Ten affective and effective ways to prevent indiscipline with young learners

Some years ago I wrote a post sharing my experience in taking a course at the University of Toronto in which I learned ways through which we can dismantle the issue of indiscipline by understanding and eliminating the causes that promote a series of problems. According to professor Joseph Ducharme, indiscipline can be understood as students communicating us  of that they have unmet needs. The interesting thing is that after the course I was able to see misbehaviour much more as a game of chess, in which we have several strategic moves, than a tug of war in which there is resentment of having a winner pulling the other to a desired side. 

But just before I go on, I will repeat a concept that was repeated over and over during the course: the best moment to work on indiscipline is when things are going well. Make sure you read this extremely important learning again and write it somewhere as this is something you will forget and then you will have to invest much more time and effort once you already have disruptive behaviour. 

It is with great pleasure that I share here 10 strategic moves that will decrease the frequency of indiscipline in your class: 

1.Welcoming: make sure you are totally available to receive your students at the beginning of classes as your reaction to their arrival can set the tone of your class. Arrive five minutes before class, look at them in the eyes, smile, and greet them using their names. Very simple, right? But it does not always happen as many teachers are figuring out photocopies, writing on the board or doing something else.


These five minutes are a great period time to invest in connecting with them on a personal basis. Wanna bring it to an advanced level? Write an affective  quote on the board and welcome them with their favourite songs that you collected on the first days of school.

2. Have a routine: letting students know about what you have planned is not only a sign of respect to our students but it is also a great management procedure. Informing your students about the planned activities reduces stress, eases transitions, and allows you to talk about the expected learning in every different moment. Wanna know more about how you can engage your students using routine cards? Then read this post about routine cards.

3. Circle time: students always have a lot to share with you and with their peers when they arrive. As they will do it anyway in class, the best way is to have moments in which you allow them to release their excitement do all this sharing in a structured way. During circle time you can also review content, tell students what will happen, discover their likes, and notice how students are feeling; these is important information that will help you tailor and carefully adjust the class to your students' lives. Remember to tell students that what happens in circle time, stays in circle time. Well, if it was really nice, it can go to Instagram!

4. Plan movement: young learners simply need to move. Well, I would say that more than that, all students need movement in their classes.  Movement makes learners get their attention span back, oxigenates brains,  and allows students to learn kinesthetically. It also allows students to change learning peers, see things from a different perspective, and express themselves with their bodies. Including movement in your classes will certainly make your students more engaged and will make them learn in a more holistic way. Bonus: you will not be complaining that your students can't sit still!


5. Share personal stories: here I share an attention magnet that can be used whenever you are losing control of the room or when you notice that you need to build rapport with the group. Personal stories are special and valuable because we only tell them to people we care, they are also real and carry authentic learning pieces. Regardless of being funny, amazing, or tragic personal anecdotes allow us to display our humanity and to use English as a means of communication.


Once you tell your story, make sure you have planned time to listen to their questions, comments and specially to know their stories. Remember that the more we listen to them, the more they will listen to us.

6. Get the adequate difficulty: in many cases students misbehave because an activity is simply way too easy or just too hard. Make sure you study activities well beforehand not to fall in this trap. ( I have been there so many times!). If you notice you have a hard activity, you can get students to work in pairs, give models, and have scaffolds. If you notice that your are losing the class because an activity is just too hard, just apologize and stop doing it. If you have a mixed-ability group, you might need to have two levels of activities in the same theme  or you can pair strong-weak students to promote peer teaching.

7. Give them choice: sometimes students misbehave because they do not have the degree of control of the class that they would like. One way of addressing this need is by giving them choices, which can be done individually or as a group. Choices may include what, when, how, and in which order activities will happen. By giving learners more control over their learning, we promote engagement and motivation as they have made their choices regarding their learning. Studies have shown that giving options for homework have brought much more engagement and pleasure than assigning a fixed task. Personal anecdote: in my swimming classes I loved when the teacher would let me choose between two exercises and I would cheat the distance when given an exercise I did not like. The next strategy is also aligned with this idea of giving students more agency, but instead of giving them choices, we can listen and discuss about their learning through the good and old feedback.

8. Give and ask for feedback: it's not always that students are asked for feedback. Specially asked for feedback in the beginning or middle of a course with the intention of valuing learners' opinions and changing aspects of how the teaching and learning happen.

We should ask feedback when we care and because we are concerned with the experience students are having with us. We should also ask for feedback as it is an opportunity for us to learn as groups are different and have diverse needs. Feedback can happen in many different formats and the very essential follow up is to quickly act upon students' suggestions, so then that group  can see that it is for real. You will see the beautiful energy in the room when they notice things have changed!

Another important thing is to give feedback about how you see their learning, how they have cooperated with each other and what it means for you to be with them. The next strategy has to do with feedback as well, but it is so important that I am giving it its own number!

