have any other tips for making it even more effective and fun, please leave a comment!
Till next time,
This is known by various names, the most common probably being “The Memory Game”.
It’s a really, really simple game and I’m 100% positive you’ve played it before. But like Karuta, there are a few things that we need to take into account in order to maximise its efficacy in our foreign language classrooms.
1. Each group gets a deck of cards with pictures of the target vocabulary on them. No words. Just pictures.
The deck is made up of pairs of each card. For example, if we’re doing jobs, there will have two picture cards of each profession in each deck (and one deck for each group of 3 or 4 students).
2. Students lay the cards out any way they like (in a grid is good, but not necessary). The only requirement is that the cards are face down.
3. One student starts by turning a random card over and using it to produce the target word, phrase or sentence based on that vocab.
The inclusion of “phrase or sentence” in the previous sentence underlies a significant departure from the original game and reorients it very specifically for language learning.
The possibilities really are endless and you can use the same set of cards for different language points.
Don’t overlook this tip because it can save you a lot of time!
Set yourself a task for this week: Go through all your flashcards and make a list of all the different things you could do with them. I’ll write an article about this soon to show you what I mean.
Okay, let’s get back to Point 3. We’ll stay with “occupations”. Once the students have been introduced to the vocab, drilled it as a class and maybe done some kind of written activity to consolidate the vocab with the spelling, you play this game.
You model and drill the target sentence.
In this case it would be “He/She’s a/an ________ .”
So, the first student turns over a card (let’s say it’s a picture of a butcher) and says “He’s a butcher”.
4. Because this is correct, they get to turn over another card.
So, for example, if they turned the card over and said “He’s a brick-layer” or “She’s a butcher” (because at the level students tend to learn occupations, often the use of personal pronouns still causes problems), they get the buzzer from the other students and forfeit the chance to search again.
Once more, this is a slight alteration which results in students having to PRODUCE the correct language if they hope to win any points. I’ve seen this game played where students don’t have to DO anything.
What’s the point of playing?
But let’s move on…
5. The answer in our example was correct (”He’s a butcher”) so the student then turns over another card. If it’s a butcher, they win a “trick” and play passes to the next student.
(Sometimes students want to play that if you win a trick you get another turn. In my experience, this version is not as much fun for everyone. Also, very importantly, the weaker students don’t get as much practice, and clearly they’re the ones who need it the most! Outlaw this rule before the game starts otherwise they will just “naturally” add it themselves.)
6. If the second card is different, they have to say (for example) “He/She’s a whatever” before play passes to the next student.
Again, this is integrating a rule into the gameplay that forces them to drill as much of the language as possible. And that’s the POINT, right?
7. When all the cards have been won or (as usually happens) the time-limit on the activity is reached, you add up the “tricks”.
Simple, huh? I love this game. Kids love it; adults love it. And… it works!
If you’re not currently using this game, get started using it right away!
DON’T do it for everything, though. The prep-time is considerable so you will only want to do it for the most common lexical sets, things you can use over and over and over again and which can easily be whipped out for revision “warmer / filler / cooler” activities.
Before you start making (more) cards, you might like to take a quick look at this other article about laminating tips for pelmanism sets.
Oh, and a note on the time-limit: Let them know in advance what the time-limit is. Write the end time on the board. Other students will then hurry along those wasting time and going “Uh… uh… uh… I know it… uh…” because they want their chance to win “tricks”. Enact a 10-second thinking-time limit. Students LOVE to do the “3-2-1…buzzer!” thing, believe me! 
An advanced rule: At point 6, if they get this second card wrong, they lose one trick (if they have any)! This rule is harsh (but quite fun with the right group) and should only be introduced once you’ve done a particular lexical set a number of times already. So I would never, for example, initiate this rule on their first time playing with a new vocab set; what a great way to destroy their confidence!
One thing I like to do with a fairly familiar set of vocab which we haven’t reviewed for a while is to introduce this rule and give them half the usual time-limit in which to play the game. If you can offer a prize of some sort, even better.
Tell them that the winners of each group will have to complete a “Bonus Challenge” in order to win the prize. When they come out to take a shot, they discover that the Bonus Challenge is being able to recite ALL the items of vocab! If none of them can do it, offer it to the other students. Give three attempts and then move onto the next activity. You might get to keep your prize for another day and you will have drilled the hell outta that lexical set!
Hope you like this game. I do!
This seems like the most basic thing in the world, right? And I guess there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to do it. I mean, drilling vocab is drilling vocab, right?
Well, sorta.
I’m going to outline the way I was taught to drill vocab when I originally trained as an EFL Teacher and having tried various other ways since, I’ve come to the decision that this is, in fact, the best way to do it.
Comments are most welcome!
Okay here we go!
Step 1: Gather your flashcards…
Actually, here we don’t go! Ha ha! Take a gander at this article first.
Also, there is no actual need to have flashcards for everything! A rough drawing on the board, a gesture or two and then something to remember it by is enough. But that’s another article.
