All posts by Keith Hunt

Hello, Class! Today We’re Going to Talk About…

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“Hello, class! Today we’re going to talk about [fill in the blank].”

If you are an ESL teacher, you have probably started at least one class this way. You might have finished the above phrase with one of these themes: food, pets, sports, or music.

Whether teaching grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, speaking, reading, or writing, teaching language within a theme can be very useful.

However, choosing the right theme can be tricky.

Here are some of my tips for choosing the right theme.

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Once Upon a Time: Using Stories to Teach ESL

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When I was a student in elementary school, I used to love “story time.” Some of my earliest and fondest memories as a child were sitting around in a circle and having the teacher read stories to the class. I’ll never forget the time my Kindergarten teacher cried while reading us “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch. Stories are powerful. Story time was the best!

I love stories, whether they be novels, movies, or a friend’s adventure. So, naturally, as a teacher I like using stories in my classes.

Here are a few examples of how I have used stories as an ESL Teacher.

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Let It Snow: My Students’ First Time Seeing Snow

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It was a cold day in January, 2017. I was standing in front of a class of about twenty students from Panama who had come to Canada as part of the Panama Bilingue Program. I was trudging my way through my lesson, clicking through slide after slide of my rigorously-prepared Power Point presentation, when suddenly something happened that changed my outlook on teaching ESL forever: it started snowing.

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