Teaching number

on Saturday, August 15, 2009

How to teach young learners about numbers

Assalamualaikum.

Teaching numbers to the beginner is always chalenging . Especially, those who live in non english speaking country, like in Indonesia. The main thing a teacher should understand is that our students must have concept of number in their mother language. They must be able to count numbers in their own language first unless we will get stuck in teaching them in the future.

Well, just start our lesson joyfully. Enter their world first and take them to our world. Ask the students the number of chairs, tables, or anything in the classroom using their mother language. Ensure that all students follow us and keep attractive.

Teacher : Repeat after me (use this frase in the beginning of our teaching and stress our intonation in this phrase or we can translate into the students' language. using this frase also means that we speak in target language and in the future they will understand while we speak it again)

Teacher : one (write the symbol on the whiteboard)
Students : one
Teacher : Two
Students : Two, etc

Ensure that we have each students' pronounce the words correctly. I find that they mispronounce three, five six, eight, thirteen,fifteen. I suggest to teach them 1 to 12 first.
If they are geting bored, we can use songs or quiz. Remember that we must keep the learning interesting.

We can use the modified songs they have known. I usually sing 'one and one'.
Now, if the students are good in this step, ask them in group or individually.
Teacher : Bayu, What number is it?
Bayu : one
Teacher : Good, what number is it?
Bayu : Six

Do this to the rest of the students. To check their understanding, we can random the number. We can also ask them the number of the things in the classroom.

Thanks.
Wassalamualaikum.

Time Worksheer Creator

on Thursday, May 14, 2009

When I surfed the internet yesterday, I was looking for a worksheet about telling time in English. I need the worksheet for my students who will be holiday for five days. To fill the holiday, the teachers should give worksheets. I found an exciting site. If I usually just downloaded the worksheets available free. This site offered me something different. Here, I can create the time myself then print it whenever I wish.



In the sreen shot above, you just need fill the time you wish.



After filling out all the time, it will appear like the picture above.

Or If you want to show the digital clock, you just need to click the 'show digital' button.



Thanks for the creator. If you are interested, just click HERE.





ICE BREAKERS; activity to cool down the class situation

on Tuesday, May 12, 2009



Well, sometimes when I am teaching, i get bored or, even, my students get bored. To avoid this many things to do. The most important is never teach in a mere way. You just stand in the center of the classroom, holding a marker and a ruler. 'Shut up', you suddenly scream out seeing your noisy students. Or, you just ask your students to write and write. Hmmmm... If you always do this during teaching. I 'm sure not only you but also your students will get bored. Ok, I have some activities to make the class situation interesting and exciting. You can find ten ice breaker activities to apply in your class. This site provides some games and activities helping you to cheer up the situation. The activities do not require certain equipments. In my opinion, the ideas are very helpful in my classroom. Thanks alot. If you're interested, Plese visit HERE

Tic Tac Toe

on Friday, May 8, 2009


This is another game I like to play with my students. it's easy and interesting to play. First, ask your students to choose an opponent. Then, decide who will get 'X' and 'O'. After that, in turn, give a question. If they could answer, they might draw an 'X' or an 'O'. The student who could draw three Xs or three Os in straight line (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) win the game. The question can be anything, depending on what are your students learning at this time. I usually play this game in the end of lesson. Instead of just asking them, this game offers different learnning atmosphere. Just try it.

Learn English through Songs

on Thursday, April 16, 2009

Vocabulary needs to be revised again and again. Well, what could be better than studying vocabulary by listening to your favourite songs?

Read the lyrics first and try to understand them. You don’t have to translate the lyrics word by word, just try to find out what the song is all about. (Note: ‘Rap’ might not be practical as those songs usually contain slang words that not even ‘ordinary’ English native speakers know.)

Pick some words or phrases from the song that you would like to learn. If necessary, look up their exact meaning in a dictionary. A dictionary might also be useful to find other interesting phrases with the word.

Now, to learn the vocabulary, all you have to do is listening to the song again and again (that shouldn’t be a problem if it’s one of your favourite songs).