IT WORKS IN PRACTICE More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all

worked for ETp readers. Try them out for yourself – and then send us
your own contribution.
All the contributors to It Works in Practice in this issue of ETp will
receive a copy of Macmillan English Grammar in Context (Intermediate)
by Michael Vince. Macmillan have kindly agreed to be sponsors of It
Works in Practice for this year.

 Rhyming verbs  My Word!

My group of eleven- and twelve-year-old beginner students were having significant Here are two ideas using music, the
difficulties remembering the irregular past simple forms, so I asked them to create internet and students’ imaginations
a rhyme incorporating the verbs to help them. I was very impressed by the ‘poems’ to renew the traditional cloze and
that they created.
jigsaw activities.
The students commented that using a rhyme really did help them to remember
the verbs as it was fun and catchy, and they continued repeating their rhyme for a
MP3 gap-fill
long time. Since then, I have experimented with doing the same activity with
different abilities and age groups – and each time there has been a positive One week before the lesson, tell the
response. I believe that creating a rhyme is an excellent learning tool. students to bring in their MP3
When the original class performed their rhyme, they did it in a rap style, which players. In the lesson, put them in
greatly improved it. pairs and ask them to choose any
English song they have brought in
Past simple rhyme Drink becomes drank, which they like. (It is a good idea to
The regular verbs are easy to say, and sink becomes sank,
vet their choices for decency and
like walk and talk and stay and play; but think becomes thought,
difficulty of language.) The students
and in the past with verbs like live, and catch becomes caught,
just add ed or d to the infinitive. buy becomes bought, then find the lyrics of the song on
and bring becomes brought. the internet, copy and paste them
The irregular verbs you have to learn,
into a Word document and remove
so concentrate and say in turn: Ring becomes rang,
one or two words per verse. Ask the
and sing becomes sang,
Have becomes had, students to swap documents and
run becomes ran,
but go becomes went, listen on their MP3 players to fill in
and swim becomes swam.
make becomes made,
the gaps.
and send becomes sent. Eat becomes ate,
keep becomes kept,
Speak becomes spoke, Newspaper cloze
leave becomes left,
break becomes broke, Using a newspaper site such as
and weep becomes wept.
write becomes wrote, www.timesonline.co.uk, get the
and wake becomes woke. But put and shut stay just the same,
students to choose an interesting but
sit becomes sat,
Wear becomes wore, not too long news story. They then
and come becomes came.
tear becomes tore, copy and paste it into a Word
get becomes got, For negative statements and questions document and re-arrange the
and see becomes saw. you must use didn’t or did,
paragraphs. (If the article is difficult,
but remember not to change the verb,
Of course there are more verbs for you: it’s best to cut out alternate
as it stays in the infinitive.
Grow becomes grew, paragraphs and leave the rest in
Just remember to be is special, order.) Put the cut paragraphs in
know becomes knew,
it is not friends with did.
draw becomes drew, random order at the end. This
Use was and were and
fly becomes flew, becomes like an activity in the
wasn’t and weren’t and
throw becomes threw, Cambridge FCE, CAE and CPE exams.
you’ll be the most intelligent kid.
and blow becomes blew.
Miranda Wrigley Chris Baldwin
Dawlish, UK Verona, Italy

42 • Issue 56 May 2008 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

 The confidence to speak
Speaking is often a learner’s priority, yet many learners find this skill extremely difficult to acquire. Here are some ideas and
short oral activities to make speaking seem like a very normal part of learning and not just something that you build up to.

The A–Z of me your own avatar to add a much more personal touch. Also the
This activity can serve as a framework for warmers, fillers and teacher could start a story on Chinswing and get the learners to
coolers. Each learner has a sheet with the alphabet written make up and record the next part of the story.
down one side (you may like to take out some of the trickier
Vaestro (www.vaestro.com) is a voice forum which anyone can
letters). For each letter, they then have to write one word or
take part in.
phrase which has some relevance to their lives or that they
could talk about. I set this as homework – preferably giving
Ask me about ...
them a few days to think about it. I then demonstrate by
Lack of motivation is often the biggest barrier to getting
showing my own, highlighting different reasons for writing
students to speak. We need, therefore, to try to find topics
different words. For example, Washwood Heath was the name
that really get them going, topics where it’s more effort to
of my school; Audrey Hepburn is my favourite actress; I love
stay quiet than say what you want to say.
the word nitwit; I come from Birmingham. I also provide a few
general words like summer and yesterday, which learners who This is a good activity to create interest in discussion topics.
are stuck can use: there’s always something to say about The learners write the name of everyone in the class in a
yesterday! column on the left-hand side of a piece of paper. Then each
one thinks of a topic that they can answer questions about. It
You can use the information generated by this for activities
could be about an interest, their city, an aspect of their
over several lessons. A nice warmer is just to get students to
culture, their family, travels, whatever. They should all be
pick a letter out of a box; you can then ask them to speak
different, though. Then they all write each person’s subject
about the word or phrase they put next to that letter for a
next to their name. Allow some class or homework time for
minute, interview each other about their words, or give clues
them to think up and write one question for each person
to get the others to guess what their word is.
about their subject.
Being able to talk about yourself is useful and also a little
Use the sheets from time to time to get the whole class to
easier than talking about something more abstract.
interview one person. Alternatively, have the learners mingle
and ask each other their questions.
Private practice
Some learners lack confidence to ‘go public’. Encouraging The fact that the learners have chosen their subject makes it
them to practise in the comfort of their own homes may much more likely that they’ll want to talk about it. An added
help. The sophisticated interactive CD-ROMs that now bonus is that there’s absolutely no preparation for the teacher!
accompany many coursebooks enable learners to participate
in a dialogue by recording their own voices. This gives them Are you ready?
the opportunity to compare their speaking to that of a In real life, before making an important phone call or
native speaker. complaining about poor service, we often find ourselves
preparing mentally what we are going to say. So why not allow
Technological tools our students to prepare what they want to say, too?
You can also encourage your learners to converse using one
Try providing a more ‘scaffolded’ approach to speaking activities,
of the many free voice tools on the web:
whereby learners have ‘quiet time’ to note down their initial
Skype (www.skype.com) allows them to make free voice calls thoughts on a particular topic. Then allow them to work in
over the internet just by downloading a piece of software. groups to experiment and test their ideas out before ‘going
Students can talk to each other either one-to-one or in a public’ and telling the whole class their opinions. The outcome
group. They can also join or host a Skypecast, which is like a will be far richer as they have been given the opportunity to
radio chat show. balance fluency, accuracy, appropriacy and complexity and both
teachers and students will feel motivated by the results!
Chinswing (www.chinswing.com) is for discussion threads –
anyone can add voice messages to ongoing topical discussions. Jacquie Harding and Johanna Stirling
It is easy to use and you can post a photo of yourself or create Cambridge, UK

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 56 May 2008 • 43