——————————-
Right. You’re back. Let’s press on…
You take the items you want to drill and you present them one by one (obviously!).
The “trick” to this technique is in going back over the list every one or two items.
That’s it, essentially! Wow! Radical, huh?
It’s really, really, really simple, but…
(a) it’s really effective
and
(b) I rarely see teachers doing this (and I don’t know why; That’s why I’m writing this).
Let’s take an example so that it’s perfectly clear what I’m trying to say here.
Teacher: What’s this? [holding up a flashcard or prompt or drawing on the board]
Students: [blank look meaning “Don’t know.”]
Now, they obviously know what it is in their native language (L1)—providing the picture is clear and large enough—but what they’re saying is that they don’t know what it’s called in the foreign language (L2)]
T: It’s a tiger. [T gestures to listen again] Listen… tiger [T gestures to repeat]
Sts: [repeat] Tiger
T: Again…
Sts: Tiger
[insert individual drilling and one more choral drill here]
T: Okay, next one. What’s this?
Sts: Monkey!
T: Close, close. What colour is he?
Sts: Orange!
T: And he’s quite big… bigger than a monkey, I think. [gestures included here].
Any other ideas?
Sts: [blank look, meaning “Uh, no, Teacher, sorry…”]
T: Orang-utan. Listen… orang-utan. Everyone…[gestures to repeat]
Sts: Orang-utan.
T: Again [gesture to repeat]
Sts: Orang-utan.
[insert individual drilling & once more choral drill here]
T: And this one? [pointing to pic of tiger above new pic/flashcard of orang-utan]
Sts: Tiger!
T: Good! This one?
Sts: Orang-utan!
T: This one?
Sts: Tiger!
T: Okay, next. What’s this?
Sts: Penguin! [pronunciation not quite right]
T: Excellent! That’s right! Listen to me… [correct pronunciation] penguin. Listen again… penguin…
Sts: Penguin.
T: Again.
Sts: Penguin.
T: Good. Okay, what’s this?
Sts: Tiger!
T: And this?
Sts: Um… orang… orang…
T: Orang-utan. Again…
Sts: Orang-utan.
T: And this?
Sts: Penguin!
T: This?
Sts: Tiger!
T: This?
Sts: Orang-utan!
T: This?
Sts: Penguin!
T: You guys rock!
…and on it goes!
This seems like a very long and tiresome method for drilling vocabulary (and the example seems pretty tedious), but believe me…
…it is effective!
This is why an 8-item list can easily take 10 minutes or more to drill. Sometimes it flows really smoothly and the target vocab is easy for the students to pick up (for whatever reason). Other days it requires more work.
But the following basic procedure does NOT change:
1. Elicit vocab if possible—and if they don’t know it, just give it to them! (More on this in another article!)
2. Model the pron clearly. Twice.
3. Get them to repeat.
4. Listen carefully to the pron and correct where necessary
5. Go back to the top of the list of items and drill through—You will almost always find that they have forgotten the item you just introduced when you do this. That is, the most recent item. Almost without fail!
So you then re-drill the latest item, then do a couple of others at random, interspersing the latest item they’ve forgotten between each one (example, “penguin, penguin, tiger, penguin, orang-utan, penguin…”).
Then do the whole list from the start in non-random order (they’ll remember the most recent item now!)… and then you can move onto the next item.
Incidentally, it need not be tiresome and boring at all. You should keep a fairly brisk pace when doing this kind of drilling because if you don’t then I guarantee you that it will be boring.
If you keep moving fairly fast, it keeps them on their toes and they know that they have to really pay attention to keep up. The class will pretty soon get used to this way of introducing and reviewing vocab and this will also help it run smoothly.
Note: Depending on the level of the students, as well as their age, I would be unlikely to introduce more that 8-12 new items in a single drill session like this. The human brain just can’t take much more than that, it seems. Of course, when we’re studying by ourselves we manage to do so, but this is somewhat different and, in fact, I would argue that when we’re doing it alone we’re not learning those items as effectively.
Why I think that is a more in-depth discussion for another day.
But the main reason I think 8-12 items can be learnt very effectively in a single class (no, not long term retention, that takes more work–which is partly your responsibility as the teacher. Again, a topic for another day) is that I’m working on the presumption that these 8-12 items are then “activated” in some way in the lesson.
The students have to do some sort of activity or play a game that involves them producing the vocab from the prompts (without the ability to simply read the words).
We would be much better off when studying at home, to do our learning in “blocks” like this, where we learn a set of expressions and then concentrate on strategies and drills to commit them to memory. Instead, though, we just power on and try to learn the list of 100 items.
Of course, we can only remember a handful of them the next day and conclude that learning vocab is difficult. It is, but it need not be. I’m veering into another article here! The point I would like to make here is that by introducing around 8-12 items and then playing some kind of “activation game” with them or doing some kind of exercise that involves thinking carefully to find the answer (and ideally producing it as well, oral or written–and the latter before the former if you like) will help the vocab “stick” better in the first instance.
Subsequently, you can then focus on working the items into long-term memory.
Good luck with it,
