Short and Quick Activities for the ESL Classroom

Short and Quick Activities for the ESL Classroom All teachers are probably familiar with this situation: Its five minutes before your next class is going to begin and you really dont know what to do. Or maybe this situation is familiar; youve finished your lesson and there are still ten minutes left to go. These short, helpful activities can be used in those situations when you could use a good idea to help get the class started, or fill those inevitable gaps. 3 Favorite Short Classroom Activities My Friend...? I like to draw a picture of a man or a woman on the board. This usually gets a few laughs as my drawing skills leave quite a lot to be desired. Anyway, the point of this exercise is that you ask students questions about this mystery person. Begin with: What is his / her name? and go from there. The only rule that applies is that students have to pay attention to what other students say so that they can give reasonable answers based on what other students have said. This is a great little exercise to review tenses. The crazier the story becomes the better, and more communicative, the activity is for the students. Short Topic Writing The idea of this exercise is to get students to quickly write about a topic they choose (or you assign). These short presentations are then used in two manners; to generate spontaneous conversations on a wide range of topics, and to take a look at some common writing problems. Use the following subjects and ask students to write a paragraph or two about a subject they choose, give them about five to ten minutes to write: The best thing to happen to me todayThe worst thing to happen to me todaySomething funny that happened to me this weekWhat I really hate!What I really like!My favorite thingA surprise I hadA landscapeA buildingA monumentA museumA memory from childhoodMy best friendMy boss Music Description Choose a short piece or excerpt of music you like (I prefer something by the French composers Ravel or Debussy) and tell the students to relax and listen to the music. Tell them to let their imaginations run free. After you have listened to the piece twice, ask them to describe what they were thinking about or what they imagined while they were listening to the music. Ask them why they had those particular thoughts.

5 Points About Parallel Structure

5 Points About Parallel Structure 5 Points About Parallel Structure 5 Points About Parallel Structure By Mark Nichol The following five sentences present various problems with sentence organization. Each is followed by a discussion of the sentence and a revision that addresses the problem. 1. The policy is effective, proportionate, and meets the standards. Effective has the verb is, and standards is supported by meets, but proportionate has no dance partner. It needs the twin of is, or must share the original instance of the verb, as shown here: â€Å"The policy is effective and proportionate and meets the standards.† 2. It was a stated requirement not to further increase but, rather, to reallocate capital. This sentence is not wrong, but it suffers from a delayed keyword. It’s not clear until after the sentence is read that the intention is to counterpoint the idea of increasing capital with the idea of reallocating capital; capital is too far removed from the first word it is intended to be associated with. When capital is located immediately after that first word, the sentence is clearer, and a pronoun can replace the keyword at the end of the sentence: â€Å"It was a stated requirement not to further increase capital but, rather, to reallocate it.† 3. We appreciate your time and contributions to our study. If â€Å"and contributions† is omitted from this sentence, what remains is the ungrammatical â€Å"We appreciate your time to our study.† To clarify that time and contributions are not intended to be strictly parallel, the pronoun your should be repeated in order to produce two distinct clauses, where a repetition of â€Å"we appreciate† is implied after and: â€Å"We appreciate your time and your contributions to our study.† 4. They might be confronted with situations that they may not have experienced before and might test them to their limits. In the simple sentence â€Å"They might be confronted with situations that they may not have experienced before,† that is optional. However, in a more complex statement, it is necessary not once, but twice, to signal that â€Å"they may not have experienced before† and â€Å"might test them to their limits† are parallel phrases: â€Å"They might be confronted with situations that they may not have experienced before and that might test them to their limits.† 5. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a joint statement on the new rules. The phrase â€Å"Board of Governors† applies only to the Federal Reserve System, so the first item in this list needs to be set off from the rest (rather, the list needs to be set off from this item) so that no implication that each of the other entities has a board of governors exists: â€Å"The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, issued a joint statement on the new rules.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Yours faithfully or Yours sincerely?â€Å"As Well As† Does Not Mean â€Å"And†75 Synonyms for â€Å"Hard†