1697. How to ask questions in the target language



In our English classes we teach the kids affirmative, negative and interrogative kinds when teaching verbal tenses: past simple, present perfect… 

However we ought to have them ask questions too. To ask questions to the teacher and other classmates to find some information. 

It’s rather rare we make the kids ask questions, real questions. 

One way is to tell them the question in the mother tongue, and ask them to ask a question in that verbal tense and translate that question from their mother language into the target language. / Photo from: 1011_orientation-graduate-students  uwaterloo ca

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1930. The necessity of compromise

Image
We have freedom, tentatively, and by principle. First premise.  However if I skip any compromise, I can't use my freedom.  If I compromise with someone about something I must fulfill it, right?  Albeit some people think that getting married for example doesn't entail to live with your spouse for the rest of your life, I'd say that compromise is for all the lifetime of one of the spouses however. I do know many marriages that have lived together until death of one of the spouses. / Photo from: compromise-settling-our-differences-in-agreement-thumb. howtodateinlv wordpress com
Read more

3675. What I Do to Plan Lessons I Wish They Be Efficient?

  Lesson planning, you asked? You, like I do, may think that that is essential to teach efficient lessons. You may also be a second or foreign language teacher.  Today I’m telling you something of what I do, just in case it helps you out.  When I sit to plan a lesson, first I think about my dear students and what they do need, and perhaps also what they may be expecting. And then I specify a couple of aims and write them down at the beginning of the lesson plan, at the top.  Even sometimes I let my students – and I teach adults but the same may be applied to teenagers I guess – know what those two goals are – also for them to become more aware and more involved in the class. The more I get them involved in their own learning English, the more they will learn, sure thing!  So I first think how things are going on my lessons and try to solve those possible problems.  And the body of the lesson plan includes stuff where I have my students speak a lot, a lot, a lot. They have and need to p
Read more

3676. To Improve Our Lessons: The Importance of Lesson Planning

  On the last post I told you some practical things on lesson planning which hopefully might help you out, my dear colleague teacher, or you may be a prospective one, or a novice or rookie one. There may be several different situations and circumstances.  As well right here and now I join in some way all the victims of recent floods here in our dear Spain – it has been so terrible, as you may have learned from the news. Poor people, and I pray for them as well. It’s been the worst natural catastrophe of the century in Spain. A lot of volunteers are helping out there.  Let’s carry on with our usual work.  Lesson planning is so paramount so as to have better and efficient lessons in class. And the teacher may pass on so much – if he or she is well prepared and mature. The students have to hear good English in class: a lot from their teacher – better if they are native speakers, otherwise we have to set an example and learn more and more, plus they can listen to class audios and watch cla
Read more

708. Communication unites us

Image
One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “one of my current students yesterday told me she had met an American small gang this summer, in their vacations. Her level is advanced. They made friends with one another. She had fun at communicating in English with people her age. She told me they met up together some days to have a drink in one of the bars of the town, at dusk. When she wanted to say a word she didn’t remember, she did something very interesting: she explained the idea, the concept of the ‘missing’ word, by approximating the meaning, paraphrasing the meaning, using examples, explainig the use for the thing, using mime. This strategy is presented by Rebecca Oxford (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know . Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers. It was fun, she said. She did achieve to set a natural communication with those girls and guys.” / Photo from: welive2care com. girl talking on phone
Read more

1701. Debating

Image
Something that can be interesting is to make our students engage their minds to solve problems; to think, in other words.  We can include texts with substance, either historic, biographic, ethics, philosophy, thought, science and technology… Besides, in that way we’re preparing them for their future. School is preparation for adult life, isn’t it?  As well we can organize debates: we split up the class into two groups, we let them prepare their arguments by speaking in their native language (L1) if they prefer so, and then, we dedicate the rest of the class to give turns into the big conversation.  It’s worth to try.  The speakers will speak in English (the L2), and try to convey and express their positions, opinions... We can let other students intervene. It’s interesting and sound, in the process of learning and acquiring English. / Photo from: students’ presentations. www rhodeisland edu
Read more