Two+innovative+ELT+techniques+and+applications++by+Yun+Ding

[|A Video Lesson]
One great recipe is to play a video with vocabulary content. Not flashcards but something real and beautiful. Then, students either write or speak or brainstorm all the vocabulary from the video in the specific category you mention. Yun’s reflection: I think this method is very appropriate with young learners. It is both applicable and workable. Younger learners are kinetic learners, visual aids would help them to learn better and easier. Moreover seeing movable colorful pictures would definitely be attractive for the students. One of the drawbacks of this activity would be that in some public school, there might not be any projector and computer to support it. Other than this, I think it will be well utilized in pedagogical purposes.

[|Story Chains]
== Story chains are simple ways to keep students telling a story. Start a story and then students keep adding lines to continue. They can even be done with only words, students relating words to other words through association == == Yun’s reflection: Strongly recommend this activity. I have done it in my own teaching, it worked well, students liked it a lot. This is one of the effective writing strategies, it is commonly agreed that students do not like writing, because they find it boring and challenging. If teacher uses this method in their writing class, the outcome will be charming. One concern for this method, the context and the age of the students should be considered before actually implementation. == = =

= At The Movies = Everyone loves movies! This is a great idea and a great way to have a very light but powerful lesson. 1. Write some names of movies on the board. Then give students 4 hints about one movie. See if they can guess. Continue until all are off the board. 2. Students have 2 minutes to think of all the movie titles possible. One person is the secretary in the group and writes them down all over a piece of paper. 3. Students in the group take turns and give 4 hints about the movie. They win if nobody can guess it after 4 hints. Write some language on the board to help students. Yun’s reflection: as the first sentence said “Everyone loves movies!”, though I have nerve used this method in any of my practice teaching, but I believe students will appreciate it. This activity can be incorporated with speaking focused lesson. Some of the concerns, first of all, the number of students in the class should be take into consideration, if the class is too crowed, teacher can do group work instead. The choice of the movies should be carefully choose, inappropriate movies should be avoided. = Classroom labeling = This is a great idea for the start of the year. Give each group of students some card board strips of paper. Also some tape. Students brainstorm the names of all things in the classroom (in English!). Then, ask them to go tape the names up around the classroom. First come, first server. After, take up the names. Student will learn the words over time, as they see them in class and use them. Yun’s reflection: nice way to teach young learner classroom settings. This method is very authentic, and in a way encourages autonomous learning. Teacher’s job is to check whether they have written it right. According to research young learner need repetition to foster learning, by seeing the words everyday, they will surely remember them,. Reference: []