9. Pay attention to the ones that do well: this is a very important one, so make sure you write it somewhere you can always see it. Remember that the best moment to work on discipline is when things are going well? Here I share how you can do it. You can prevent indiscipline from happening by giving students attention and praise when they are involved and working with well. This can be done right after you notice appropriate behaviour by either just looking at the student and doing a thumbs up or by stopping everything and enthusiastically telling how that behaviour has allowed learning to happen. I hug students and give them high fives. Try to avoid giving much attention to students that are misbehaving. Another way to show that you value and notice adequate behaviour is to bring the theme during the circle time and wrap up moments.

10. Circulate and monitor: some students might misbehave as a escape of the pain of needing individual attention, not understanding the instructions, or being stuck in the task. Moving around the classroom bring many benefits: it allows us to  make ourselves available to students,  we can check how students have understood our instructions, we can check how students are doing individually, and also praise the ones that are going well. When seeing interesting participation, we can ask specific students or groups to share something interesting with the whole group.

Hint 1:It is important to avoid making a pair with any student or joining any group during an activity as this would not allow you to circulate and get to know how and what students are doing.
Hint 2: Try to get students to sit in a horse shoe or in small groups and reach the students standing behind them. In this way you will not intimidate them and you will also maintain eye contact with the whole class.


Congratulations, you have just gained three bonus strategies!


Bonus 1: Intercalate easy and difficult tasks: this is one that I like and have been doing intuitively for many years. The idea here is to give students some confidence boosters in the middle of the classes with activities that they can perform well. By including these activities we can attend the need that children have for success, which when not fulfilled can be one root of indiscipline. We can also mix creative and unstructured activities with more demanding tasks, and also some individual and group activities. Variety rocks!


Bonus 2: Use humour: have you ever heard that the shortest distance between two people is a smile? Humour has its secret powers that heal, release stress, and connect people. It works in a similar way as the personal stories in the sense that we tell jokes and riddles to people we care.



Jokes and riddles are not only good to prevent indiscipline, but they are great ways to use and teach language as they have narrative and the double meaning of words.  Make it a tradition to have jokes in a certain moment of your class. I usually say "But before you leave, I have a question for you .... ". Humour works great as a class wrap up. Make sure here also to listen and have a great time with your students' jokes.

Here you have: alphabet riddles, country riddles, and easy jokes for young learners.

Bonus 3: Celebrate: this is the last strategy, but certainly not the least! I believe it is essential for us to acknowledge and celebrate the development that students have achieved. Celebrate both small and big achievements. You can celebrate a nice class by having a surprise, bringing cookies, or dancing with them. If you have a puppet, it can the messenger of the good news.  Show students and their parents the students' journey with pictures or with a video in which you praise them by giving specific feedback on what they are now able to do. Mention how their dedication and their behaviour has contributed to make all this learning possible. Here again it is essential to let students talk and express what they enjoyed doing and how they feel at this moment! These closing ritual are moments that will always be remembered and cherished!!!


Well, this was our journey on proactive strategies to prevent indiscipline. If you have enjoyed it, please share this post with other teachers. Together we can change the overall experience of teaching and learning!

A frog-hug,

Juan

Please leave a comment below sharing the strategy you will start using more. I get very little feedback from my readers and I would love to hear from you! Thank you!!!

Interviewing Affective Educators: Jason R Levine

"Love yourself and your expression, you can't go wrong"

KRS-One

This last August I had the great pleasure of meeting Jason R. Levine, also known as Fluency MC, and working with him during one week in the Gallery Day Camp in Italy. During this week I was able to see Jason promoting learning through rap and I discovered that Jason and I are artisteachers in our own ways. I couldn't have let him go without interviewing him first. Here is our chat: 

Juan: I am really happy that we are working together here in Italy as I had heard a lot about you, but only being here makes me able to better understand your work. Have to tell you that I am your fan.


Jason: Likewise, I follow what you are doing as a teacher and as a teacher trainer around the world. It is interesting to see how my work and your work complement each other. It's really exciting. It's a great feeling to be here.


Juan: I will start our interview by asking the classic question: Who is Jason R Levine?  But don't go thinking that this interview will be an easy one!

Jason: It's funny, there are a lot of Jason Levines out there and I put my middle initial  R to differentiate myself. I do both content creation and also training. I have this persona Fluency MC that I use for the music and the videos.  For me Jason Levine is more the trainer, what is left of the academic side of me.  Fluency MC is the guy that is out there on the ground as well as into content creation and materials design.

Juan: I believe that I identify with you as I believe that I am also a mixture of an artist and a teacher. I can clearly see your very developed artistic side in your teaching. Please tell me how this integration has happened in your life.


Jason:  Glad you see it that way because it hasn't been that long that I have been doing what I do with music. I was a pretty traditional English teacher during the first part of my career. It wasn't really until nine, ten years ago that I really started bringing music and video into it. From the start I was into creating material, in this sense I might be an artist, but what you see me doing is pretty recent. During the first years I was pretty shy.

Juan: I can't imagine you being shy!


Jason: I have a video to prove it, but I am not at the point that I am ready to show that video to people yet! My students used to tease me and they have certainly helped me discover my talent. This is a beautiful thing about teaching, when both students and teacher support and encourage each other in the process.

Juan: What do you take into account when you write your raps?

