Teaching Creatively is an Ongoing Challenge for Every Teacher

Peter Snashall    August 15th 2018 (updated)

One of the most popular classroom topics at the beginning of each academic year for elementary ESL students is classroom language.  Below is a compilation of classroom language exercises.

8 Classroom language exercises

Recently, I  republished  a collection of present continuous worksheets. These have been on the site for some time but now have answers included and reduced file size for faster downloading or printing.

4 Picture-Based Present Continuous Worksheets

One thing I have noticed myself doing when preparing a class is running through a list of possible teaching alternatives. However, I often realize afterwards that I have forgotten something. So I  have decided to make some lists of activities for certain skills and topics. My first list is:

7 Essential Speaking Activities

After teaching for 30 years, I have come to the conclusion that the best classes are those are constantly providing fresh and topical content to students.

I am always struggling and experimenting with ways to do this.

And I have realized that it may not just be fresh content but that it can be a fresh format (sometimes in the smallest ways) that makes an exercise interesting. I am always trying to create new worksheets that help engage the students and also that help make the lessons flow better.

Here are a some recent experiments that have gone fairly well:

What’s it used for ?

3 Great Ways to Start a Class

Travel advice: modals for prohibition and obligation

Movies Brainstorm and Speaking Activity

Job Enquiry by Telephone

Of course, apart from trying to create fresh content and formats, there are multiple other factors to consider.

One of those other factors is teaching efficiency and fluidity. And if you are teaching large classes, teaching efficiency is really important.

One of the ways I manage my listening/speaking classes (I have been teaching 50 student listening/speaking classes!) is by using the latest technology which allows me to monitor individual students at the same time as I am managing the listening material for 50 students (see how I manage listening/speaking classes below).

Revolution in the Listening/Speaking Classroom  (upated for 2018)

NB: Sometimes I make errors in the worksheets. I put creativity ahead of accuracy (ooops!).  If anyone wants to contact me about the content on this site, my email is eslflow@gmail.com  I welcome suggestions and can fix errors or any download problems really quickly.