How to engage students in speaking activities? Let them do a class survey.

The task was meaningful, as the students had to find out how often their friends do different activities. We use it to practice Present Simple, adverbs of frequency and indoor activities vocabulary. My students worked in pairs. Each pair got a chart and a question they had to fill in accoring to the picture. Then each pair had to ask other students the question and to mark the answer on the chart.

Here's the chart template:

Another wonderful year has just begun and here I am again with my blog entries! It's been a while since my last post. Sorry for that.
This school year I'm lucky to teach amazing 4th-graders. For those kids I would go the extra mile.
This week they learned about question words and wh- questions with the verb "to be" in Present Simple. Here are some online exercises:
(Use them in a full-screen mode.)

It seems to be quite a simple topic, but I know some of my students have a problem with question words. As you may know, things or concepts are much easier to remember if there are pictures connected with them. Last year I made a little help for my 4th graders, but since then I use it with different groups. 

The worksheet consists of:

1) coloured version of Qword-icon connection

2) black-and-white version Qword-icon connection

3) question words dice template wih icons only

4) question words dice template wih words only

The first two can be used as a summary note, and the dice can be used to reinforce and revise question words. For example, you can play a game with the dice. I suggest using flashcards too. Students can work in pairs or in teams. A student rolls the dice and picks up a flashcard. Then they make a question with a word from the flashcard and a question word from the face of the dice. If the question is grammatically correct, they get a point. You can set a point limit, e.g if a student or a team gets 10 points, they win. If you have other ideas to use the dice, please share them in the comments.
You can make your own dice with this tool:
http://www.toolsforeducators.com/dice/

Question Words by kakitis

It's September again and it's time to start a new school year here in Poland. I've already had two working days, but it wasn't just reminding the students about assessment and behaviour rules and expectations. I was inspired by resources on teacherspayteachers.com and decided to revise the verb "to be" using my own  activity. I've created a set of 16 questions and answers with missing forms of the verb "to be". They're quite easy. I've printed them on coloured paper and laminated them. Each student was given one random question and one random answer. And the task was to move around the classroom asking the question and trying to find the answer. It didn't go so well at first, but my students were quite keen to mingle.

Here are my Q&A cards:

To be Q&A by kakitis