Activities to start your school year: How to recycle material from last year's coursebook.

  Activities to start your school year on the right foot! 

Part B: How to recycle last year's material 

                                       By Maria-Araxi Sachazian 

In this second part of our blog devoted on the first lessons of the school year, we are going to see how we can use the material form the previous coursebook. 

Activities with Flashcards

The teacher chooses the topic on which the class will work. In this case we will choose food. The teacher chooses the flashcards on which they will work, including different categories of food. The class revises the vocabulary and then students play a variety of flashcard games such as

a)   The vanishing flashcard: Students close their eyes and teacher removes a flashcard

b)  Pass the flashcard: the students pass the flashcard around as long as the music plays. When the music stops, each student has to name the flashcards they are holding.  

c)  Spelling bees: T. holds a flashcard and one student spells it.

d)  Taboo: T. describes the food item and the students have to guess it

e.g.We drink it hot or cold. You eat your cereal in it  (Milk)

Then the students are given the task of putting the assorted flashcards in specific categories (e.g. vegetables/ fruit / dairy / sweets ). Once this is done, they can create the menu of a juice bar or café or they can make a poster with ‘’Food which is good for you’’ and ‘’Food which is bad for you.’’

Benefits

This type of activity is fun and it can be combined with songs related to that thematic group from the students’ book. The students revise material from the previous year in a fun and gamified way which gives them an opportunity to use the language in context. 

Re-purposing Reading and Listening from last year's coursebook. 

In every Student’s book or Workbook, there are reading texts which still have a lot to offer. If they haven’t been used, these texts and listening tasks are ideal as the book is put to good use, photocopying is limited only to those students who do not have the book and the teacher can ensure that the previous class is properly bridged with the new one. If all the texts in your previous coursebook have been done you can opt to work with

A)     Material from the tests the coursebook suggests

B)     Use the same text (or audio) but change the task.

In this case the familiarity of the students with the material, will ensure that they can easily work with the new task if it is a bit more demanding.

Re-purposing texts gives teachers a great opportunity to get learners to read in a shared, less exam-oriented way. One suggestion, especially if we are working with a Cambridge Multiple Matching task is to print the parts of the text on large print sheets and put them on the walls of the classroom. Learners will have to walk around and complete the task. 

If we opt to work with a gapped text task, it is interesting to give the text bits to each pair / group of students as physical entities to put them in the text and get them to notice the advance organisers that betray that this is the right part.

Finally, with multiple choice texts it is interesting to get the learners to write questions. In this case, each group has a different short text and they write questions for the other groups. The teacher monitors and provides input so that they questions are correct and properly structured.

Working with listening and reading tasks from the previous coursebook gives the teacher a chance to revise the vocabulary related to that topic and also to engage learners in speaking in L2 around this topic. 

DoS and Don'ts for the first days of the school year

An essential first step is to plan ahead of time and spend time working on anticipated problems. The better we plan for all eventualities, the more likely it is that the lesson will take place as planned.

It is also important to avoid focusing too much on grammar. Working with integrated skills and threading the lesson around a topic (bullying, eating disorders, friendships, summer) is more communicative and creative. If grammar has to be revised, this can be done indirectly, and it should be related with the text we will be working on (audio or written).  Needless to say, tests are not a good idea for first day lessons as they are too rigid, dry and they do not promote communication. If a placement test has to be taken, make sure this is only a small part of the class. Once the test has been taken, the students can review the items (perhaps on the whiteboard) and they can discuss the correct answers. As a follow up the teacher can ask the learners to produce their own examples using certain structures from the test.

 

First week lessons should be fun and they should allow time for us to get acquainted with our learners. Having said that, we need to cover some material and give indicative homework, so that we do not send the wrong message to the learners.

 

A happy school year to all and remember

that patience is the greatest skill in teaching!

 

Harmer, J., (2007). How to Teach English. Essex: Longman. 

 Puchta, H. & Schratz, M.(1993). Teaching Teenagers: Model activity sequences for humanistic language teaching. Harlow: Longman

 Tajzad, M. & Ostovar-Namaghi S.A. (2014). Exploring EFL Learners’ Perceptions of Integrated Skills Approach: A Grounded Theory. English Language Teaching, 7 (11), pp.92-98. [Online] Available at doi: 10.5539/elt.v7n11p92   Accessed on August 16^th 2022.