Learning Through Activities / Life Experiences!
Have you ever..?
Learning happens through activities, especially if your students are learning a new language. As an English teacher, I face with lots of students every day and do my best to teach them how to use a language in all skills which are reading, writing, speaking and listening. In all activities, I prefer to educate them through activities so that they can understand things much better, visualizing them in their minds.
Life experience is a common topic which might get all your students' attention. If you want to help your students to get better at this subject, you may combine some activities together. In today's post, I would like to give you some tips to help you get better at teaching.
As we start lesson, a good warm-up is a must to get your student engaged into it. As our topic is experience, you can tell them some experiences you have got in your life so far. You should make sure to use the correct grammar which is present perfect so that they can pay attention to it and ask you why you prefer that. When you explain the rule simply, they will get it and try to say their own experiences.
Experiences
After talking about life experiences, you can start a conversation about music or film. These are two common things all students can talk about. This is a good warm-up activity to get them ready for the text. Let's read our dialogue!
Kevin: Have you ever been to a concert?
Matt: Yes, I have.
Kevin: That is fantastic. When did you go to a concert?
Matt: It was 2 months ago.
Kevin: I don't remember that. Who did you go with?
Matt: I went with my wife.
Kevin: I see, it was family time, then. Did you like it?
Matt: Yes, it was amazing. Have you ever seen a live concert?
Kevin: No, I haven't.
You can make this dialogue longer and ask your students some questions to check their understanding skills. However, I prefer to check their grammar knowledge in this exercise.
Let's set the rules
Tell your students to read the dialogue carefully. You can ask them what they are talking about in the dialogue. In this point, it important to direct them the question which starts with " Have you ever...?" It will surely create curiosity in their mind. When you ask each of your students by using different verbs related to their experiences, they will understand what that questions refers naturally.
It is possible to set the rules with your students together. Many course books prefer this way to create curiosity in students' mind and engage them into activity without using their mother language. As we have the dialogue above, we can ask our students to complete the following rules.
Complete the gaps with present perfect and past simple.
a.) When talk about experiences, we use.........
b.) When we talk about details of an experience, we use......
Practice
When the rules are set, it is time to practise so that can use it practically. You can ask your students to write their life experiences and share with the rest of the class. In case they make a mistake, you can correct their mistakes with the class together. It is not all. Writing some verbs on the board can give them an idea to ask questions to each other by using the structure " Have you ever....?"
If you want them to be more interested, your student can ask you questions directly. In this case, remind them to ask you details of your experiences. By doing this, they can use both present perfect and past simple. This topic can also be practiced by arranging your students in pair works. Writing a similar dialogue about their experiences and asking details about them is so useful activity.
Education
When you find creativity ideas to conduct your lessons, your students will be more eager to join and have a successful learning process. I hope, this post can inspire you to plan your lessons more effectively. You are welcome to use this activity in your lesson!
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This is a good advice, not just for the learning process, also to make the students feels included and an important part of the class.
Very nice advice. As an English tutor, I have found that conversation is the key, and yes, you have to keep them interested and make it fun. Thanks for sharing this 💚