Simon Says

For young learners

Great warm-up activities will do 2 things: 1 review previous lessons. 2 develop vocabulary over time.It's not just about the game it's how you play it!

I love Simon Says, and there's so many different ways you can play it, there's no materials you need to teach this game or play it. However it's how you play theses games that makes them fun for students.

When I teach the game to kids that don't know it I start with simply 2 words and gestures. Sit down and stand up. I start by asking and gesturing the class to stand up. And when they do I, in an over animated way, shout NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! and pull my hair out etc.  Then I do this again just one more time. The students will be slightly confused and curious about what they are doing wrong. Then I say Simon says...or please...how ever you want to play the game, and stand up. I give thumbs ups to the students that stand up and tell them good. Some students will pick this up right here....but mostly they will need a few more goes. So repeat the same idea for sitting down.

What I like about this is you are presenting the students with a puzzle in English. And they have to solve it! they want to solve it. And when they do they feel a sense of accomplishment and joy which they will bring out every time they play this game.

Every lesson I like to add new words to this games to expand their vocabulary. With younger learners you can have them repeat the words when they have to do the actions.

Giant Leaps in Life Part 1 Coming to Chiang Mai to Study a TEFL Course

Arriving in Chiang Mai:

Arriving in Chiang Mai left me with the familiar yet enjoyable feeling of excitement and apprehension that a new and foreign place often conjures up, only this time with another edge; I was here not to explore, enjoy and move quickly on; I had arrived with the intention of settling, starting a life and hopefully a career here in this relatively alien city.

I had purposefully arrived in Chiang Mai a good two weeks  before the start of my course, I wanted a chance to relax and get to know the city before embarking on what I believed (quite rightly so!)  would possibly be the most intense 4 weeks studying of my life. 

First Days:

The first few days I spent wandering the city, enjoying the sights and adjusting to the change in culture, temperature, language and food among everything else. I enjoyed being a free agent, responsibility free and with my only real main objective being how best to enjoy myself. The only problem with staying in a city like Chiang Mai when of the aforementioned mind frame is that days sooner or later become nights, and nights can very quickly become jolly  and fun-filled, meaning your days usually end up shorter, blurry and incredibly unproductive.

It was Sunday afternoon as I sat sweating in a beautiful riverside café nursing a pounding headache and pondering my existence when it suddenly dawned on me I only had a week before my course would begin. I had got lost in holiday-mode and had almost allowed myself to forget my motive for being here in Chiang Mai.

Preparing:

That afternoon I unearthed the pile of English language related books that I had brought with me and designed to plough through as much as possible in the coming week. When purchasing and packing said books my mind had been full of optimistic images of myself referring to certain pages and using ideas from them for years to come. In reality the books now sit collecting dust on my desk and generally act as an annoyance whenever I move house or decide to travel anywhere. But that said, in the commencing week the books got a lot of use; I was rarely seen outside of a coffee shop, pouring over complicated grammar rules and obscure teaching methodologies.

I allowed myself to grow anxious about the impending course date, was I prepared? Did I know enough? Was I even the right character? I had little experience teaching, and I had never stepped foot in a large classroom when not on the receiving end of education.

Part 2 Coming Soon