Review Regularly
Frequent review is one of the best ways to help students remember new grammar points; it’s far more effective than a single large review before an exam. Here are some recommended ways to integrate small reviews throughout the week.
Frequent review is one of the best ways to help students remember new grammar points; it’s far more effective than a single large review before an exam. Here are some recommended ways to integrate small reviews throughout the week.
We at Insights provide teachers with ideas for student projects, and some of them are for year-long projects. In case you’re wondering whether such projects are worth it, here are some benefits to doing year-long projects with your classes.
Many non-native learners have difficulty pronouncing the <th> sounds because they aren’t present in most other languages. Here are some ways you can address pronunciation at beginner stages.
Play poker with your students, teaching them terminology along the way. Afterward, take a look at some common expressions which are literal for poker but can also be applied to other contexts as idioms.
You can prepare for fill-in-the-blank sections of exams like the Cambridge Assessment: Young Learners English tests by combining the two techniques of recalling small, common words and writing down answers before looking at answer choices.
Whether you want to do a nice vocabulary review or you just want your students to have fun for a day, here are some games we recommend for finding, creating, explaining, demonstrating, and guessing words.
When your class is brainstorming, you want to make sure you’re facilitating well. First let all the ideas pour out, then take a closer look at the better ones. Here are some things to keep in mind.
As you introduce new grammar topics, make connections with related grammar topics that students have already learned. This is good for review, and it also helps students catch on to the new material easier.
Create a wall display of books (or better yet: series of books) that your students should consider reading. Make sure to have a variety of formats and genres so that there’s something for everyone!
Many languages have noun cases. We don’t teach cases in English, but there definitely are some correlations between cases and English grammar. Maybe it would be a good idea to acknowledge some of the cases used in the students’ native tongue(s) and explain what English uses instead.
The more students write, the more they should expand their vocabulary. However, it’s natural to develop favorite words, which can be overused. Try creating word clouds to see which words your students are using too much, then come up with some synonyms.
Is there any value in saying phrases like “Here’s what you need to do:” or are they just a waste of time? Even though they have no real meaning themselves, prompts can serve a purpose in the classroom.
Here are some activities that you can use with your class to review vocabulary and grammar. There are quite a few to choose from, and each is customizable; use whatever is best for your class!
Word Puzzles and Word Games are a fun, engaging, and effective way to practice vocabulary, spelling pronunciation, word-building, and more. If you’d like to try some with your students, here are some tips to give them.
As a teacher, you sometimes need to come up with examples on the spot. Sometimes it’s hard to think of a particular example, especially when more common alternatives (ones that don’t fit your category) come to mind far too easily. That’s why it’s good to have some word lists on hand.
If you have access to mini-whiteboards, those can be great. Note cards are also good. Your students can use these to quickly restructure sentences.
Is it better for teachers to focus on grammar or on vocabulary for elementary/intermediate students? Both are important, of course, but there’s only so much a learner can learn at a time.
It’s hard to keep all the tenses straight when they’re taught independently. Try instead to teach the patterns: What is a continuous tense? What is a perfect tense? After you answer those, try applying more specific tenses.
Take advantage of every method, idea, tip, and trick we have to offer teachers. We’ll keep you informed of every new resource we release.