Jason: I am a big corpus linguistics guy, a collocation guy, and definitely for me what sparks me and gets me going is the lexical side of what I am working with. So if I receive a unit with certain vocabulary, certain structures, I love what I can do with these. I am also very motivated when I see what frustrates teachers and students, such as boring or difficult grammar structures, things that even with a lot of studying and learning students usually do not make much progress with.

Jason: I enjoy thinking about the acquisition, the repetition, and the humour in the songs. It's definitely the linguistic side that moves me in the beginning, but then as I write the songs I often get into storytelling.

Juan: I can see you put a lot of humour in the pictures you choose as well as in the lyrics.

Jason: Humour absolutely! I think that every good artist in some level does something with humour.

Juan: I really like the secret messages that you put in your raps. How do you go about these?

Jason: Thank you. I'm always moved by social messages in art, whether about inequality or about the environment or other important issues. I believe that the subtle messages are the ones that strike you, if it's a comedian who sneaks it in a joke or a singer that inserts it in a song. I don't like it when the message is explicit and  hits you in the head as it is hard to reach people that way. I want people to discover it themselves. To tell you the truth, I don't always notice myself doing it. The other day a teacher pointed it out to me. I can say that I am really influenced by many singers and authors and I like to do it that way.

Jason: Stick, Stuck, Stuck is the first song that I wrote and it is still the most popular song. People point out that there is a message within it and when you listen to other songs the messages are definitely more out there.

Here you have the famous Stick, Stuck, Stuck by Fluency MC :

Juan: I follow your career and I see that you have been travelling a lot and you have been in contact with lots of students around the world. How do you make sense of all this? How has this experience touched you?

Jason: I've been thinking a lot about this lately. The other day I saw some pictures of when I was with students in Palestine and it seems it was such a long time ago. I'm sure you also have this experience of feeling time in a different way when you travel and you have lots of intense encounters. On the other hand, I feel it is strange sometimes as I have had these intense encounters but I haven't seen these people again and I'm not sure what they are doing. As fun and as interesting it is to travel, it can also be hard.

Jason with students in the Palestine!

Jason: What grounds me is the fact that we are all connected through social media, like one student from Palestine can write me tomorrow and say "Hey I watched your video and I remember when you were in Ramallah". I feel really lucky about it. In the past, without this new media, it would have been tougher. I feel lucky to be teaching at this time in history.




Juan: I heard you are coming to Brazil next year, tell us about it.

Jason: I have wanted to come to Brazil for a really long time. Mainly because many Brazilian encouraged me when I taught in New York and also because I have many loyal followers from Brazil. There is certainly a musical connection between American and Brazilian hip hop and I believe the idea of practicing with music appeals a lot to Brazilian teachers. People tell me all the time to come to Brazil so I've got to do it. And it is great to be connected to you and also to other teacher trainers who supported me.


Juan: You are going to have such an amazing time in Brazil, Jason. By the way, I know that you have created an innovative language learning program. Please tell us how the Weekly English Workout Program works and how you have come up with this idea.

Jason: Thank you for asking about the Weekly English Workout. I'm very excited about it as it's a new project.  It's a speaking practice program based on Video Workouts, live classes, and a private Facebook group. It provides intensive practice to enable you to use English in your everyday life. This practice, I believe, is the missing piece for most people. It's been a lot of fun and I'm excited about getting the program into schools around the world so that students can use it out of class to improve their English fluency.

Juan: What message would you leave people that have a talent and would like to fuse it with language teaching?

Jason: That is a wonderful question. Just get out there and do it.

Juan: Any message for the students?

Jason: Wherever I go, I meet one or two students that are really fluent, really excited about English. Some people would assume that they have lived in the country where the language is spoken, that they must have had these great lessons, or that they have the gift for learning another language. But nine times out of ten it is because they really got excited about English from media, they watch a lot of movies, they listen to a lot of music, they read a lot of comic books... The best use of time for teachers is to get their students excited to get out there and go for things that they really enjoy.

Juan: Thank you so much for this interview!  It's been great working with you here at the Gallery Day Camp.

Jason: That was fun!


Do you have a special talent you have incorporated in your classes?
Let me know and you can be the next teacher  interviewed here in the blog!


Sending you a big hug from Hokkaido in Japan,

Juan


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Follow my Playing to Learn column!

Hello! 

It's with great pleasure that I share some good news. I have a column of my own!

It is entitled "Playing to Learn" and it is published twice a month with Gallery Teachers and iTDi. My very first column will have 12 posts and there I invite you to explore practical ideas and playful activities that can make your classes memorable, engaging, and fun. More than that, my intention is to awaken and strengthen your playfulness and empower you to create and live play with your group. 

On galleryteachers.com  you will be able to learn with amazing ELT bloggers and writers such as Barbara Sakamoto, Shelly Terrell, Luke Meddings, Christina Rebuffet, Jason Levine, and Chuck Sandy among others. Topics range from culture to critical pedagogy to cooking and there's something for everyone. Each column post comes with a downloadable PDF full of ideas, activities, or a lesson plan that you can take into your classroom or use for your own development. 

