Communicate in English

To teach students to communicate in a foreign on second language takes time and patience on the part of both teachers and students.

This site lists some resources for classroom activities and technology based tasks for teaching communicative English.

Read the following sections for more details:

Tasks Based on Authentic Materials: If the students reading program covers reading of very simple things like notices and bottle labels, it will be useful to them in their daily life, easy for them to achieve success and easy for the teacher to start at a very simple level.

One resource site from basic to higher level activities is: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/SampleLessons.aspx

Grammar Based Tasks: Instead of teaching grammar through rules and regulations, if classroom activities are contextualized and mimic real life communications, students can benefit, even if they are at very basic levels.

Multilingual Activities: If students' first language or familiar languages are innovatively used, both the languages can be reinforced in a natural manner. If this is not done in a proper manner can lead to interlanguage errors. The teacher has to ensure that language is used meaningfully.

In cases where the teacher does not know the first language of the students, activities can be arranged in such a way that the group takes responsibility to check the communication and the teacher plays a secondary role when the first language is used.

Teaching Through Skits: Repetition of a particular sentence pattern need not be done mechanically and boringly. Teaching through skits can provide an opportunity for students to repeat words, phrases and sentences in context, in an enjoyable manner.

Teaching Through Technology: Teaching through technology is also a way of breaking the ice, relaxing the students and making them more participative. There are a number of ways in which technology can be used to bring about variety in classrooms, bring the whole world into the class and extend the walls of the classroom to merge it with the real world.

ESL Games: For each grammar item a game can be played. There are games starting from 'one word sentences' to narrating an event.