Hello, and welcome. My name is Renee, and together we'll be exploring the topic of
resources. By the end of the video, you'll have a clear understanding of what a
resource is. I'll be giving you some guidance, sharing some practical and easy
to implement resource ideas, as well as a little theory, and hopefully giving you
some food for thought. And at the end of the video, watch out for the top tip I've
included for you.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that resources are everywhere and within all
our reach. Together, let's take a detailed look at what they are, and where you can
find them. Perhaps, the first resources we all think of are those that are visual,
like pictures, photographs, postcards or flashcards, all of which I think you'll
agree are easy to access and can be used in multiple ways. For example, an easy and
communicative use for pictures is a class mingle. Give each student a picture, ask
them to walk around and stop for a quick chat with a partner. Together, they should
discuss any similarities between their pictures.
Our everyday lives are a rich source of resources. We call these realia, in other
words, things we might all have at home, like a programme, a map, a plan, a diary,
a timetable, a recipe, a newspaper or board game, or even just an empty glass
jar.
Vocabulary jars are a cheap and easy and very versatile resource. At the end of
each lesson, hand out small pieces of paper and ask your students to write down
a new word they're learned. Collect a few and put them in a clean glass jar. I find
this an invaluable resource for recycling vocabulary, teaching writing and doing
speaking tasks.
There'll be an infinite number of games and activities you can use the words for
throughout the term, to revise and ensure real learning is taking place.
Resources can also be adapted, tailored or specifically prepared with either a group
of students or a learning aim in mind. A good example is adapting a standard board
game. In each of the squares on the board, between the start and finish, write an
error commonly made by your students. And remember, you don't always need to make
every resource yourself. Your students will get a lot of practice and pleasure
out of filling in the spaces themselves. In groups, they can create the board games
for each other. It'll maximise their learning
and research shows, they're likely to be more invested in playing a game they've
helped create.
From our examples then, it's clear that resources are often tactile, allowing our
students to move and engage with the pieces, allowing them to rank, sequence or
match cut-ups, order pictures into a narrative or work out a puzzle.
Sometimes, resources only require verbal clues, like telling a story, doing a
dictation game, playing a pronunciation game or singing a chant. To review and
practise a grammar point like a tense, I like to use a game of simple gestures or
physical positioning to get my students to copy cues, order or sequence themselves
or, even, create a living picture.
Some resources, as you can hear, are paperless. The each one, teach one
technique allows students to play teacher and test each other by selecting new words
and defining them for a partner to guess. Another activity I like is hidden words.
Ask your students to think of a word they learned recently. The object is for each
student to use their word naturally and undetected somewhere during the lesson. If
a student succeeds, and nobody notices, they score a point. It really focuses
students as they are listening to see if they can catch each other out and steal
their point.
And of course, nowadays, many resources can be found online, or created using the
modern technology our students like, often making it easier to set homework and
engage our teenage learners.
And finally, don’t forget that the teacher and the learners, and even the
classroom, the chairs, tables, boards, are invaluable and versatile resources.
So, to finish, here is my top tip. Keep two vocabulary jars. An active one and one
into which you move all the words once the students know them well. This way, you can
see how many words they've learned, reflected in the second jar. It's very
motivating to see the second jar filling up and, of course, it gives you more space
in the active jar.