It Works in Practice 104

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Top stories
This engaging activity, which is best suited to upper- chose correctly. Ask them to summarise the main topic of each
intermediate and advanced learners, uses authentic sources of story. The students should then vote on which news story they
English to engage the students and allow them to practise the would like to know more about.
skills of predicting, listening for gist and listening for detail.
4 Fast-forward the broadcast to the chosen story. The students
The students guess the content of a series of news stories from
should listen and take notes on the key facts, using the questions
images alone, and then do detailed listening practice with one
below as a guide (they should be made aware that answers may
news story.
not be available for some of the questions):
The activity uses the television news in English. This is What happened?
obviously easier if you are teaching in an English-speaking When and where did it happen?
country, but in other contexts there are likely to be cable Who was involved?
channels that show the news in English, or you could find news What caused it to happen?
stories on YouTube. If you don’t have classroom internet access, How have people reacted?
the material could be pre-recorded on DVD.
5 The students should discuss their answers in groups. Monitor
Here are links for on-demand TV sites: to confirm that their answers are correct, clarify any details and
Australia help with key vocabulary.
www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/
http://iview.abc.net.au/ 6 After the students are satisfied that they have answered the
New Zealand questions to the best of their ability, they can discuss the story in
www.tvnz.co.nz/ondemand further detail:
www.tv3.co.nz/OnDemand.aspx Why is this story considered newsworthy?
Europe What are the implications of this story?
On-demand websites in Europe can be searched for at Have there been similar stories in the news in their own countries?
http://mavise.obs.coe.int/ 7 For homework, the students could be given a newspaper
1 Prior to the lesson, choose two episodes of a news show which article on the same topic (if one is available). As they will now be
starts with a summary of the top stories. It is fine (perhaps better) familiar with the context, they will have more attention free to
if there is some overlap in the stories covered in each episode. notice new vocabulary or phrases used in the article. These can be
(Don’t forget to watch the summary of the top stories first, to highlighted and discussed in the next class.
ensure that they are not inappropriate!) The first time I did this activity in class, a student asked if we
2 Once in class, play the ‘top stories’ section of the first could do it again the next day. As news stories are by their very
broadcast with the sound turned off. Ask the students to guess nature topical, they may be more relevant than the material in
what each news story is about, based on the images they’ve seen. the students’ textbooks, which can date quickly. By allowing
(If any students follow the news, they can help the others.) Then the students to choose which story they would like to learn
play the ‘top stories’ section from the second broadcast and, more about, it gives them some input into what they study.
again, have the students guess the content from the images. In addition, the activity gives the students practice in
3 Next, turn off the IWB screen or projector, and turn on the understanding different varieties and accents of English, and
sound. Play the audio only of one of the recordings the students helps them build up their knowledge of what is going on in the
just viewed. Ask them to identify which broadcast these sounds world around them – something which many students could
belong to, the first or the second. Elicit the key words that helped benefit from.
them guess. Turn the board back on and play the clip along with Nita Yukseloglu
the sound, so that the students can confirm whether or not they Auckland, New Zealand
36 • Issue 104 May 2016 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

How can a single student win? Planning communication
Success is a very important motivational factor in the When planning lessons, it is not just activities, handouts and
learning process. When a student wins, even in a simple the logistics of the lesson that are important. We also need to
word game, it means that they did something right and plan our way of communicating with our students.
better than the others. However, in a one-to-one lesson, it is
This is quite a complex matter, as it includes:
not very easy to organise a fair competition. If a student
plays a language game against a teacher, it is obvious that the words you choose to greet, explain, praise, answer, etc
the teacher is going to win. during the lesson;
the intonation you use, which can motivate, bore, inspire, scare
The easy answer is for the teacher not to play as well as they
or provoke your students;
can: to be slower, to give wrong answers on purpose. But my
students, even the young ones, hate this. It is patronising the structures you use – for example, questions, imperatives or
and discouraging, rather than motivating. So what can be descriptions;
done? the language you speak, if you are working with students who
share your mother tongue;
I use two techniques to enable my one-to-one students to
compete against themselves. All the work is done by the your body language: your position, gestures, facial expressions.
student, who then compares their latest result with their Of course we can’t exactly prepare all these things before a lesson
previous ones. They get a sense of achievement when they in the same way that we prepare a set of handouts. However, I
beat their previous result, and the competition is fair, as believe that we should pay attention to them, as sometimes we
their ‘opponent’ has the same level of English. don’t know what we intuitively choose to do in a lesson and why.
1 If I want my student to review some recently-learnt Recently, I observed some lessons and I paid attention to the
vocabulary, I make cards of the target words and give these to teacher’s speech. It was grammatically correct and quite clear, but
the student. I then set a time limit, usually a minute, for them the monotonous intonation, the absence of a smile and the
to explain as many words as they can. They have to do this formality of the language meant that it wasn’t very friendly. The
three times. At the end, they will have three scores: the number teacher didn’t mean to sound unfriendly, it was just the way she
of words they could explain during the first, second and third had got used to sounding in English.
minute. They compare the scores, and if the score for the third
minute is higher, they win! Here are some pieces of advice that I collated while attending
seminars given by successful speakers:
2 The student writes seven sentences using a target grammar
1 Make your speech positive, using more affirmative sentences
structure. Before checking them together, I ask the student
how many correct sentences they think they have. We write the than negative ones. Instead of saying Don’t forget to …, say
number they predict above the sentences and then go through Remember to … . This makes your instructions clear, because you
them together. Afterwards, we compare their prediction with are telling the students what to do, rather than what not to do.
the actual result. This gives them, and me, quite a lot of Using affirmative sentences is particularly important with children.
information. First of all, I learn about my student’s self-esteem. 2 Use questions to involve the students when you explain
A student with low self-esteem tends not to expect many something. By doing this, you engage the students in the active
correct sentences. If there are more correct answers than they process of analysing the information you are presenting to them.
expect, they feel better about themselves and become more However, if a teacher who always just gives information suddenly
inclined to take risks in language activities. Those who have starts asking questions, the students will stay silent and wait for
fewer correct answers than expected generally become more the teacher to return to explaining. So allow time for the students
careful about written assignments, as they remember their to adjust to your new technique. In three or four lessons, they will
unjustified expectations. get used to it and you will see the benefits.
I use this technique quite often, and I have noticed that, at 3 Be polite: you are not only using the foreign language, but
first, some students are not very enthusiastic about having to also representing the culture of this language. English is a very
predict their results. However, they get much more enthusiastic polite language, and it is important to introduce this aspect of it
about it later. In the end, it is their own mark and there is in your instructions. Make all your instructions polite by adding
nobody to blame them or to make comparisons with anybody please at the end. This is not as easy as it sounds. I had to make
who is better. quite a lot of effort to teach myself to do it. Pay attention to your
These two little techniques help me and my students to own speech and remind yourself all the time about polite words.
experience a sense of achievement during one-to-one Your speech will be more authentic, and your students will
lessons. Why not try them out? gradually become more polite as well.
Nadiya Klymyshyna
Kharkiv, Ukraine
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 104 May 2016 • 37

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More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all

36 • Issue 104 May 2016 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 104 May 2016 • 37

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