Use the view from your window to teach tenses

Hello, everybody.

Greg here with another online teaching tip as part

of the Supporting Every Teacher campaign,

which aims to help all

of you teachers who are now teaching from home.

While your home is full

of opportunities to teach English in your online classes,

don’t forget that you can use the world

outside your home as well.

The view from your window or balcony can provide a great way

for your students to use English in a real life context.

My main example today is an activity using

the present continuous.

There are two easy steps to this activity.

First, just face your webcam outside

and then simply ask your student to say

what they see.

Okay, there is a motorbike passing by.

Someone crossing the street.

Encourage them to describe everything,

even the most ordinary looking scene will have lots of things

for them to talk about.

Just look at this example.

Take the view from the back of my flat.

It looks like a quiet scene,

but a lot of present continuous phrases can be formed here.

You just need to provide some thinking points

for your student.

Of course, ask them what they can see.

You can also ask them to say what they can hear.

Additionally, don’t forget to tell them to think about

what isn’t happening.

And finally, of course,

they should be prepared to describe anything

that might happen next.

Variations of this activity include getting your students

getting your students to use question tags

when responding to your prompts about the scene outside.

Okay, Claudia,

tell me about the man with the black jumper, please.

I think the man has a dog, hasn’t he?

Can you tell me about the weather, please?

The weather is a little bit cloudy, isn’t it?

Of course, push them further by asking

what they can’t see or what they can hear.

What can you hear, Claudia?

The birds are singing, aren’t they?

And for higher levels,

ask them to predict the scene outside using

the future continuous.

So, Claudia,

what do you think will be happening outside?

I think the sun will be shining.

Okay.

All activities will also practise general location lexis

and many more language points.

Okay, to summarise.

So, there you go.

Another way to use your environment,

this time the outside world,

to bring language to life in your online classes.

Of course,

although I’ve used Skype as my example today,

please remember that this activity is transferable

to lots of online platforms.

Before you go,

I’d just like to remind you to click on the link below

for more resources.

Also, please don’t forget to subscribe to the channel

and to ask your students to as well.

And I’ll see you next time with another online teaching tip.

See you later.