The English language is the cornerstone to professional and academic success. Therefore it is vital to get the teaching right and to ignite the interest in learning. The top five ways to make English lessons more engaging are creating a mystery; playing a game; introducing technology and interaction elements; taking it outside and moving and making it real to the learners.
English is the statutory program of study. In this formal subject, the students must achieve the minimum requirement to progress within the education and professional system. However, many fail to engage with this subject because pupils fail to see the learning’s fun side. Creative solutions required to ignite pupils love for the subjects and here are the top five ways to make English lessons more engaging.
Create a mystery
One of the ways to make English lessons more engaging is to bring a mystery element into the lesson. Have you ever played a Murder Mystery? Did you like to solve the clues and finding keys to solve a problem? Everyone loves to have an adventure. SO why not to incorporate learning of some really dry but equally important English language theory? The drawback is that the preparation might take some time. However, once you have set it up, you can repeat and be the world best English teacher for many years to come. Plus, there are plenty of superb resources online, such as the Murder Mystery game from Matthew Barton at Englishcurrent.com. If you are short of time, you can invite a workshop company to run the event while focusing on individual learners needs and engagements. For example, The Vexing Victorian Mystery Workshop will help you combine history and English learning in one swift and exciting way.
Play a game
Lesson gamification has been a popular way to make learning fun. So how can it be done in English? Of course. You can transform your classroom into a workshop for pupils own game creating (they can make a game from scratch or take on the adoption of some more well-known games. Writing up a game instruction, usually, a mega tedious non-fiction writing activity, will do like a spoon full of sugar. Another alternative a game day. Use it for spellings, creative writing, dialogues, ext. Games in learning a language are an old-time favourite in the English as the second language class. Search the web, and you will find all of the pages with beautiful games in theEnglish lessons ideas.
Introduce technology and interaction elements
Technology is often seen as the enemy of the books. However, if we still think everything in moderation’ moderate technical devices offers fantastic possibilities to enhance learning. Not at least the opportunity to introduce interactive elements such as polls, word clouds, quizzes and much more. We love the Kahoot. Try it, and you will love it too. All you need is a set of Ipads and wifi so that the learners can interact with the question in real-time. You do not even need to come up with the questions, and there are already plenty of ready-made quizzes. However, we would recommend doing your own class one and putting the kids’ names into the question. They love being the start of the quiz shows!
Take learning outside and get the pupils to move.
Moving out of the classroom has come back into the fashion, with many schools offering forest school experiences and outdoor learning. If your school has its forest, it is excellent. If not, not to worry! Go onto the discovery of the fantastic urban jungles. Find murals and other street art. Take pictures for a fiction piece of writing, write poems of the spot. Make some audio recordings that can be transcribed and analysed back in the classroom.
If you do have access to woodland, take advantage and try a write a fiction or a non-fiction story. Show your pupils just how easy it is to be creative with the help of almighty Nature. Stop, listen, observe, record. See the seasons changing, feel the gentle strokes of air on your cheeks. Remember to bring some lunch because hard brain work will make you hungry, and nothing can beat a nice picnic even when it isis in the rain.
Make it real to the learners.
Oh, this one is a tough cookie. Making it real can break the barriers between academic demands of the English language (and literature) and its meaning to the individual learner. So what is the trick? Option one is the good old theatre. Make a play, adapt the book and run a mini session in the classroom. If you do not feel that you have the stage producer nack, why not invite a theatre company to run an interactive book study. Alternatively, get the student to engage in writing fiction or non-fiction of something meaningful to them. Combine it with a trip to their favourite place and make a day out. Help them feel how they can make the most of the language (and the pesky grammar) to express what is important to them.