Do pay me a visit and leave your comment giving me feedback on how you liked it and what you would like to talk about next. I write it for you. 

Hope you have enjoyed these news as much as I do. It's really exciting!

Send you all a big hug from Seoul, South Korea!

Juan

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Thank you!!!

Learning English with Flying Hankerchieves

"Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the 

harmonious development of both society and the individual."

Friedrich Schiller

I simply love having hankerchieves in my classes because these flying and maleable colourful pieces of light fabric bring much more than joy, movement, and fantasy. Flying hankerchieves bring a sense of aesthetic and beauty to the process of language learning.

These small pieces of magic allow students to create language while playing, to move their bodies while learning, and to see them beautifully floating in the air.

That's probably why I have have given over 50 sets of these flying hankerchieves made by my mom Stella to fellow English teachers at congresses and school visits around the world.You can make your very own hankerchieves by cutting 15-cm squares of colourful and very light fabric. 

Here I share 12 creative ways through which flying hankerchiefs can promote affective language learning in your class:

Ready or not, here I come!

1. Counting numbers: children can count with hankerchieves in several different ways. One way is to have only one hankerchief being passed around, one variation is to give a hankerchief to a small number of children to be passed around, and finally a pair can share a hankerchief. Another possibility to prctising counting is to throw the hankerchief really high in the air and children count until it touches the floor.

2. Drawing numbers, letters, and words: you can model drawing numbers, letters and even words in the air which students should guess. One student can then be invited to do it to the classroom and finally students do it in pairs of small groups. It can also be done with ribbons that will maintain even longer the shape of the numbers and letters. Great fun!

3. Noticing colours: here I share some ways that you probably already know. The first one is hiding one in your hand and students have to guess which colour you have. Another is hiding them in the room to be found. Next you can play the subtracting game by getting one colour from the pile and getting them to notice which one you got. Last you can display the hankerchieves on the floor in a certain order, ask kids to close their eyes, and change the order, students have to tell you what has changed. All these can be played as a big group, small group, and then in pairs.



4. Touching body parts: here one throws a hankerchief in the air and students have to get them with the part of the body that is chosen. A variation is to say a student's name and a body part as a challenge. If the students completes the challenge, he or she says the name of the next student and a different body part.  Great fun!


5. Exchanging things they like: you get a hankerchief and you tell students you have something of that colour in your hand. One can say for instance that the white hankerchief is a cloud,  the red one a strawberry, and the blue one is the ocean. Have students say what things each colour is. Then each student can get a hankerchief and say what they have in their hands. In the last movement, students ask each other what they have and  if they would like to exchange them.More advanced students can give reasons why they accept or not the exchange.

6. Checking students' emotions: tell students you feel happy when you pick the yellow hankerchief. They can them tell you which colour means happy for them. After that learners can choose a flying hankerchief according to how they feel on a certain day or about a certain topic. They can choose for example the white one if they are really calm or the yellow one because the like the sunny day.

7. Creating things ( or even a scenario!) : call out some things that have one color like the sun or water and let students make them on the floor, after this call out things like trees or a watermelon that have two or more colours. When you notice your students are really good at it invite them to make a scenario with all the hankerchieves. If they choose making a beach for instance, they can use the blue ones as the ocean, the yellow ones as the beach, and the green as palm trees. Their creations are usually incredible!

8. Discovering things with the chosen colors: this is the opposite of the previous activity. Each learner chooses a hankerchief and the teacher calls two students. These students have then to say which thing has the colors of their hankerchieves. For example, black and blue could be a policeman's uniform or even a sunken ship. You can leave their creations on the floor. Call out all the students until they run out of hankerchieves.


9. Telling a story: here you can start a story by giving a specific meaning to one hankerchief. For the story to continue one student comes and ties his/her hankerchief to the first one. Example: Once there a flea (black one) that fell in the water (blue one) and then the day started to get really hot (yellow) and so on. Once all the hankerchieves are used students can retell or even rewrite the whole story.


10. Reading through them: a fun way to use the hankerchieves is to read through them. You can decide together with the class if colors have any special moods or ways to read. Hankerchieves can be changed after some time. Some possibilities are fast, slowly, prolifically, sleepy, angrily, in love, etc.

11. Listening to words: students can be given flashcards with words that will appear in a story or in a song. Whenever they listen to the word they have been assigned they throw their hankerchief to the air. It is a beautiful scene to see all of them flying in the air. Make sure you say every word many times to make children pay close attention. I usually say all the words in my last sentence.

12. Listening to similarities: students are given a hankerchief each. Then in pairs they face each other, one starts saying one sentence at a time about personal facts or opinion. Then if the other person has the same fact or the same opinion, this person throws the hnkerchief to the other and repeats the sentence that was said, and then continues the game by saying sentences until the other person repeats it and throws the hankerchief. Students go switching who is doing the talking until they have swapped hankerchiefs a certain number of times.

Bonus activity: have them dancing! 

 Here you can see me with  two wood crosses and eight hankerchieves. Tie one to each edge and you can have a bunch of birds flying or ghosts dancing.







Thanks to Pravita Indriati from Indonesia for the pictures of her students learning with the flying hankerchieves!

