Teaching English as a Foreign Language

168 Part III: Teaching Skills Classes

Students who speak Latin-based languages like French and Portuguese tend

to favour words of Latin origin instead of more common words and phrases –

‘establish’ rather than’ set up’, for example. This makes them sound too

formal at times, so you can work on that with them to sound more casual.

Writing Case Study

Many teachers work in UK during the summer months when youngsters from

all over the world descend on language schools expecting to learn English

in six weeks and be thoroughly entertained in the process. Here is a lesson I

used successfully in one such class.

Sample writing activities

Writing activities can begin with a single letter

of the alphabet and later develop into formal,

lengthy texts. Try this list of activity types with

your classes. They can all be done individually

but those marked with an asterisk are also well

suited to pair and group work.

✓ Advertisements*

✓ Application forms

✓ Articles

✓ Biographies

✓ Book/film reviews

✓ Composition (setting out an opinion or argu-

ment)

✓ CV

✓ Descriptions of a process or diagram

✓ Dictation. The students write down what

the teacher reads aloud to practise their

spelling and punctuation.

✓ Emails

✓ Formal and informal letters

✓ Instruction sheets*

✓ Memos

✓ Notices*. Students can prepare notices

giving information for use in the classroom,

for example about upcoming events.

✓ Poetry: Get students to write a short poem

or limerick. You can provide a list of rhyming

words to help them.

✓ Projects*: Students can do more extensive

work over a period of weeks on one topic.

They can use English to explore and explain

something which interests them.

✓ Reports: After finding out information on a

particular topic students can present this in

a concise and formal way as though they

were giving feedback to an employer.

✓ Stories

Choose the activities which your students are

most likely to need in the future.