101 things to do with a coursebook page (all of which take less than 5 minutes to prepare!)

I created this list a couple of years ago for a workshop to help early career teachers see how they can exploit the materials available in a coursebook without needing to spend hours reinventing the wheel or cutting things up. The list is designed to:

• help teachers add variety to lessons
• go beyond their materials
• think about skills lessons in a different way, not just testing but teaching
• add bits of learner training to lessons
• be a bank of ideas for activities teachers can pull out in the lesson if they need to change something
• give teachers tasters of bits of methodology they might not be aware of (like metacognition or ways of improving

It is not designed to be a comprehensive list – 4 sides of A4 is quite enough as a starting point. It’s also not designed to be a critique of coursebooks – that’s for another place and time. There might be one or two ideas which are ‘Sandy Millin originals’ 🙂 but generally they were collated from throughout my career so far, so thank you if you’re the source of any of them!

Feel free to use the list or the handout in training sessions/workshops, but please credit the source. My 60-minute workshop went something like this:

• In small groups, teachers shared their own ideas of things they do to exploit coursebooks.
• The list was cut into sections and placed around the room.
• Teachers had time to read it, add question marks next to anything they couldn’t understand, and add their own ideas to the paper. This is why there’s an empty bullet point at the end of each category.
• I demonstrated/explained any confusing activities.
• Teachers decided which activities they would try out in the next week (I can’t remember if we had time to do this, but I’d make sure if I ran it again!)
• We took photos of the annotated sheets and emailed them to everyone after the session.

You can download the handout as a pdf or a .docx file.

Image taken by Sue Annan, from the ELTpics collection and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 licence

Vocabulary

1. Test students: get them to draw pictures, which you can then use to:
   – Play games: point to…, find…, take…, run to…, what’s missing (…all the typical ones)
   – Give each group a pile of pictures – they turn them over and make sentences
   – Show a picture – they race to write the word (in notebooks, on mini whiteboards, on the board)
   –
2. Categorise words (meaning):
   – I like, I don’t like
   – In the bedroom, In the kitchen, In the living room, In the bathroom
   – Know/Don’t know
   – With /i:/ /e/ /3:/ etc (pron)
   –
3. Using the exercise in the book: do it as is, then…
   – cover the words and work with your partner to say them (pron)
   – cover and write the words, while looking at definitions (form)
   – look at the words and remember the definitions
   – one student closes book, other open and tests them
   – groups of 3/4: one student = teacher, says definition. Others race to say word – point for each/they become the next ‘teacher’.
   – point to the word/picture on software, students say it
   –
4. Memorisation:
   – Close your book and write down all of the words.
   – Board race of all of the words.
   – Translation Chinese whispers – e.g. English, Polish, English, Polish
   – Evil memorization of sentences around gap-filled words (show on software, they write in answers, switch off software, they remember sentences)
   – Little books: students make a book out of A4 paper, then write a word on the first page. Next student draws a pic of the word on next page. Next student looks at pic (not word!) and writes word, etc. At the end, see how different final picture is from original word. (Chinese whispers)
   –
5. Pronunciation (pairs first, then remedially drill problem words, especially for higher levels):
   – Different types of drill: stressed syllable, stickman…
   – Point to the picture, they say the word – as fast as possible (use their pics from idea 1)
   – Students write out words – one each (can have more than one of each word) – use for disappearing drills
   –

Exploiting images

(particularly for warmers – on coursebook software or in their books, or PowerPoint if you want to spend more time prepping)

6. Students discuss in pairs: 1 minute to think first, then…
   – What can you see?
   – I see, I think, I wonder
   – What was it like five minutes before/after?
   – Create personalities for the people.
   – Add something to the picture, then tell your partner what and why.
   – Have you ever been anywhere like this? Seen anything like this? Would you like to?
   –

Grammar/functional language

(see also the vocab ideas above!)

7. Eliciting it (after students have already seen it in context!):
   – First letters of each word
   – First word of sentence – they find it in text. Add a word at a time until someone gets it.
   – Sentence hangman
   – Hum the stress pattern
   –
8. Pronunciation (hand over to students ASAP):
   – Different types of drill: key word, first letter of each word, substitution…
   – Draw/ask students to draw an image to represent a sentence (e.g. a door for ‘Can you open the door?’ – use these as prompts.
   – ‘Grammar’ sentences e.g. you / work / office? = ‘Do you work in an office?’
   – What are the stressed/unstressed words?
   – Can you say it as fast as me? Backchain to help them with this.
   – Use rhythm to aid memorization. Try jazz chants:
   –
9. Exploiting controlled practice:
   – Say the sentences as quickly as you can.
   – One student says the answer, the other student says the whole sentence.
   – Translation mingle: write one sentence on a bit of scrap paper. Translate it to Polish. Mingle – say Polish sentence, other person says English. Encourage them to give feedback: That’s right. You’re nearly there. That’s completely wrong!
   – Students create 2-3 extra questions to extend the activity.
   – How many of the sentences can you remember from the text?
   – Close your books. Can you retell the story? (If it’s a complete text)
   – 1 student says a sentence from the activity. The other student remembers the one before it.
   – Contextualise the sentences: put them into a longer ‘text’. If they leave a gap, other students can try to work out which sentence it is.
   –
10. Semi-controlled/freer practice:
    – Type up 6-10 sentence starters taken from the book (e.g. ‘As soon as I got home yesterday…’). Have some scrap paper. Students write the endings, then mix them up. Move around the room. Other groups then match endings to starters.
    – Draw the sentences: Students fold a piece of A4 paper into 8 boxes and put small numbers in the corner, like so:

1	2	1	2
3	4	3	4

They draw a picture each for four different sentences on the left, and don’t write the sentence! They pass the paper to a second group, who try to remember the corresponding sentences. A third group checks if they are correct (with or without books depending on how evil you feel).
– Students create their own ‘find someone who’
–

Exploiting reading/listening texts

11. Explore context/genre:
    – Where would you see/hear this text?
    – Who would be like to read/listen to this kind of thing? Would you?
    – What other titles could the text have?
    – Which features of this text make it an article/blogpost/radio interview e.g. The introduction of the people at the start…
    – What features make this readable? Or make a listener want to continue listening? If any!
    –
12. Extend the text:
    – What happened next?
    – What extra question could the interviewer ask?
    –
13. Mine the text:
    – What phrases do you want to steal?
    – Choose a sentence. Remember, cover, write, check.
    – How could you say the sentence in a different way?
    –
14. Improve listening skills:
    – Do a micro dictation of problem sentences.
    – Focus on some of the connected speech, then get students to repeat it.
    – Ask students to reflect on what made a text easy/difficult e.g. speed, accent, topic.
    – Play, pause, students say what’s coming next, then listen and check.
    –
15. Look at ’40 things to do with a text’ http://teachertrainingunplugged.com/other-writing/40-things-to-do-with-a-text/

Extending speaking activities

16. Read Richer Speaking 🙂 https://sandymillin.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/richer-speaking/
17. Work with another partner:
    – After error correction from the teacher (this helps them to upgrade language)
    – To find out if their new partner is similar/different to their previous partner.
    – To report on partner 1’s answers. They could then change again to report on three people’s answers (partner 1, partner 2, and partner 2’s first partner!)
    – After the teacher has fed in some extra functional language.
    –
18. Change the situation:
    – Have the same conversation as if you are a manager and employee / parent and child / old person and teenager…
    – Would the conversation be the same in a café? An airport? At a friend’s house?
    –
19. Reflect on a task (a.k.a. metacognition):
    – What extra words did you need? How did you get them?
    – When did the conversation stop? (How) did you get it started again?
    – What made the task particularly easy/difficult? What could make it easier in future?
    –

Extending writing activities

20. Upgrade your writing:
    – Add five adjectives/a conditional/two more sentences…
    – Rewrite it so it’s more formal/informal/legible (!)
    – Proofread it for commas/capital letters/past simple forms/your favourite spelling mistakes
    – Add a title/subtitles
    –
21. Switch texts and:
    – check it for content – does it include everything?
    – correct three spelling mistakes
    – choose a word/phrase you want to steal and add to your text
    –
22. Walk around and read texts while:
    – adding post-it note comments
    – choosing which [holiday you would like to go on] – try to avoid ‘the best’ as this is subjective
    –

Exploiting the coursebook software

23. Use the extra functions:
    – Games
    – Audioscripts
    –
24. Block things out (either using the in-built function or putting another window over the top!):
    – Parts of images/vocabulary banks – what’s missing
    – Half a text – remember the other half
    – Only show the first letter or two of words in a vocab list – race to write them on mini whiteboards
    –
25. Check the answers:
    – Students write the answers in when projected on the board.
    – Show the answers and ask students if they’ve got them right.
    – One person can look, the other can’t and has to listen to the answers.
    –
26. With practice exercises:
    – Sentence pictionary: one person can look and has a mini whiteboard, the other has their back to the board. You circle a sentence number. They draw the sentence and their partner has to remember it.
    – Hot seat/backs to the board: circle/underline words in the word bank for them to define.
    – They race to define 4/6 words as fast as possible: guesser puts them on a mini whiteboard.
    –
27. Display texts for students to:
    – Run and point to the vocabulary item you define (team game). Items can be hidden in a vocabulary bank or hidden in a reading text/audioscript.
    – Remember a sentence and write it down, then look and check.
    –