Suggested to me by another teacher on my way to class today, the tongue twister challenge not only practises pronunciation, rhythm and vocabulary it can also be great fun.

For teaching a specific sound or sounds obviously select tongue twisters appropriate to that aim, however, for a fun game and a definite tongue loosener, any tongue twister will do.  Put the students into groups of five, the more students you have the longer the activity will take.  For a class of 30 you can easily be facilitating the activity for 45 minutes.  Choose five tongue twisters for the class to practise; 5 tongue twisters goes nicely with groups of five.
Provide the students with the correct pronunciation of the first tongue twister and explain new vocabulary.  Have them repeat as a class a couple of times and then instruct that they practise in their groups for two minutes.  After those two minutes the group should select the best performer to stand up and say the tongue twister as many times as they can, as quick as they can without making a mistake.  Allocate points to the performers. I gave my students 10 points for each correct repetition and stopped at 10 repetitions maximum.  You'll find that the students will be quiet for the performances as they want to see their competitors fall down; if not, ensure that it is quiet before the performer starts.  Each group chooses a performer and the points are totalled after each round.  Each tongue twister is practised in this way and then performed by a different student from the groups each time.  

I chose the following for my class:
She sells sea shells on the seashore
I slit a silk sheet and on the silk sheet I sit
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
1 smart man felt smart, 2 smart men felt smart...
If a pheasant plucker plucks pheasants, how many pheasants can a pleasant pheasant plucker pluck?

The winning team are those that accumulated most points throughout the exercise.

One of the skills that is most advantageous to our students is the improvement of their question asking ability.  When you can ask about the language yourself using English, your chances of developing and accelerating your IL are greatly increased.  This lesson would help towards that aim.

Find four interesting news reports in either a newspaper or on the internet.  Choose them for the language appropriate to your students, with additional vocabulary that they will learn as a supplementary benefit to the main function of the lesson.  The reports should be written as a result of an interview of someone due to a crime/incident; an eyewitness account.

Study the text with the students, give them the additional vocabulary of the story and then split the students into four groups of four or six.  If you have a big class you will need to have either duplicate groups, or more news reports (it is advised that you have duplicate groups due to the amount of additional vocabulary required, otherwise collect simple reports where no vocabulary is required to be taught and then you can have as many groups as you want.).

In these first groups direct the students to one news report, a different report for every group, and instruct them to discuss and document what questions had to be asked in order for the reporter to write the story.  Highlight that the information in the report, how it is written, will affect the question tense that we need to use.  Circulate and assist the students, checking the question sentence structure as you go.  It may be necessary to give examples on the board prior to this exercise.

• “Mr Smith was very shocked by the whole experience.”
  
• Question: How did you feel about the... (incident)?

The question tense will differ for each report depending on the actual tense in the report itself.

• “Mrs Smith is horrified by the...”
  
• Question: How do you feel about the... (incident)?
• “Mrs Jones is going to destroy her pictures.”
• Question: What are you going to do with...?

When the students are happy with their list have them work out their ‘impression’ of the dialogue that occurred between the journalist and the eyewitness at the time of the interview.  Check the tense of the questions and assist with any mistakes or questions as you circulate.  Then the students form pairs and roleplay the actual interview.  The most successful pair from each group should roleplay to the whole class to concrete what has been learnt collectively.

For additional exercise of question forming, study the use of reported speech by splitting the groups up and have the students tell the new group what the eyewitness said in their interview.  For even more, as homework have the students write their version of the news report from their notes.  Next lesson you can compare the two versions, highlight the differences and study the whys? and wherefores? 

This youtube clips comes from the classic BBC TV series, Red Dwarf.  Red Dwarf is a sit-com set in deep space.  The ship, Red Dwarf, is a mining craft and its inhabitants are Lister, the last human alive, Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunk mate, The Cat, a descendant of Lister's pregnant cat, Holly, the demented navigation computer of the ship, and Kryten, a service robot that the crew picked up on the long journey back to earth.  In this particular episode the crew have stumbled across a DNA molecular modifying machine on a derelict spacecraft.  The clip surrounds a discussion with Lister and Kryten, who has become human after playing around with the DNA machine.  This is a dream fulfillment for Kryten, whose normal life involves ironing the smeg out of Mr Lister's boxer shorts and other menial tasks.  He has longed to be human for as long as he can remember, and now that he is he can't wait to experience things like food, love, excitement, guilt, pleasure, remorse, and sorrow; but things just aren't how he had expected them. Mind you, if I had a double polaroid, I'd be more than happy.

