End of the school year is just as hectic as the beginning. However, the excitement of late August and early September is, in this case, replaced with the exhaustion of trying to keep the attention of people who, let’s be honest, would prefer being anywhere else BUT the classroom. And if you work with English learners, you want to have a backup plan of activities so you can keep them engaged right up until the end.
In my practice, the end of the school year has been busy with either helping my teenagers prepare for the final exams or making sure they are learning English productively even when they have no other assignments.
Here I will share five end-of-the-year activities and ideas on how you can make those last couple of weeks of the school year enjoyable and filled with learning.
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Show a movie
I’ve heard lots of discussions about the value of showing movies in class but I personally think that targeted instruction using a movie is a wonderful tool to enrich the language. You do have to do some research about what would be age appropriate (generally, in middle school a PG-13 and in high school an R rated movie would require parental permission), and what is your goal in showing this movie. But here are some reasons you should consider it.
- Movies generate great discussions in class. And that equals excellent speaking practice.
- Movies allow students to hear language in different ways. And that equals vocabulary expansion.
- Movies can expose students to learning about their new culture or an aspect of their new country. And that equals building background knowledge.
While there are tons of movies out there to choose from, here are my top 7 recommendations and ideas for how you can frame your lessons around them. Note: the movies below are for older students
Princess Bride – fairy tale elements
Roxanne – irony
Forrest Gump – American history
Dead Poet’s Society – loyalty, thinking outside the box
Holes – American history, general discussion
To Sir, With Love – relationships, growing up
Pay it Forward – compassion
Discuss a quote
Nothing sparks a great conversation like a quote. Pick a great one, display it on the board or overhead projector, and have at it. There are a couple of reasons for this activity.
- Quotes allow you to take a step back from the everyday routine and look at life and the world from a different perspective
- Quotes tend to inspire people. If your students are in a rut (which is quite possible at the end of the school year), a good quote might fill them with hope and strength that is required to finish out the year strong
- Activities with quotes allow for unparalleled speaking real-life speaking practice and for the art of discussion.
Ask the students to brainstorm quietly any thoughts that come to their head on how they would interpret the quote. If the student is having a hard time, you may guide them to begin writing with questions like:
- Do you agree or disagree with the quote? Explain.
- Have you ever experienced something like this in your life? If yes, explain in 3-5 sentences.
Then, have them write for a few minutes continuously. After that, each student shares their ideas with the class and you can even have a mini discussion. This is a great way to keep those minds thinking and practicing English at the same time.
The above activity may be suitable for more proficient English learners and therefore may not work for beginners. However, quotes can be used in a variety of ways when learning a language, even in the early stages of acquisition. Here are a few other ideas.
- Vocabulary instruction/review
- Teaching phrasal verbs/idioms
- Grammar and sentence structure instruction/review
- Writing (personal narrative/persuasive/informative)
- Oral discussion
What quotes to choose?
Here are a few of my favorites.
Stay true to yourself. People respond to authenticity – Barbra Streisand
Power is like being a lady… If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t – Margaret Thatcher
You must be the change you want to see in the world – Gandhi
Pinterest and Google search is also full of great quotes. To get you started, here is a link to a page that I’ve found quite useful.
7-minute write
One of the greatest writing activities I discovered a while ago came from the book New Ways of Teaching Writing by Ronald White. It is so simple that at first, you may have doubts, but it is very effective. Here goes: take an apple (or any other object that you have available), place it in front of the students and ask them to write about it. Set the timer to 7 minutes. The trick is that once they start writing, they may not stop until the timer goes off. If they run out of ideas, they still must write, even if it is just “blah blah blah” on the page. It is interesting to notice that once they get into it, the final project is totally not about the apple (or whatever object you put in front of them) but about something that the class can actually have a discussion about!
Ted Talks
Who doesn’t love TED talks? I know, I do! I love to listen to them and I love them to be a part of my classroom because they are just such a great inspiration. A good TED talk will answer your questions, or possibly spark new ones; it may teach you, open your eyes or challenge you.
I like to search for them myself, but sometimes it takes longer than I care to admit, so when I found an ebook 25 TED Talks For Your English Class by my fellow blogger and English teacher Sapna Seghal, I did a nice “bingo” dance (well, maybe only in my head, but you get it:)
The 25 TED Talks ebook is just that – a book that contains 25 lessons built around select TED talks on different topics that may be of interest to young people. Sapna has included the level of English language proficiency and duration of each lesson along with warm-up questions, links to the talk, comprehension and discussion questions.
It has been a life-saver for me, especially this spring when students are right before or right after a vacation or before, in the middle of and right after state testing.
As you probably guessed it, I highly recommend this ebook. If you think this might be the right fit for you, click here to see for yourself.
Musical Lesson
While thinking about how to incorporate language learning in a more creative way, I discovered that teaching English with music is a wonderful way to discover the natural flow of the language. I notice that music plays a great part in young people’s life, just like it did in mine when I was a teenager. When I come to think about it, I was learning English back then and a really big part of the learning came through the songs. So music will already most likely be greeted with a positive motivation, which is a great start to an interesting lesson. Although everybody has a different taste in music and you cannot possibly please all students, there are some songs that lend themselves well to teaching, such as good old Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise” (past tense), Barbara Streisand’s “Memory” (present tense), “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music (for general vocabulary) and many others. For a ready-made lesson plan on John Legend’s All of Me, check out my recent post.
Bonus activity
Write a letter to either your future self or incoming English learners
While I was reviewing everything my students had learned this year, I was pondering about what last assignment I could give them so they can show me (and themselves!) how far they have come.
The most interesting part of this whole “research” for me was that the students actually asked me if we were having a final project for our class! So yes, ask, and you shall be given:)
This letter-writing activity is great for both elementary and secondary level students. You just need to tweak it to the age group you are teaching. Here is a short list of how I am planning to do it:
- Decide whether you want to ask your students to write a letter to their future self or one to incoming new ESL students
- Review/teach the structure of an informal letter. I often connect it with writing an email because it is relatively similar (minus the address) and will likely be used more often.
- Do some practice with writing a letter in class.
- Have the students do a reflection of their year: 3 things they learned; 2 memories that stuck with them and 1 piece of advice to the incoming students (or their future self)
- Using the above information, students write the letter
- Students record their letters on a video in FlipGrid and share with you
And there you have it. The end of the school year is crazy, but when you have a great idea with an implementable plan it may just become more bearable.
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