Hi Mark,

How was your summer?
Hope that you got to relax and
enjoyed doing nothing...is that
possible for you?

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that your Race Track
game was a huge success with my 13 and 14 year olds who
came for some Intensive English at the end of August.

I taught them some simple grammar rules for present,
present continuous and future verbs, will and going to.
Well, at the end of their 10 hour Intensive English
course, they won lots of points with your game as
they could see the mistakes and could tell me the
correct answer.

So, I'm making up some more race track sheets as these 4 students played that Race Track game for over an hour and actually liked learning the grammar rules. I hope it's helped them now that school has started here again in Switzerland.

I hope to have 5 or more students ( all girls so far ) coming on Saturdays and I'm sure the first game they'll want to play is that Race Track game
followed by your Treasure Island game.

I'll slowly introduce the Big Town cards plus my dictation running
game to the white board. It's wonderful to see kids enthusiastic and
to have such great games that make teaching fun and relaxed for
the teacher. Many thanks.

Best regards,
Fiona.

Cool! I'm glad that they enjoyed the game.

If you get some real fanatics, you can have them make up some questions and let them be 'the house'. They get to keep the points the other players lose (but maybe also have to pay out if others win.)

The students make up the three sentences. It's a really good exercise because they have to consciously try to make mistakes. They'll probably use some mistake they've recently made on a test or something. Then while playing the game, they will be teaching the other students.

Teaching is a great way to learn!

I technically only had 1 week off. I did enjoy my summer, though. And yes, it seems impossible for me to do nothing

I started a new website (www.123listening.com )

But, I made it away from the computer more this summer than in the past. I went out quite a bit with my family, worked in my new yard, watched an uncountable amount of movies, hit the pool once and hosted quite a few barbeque parties.

But, it's back to the grind. Halloween is on its way ...

Hi Mark,

I hadn't thought of the kids writing out sentences and it's a good
exercise to see if they make genuine mistakes too.

I've just seen the new listening website...you certainly are a busy
bee!! What will you think of next!! :=)

By the way, any suggestions for dvd's for esl teens that would
help teach verb tenses as well as getting them hooked on English?
Any ideas anyone?

I'm watching Hanna Montana at the moment...but it's like throwing the
kids into the deep end of a swimming pool and hoping that they'll swim
and not sink.

A great DVD for adults is the Lifetime DVD's with the Lifetime book.
All my adult groups are hooked on the simple way the verb tenses are taught in this series and they're also hooked on the story and the characters and are waiting impatiently for my second DVD and book!!

Hope everyone's enjoying the new term...and personally, I'm glad to be back teaching...I miss my students, young and old.