Active learning really works!

Yesterday with my KET students I tried a different activity. I wanted to review the weather and teach them the “going to” tense so I decided to do something more entertaining with them.

First I reviewed the weather vocabulary with some flashcards, then I put them on the table and we played a game. They had to put their hands on their heads and when I called out a flashcard they had to touch it. The first one in touching it gets the flashcard. They are around 13 years old so they like a lot competition.

Then I arranged them into groups and gave them different roles (so I make sure everyone’s doing something in the group). I told them they were going to present the weather forecast. One member was the secretary (who had to write down the script), another was the language moderator (the one who checked that the script was well written) and then the other was the tv presenter.

I told them that the best group would get candy (they are still kids and this motivates them a lot!). As soon as I said that they started working.

I put a map on the whiteboard (one group chose Europe and the other one Comunitat Valenciana) and the presenter had to stick the flashcard in the area and report the weather. (On Tuesday it’s going to be sunny in Valencia… It’s going to rain in London…etc.).

They loved a lot the activity, all of them were working and we reached the goal: to learn the weather, to learn the going to and obviously speak in English and… more important… they had fun!

In the end I gave candy to all of them because they did it perfect! One of the group even created adverts and some jingles for the news! 🙂

I was only there to help, they were the ones in charge and used their creativity to do this exercise. It took me 15 minutes and it really changed the atmosphere in the classroom!2d33dde