Which was your favourite activity?
Do you have any other idea on how to these beautiful flying hankerchieves?

Hope to meet you at a congress and to be able to give you personally a set of flying hankerchieves!

Sending you a big hug,

Juan

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Puppeteering on IATEFL's Young Learners webmagazine

I am very happy to share that my article on puppeteering as a way of creating affective language learning experiences with primary learners was featured together with other very interesting ones in the digital issue of  IATEFL's Young Learners and Teens magazine. This issue was edited by the competent David Valente and also features my dear friend Kylie Malinowska, who was previously interviewed in the blog. 

Click here to read the whole magazine! Enjoy it!

Do you have interesting experiences to share with the world? 

Get in touch with IATEFL's Young Learners and Teens Special Interest Group and publish your voice!

Hugs from Brazil, 

Juan

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Puppeteering interviews with Queenie Tan!

During last Young Learners' Day at TESOL France I had the great pleasure to meet  Queenie Tan and her assistant Jennifer.  Queenie is a well-known author, podcaster, and early childhood educator who lives in Hong Kong and has dedicated herself to educating parents and teachers on how they can become more affective and effective parents and teachers. She has a website and there you can learn more about her books, listen to her podcasts and interviews and much more.

Queenie, Buddy the Frog, and Jennifer in Paris. 

Buddy and I were not interviewed once, but twice in Queenie's show! But how did that happen?

Well, Queenie first interviewed us on how teachers can teach using puppets and then many of the parents that follow her parenting channel liked our interview so much, that they asked us to come to Queenie's parenting channel to talk about how parents can have quality time with their children living imagination and creativity with puppets.


In the first interview Buddy and I shared how teachers can get started in puppeteering and how language development, emotional intelligence, and proactive discipline can be fostered through puppeteering.

Here you can listen to our first interview with Queenie Tan! (audio only)

In the second interview the three of us talked about how parents can use puppets to play with therir children and therefore create memorable moments.

Check here our second interview with Queenie Tan!

Wish you great puppet moments with your children and students!

Which part did you like the most?
Do you have any question that you would like to ask me or Buddy the Frog?


Send you a big puppet-hug directly from Japan!

Juan


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Check also this video with more puppeteering hints!

A rewarding and touching experience in Konya, Turkey

I had the unique privilege of living and learning with a lively group of Algerian teachers when I gave the CTS (Certificate in Teaching Skills) course with SeltAcademy during the last two weeks of August 2014 in Konya, Turkey. 

Check my guest post on SeltAcademy's blog sharing this amazing experience. 

Posing for a group picture one afternoon after we had a session in the garden. 

Celebrating the sense of accomplishment after having completed the course. 

Hugs, 

Juan

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Thank you! 

50 affective ways to use flashcards with young learners!

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

Napoleon

Flashcards, Flashcards. How can we live without them? What can we say about them?

I bet every single language teacher around the world has at least a set of flashcards. Some like me, certainly have a collection. I would say that teachers love flashcards because they are visual, clear, objective, and holdable. They can also be used in many different and creative ways.

I have compiled here 50 affective and effective ways in which flashcards can be used to foster engaging and significant language learning in your classes. Enjoy!

1. Say how you like it: here students get a card, say the flashcard as they like them, and pass it to the next student. You can model by saying words such as ice cream with a yummy intonation and snake with a scary one. The very nice thing is that students may have multiple and different opinions about the things in the flashcards and they can show their likes and dislikes just by how they say it. This might be a great opportunity to present them the language they need to express themselves. This is definitely one of my favourite ways of working with flashcards and because of this I have chosen it to be the first of this list!



2. Slowly uncover the picture: this is a classic. Slowly uncover the picture for students to guess what you have. You can uncover the picture from different sides or even have an envelope with a hole in which students see just a part of it. You can do it as during language presentation or when you are activating language students have already seen. If they have seen the pictures already, they will give you the answer in miliseconds!

3. Slowly uncover the word: similar to uncover the picture, but here you use cards that only have words. What I like to do here is to have students brainstorm all the words they can say that use the letter or letters that I am showing. The more letters I show, the more obvious the word gets. Some variations include showing just a little bit of the top or bottom of the word. Put the word upside down to get them crazy and excited!

4. Whisper and guess: here I get a card and either whisper it or just move my mouth and students have to guess it. Once they get the game, they can mingle doing it to their peers as a way of activating language previously presented. When they guess the word, they can exchange cards

5. Say it only if it's right: the teacher shows the flashcards and calls out a word. If the word is what the teacher is holding, students say the word. Once they get it, you can demonstrate it with one student and have students playing the game with each other.

6. Say it if you like it: similar to the last activity, but here the teacher calls out the words and students repeat it only it they like them. It's really interesting to listen to the number of people each card gets. Some of them get nobody!

Two possible answers allow
 children to choose their favourite.

7.  Apple or pear?: this is a very easy activity for students who are beginners. Each student is given two flashcards and they make simple questions just by saying the names of the cards such as "apple or pear?". Once a student answers one of the options, she/he gets that card. Students take turns to make sure that everybody stays with two cards. Then students change pairs and continue practising the vocabulary items.




