Last week, we got a tweet from Libby Sturgeon (@sturgeonesl) with a very good question: “Do you suggest doing the lessons/grammar in a certain order?”
Sprout English has hundreds of lessons in nine different categories (represented on the site by buildings). Are they already in order within the buildings? How do you go about combining lessons from different categories—what is the best order to follow in that case? (more…)
This week’s featured Sprout English lesson plan is all about hippos! I was excited to see the Did You Know lesson featured, because I wrote it when my young daughter was obsessed with hippos. She had a large collection of stuffed hippo pals, and while writing this lesson I learned that these animals aren’t as cute as they look. Hippos are such interesting creatures! Did you know that hippos wear sunscreen?
Stuffed animals and puppets can make fun and educational guest appearances in the young learner classroom. Invite your students to bring in a favorite stuffed animal to class. You may even want to ask the kids to leave a stuffed friend in a cubby at school. Create a sign up sheet, and have students write down the type of animal they plan to bring in. If a number of students plan on bringing a stuffed bear, try to encourage them to bring in a toy that is more unique, like a hippo! (more…)
How many of you had a beloved childhood pet? My family always had one or more cats running around, and I am still a cat lover today. Since a lot of kids either have or want a pet, a discussion about pets is a great way to get your young learners talking.
This week’s article review is on 10 Popular Small Pets on Animal Planet‘s website. Some of the animals might surprise you. (Hermit crabs? Who knew?) There are a number of ways you could use this article with your class. (more…)
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! It’s a zoo at Sprout English this week! Most kids love animals, so lessons and activities involving animals usually get their attention. Our Lesson of the Week is on Hippos, and materials writer Tara Benwell will be blogging for us on Thursday with a fun activity involving animals.
I thought I’d share one of my favorite animal activities to do with young learners. Students get practice with descriptive adjectives in this activity. 
They think they’re describing their favorite animals, but it’s actually a surprise personality profile! This activity always results in lots of laughs. (more…)
If you tried our Lesson of the Week about nations and nationalities, then a great follow-up would be to share these articles about different countries with your students.
Have your students look at “The Friendliest Countries in the World 2013” by Steven Sanders on Hubpages’s website. They’ll have fun checking to see if their countries are represented. Ask your young learners if they agree with the author’s choices. Which other countries do they think are friendly? How about their native countries (if you have a multi-national class)? How about other places they’ve visited? Have they been to any of the countries on the list? (more…)
Young learners love talking about their friends and family members. They also love showing off photos of their favorite people. You can combine these two interests with fun websites (or apps) like Fotobabble. Fotobabble allows your students to make talking pictures.
Here is a fun activity you can do to practice nations and nationalities with Fotobabble:
1) Ask your students to choose a personal photo (digital) that contains at least two people from different countries. The photos can be stored on your students’ phones, cameras, or computers. (more…)
Happy National Punctuation Day! This quirky holiday is celebrated on September 24th primarily in the United States, but is also gaining recognition in other countries, especially Canada. At Sprout English, we decided to do a blog post in honor of this holiday about…wait for it…punctuation!
I wanted to choose a punctuation mark that was difficult for English learners and native English speakers alike. Two things came to mind, based on my many years of teaching, and, more recently, editing: the en dash and the em dash! What are they? How did they get their names? When do we use them? I’ll blog about the en dash here on our Sprout English blog, and I’ll blog about the em dash over on our sister-site’s blog, ESL-Library. I hope these posts will be informative for you and your students!
What is an en dash?
An en dash is an elongated hyphen (about the length of two hyphens) that is used for specific purposes.
Here’s how the dash family looks:
Have you played the In My Suitcase memory game with your students? This is the game where you sit in a circle and the first student says,
“We are going on a trip, and in our suitcase I will bring…”
After the first student names one thing, the next student repeats the sentence, names his/her classmate’s item, and adds an additional item to the suitcase. For example:
“We are going on a trip, and in our suitcase we will bring a map, and a cell phone.”
As the game continues, the packing list gets bigger and harder to remember.
The suitcase game is excellent for practising nouns, but you can play a similar game to practice using the simple present tense to describe daily routines. Write the following starter sentences (time markers) on the board: (more…)
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
How do you get students to listen? This question is especially important for young learners, who tend to have shorter attention spans and be easily distracted. Sometimes getting students to pay attention and listen feels like a never-ending struggle!
This week’s article, Say What? 5 Ways to Get Students to Listen, by Rebecca Alber on Edutopia‘s website, offers some fantastic suggestions on getting students to actively listen. (more…)
How do you usually teach the simple present tense to your students? Many textbooks break it down into parts. For example, a textbook will present just one use of the simple present, such as repeated actions. But in my experience, students grasp onto this verb tense more easily when an overview of all four uses is given right off the bat. After I introduce this tense using the method outlined below, I let students practice one part at a time. So they get the big picture, and then they practice one area in more detail before moving onto the next area. If your students are very low level, you could choose to present these uses one at a time. Alternatively, you can use the outline below as a review after students have learned all of the different uses of the simple present tense in English.
Let’s review the basic rules and go over the four uses. Be sure to check out the practice and fun activities suggested at the end of the post! (more…)
