Here are a bunch of ideas for teaching about school life. Activities are organized under different headings, but some can be used at various stages of a lesson, and adapted to other lessons too. Choose the activities that you feel suit you and, most importantly, your students best. Arrange them in a lesson plan as you see fit alongside your own activities. Be sure to give students as much help with the target expressions/language as they need. Feel free to improve the example handouts as much as you like. Greeting/Introduction Ideas: ALT and JTE have a short conversation about their school days.
ALT briefly describes the school subjects he/she likes/dislikes and why. Warm-ups/Vocab Activities: True or False quiz:
About schools in the ALT's home country/the ALT's school days.
True/False Bingo:
Give students a 3 by 3 Bingo Grid, or get them to quickly draw one. Tell them to number the squares from 1 to 9 in a random order. Read out 9 T/F questions about schools back home. They write T or F in the box, according to what they think. Afterwards, give them the answers and they circle the boxes they got right. A row of circles is BINGO!!! To make it a comprehension exercise, tell them about your school days first. Then do the quiz.
School Vocab Karuta:
Prepare picture cards of school vocab or just write out the vocab (subjects, clubs, duties, etc.). Students make pairs or groups. Each pair/group gets a set of cards. ALT reads out a clue and students race to grab the correct card. Student with the most cards is the winner. Then, quickly review the vocab if necessary.
School Vocab Quiz:
If karuta isn't your thing, the same kind of quiz can be done in any format, e.g. hot potato. Students basically listen to the description and guess the answer. Afterwards, quickly review the vocab if necessary.
Hangman and Wheel of Fortune:
These popular games from back home are also useful for teaching vocab. Hang-Man can be done with a whole class on the blackboard, in groups on paper, or in pairs. You can also use vocab cards where the person who chooses the word gets it from a card, or a clue on a card and then gets the other person/people to guess. When there are no more chances left, the clue can be read out. You can also really go to town and make a Wheel of Fortune on card and play the game in teams. It can be used for vocab again and again in other lessons too. Practice Activities: School Interviews:
Students work in pairs with various partners. They interview each other about all kinds of things school related. Here is an example handout. Afterwards, choose a few students to report back the answers of one interviewee, perhaps using hot potato or something similar.
ALT Interview:
Students work in groups. All groups are asked to interview the ALT about his/her school days. One by one, the students go to the ALT, ask a question and report the answer back to their group. The group must make a spider chart or a poster about the ALT's school days as the interview proceeds. This means that students are constantly going to the ALT to get more information for their group and the ALT is answering questions to all groups simultaneously (and helping the kids with their questions). Afterwards, groups can present their charts/posters and say what they found out. Consolidation/Filler Activities: Give the students a blank timetable and have them fill it in with their real schedule to keep for their own use.
Hot Potato:
Play some music (e.g. "School's out for Summer", Alice Cooper). Students pass/throw/launch into orbit a couple of balls. When you stop the music, whichever students have the balls have to stand up and say what club they are in/their favorite school subject and why, etc. Advanced Activities: Debate:
Possible debate and/or discussion topics include school uniforms, bullying, school rules, school events, exam pressure, the importance of club activities, permission to do a part time job (some schools prohibit it - ask your supervisor), etc.
2-minute Interviews:
Students work in pairs and interview each other freely about school activities, e.g. subjects and timetables, clubs, cleaning, getting there and back, etc. Each student has 2 minutes to find out as much as they can about their partner, relying solely on the English they already know. ALT/JTE picks some students to tell the class about their partner. Obviously, you can make the interviews longer (or shorter), but if each student has 2 minutes, the entire activity from start to finish will take about 10 minutes. Easier Activities: Many of the practice activities can be made easier by making them less detailed.
School Discovery Game:
Post some clues around the classroom, related to school activities/subjects or school back home, etc. Students work in groups/teams of about 4 - 1 reader, 1 writer and 2 runners. The ALT shows a question to the reader who tells the group. The first runner then reads the clues around the room until they find the answer, and then tells the group. The writer writes down the answer and the reader goes to get the next question from the ALT, ready for the 2nd runner. The groups continue until all questions have been answered. This involves all 4 skills. |