June’s Forum was hosted by Elite International House, Tripoli. The topic chosen was ‘THROW OUT THE COURSEBOOK (well sometimes)’ and was divided into two different presentations given by the staff of Elite International House.
The First Presentation: One Text – Four Teaching Ideas
This presentation showed four different ideas on how to use an extract from a story, an article or any text of a suitable level for a class.
1 – Divided text – dividing up a text and giving different students in a group the pieces of text to read, explain vocabulary and put in the correct order
2 – Timeline – After eliciting a timeline, students are given a text and asked to make a timeline of the sequences of events that take place in the text.
3 – Vocabulary cards – Two different games using vocabulary words on cards. The first was a vocabulary game in which in groups of four or five, each student picks up a card and explains it’s meaning without showing the card. The other students try to guess the word. In the second game the cards are divided equally among the group, students make sentences using the words on their cards and then dictate their sentences to the other members of their group.
4 – Hot seat – a vocabulary game that uses two teams of students. One student from each team sits in chairs facing the class. The teacher writes a vocabulary word on the board and the team members try to explain the meaning of the word without saying it. The student in the ‘hot seat’ to say the word first wins the point for their team. More points can be awarded for spelling, word stress and using it correctly in a sentence.
The Second Presentation: Outside the Book, Two lesson demonstrations using Authentic Texts
The first part of this presentation involved using an article taken from the internet. First a photo was shown from the story and students asked to guess the story in one minute. This was followed by skimming the story for gist, answering questions and discussion, an exercise from words and phrases taken from the article, and a grammar point from the text.
A warmer for another text taken from the internet was to have the students write a caption for the picture. After everyone shared their ideas the real caption was revealed. Vocabulary was taken from the text and students were asked to put them into categories:
- Words I know and can give an example of
- Words I think I know but I’m not sure about
- Words I don’t know
Afterwards students were asked to share the meanings of the words with each other. When the meanings of all vocabulary were understood a gapped text was given to the students who were asked to creatively complete the missing sentences. A second gap fill exercise followed in which students were asked to choose the correct phrase for each gap from a list of phases given. Finally the complete text was given with comprehension questions.
The second part of this presentation was using the local English newspaper, The Tripoli Post, as a part of the lesson. For beginner students it was suggested that teachers have students find pictures of vocabulary written on the board. For students from Elementary and above it was recommended having them describe pictures and talk about events and articles in the paper. The last part of the presentation was showing ways that the classified ads can be used with more advanced students.
After the presentations the forum members discussed the future of the English Teachers’ Forum. Questions raised were:
- How to get more teachers and schools to participate in the monthly forums
- The possibility of having an IATEFL Libya
- Who would host future Forum meetings
- Having a meeting of the managers/directors of Libyan language schools and centres
Elite International House presented a scrumptious buffet following the meeting!
The English Teachers’ Forum would like to thank Elite International House for hosting June's meeting.