8. Mime: teacher shows a card, says it, and everybody mimes it. Then teacher gets a card, mimes it, and everybody has to guess it. Students do it to each other and exchange cards before changing pairs.

9. Circle of process: this is another classic. The teacher puts a sentence such as "I went to the market and bought ______ ". Students sit in a circle and are given a card each which they are not to show others. The first student in the circle says the sentence, shows his/her card and completes the sentence saying the word represented in his/her card. The second student then says the sentence completing with the word the first person has said, and then show his/her card before saying his/her part. If a student does not remember a word, the student can show the card. A variation can be done with the whole class saying it instead of the next student in the circle.

10. Spell and guess it: here you spell a word and students guess what you have. Here it helps if you have flashcards with word and picture or only with the word to make sure that they are spelling words correctly.

11. Draw it and write it: give students a sheet of paper with a word written on top and invite students to draw the word. Then tell students to fold the top part of the sheet and bluetac these on the board. Get other students to come and write the words below the pictures students have drawn. Other students can come to the board and tick/ make corrections on how words have been written. The very nice thing about this activity is that you can use the flashcards they have created for all the other activities we have here!

Drawing bingo works on
their listening skills. 

12. Listen and clap: distribute one card per child and tell them that you will tell a story and then every time they listen to their word they have to clap. Make sure you have a list of the words or that you write the story before hand in order to make sure that each word is said several times.

13. Drawing bingo: give students a 4x4 or 5x5 matrix and spread flashcards on the floor. Demonstrate how they can draw the flashcards they like in any way on their bingo cards. Once they have done it, you can tell a story showing the cards you say and students cross their drawings when you say them. A variation is to have students also write the words instead of just drawing them.

14. Make a sentence with the word: you pick a flashcard and say some sentences using this word to model different possibilities. You can then give each student one card for them to say a sentence to a peer. After saying their sentence students exchange cards.  Circulate in the classroom and get some of their sentences to be worked on the board.

15. Ranking: you can show how much you like the things you have in the flashcards by making a list. Then ask students to make their lists either drawing or writing and then to share these with their peers. You can here again pre-teach some language they might need when commenting on their colleague's list. A very nice variation is for students to say how much they think other students in class rank  things and then check their predictions.

Would it be hard for you to
discover you are a lemon? 

16. Discover what I am: here you hold a card and students have to discover what it is. You can have yes/no questions on the board to help students with the questions. Once they get how the game works, you can have them doing it in pairs. A great variation is to get peg a card to the back of each student and they have to discover what they have on their back by asking others while mingling.





17. Complete the words in the story: here the teacher tells a story and leaves gaps for students to complete using the flashcards. Example: Once there was a (students pick a card) that was happy going home when suddenly one (students pick a card) appeared. They started talking about life and then the first card said it had lost its (students pick a card). A variation for more advanced students is for them to make a story in pairs to be completed by their peers. Great fun!

18. Make a story: there are many ways in which students can make a story with flashcards. One way is having students tell only one story with a sentence at a time when the card is turned up, another is giving students 4 cards each and they can choose how they continue the story, and a third is you give pairs 6 cards and together they create their story which is then presented to the whole group.

Would you exchange a butterfly for an apple?

19. Exchange:  each student receives a card and then you ask one of them if he would like to exchange his card for yours. Give one or two reasons and then listen to his/hers. If both agree, exchange cards. Students mingle and consider the exchanges. Here again having language they might need on the board is essential.

20. Insert it in the conversation: students are supposed to carry a normal conversation and when they see the flashcard they insert the word linking it to the last topic they were talking. Let's say students are talking about dogs, you show the egg card, and then they comment that dogs do not like eating eggs, etc. I got this one from a television show.

21. Shop: this is a another classic one that children simply love. Students set up a shop and they have to sell what they have. You can have shops with fruits, animals, objects, or even with parts of the house and actions How do you sell swimming or watching tv? Make sure you model first and have language they will need on the board.

22. Talk to it: what would you tell a butterfly if it could listen to you? what about to your bed, your tap, or to a spoon? This is the chance students always have wanted to express themselves in creative ways. It can be done orally or with cards spread around the room and students write their creative sentences on sheets of paper. Students can then vote on the best sentence.

23. Interview the flashcard: how does a car feel to be a car? What are the things it likes doing? What are its worries? Here one student is the thing in the flashcard and the other or others ask him questions. You can have students come up with the questions before raffling the cards. Great fun!

24. Watermelon: every sentence that you say has to contain that thing you have in the flashcard. If you have a watermelon, you say:  "How watermelon are you?",  the other person says "I'm watermelon fine" and the conversation goes on. The winner is the one that always remembers to insert the word in the sentence. Go changing the words. Just a silly and funny one for those moments in which you have still time left.

What did the flower tell the gate?

25. One flashcard talks to the other: students become their flashcards and have to start a conversation. We have then for example a flower talking to a house. What does it say? Maybe it says "I would like to know what is inside of you, but I will die if you talk me out of the ground. " and the house can answer " but I can put you in a vase and you will be in the living room where we get a lot of sun."

