Running dictation - Make testing fun!

From my teaching experience I can see that spelling is one of the most challenging parts of learning a foreign language. Students often find it very difficult to remember the words and the teacher should constantly try to find various ways to make this as simple and as fun as possible for them. I'm not very keen on testing but still it is part of the whole teaching process. What I like to do when I want to revise/ test vocabulary spelling is "running dictation". 

There is no need for any extra preparation for this lesson. You can put two posters / sheets of paper on the board, one for each group. Give a marker to each group and choose a set of pictures. Make sure that you give the equal number of pictures (words to be written on the poster) to the groups. 

I wanted to revise rooms in the house and furniture vocabulary but you can do it with any topic that you like. 

Here's how it goes:

1. Put the posters on the board.

2. Divide the students in two groups,distribute markers and put the pictures on the desk next to the groups facing down.

3. Once they hear the teacher say; "Start!" the students need to choose a picture from the pile, run to the board and write the word for that picture on the poster. Then they have to run back and allow to another member of the group to choose a picture and run to the board to write the word. Both of the groups run to the board at the same time but they write different words. What I often do is distribute the pictures to the groups and once they finish writing the words I switch the sets. In this way both of the groups get a chance to write all of the words on the board.

One thing you have to be prepared for is a noisy classroom. Students get really excited and they like to cheer for their classmates - but it's all part of the fun :)

4. When the students finish writing all of the words on the board go the posters and check the spelling together with the students. In this way they become more aware of what they need to practice further.

You can do this in one lesson and according to the results you can do the same dictation using the same words on the next lesson. I've noticed that students try really hard to remember the correct spelling of the words and almost make no mistakes in their second attempt. 

I hope you find this useful! 

Using an interactive poster (DIY) - vocabulary revision

Today was our first English class after a three -week winter break. It's always good to jog the students' memory of what has been learnt recently before moving to something new.
In that regard I decided to use an interactive poster I made myself. It's nothing special really I just used a flip chart paper and draw a house. I draw the rooms with a certain piece of furniture that would be used as a hint to guess the name of the room.

I teach in a mixed class. That means that second grade students and third grade students have English at the same time even though a different syllabus is used for each. So this was a good way to involve all the students.
Here's how we used the poster and just a glimpse at all the other activities we did in class.

1. Put the poster on the board. Prepare pieces of paper with the names of the rooms of the house. Ask each student to take a piece of paper, come to the board and put the word in the correct room. Then ask students to say the word and practice pronunciation.

2. Prepare some pictures of furniture and write the name of the furniture on pieces of paper. Divide students into two groups. Ask the students from the first group to choose a card with a picture on it and stand on different places around the classroom. Ask the second group of students to choose from the cards with the words and then tell them to find their pair. They should match the word with the picture. ( This is a good activity when you teach young learners because it includes movement and this is what they enjoy the most :) )

3. To revise family members vocabulary plus the rooms in the house I asked the students to do a similar activity as the one above. Some of the students got pictures with rooms in the house and some of the students got pictures with family members. They followed my instructions and went " in the room" I told them. Example : Mother is in the living room. / Brother is in the kitchen. Once they were in the correct room their task was to repeat the sentence I told them before and talk about the family members and their location.

4. For the last activity I told the students to take one picture with furniture on it and put it in the correct room. Afterwards the students choose the words and put them on the correct picture.
Example: There is a table in the kitchen. / There is a carpet in the living room.

In the end we got a very colourful poster and a bit untidy house :)
And most importantly we had fun while revising vocabulary.

Remember : Both learning and teaching English can be fun! :)