Coffee, no cream - Scrambled Slide Show Project

Here's a simple but very rewarding project that gives students a chance to practice pronunciation and transition words like "first," "second," "next," and "finally." Create a simple photo essay using Power Point or other slide show program demonstrating the steps of a process. Make each photo clear and distinct and put one photo on a slide. Don't add any text or timing. Scramble the order of

A PowerPoint Project Idea From a Student

This idea was generated completely by a student. I quickly made it a project for everyone! Students work with a list of new vocabulary words every week. My student Karla called me over to look at what she was doing. Turns out she had made a PowerPoint slide show featuring one word contextualized in a sentence and illustrated by an image. It turned out great. It's a simple idea with a lot of

Using PowerPoint to Deliver Content Instruction or Practice

A very engaging way to introduce or practice vocabulary or grammar content is to use a series of images in a PowerPoint presentation. View the PowerPoint presentation below to see the way several ESL topics could be introduced or practiced. The presentation is just a sampler, with one or two slides demonstrating each type of activity. In practice, each topic would have anywhere from 10 to 20

Using Video Clips as Prompts for Conversation and Making Predictions

I was recently reminded of the importance of reading stories as a classroom exercise in terms of giving students the opportunity to make predictions about what will happen in the next part of the story to be read. The same can be done with video clips. The following three clips come from a car commercial. I play them in order for the whole class. The students work in groups. Each group has to

Authentic Easy-to-Read Stories Online at the Toronto Star

I was recently introduced to the "Acts of Kindness" series published weekly by the Toronto Star by a multilevel instructor who teaches in Canada. She noted that these true stories, submitted by readers of the newspaper, are very suitable for multilevel classes since they are short and often written in "easy" English. She has the students work in cross-ability groups with the stories in a