Engage-Study-Activate

ESA

Engage-Study and Activate are elements which are present in a language classroom to help students to learn effectively.

Engage. This is the point in a teaching sequence where teachers try to arouse the students interest, thus involving their emotions.

Most people can remember lessons at school which were uninvolving and where they ‘switched off’ from what was being taught them. Frequently, this was because they were bored, because they were not emotionally engaged with was going on. Such lessons can be contrasted with lessons where they were amused, moved, stimulated or challenged. It seems quite clear that those lessons involved not only more ‘fun’, but also better learning.


Study. Study activities are those where the students are asked to focus in on language (or information) and how it is constructed. They range from the study and practice of a single sound to an investigation of how a writer achieves a particular effect in a long text.
Students can study in a variety of different styles: the teacher can explain grammar, they can study language evidence to discover grammar for themselves, they can work in groups studying a reading text or vocabulary. But whatever the style, study means any stage at which the construction of language is the main focus.

Activate. This element describes exercises and activities which are designed to get the students using language as freely and communicatively as they can. The objective for the students is not to focus on language construction and/or practice specific bits of language(grammar patterns, particular vocabulary items or functions) but for them to use all and any language which may be appropriate for a given situation or topic.





Bibliographical References

Harmer, J. (2001) How to Teach English.(7th ed.) England, Edinburg:

warm up

Structure warmers

Unscramble the sentences
Write sentences on the board with the words in the wrong order; students write the sentences correctly.

How many words?
Say a sentence at normal speed; students say the number of words. As a follow up, they can write the sentence.

Long sentences game
Say a short sentence e.g. ‘1 went to the movies last night’. Another student repeats what you said and says what he or she did e.g. ’David went to the movies last night and I watched TV.’ Continue until students are having problems remembering. The student who can remember the longest sentence

Beep!
Say a sentence, replacing one of the words with ‘Beep!’ e.g. ‘I Beep a really terrible dream last night’. Students guess the missing word.

Match sentence halves
Write sentences on pieces of paper and cut each sentence into two halves. Give out the pieces of paper at random. Students walk around saying what is written on their piece of paper until they find the person with the other half of their sentence.

Who am 1?
Students write the name of a person or animal on a piece of paper and fix it to the back of another student (who must not know what is written on the paper). The student asks questions to find out who or what they are e.g. ‘Do I have four legs?’, ‘Can I fly?’, etc.

Pair dictation
Divide the class into pairs. Have students sit so that only one student in each pair can see the board. Write sentences on the board. The student who can see the board dictates me sentences to his her partner. When they finish, students compare their sentences with what is written on board.



Vocabulary warmers: Some ideas

Hangman
Draw lines on the board, one for each letter of a word you want students to guess. Students say a Letter, if it is in the word, write it on the appropriate line. If it is not in the word, draw a part of a man hanging. If you complete the man before students guess the word, you win one point

Unscramble the words
Write words on the board with the letters m the wrong order; students write the correct words.

Word tennis
Write some topics on the board. In pairs, one student ‘serves’ a word from one of the topics: if the other student can ‘return’ a word from the same topic. he or she wins a point.

Odd word out
Write groups of words on the board e.g. ‘pop’, ‘rock’, ‘pizza’, ‘jazz’. Students guess which is the odd word out

Word groups
Write headings on the board e.g. ‘furniture’, “rooms’, ‘personal possessions’. Students have three minutes to write as many words as possible under each heading.

Mime
Mime a word or an action; students guess.

Trace the word
Give students a piece of paper with a word written on it. Students ‘Write’ the word on the back of another student with their finger; the other student guesses the word.

Alphabet brainstorm
Write some Letters of the alphabet on me board and give students a topic (e.g. food); students have three minutes to write words beginning with each of the Letters.

All activities are taken from Extreme, a new series for teenagers, written by Michael Downie, David Gray and Juan Manuel Jiménez, published by Richmond Publishing

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