Job Discussion Forums

[bailemos]

Hi all,

Thanks for your helpful ideas and comments !! I`d like to do a few lessons on shopping and descriptions (ie. describing things and people..). But the schools Im at have very few resources for these topics !!

Any ideas on how to go about doing this, for kind of low-level students would be really useful !!

Thanks again

[furiousmilksheikali]

A little more information would be useful. Are you teaching in an elementary, a junior high, a high or an eikaiwa school? How many people are there in your classes?

Things I have done in the past

Descriptions of fruit/vegetables:

Introduce colours and tastes (sweet, bitter, sour etc) and get Ss to match up various names of fruit to each colour, tastes etc...

Use a picture dictionary to make cards of fruit/veg (or anything else you want to teach your Ss) put Ss in pairs and give each of them cards of the fruit/veg they have to describe to the other.

If your school allows you to you could even bring in actual food for them to try and have them use the pre-taught vocab to describe it. Marmite/vegemite is always a good one to try out on Ss.

Bring in some foreign money to show the Ss and pre-teach these currencies (dollars, cents, pounds, pence etc...) Then have Ss give prices to the fruit/veg etc. If you have Monopoly money or toy money this can also work.

Then make up a short role-play (you could use one in a text book as a model or write your own simple one). If possible use realia to act out a role-play. You could try this with plastic fruit from the 100 yen shops.

Adjust these activities depending upon the age of your students of course.

You can easily adapt this to teach other sets of vocabulary, an exotic pet shop for animals for example.

[bailemos]

The classes I was referring to are at a girls junior high school. Classes are between 35 and 40 students. Some students are not so motivated but most will have a go. Im trying to get materials etc that will interest and motivate them to take part more in classes ...

[JimDunlop2]

I've done GenkiEnglish's "Bargaining game" many times -- usually with a great degree of success.

http://www.genkienglish.net/barganing.htm

[furiousmilksheikali]

Useful link for flashcards:

http://www.mes-english.com/