Creative Teaching Ideas, Lesson Plans and Activities

              Once again one of my classroom activities was shortlisted for the British Council's Blog of the month award for February 2019. I was very happy though I hadn't won the award since the world liked a lot more than all the posts. "The post was:  http://www.rajclassroom.com/2019/02/a-stimulating-writing-task-to-describe.html "

Topic: Language Games Level: Pre-primary and Primary Skills: Vocabulary and speaking               Here is another set of language games to teach and practice vocabulary. You can use these games in teaching other subjects also. Clap Clap Clap: To help pupil memorise and practice the words related to a topic. Make sure you have taught them vocabulary related to the topic. ( Topics: Animal names, fruits names, flower names, and vehicles..etc) Pupils are asked to stand in a circle. You stand in the middle of the circle. You need to choose a topic before going to play. Make sure the pupils know how to play. If they don't then give a quick demonstration giving a simple topic like 'animals'. The pupils have to say animals names only. ( dog, tiger, cat, lion...etc.) You start the game by saying a word related to the topic after clapping three times (clap..clap..clap..) For example, if you choose 'animals' you say tiger af...

Topic: Language games Skill: Vocabulary Grade: Primary or Young Learners.                                   Learning a language requires a great deal of effort. Games help students to make and sustain the effort of learning. Games provide language practice in the various skills – speaking, writing, listening and reading. They create a meaningful context for language use. Here I am going to describe a few games to teach and practice vocabulary. Onion Rings: This is a good game for practicing vocabulary, spellings and also a good speaking activity when you have a short dialogue you want to practice. You do need room for this or could do it outside. First, divide the class into two. One half stands in a circle facing outwards, the other half stands in a larger circle around them facing inwards. Each pupil should be opposite another pupil. They have 2-3 minutes to ask and answer as m...

Topic: The Pot of Wealth Class: 4th Skills: Reading and speaking.                 Teaching aids can facilitate the proper understanding to the students which discourage the act of cramming. The existence of materials is totally based on the creativity and innovative ways of teachers.                           This is one of my best story transaction methods and also a learning-centered teaching strategy. I strongly believe that teaching-learning material will always give twin benefits to teachers and students to transact and understand a topic well. Innovation in the learning material is an added advantage to a teacher to stick their student's concentration and achieving the targeted learning outcomes easily. And also it changes the monotonous teaching strategy into a versatile transaction.                 ...

Topic: Picture translation. Lesson: The best reward.  Skills: Listening and speaking. Grade: 5th grade and above.                              Here I am going to introduce a new story teaching technique for teachers to make their teaching process success and interesting. It will turn your normal classroom into a digital classroom as you play a video on the board though you have no projector. It will give definitely great results because the main feature of this technique is moving pictures as per your content. this will give live experience to your students as they are watching a video. I used this technique to teach below paragraph. "Victory to you Maharaja!" said the hunter to Sri Krishnadevaraya with a beautiful parrot in his hands. The king raised his hand and asked him to come near. The hunter went near the king. "This parrot is beautiful", the king said. "Yes, your Majesty! This...

Lesson: Helen Keller. Class: 5th grade. Skills: Writing and creative expression.                       Writing is one of the biggest challenges for teachers. Because children do not want to write. Especially in second language classrooms, teachers are facing big trouble in giving writing tasks. So teachers need to encourage their learners by assigning interesting writing activities.                       So, I always try to give my learners interesting and engaging writing tasks to stimulate them. They clearly participate more actively when I give them creative tasks. They did this writing task after we had looked at the life of Helen Keller in class and it offered them an opportunity to consolidate their understanding and express a diversity of ideas.

Topic: About your city. Grade: 4th class. Skills: Writing.                Writing is a complex skill to develop and master, focusing on both the end product and the steps to arrive there. Writing skills only develop when young learners are taught how to write and are given opportunities to practice these skills and strategies.                So such visual worksheets help young learners a lot to develop writing skills. Such worksheets and engaging writing tasks are very important, especially for second language learners. I gave this writing task after a lesson "A trip to Horsley Hills" The theme of the lesson is sightseeing. So after this, I asked my learners to write about their city.  Here is the digital lesson transaction. A trip to Horsley Hills Download the Worksheet.