Amazing Resources for Back to School Time!

Back to school can be a nerve-wracking time for all involved: teachers, children and parents. Please don’t stress yourself about activities which are back to school-focused, as here are five brilliant ones which you will love (and so will your students!).

1.       Classroom Commands

Understanding instructions is a crucial element to the learning of any language. As a young ESL learner, hearing commands regularly in English, whether in the ESL classroom or elsewhere, will help with an immersion approach. Our Classroom Commands PowerPoint offers an excellent opportunity to get your students learning in an interactive way. Go through each slide, asking children to follow the commands, either individually, in a pair, group or, if possible, the whole class at once. You could also use this as the basis for a ‘Simon Says’ game where children should only do what you have told them to if you preceded the command with Simon says.

2.       Roll and Cover Game

Games are always popular with students. They take away the seriousness of learning yet still allow for students to practise their English. Our FREE Roll and Cover game is perfect for pairs and small groups to utilise essential vocabulary linked to going back to school. Students should roll a die and then give the name of the corresponding item. To stretch your more able or older learners, encourage them to use the word within a sentence.

Let's Chat!

Being able to ask and answer questions is imperative for all language learners. It would be no use heading to England and asking where to find the tourist information centre but not comprehending the native speaker’s response. Start your students early with question asking and answering to give them the best chance of fluent English. This Let’s Chat asking and answering questions PowerPoint is perfect for use in the ESL classroom, getting the students to know you as well as each other. Once you go through the slideshow, students can practise in pairs.

Memory Game

Combining the consolidation of English vocabulary with practising memory skills is a useful approach; it’s fun, too! Our FREE Back to School memory game is an excellent way to practise key vocabulary linked to items found in the classroom. Just download, print (onto strong card), cut, laminate and cut again. I prefer to have several sets and actual back them onto different coloured card, so it’s easy to tell which cards belong in which pack. Place all the cards face down on a table. Children should then take it in turns to turn over two at a time. As the aim is to practise speaking in the foreign tongue, encourage them to say the name of the items shown. For more advanced learners, encourage them to say, after turning over the first, I need to find another... followed by the name of the object.

4.       School Dobble Game

Another game to please your ESL students, Dobble is a simple pattern recognition activity where your students will need to find an image shown on more than one card. All the items on the cards are school-related, so playing this will help you build up your class’ vocabulary and practise it in a fun way. Students battle against each other to find the repeated image as quickly as possible. Once someone has successfully spotted the repeated image, they can then claim the card. However, it is imperative that they either simply give the name of the item or they say I found two school buses, for example. As well as helping with the recall of words, this approach also addresses how plurals are formed, with the addition of –es in the case of buses.