Despite its French subtitles (obviously a benefit to teachers of English in France) the clip can be used in any country to talk about emotions for example, or human nature.  What would be your first meal if you were a robot who has become human?  How would you feel if you were Kryten?  Have you ever really wanted something, but when it actually came to pass it was disappointing?  (a date maybe, or a birthday)  Roleplays could extend from the clip, the students play-act a conversation between a robot and a human; how does the language between them change, how does the rhythm and tone change.  The accents of the two protagonists and their different intonation patterns and rhythms could also be studied - Lister a Liverpudlian and Kryten a robot.

The clip could also be a prelude to a roleplay where one student plays somebody from out of this world who is inquisitive about human nature and all things human - here we could use relative clauses, language such '...is a thing we do when/if...'.  The vocabulary of the clip is a lesson in itself and could be stretched to revision of body parts, with a bit of slang about appendages thrown in for good measure. 

Understanding taboo subjects, clearing up the rights and wrongs of and difficut conversations would definitely please some teachers who cringe at some of the questions our students put to us.There is some fantastic 'real' language in the clip which could be analysed, some excellent nuances of English, phrases that are common to the British, but would rarely be taught in a coursebook - 'the last chicken in the shop' for example.  

Youtube, and other similar sites, have been a godsend to teachers around the world and have relieved the monotony of the staid coursebook materials.  Give your opinions on this clip, or maybe just enjoy it for its comedy value.

Have you used a youtube clip in your lessons?  What did you use it for?  Can you send a link to your lesson ideas?  Would you use this particular clip?  What would you use it for?  Do you think comedy has a place in the ELT classroom - or - is comedy a cultural thing and your students just don't 'get it'?  Share your thoughts...

As an entertaining way to have your students revise the simple tenses follow this example at the start of the lesson. Ensure you are the last person to enter the room, knock on the door, open the door and wave (don't say a word - this will be a surprise to the students and they will chatter in confusion, but quickly your movements will get their attention again).  Close the door and bring your finger to your lip, looking quizzical.  Make the 'Eureka' gesture as if you have just remembered what you are doing.

Remember, stay silent all the time.  Walk in an over-emphasized way to your desk or chair and exaggerate picking up your board pen, take the cap off, go to the board and write your name.  Put the cap back on the pen and put the pen in your back pocket.  Now, move to your chair and take a seat, cross your arms and then your legs.  By now the students are befuddled... ask them, what did I do?  This exercise practices tense, vocabulary, and gives the students some verbs they might not have come across before.

Great as an icebreaker to your first lesson, great for adults and kids, as they will all chat and try and remember what this crazy teacher did.  Correct the mistakes as and when you feel necessary, I usually write the correct verbs on the board, but students could write full sentences down in pairs and share their findings for example.  The same exercise then can then be used for other tenses.  Replay the actions preceded by the question, 'What am I doing?' and have the students call out the actions as they are completed.  Alternatively, future tenses, as the students predict what the teacher will do.

When you enter a new classroom, with new students to begin a new course, it's important to get off on the right foot.  We need some easy communication activity, usually involving speaking, to get the students in the mood for practising the language, to relieve their anxieties about the new environment, the new teacher, and all this new pressure.  And for sure the teacher needs to be made to feel comfortable too.

A favourite ice-breaker is the 'Liar' game.  Prepare the instructions on the board, OHP, or presentation/handout.  Students are required to write 5 facts about themselves; four of those facts should be true and one a lie.  We should emphasise that the facts that we tell have to be complete unknowns to the rest of the class, but be wary of calling them 'secrets' for obvious reasons.  'I killed a man last summer,' is not what we want to hear from anyone in the English classroom.  Depending on the expected level of the students you may require them to use particular sentence forms, but that is by-the-by - just make sure they give interesting facts.

As a teacher you would demonstrate this activity by revealing 5 facts about yourself on the board.  Obviously, the students don't know you from Harry, so will be interested to get a little bit of knowledge about their new foreigner, so likewise you should make your facts interesting, informative, and obviously unknown.  From the front of the class you read out your first fact.  The students are more than likely going to call out 'True' or 'False', but don't tell them yet.  Instruct them to ask you questions first, to find out if you are telling the truth - the interrogation.  You may need to write question words on the board, elicit these from the students and then expect three or four questions per fact.

When you have told your fifth fact, and the students have questioned you like the inquisitive minds they will be in the first lesson, proceed to the answers.  Conduct a straw poll - Fact 1. Was I lying?  Reveal the answers at the end.  It's a good idea to make 2 of your facts a lie, just to keep the students on their toes and at the same time emphasise that the game is all about how good a liar you are.  