Cards can even talk about a third card saying what the like about it and what they think should be different. Gossiping flashcards in other words!


26. For and against: what are all the advantages of the flashcards? What are all the disadvantages? You can have half the class supporting one position and the other half the contrary. Each pair can have a card they are talking about.
Example: + Eggs are delicious. They can be cooked in many different ways. They are not expensive. - Eggs break easily. They get rotten. They are messy.

27. Putting things inside a house: where would you put the things you have in a house? Make a big house using the board or different parts of the classroom. Students can put the elephant in the kitchen to help with the cooking and cow in the garden to receive people that are arriving, etc. Millions of possibilities. You can have students using a specific structure such as "What if we had", "I suggest having", or any other you are covering.

When was the last time you saw an elephant? 

28. Last time I saw: the name says it all. Students talk about the last time they interacted or used that thing. You can ask students to use WH questions. You could have the following: When was the last time you saw an elephant? Who were you with when you saw it? What did you feel when you saw it?

You can again here the questions already written and students only have to ask them. Answers are hilarious!

29. Domino: students play domino and to place the card they have to say something that both cards have in common. Students can talk about size, color, price, what they are used for, etc. How would you find a similarity between a brush and a ball? Both start with B, maybe?

30. Venn Diagram: using two hollahoops you can create a venn diagram just like the one on the picture on the left. You can give the categories and they sort out the cards or they create different categories and others have to guess "the secret" of their diagram.

It can be done both with cards with pictures or words.


31. Alliteration: students try to match adjectives that start with the first letter of the word. You can have a funny friendly flower, a gourgeous gigantic gate, a docile dog, etc.

What are other uses for a soccer ball? 

32. Other uses: what can a soccer ball we used for besides playing soccer? We can use it a dog toy, as a door stopper, as decoration, etc.

33. Present: what would you do if somebody gave you an apple on your birthday? What about a butterfly? Play with students the reactions they would have and how they have sometimes only to accept and thank. I usually play with family members saying for example: your mother gave you an apple, your sister a butterfly, your cousin a dog. You can also reverse it and ask what they would like to give each other in the classroom and why.


34. Make me say it: Students get 3 cards each which can not show these to their peers. Their objective is to make the other person say that word. Let's say a student has ball, he/she can ask the other "what do you need to play soccer?".

35. Hangman: students can use the cards that have written words to play hangman when they are still learning how to write the words. Words can be spread on the floor to make it easier.

36. Mini auto-biography: here the student shares his/her lifestory with the thing in the flashcard. I have learned this activity many years ago from Mario Rinvolucri at Pilgrims.

37. Family tree: build a family tree with the flashcards that you have. Who would be the father? Why? What about the mother? If they have children, who are these children? Why?

38. Describe and draw: here you can model by describing a flashcard with details while students draw it.  Help students make questions about it while drawing. After they finished drawing they can compare their creation with the flashcard. Then you can have students in pairs with  one student describing the flashcard and the other drawing. Then they check when they are finished and the one who described draws another flashcard.



39. Imagine and check: Ask students to close their eyes and imagine the flashcards you are going to say. Then show them and they tell you or each other how they saw each one of the words and how different they are from the flashcard you have. It works best if you use flashcards with real pictures instead of cartoons. Great for comparatives!


40. Have a sketch with them: you act out that you enter you house, pat the dog, have an apple, and watch some television while taking off your socks. You have just used five flashcards in a very funny way. You can even say the words in a monologue like: It's good to be back home. Hey Rex, what a lovely dog you are! Good there is still one apple left. Time for the game to start on tv, let me take off these socks! But make sure you do the actions entering the house flashcard, patting the dog flashcard, biting the apple flashcard and so on. Students can do sketches even having a dialogue with two or three people in which they have a situation in which the cards appear.

41. Brainstorm collocations: here students brainstorm all the collocations we can have with a certain flashcard. Let's think of some that go together with book: big, small, hardcover, heavy, light, old, new, etc. The focus here is not on working with the words on the flashcards, but really on how they can be used.

42. Forbidden words: have six cards in front of students and they are to have a conversation, but they can not say the words in the flashcards that have been displayed. You can go increasing the number of words of having different stations with different words.


43. Write it as it is: here students write the words according to what they mean. If they are writing cat, they will put whiskers in the C and create a tail. If it is the sea, they can create many waves repeating the word sea many times. If it is sun, they have rays around it. A variation is writing the words according to their size. Ant would be really tiny and elephant would be huge!

44. Odd one out: students choose four cards and create a code in which one of them does not belong. Other students have to guess it.

45. Year without it: how would your life be if you had to live one year without eating eggs? What about being with a dog? Not eating cake? You got the idea. This was inspired by those people that love making promises to suffer not eating something they really enjoy.

46. An entire day: similar to the last one, but the opposites. How would it be it you had to do what is in the flashcard for a whole day? Could you eat cake for a whole day? What about being with a dog? Smelling flowers is something you could handle? Here you can pre-teach language that they might need to express their emotional reactions.




