If you teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) to private 1-on-1 students, it's always nice to come to a lesson with something new and fresh that catches the student off-guard with something different than the grammar exercises or general conversation.

Here are a few questions: (There are 35 in total)

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? 
2. What is your greatest fear? 
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? 
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others? 
5. Which living person do you most admire? 
6. What is your greatest extravagance? 
7. What is your current state of mind? 
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9. On what occasion do you lie?
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
​...

1-on-1 Lessons - This works best with private classes of teenagers or adults. They LOVE it because it's different than a typical lesson. Not recommended for bigger classes, but play around with it.

Accept "I don't know" - Allow the students to answer or not answer honestly. For example, some teenagers may not have an answer for some questions like, "What do you consider the most overrated virtue?"

Write down their answers - If you do this, it will feel more important to them to take it more seriously, and you can offer them the answers after the test if they want it. 

It's like Instagram - Remember, this is only a snapshot of them on a given day. Answers may vary on another day or under different circumstances.

You do it for yourself first... in another language if you can. You'll probably surprise yourself with some answers.

Self-realization - Ok, that sounds a bit "mystical", but really, they will learn things about themselves. They will probably think about some questions even after your lesson.

Learn about your student - You will get insight on your student and how they think. This will help you know how to teach them in future classes as well!

What else can you find?

Many EFL students are learning English in order to travel, live, or work abroad. Chances are, if they are in a foreign country, they will eat some fast food at some point. In this lesson, we will work with some useful expressions to order fast food, specific vocabulary, and grammar that will help their conversation skills.

Ask “what” or “which” questions using nouns and verbs.
 
Question                              Speak                                          Play                                     Color                  
Go                                         Ask                                               Do                                       Food

 

1. _______________________________________________________________?
2. _______________________________________________________________?
3. _______________________________________________________________?
4. _______________________________________________________________?
5. _______________________________________________________________?
6. _______________________________________________________________?
7. _______________________________________________________________?
8. _______________________________________________________________?

Just like our students, if we're not stimulated or motivated by our jobs, we will become bored and ineffective. This will create a chain reaction because if we're ineffective as teachers, our chances of having quality classes for the students drastically goes down. Our students can sense this, and they will not be motivated and turn off, or worse, distract others. 

We all know what an unravelled class looks like.

Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to keep yourself motivated while you're either honing your craft as an EFL teacher or looking for what you really want to do.

1. Find the Challenge - Focus on the people instead of the subject matter. This will always be dynamic and constantly changing because people are all different in their learning styles, classroom conduct, and how they receive information. Remember, you're not teaching English, you're teaching people... English. 

Creating goals for both yourself and your students can make your job more stimulating because you have inherent challenges to accomplish with each goal. Goals for yourself could be personal growth or professional goals,  and also creating goals for the students will give you something in common to work towards.

2. Avoid the Lesson Plan Crutch - Don't stick too strictly to a lesson plan. We need to be flexible and spontaneous in our classes, and lesson plans can kill this if we try to follow it too rigidly. As we become more experienced, we can start to use bullet points as our lesson plans and focus more on helping students directly in each class. Of course, this comes with experience. Go with questions that students ask.

3. Find the Challenge Within Yourself - As mentioned above, one of the goals you could add for yourself in your time in the classroom is a personal growth goal. Personal growth goals are fantastic because our classrooms are a hotbed for working on organization, creativity, and above all, PATIENCE. If you're working with teens or kids, this is a great character trait to practice working on.

Overall, if teaching your subject matter isn't stimulating, find something else that is stimulating, and work on that during your lessons to help you become a better teacher, parent, friend, partner, or simply a better person in general. There's always somewhere to go!

Do you have any other ideas?

Download this fun and engaging PowerPoint template to play a HOT POTATO style game to review any vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, homework, or expressions that your students have recently learned. Adapt the slides for your particular needs in your classes. The presentation has upbeat music that hold the students' interest.

If you're familiar with HOT POTATO, you can play this. You can look below at the types of slides that are on the template. All slides that have the rubber band ball are accompanied with fun game show-type music during the pass the ball time. 

​The template can be adjusted to teach any lesson you want to teach. All you have to do is change out the photo slides for other photos or text.

Set time limits and sentence requirements for the game. (Ex. Student must speak for 15 seconds about the photo OR Student must say at least 3 sentences about the photo)
​
The students might get too excited and start using their native language. Encourage English communication with a point or elimination system.

Change the slides for fill-in-the blank questions or other exam review style content.

On-the-spot Thinking - Students will have to think instantly about the language they want to use

Creativity - You can add extra points for more creative answers

​What else can you find?

In this activity, your students will be able to ask genuine questions and answer them while trying to find out information about each other.

Thinking on the spot - Being able to think off the top of your head will help their creativity.

Building a community - Students often learn something new about their classmates and friends.

Lie Spotting - They will constantly be looking for clues to find the lie.

​What else can you find?

Talk about preparing for real life! In this system, we're using a full economy and money management system.

This approach is the opposite from what we have all done in our classes to try to coax the kids to behave well and speak English during our lessons. We've all probably done this with some sort of point or star system starting at zero, and the students get points for doing things well and minus points for their team for speaking their language or misbehaving. This system works a similar way, except the class starts each class with a certain amount of money (points).

We start the class with a certain number of points... or money. (In my case, I give 4 points for a 90-minute class. This is a salary of sorts for doing their job (of being a respectable student) efficiently. Below, you will find a Reward Coupon Poster of prizes they could buy with the money they save up.

Money can be deducted for:
- Extended conversation in the students' L1 (native language)
- Too much talking during inappropriate times
- Disrespectful behavior
- Etc.

Basic Economics - They get to practice what it feels like to "earn" a currency that they can save up for something they want.

Teamwork - The students are all "co-workers" of a company. They are all on a team working towards a goal. They may have to delegate jobs or responsibilities if necessary. (treasurer, project manager, etc.)

Delayed Gratification - The students will have to wait and save for bigger and better prizes.

One of the best tools you can have in your bag or teacher box is a dice. There are many things you can do with dice as a teacher: play a board game, choose who goes first in a game, or you could open your classes with vocabulary review games. ​

​Take turns to come up, roll the dice, and do the task based on the number.

This is a guessing game where the students will see a part of a photograph, and they will have to guess what the picture is.
Target Language: Sharing Opinions, Speculation Language, Descriptions
Age and Level: Most ages and levels from lower intermediate

(It depends on how many photos and how many expressions and vocabulary you teach)
·      Students work with a partner. (3 or fewer do it as a class)
·      Give students 1-2 minutes per photo.
·      Students have a two-way conversation about what they think.
·      Review vocabulary in the photos after the reveal.
·      Write any new words in their notebooks.

1-ON-1 LESSONS: 

·      You are their partner.
·      Encourage them to involve you in the conversation
·      Teach useful expressions that you teach or say.
·      I write the words and expressions as well for future review.

Finding Details - Your students will have to look for clues in the detail of the photos. This usually gets their attention.

Sharing Their Opinion - This can be difficult for some people to do, but this exercise often makes it a little easier.

​What else can you find?

If you need more personal support, let us know!