I used to... do what?!

Here’s fun. I was doing a great little activity to practise past habit today. It splits the class into two groups and gives each group six different situations to say what they ‘used to do’, didn’t use to do’ and are ‘getting used to doing’ as a result.

For example if the situation says ‘You’ve just had a face lift’, students could write:
I used to… have wrinkles and crows’ feet.
I didn’t use to… look so young.
I’m getting used to… being ID-ed in clubs again.

The students then read out the sentences they’ve written and their partner from the other group guesses what their situation could be.

My class was quite small today, so I decided to do it as a whole-class activity. The fun started when one of the students got confused about which situation we were on and said “I used to practise a lot with my father.”
He thought we were talking about the situation ‘You’ve passed your driving test.’ However, we were in fact talking about ‘You and your partner have had a baby.’

It took a long time to calm the class down when they realised. Especially when another student put in: “No, Dad, not that hole.”

Oh dear.

The material is taken from the Reward Upper Intermediate Resource Pack and is excellent. Here’s a copy.

Reward Upper Intermediate Resource Pack

Not entirely connected with teaching but...

I know this isn't entirely connected with teaching but I thought it was funny and decided to share the yarn. I was in the City buying equipment for the school and had a digital media player to play movies in my bag. I walked into another electrical shop looking for cd players when the door alarm went off. The guy from the other shop mustn't have demagnetised the security tag properly.

The thing was, there was a weird trollick little man clutching an old radio to his head in the doorway. When the alarm sounded, he started beeping like the alarm and slapping his head with his free hand. I edged round him and headed for the music section.

I was busy looking for reasonably priced players when I heard a sort of deep chuckling sound. It was him. He had stopped the bleeping but not the head slapping and was now running up and down the shop gurgling and laughing in a very sinister manner.

Eventually a staff member ordered him away. I was filled with a confusing mixture of guilt and amusement thinking how I had not only set off the store's alarm but him as well. The temptation to go through the alarm again was strong in me. I restrained myself.

To add insult to injury, all the cd players were either too expensive or just rubbish.

Troublesome Students? Try Humiliation!

For the most part of my career, I have been lucky enough to have absolutely lovely people in my classes. They have been fun to work with and to teach and they have been very focused on their language goals.

However, every now and then I’ve come across a problem student. I have one now, in fact: an Italian stallion, god’s gift to ragazzi and a nightmare. He never listens to instructions, he makes fun of other people’s accents (and gets very grumpy when others to the same-a to him-a) and is generally an administrational pedagogical horror story.

Like most horror stories though, there is usually an Achilles heel to the villain of the piece. With most students, it’s humiliation. Today, for example, the Italian was being even ruder than usual. We were practising future continuous and I’d written a list of time phrases to use with it. Students ask questions like ‘What do you think you will be doing… after dinner tonight?’ or ‘next week?’ or ‘this time next month?’

I gave an example ‘What do you think you’ll be doing at the weekend?”
You could say “I will be relaxing.” or “I will be working.”

The Italian said in a loud voice “I will be fucking.”

It grossed everyone out a bit, so I came back with: “I don’t think it’s called that when you’re on your own.”

His blush was almost as loud as the laughter that met the comment.

I suppose I should have recognised the fact that he’d used the language correctly and quite naturally… for once.

Text books SUCK!

Text books are all well and good. They give you structure to lessons and direct the class through different language points. Yes. True. Nice.

They also waste materials without taking full advantage of a good listening or a meaty reading text. Never be afraid to re-write or supplement materials from text books. I do it all the time and it makes so much more of what the book has tried to do but either run out of space or time or both.

The best thing about text books though is the pictures. They're generally hilarious. Your students will know this and most people with a brain (which, believe it or not, will include some of your students) will recognise this fact. They simply try to ignore the pictures and grin and bear it.

Having noticed this, I have started taking the piss out of the pictures with the class. Making comments like 'is the woman in this picture just short or is her friend a giant?'

Students like the fact that you recognise the fact that the text book is, in some ways, total rubbish and it helps with the rapport. It can also puff out a bit of material that is a bit scant.

Try it out. It's fun and it gets them talking.

To swear or not to swear, that is the question

Is it okay to swear in front of your students? There are a few perspectives on this, it seems.

• An outright and resounding yes.
• If a student has really wound you up or if a situation calls for it.
• Maybe, but only if a question comes up about rude words or if you're teaching the language.
• There are other ways to express yourself.
• Never, I'd be too embarrassed.

For me, I'd probably take the middle ground. I have sworn in class, but never in anger - if you can't express yourself clearly and eloquently enough with ESL students without swearing, then you're in the wrong job.

I'm not afraid of using bad language, though. Students are intrigued by it and, let's face it, it's the first element of a language we all go after as soon as we've learnt to say 'hello, my name is...'

Funnily enough, I swore in front of my class of adult ESL students today and they reacted very strangely. The sentence "I swore once when I was a child" came up from the text book and the class didn't know what 'swore' meant. I explained that 'swore' is the past form of 'to swear', which they didn't know either.

"What does 'swear' mean?" one student asked.

"Fuck off!" I shouted. "That's swearing."

The silence that followed was... interesting. I don't think I'll be using that tactic again very soon.

One Minute Monkey Magic!

It’s often difficult to tread water when you’re in front of a room of people, their eyes staring at you, boring holes into you. That final 10 minutes before the end of class can seem to stretch away in front of you like a lifetime. A good trick if you just want to keep the energy in the room up, try this for size.

• Tell the students they will be working in pairs or groups of three.


• Tell them that you want them to talk in turns to for a minute on different topics you’ll give them in a moment.


• Warn them that the topics you’ll be giving them will be random and at times maybe even a little strange!


• When you’re ready, write the first topic on the board and let them go for it!

A few words of warning:

Get the students to sort out who’s going first before you start. They’ll easily waste a minute negotiating – especially the more reluctant speakers in the class.

It’s best to have a list sorted out before hand that you keep with you. I’ve been pulling this one out of the bag for so long now that I can do it on the hop, but it’s not a good idea until you’ve had a bit of practice.

Things I get them to talk about are usually very random indeed. I teach high level language learners, so they have little difficulty discussing most topics. For lower levels, I’d give them a few easier ones to start off with.

Ideas for topics I’d give my class:

• Cheese


• Tanks


• The colour blue


• Socks


• Shopping for meat


• Superheroes


• Lipstick


• Singing in public


• Endoplasmic reticulum and its relationship with the golgi body - just kidding.

As you can see, completely random. If you go with ‘pets’ or ‘holidays’, you’ll get the desired response, but it’s nice to keep them guessing as to what’s coming next!

Do you have any great little time-fillers? What happens when your material runs out and you don't want to start that 40-minute reading till next lesson?