47. Going to a desert island: which of these flashcards would you take to a desert island? You probably have heard or even played this classic game in which players have to justify their choices. Here students choose five cards and have to discuss with other students why their cards are important. pre-teach language that they might need in the discussion and demonstrate it with a student.



48. Biggest problem: what is the biggest problem a dog can have? Maybe it is not liking bones and everybody brings it a bone. Or maybe a dog can meow instead of barking. Students can use their creativity thinking about surreal problems for the flashcards.

49. Emotional thermometer: students choose a flashcard according to how they are feeling or how they have liked the class. A student can choose a dog because because he/she liked the class and because it was lively. A cake can be chosen because an activity was sweet. Students have to be a little bit older to understand the concept of making analogies. You certainly have to model it and explain it to your learners.

50. Matching couples: If the flashcards were couples which matches would we have? Maybe a tap goes with a bucket, a dog with a cat, fork with a spoon. Ok, you are probably thinking these are easy ones, but the real challenge happens when the matches are not that straight forward. Would a book match a house? What about a dog? Not really. A variation is to have to pile and a bachelor, then four cards are open and the best contestant marries the bachelor. Too crazy? Give it a try and tell me!



Wow! What a marathon of flashcard activities. It surely took me more than a month to get this post ready for you!

Do you use flashcards in any different way?
Write it in the comment and I will include your idea here!


Send you a big flashcard hug,

Juan


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Check also 50 affective ways to use cuisenaire rods with young learners! 

Affective Puns for Young Language Learners!

 

“Puns are the highest form of literature.” 
Alfred Hitchcock

Those of you who follow me on pinterest might have noticed that I have been collecting puns for the last months. I find them really witty and I have had great fun figuring them out. Puns are smart, funny, and memorable ways to live language affectively with our students. So as an affective teacher that I am,  I am now writing  a post about how we can use puns to promote language learning!

But what are puns? Puns are jokes that play with the hidden messages or double meaning created by sounds or uses of words. They are usually quick one-lined jokes that require some language knowledge and mastery for one to get them.  We can find puns on newspaper headlines, store names, movie names, and lots of puns are created and shared everyday on the internet. Last, a person who is always making puns is a punster.

So, let me welcome you to the magic world of puns!
Check here some examples: 

Puns that play with sounds: 

Puns that play with meaning: 

Puns that play with visuals:


Puns that play with popular culture:

Puns that play with opposites:


Puns that play with names:

And there are even more types that I didn't select to have in this post. 

 But how can I used them in my classes? 

Even though most puns require some knowledge of the language and the culture, many puns can be with young learners if language is pre-taught and the joke entails aspects of their universe. I suggest that at first we should  present easy puns and guide students to understand how puns play with language. Then I invite you to try some of these ideas below: 

1. Read and show: you can have puns on flashcards and you show and read them to your students. Make sure you pre-teach words that are necessary for students to get the jokes. You will notice quickly who got them.

2. Hold and tell: once students have understood the puns from the first activity, they can hold different puns and tell these to their peers. Make sure you demonstrate before letting them tell the puns. You can even record them and send the video to their parents.






3. Match: give students puns and pictures for them to figure out which pun matches each picture. With young learners you can read them the words or sentences and emphasize key words. This can be done with the puns you have worked in the previous activity.





4. Fill out the missing words: students receive some puns with words missing and they have to complete these gaps. A word bank can be created to help students that are beginners or that are working with hard puns.

5. Putting words in order: you can give students scrambled words and they make the sentences with the puns. Try it out yourself:

ashamed - you - otter - yourself - be - of





6. Listen and draw: you can write the puns on the board, students draw these in pairs, and then they show their creations to the class. After this show your drawing or the picture you have. You can have their drawings displayed in the bulletin board for other classes to have a laugh. Great fun!

Example: You are giraffing me crazy!


7. Figuring out the pun: give students the "correct sentence" and they write the pun. Example: Give students "I could barely sleep last night." and they come up with "I couldn't bearly sleep last night."




8. Writing puns: you give students the pictures and they try to write the puns. They then check their puns with the original ones. Many times their puns are much better!

9. Ranking: show students some puns and ask them to rank these from best to the worst. They can create their lists on paper and then share these with each other. Pre-teach the language they will need in their discussions. Model the discussion before they check in pairs. Suggested language: This one is really creative. / I love this one. / No way. / This one is terrible.


I was only able to think about nine ways to use puns. Can you help me find  other different ways? I will naturally give you credit for your idea and put a link to your blog if you have one.

10. Dictation: teacher explains the situation to the students (e.g. a deer meets a bear). Then teacher dictates the pun to see which student can think of the 'clever' spelling. This is more appropriate for advanced/older YLs though - I think!  -  idea from Katie Foufouti from Greece.  Thank you, Katie!!!

11. Need your help!

12. Need your help!


Check here my pinterest pun page with more than 500 puns for you and your students to learn, enjoy, and have fun with this magic and mysterious thing called language. Let me know how you like these ideas and how you have worked puns with your students.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post as much as I have enjoyed writing it!


Send you all a big hug from a Turkey,

Juan

(with my own personal pun!)



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