Oxford Teacher's Day for Language Schools - Business Session

Business is Booming

• practical activities for the  business English classroom and beyond.

Word of the Day

Aim: to review vocabulary from  previous lessons

• Teacher gives each student a word at the beginning of the lesson.
• Students don’t show each other the word.
• Give students time to look up word.
• Student has to try to use the word as many times in the lesson.

Extension – Students try to guess each other’s words.

Video Commentary

Aim: to practice giving presentations.

• Brainstorm information about  the subject of the video.
• Watch the video – sound down, make notes of what you can see.
• Work in pairs, write a commentary.
•  Perform the presentation over the top of the video.

Alternative – if you have a large class get each  pair to write a different minutes worth of commentary.

Video Bingo

Aim: to review vocabulary, to listen for specific words.

• Put words from script on the board.
• Ask students to draw grid and put in words
• Play video, students cross off words when they hear them.

For one – one – give students words from script in jumbled order,  get student to number the words in the order they hear them.

Functions Mill Dril

Aim; to drill phrases – pronunciation practice.

• Give out the sentences on a slip of paper.
• Students stand up and move around. They say their sentence, then swap paper and move on.
• Repeat activity this time students need to respond to the phrase their partner says.

For one-one – take it in turns to read the sentences from a pile of paper.

Alternative – have questions and replies and the students find their partner.

Party Quirks

Aim: to add fun to a role play.

• Set up a role play , assign students roles
• Give students a ‘hidden quirk’.
• Ask them to do the role play but try to act it with the hidden quirk. Their partner has to guess the quirk.

Madlibs

Aim: to add fun to a gap fill, to get students to read through words when doing a gap fill, to get students to think about how knowing the part of speech can help with them do a gap fill

• Choose a suitable text - either make gaps or use the existing gaps
• Read out the parts of speech that are missing and ask students to write down their own words.
• Show student the text and ask them to put the words in the text and read it.
• The do the gap fill as you normally would.

Reflection

Aim: to get some feedback on your teaching in an informal way to help you plan lessons that suit your students.

·         Ask the students to review what has been done in the last few lessons.

·         Ask them to rate what they found useful, not very useful, what they liked, what they didn’t like.

·         Get feedback.