13 May 2014 / by Radmila Gurkova

ESL activities for beginners - a new ESL activity is born

If you think these faces are too serious and concentrated, you are about right. The guys you are seeing in the picture, part of our Oxbridge TEFL teacher team in Madrid, are deeply engaged in creating ESL activities for beginners. Four teachers. One activity. An ESL activity for beginner learners of English that will be used once and will last not more than 10 minutes. If the outcome is good, we might use it more times, but that would mean they have nailed it. They would have found the right approach of teaching functions to beginner learners in the target language only, they would have come up with the correct engaging introduction, they would have developed a communicative activity that activates the well measured and correctly graded target language, they would have selected the right images to stimulate visually the learners and help them understand the new vocabulary and structures without translating and without frustrating learners but in a carefully selected steps that guide the students to understanding. They would have done all this and much more. They would have thought of the best layout for their peers to use when preparing for classes, with all possible keys and materials that they might need for presenting the function with economy of preparation time. They would have basically produced an activity that works for both their students and peers.

The ESL activities for beginners developed by these guys, Pedro Pidal, Ben Martínez, Xabier Oyarbide and Katixa González, half of our team in Madrid, will be competing with the ones that their peers in Madrid and in Barcelona produce in a competition that will bring us all as a result a solid expertise in creating engaging and productive ESL activities. Out aim? To enable students to express basic ideas in English in a carefully selected steps and in English only and provide a 10 minute practice of the new target content.

What will happen next? Since these guys promised an amazing activity, we are expecting a brilliant outcome. Xabi, all heart and art, dreams of creating the never-seen-before-activity. The quality we are used to here at Oxbridge and that we take for granted, but that is also a result of intense brainstorming, debating and team working. A product worth sharing with teachers and students that is a consequence of a three sided process: shared experience, team discussion and implementing ideas through activities.

oxbridgetefl.com

This is how every single new idea is born in Oxbridge TEFL. This is the gestation process for good activities for any level, age and purpose.

Births are never easy. But the creature is so great! We will post it soon right here!

 

12

June 2014
What makes a good ESL teacher. Preparation
by Radmila Gurkova
What are the qualities that make a good ESL teacher? When asked at a job interview what makes a good ESL teachers, candidates often praise personal traits such as patience, creativity, knowledge, skills, empathy, experience… But what if you have just finished your TEFL course and are not that experienced yet. Does that mean y...

30

May 2014
FM - Unifying format criteria for TEFL activities. The cherry on the cake!
by Radmila Gurkova
On debate: We need to unify format criteria when creating TEFL activities in order to create the perfect activity. The teachers creating activities and the ones correcting them have to use the same criteria. We agreed to: Creating st...

30

May 2014
TEFL classes by videoconference for elementary level students.
by Radmila Gurkova
TEFL classes by videoconference are often related to high level students. How should our teaching change in order to grant successful and exciting learning experience to our students? On debate: Elementary level stu...

16

May 2014
ESL activity lab. Creating functional beginners material - I play!
by Radmila Gurkova
The purpose of this piece of ESL activity belonging to our activities section for beginners is to introduce the verb 'play'. The previous ESL activity included the verb 'like' as well as 'play' so we removed the verb to like in order to simplify the activity. We introduced 4 Sports which all add something different to the ESL...

13

May 2014
ESL activities for beginners - a new ESL activity is born
by Radmila Gurkova
If you think these faces are too serious and concentrated, you are about right. The guys you are seeing in the picture, part of our Oxbridge TEFL teacher team in Madrid, are deeply engaged in creating ESL activities for beginners. Four teachers. One activity. An ESL activity for beginner learners of English t...

08

May 2014
How to teach beginners English as a foreign language- I want, I don't want
by Radmila Gurkova
How to teach beginners English as a foreign language in the target language only is sometimes a headache for ESL teachers. As it turned out, teaching the function I WANT in English without translating is not that easy. Students tend to confuse its meaning with I LIKE because this structure appears in similar contexts. How to teach beginners I...

20

March 2014
My favorite ESL class
by Radmila Gurkova
We asked different teachers about their favorite ESL class. We wanted them to explain what makes a great ESL class really memorable. We often hear teachers complaining about certain students and classes that were difficult. It's much more productive and rewarding to hear about TEFL teacher's favorite class...

14

March 2014
Positive learning environment: Learn from sports and apply to ESL classes to create the best environment for your students
by Radmila Gurkova
What is the best learning environment and how can we create a positive learning environment in our ESL classes? What can we learn from sports about positive learning environments? ...

07

March 2014
How to teach pronunciation through ESL activities. Say it clearer, not louder
by Radmila Gurkova
The OxbridgeTEFL community launched the project of how to teach pronunciation through ESL activities as a result of the necessity of creating specific tools -apart from the usual work on pronunciation through vocabulary activities- that would target Spanish learners' pronunciation. What moved us ...

27

February 2014
My Top 5 Reasons to do a TEFL course: featuring India Boddy
by Radmila Gurkova
Maki...