Give the students 5 minutes, depending on their level, to write their five facts and then allocate groups of 4 to 6.  Circulate and help with the construction of the sentences in a way you see fit.  Each student takes it in turns to tell their facts, as you did, and receives questions from the group.  At the end of their 5 facts they reveal the truth.  For added entertainment you could suggest they point and say, 'Liar' if they believe a fact to be an untruth, although be wary of the cultural implications.

Lying, although wrong in so many ways, allows English to be used to its full extent.  So often when students tell the same truthful facts they become a monotonous bore to both the student and the teacher.  However, lying, like arguing, reveals a need for language to deliver your point, to deceive or to conquer.  Although in most cases it is not to be encouraged, most students revel in the freedom a lie can give to you.

What's your favourite ice-breaker?  Have you used this particular method before?  Have you told a lie in the classroom before and later been caught out?  Do you agree a lie is a way to free the student from the normal constraints of the classroom?

One of the major bug bears of many an English teacher is that the coursebooks and CDs we are 'forced' to teach present a distorted version of the spoken language.  Accents, extended pronunciation, over-emphasis on intonation and stress can make even the most placid teacher cringe with discomfort.  But how can we resolve this situation?  And in actual fact, do we need to resolve this situation?

It is of course the publisher's right to distribute text books, coursebooks, and audio/multimedia material which sells.  Perhaps the best selling materials are the easiest for the students to understand.  Maybe the individual in the school, responsible for the purchase of this material, has other agendas.  That is a topic for another discussion.  However, it remains a concern that students are brought up on 'false' English, especially EFL students, and when they emerge from the classroom they are poorly prepared to understand naturally spoken English in natural environments.

So what can we do, and do we need to do anything?  Well, it's a personal concern - what's one man's meat is another man's apple crumble.  True, for some students in EFL classes they will never come into contact with naturally spoken English, other than in the classroom.  If they are not going to have this experience, then why bother?  To me, that is like asking a history teacher to gloss over the facts of wars, provide them with a cleaned up, PC version of the truth.  I don't hold to that, but can understand the theory.  So, how do we present natural English?  The teacher can ensure that they give a realistic representation of natural English in the class, but even then with lower levels our Teacher-Talk needs to be adjusted, modified somewhat.  Outside of the class the teacher can perhaps use English more freely, but here we can experience troubles with boundaries, and in some cases cultural or religious conflict.

When the question is asked for the umpteenth time from the motivated student, 'How do I speak better English?' I always refer them to movies, television programmes, songs, and the radio.  Using mother-tongue subtitling on movies/videos the first time you watch to gain understanding while watching and listening, then English subtitles the second time, then cover the subtitles the next time and this will help your students absorb the language.  In the classroom we watch youtube clips, reality TV, listen to songs and do word fill exercises.  Phonetics lessons can be a wonderfully eye-opening experience for many students, introducing them to the wonders of natural speech.  The linking of consonants, elision, concatenation and assimilation of our fair language compels many.  For the fully committed teacher, there is of course the option of re-recording those pesky soundfiles on the coursebook CD using software like Audacity and others like it, or get your friends to record conversations just for you to devise a lesson.  Give your students a chance to get to grips with real English, you might be surprised with the results.

What's your opinion?  Do you like or dislike your coursebook audio?  How do you teach speaking in the classroom?  Have you used any particular materials to teach 'natural' English?  Do you emphasise the natural or go for the standard?  What is the standard?

The BBC supplies the English teacher with so many excellent resources, articles, and ideas.  However, there is a worry as to whether we can 'use' these articles etc in the English classroom due to copyright restrictions.  One particularly interesting page includes animated flash media (non-flash is available) on the very topical issue of 'Natural Disasters'.

Provided with this quality information the teacher can develop lessons appropriate to a higher level with the knowledge that the material is all there waiting for them to use; there is little work to do other than plan what language you want to teach, what function you want to develop, and what you want the students to take from the lesson. 

As a vocabulary lesson on its own, this topical article is packed with interesting geological phrases that would be used in news articles and conversations about the tsunami in Japan, for example.  Alternatively, we can use a gap fill if we pre-teach the vocabulary.  A conversation class is appropriate currently, due the unfortunate consequences of the earthquakes of 2010/11.  Here though we must consider whether material such as this is appropriate for our students, or whether it would be a little too close to home for comfort.

After introducing the articles to the class, we can have the students describe the processes involved in the disaster using the language of sequencing (then, after, finally), or study of the past tenses to describe the original situation and present tenses to describe the processes in action. For the adventurous teacher we could give the students this information and then have them describe the aftermath, or build a story as to 'What happened next', or, 'You were there, what did you do?'

Material available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7533964.stm

Have you got ideas as to building a lesson around this topic?  Have you already seen a lesson like this on the web?  Do you have a lesson already prepared on this topic?  Share your ideas with the class....