Teacher Discussion Forums

I just started working with an elementary aged school in Hanoi today. This is my first time teaching ESL to kids, and they're a lot of fun.

The only trouble is that I don't know what classroom I'm going into or what the subject matter is until I show up. The kids are all between 6 and 15, and the class size doesn't ever seem to be more than 20, but that's really all I can count on. Today, I didn't even have a marker for the board when I started. So my plan is to come up with some sort of flexible lesson plan that can be adapted to anything (and to get myself some markers).

I know there are loads of ideas for games on the site, and I've been looking through them, but I thought I'd see what other folks have to say here too. Has anyone else been in this boat? I'm looking for good ideas, or at least a little commiseration.

Hi ya,

That's a really difficult situation, am glad am not in your shoes any longer however actually, I have a couple of book recommendations from way back when I first started teaching in HK:


The Standby book, by Seth Lindstromberg
and
Lessons from Nothing by Bruce Marsland.

I remember in particular the Lessons from Nothing book was really good - crazy ideas like bashing people on the head with a rolled up newspaper (in a good way - ), clapping vocabulary, sentence games... heaps of stuff.

Karenne
www.kalinago-english.com