ESL teaching : developing speaking and writing skills.

Today I'd like to share my ideas about developing pupils' speaking and writing skills .

 I'm sure that teachers should use simple  short  poems widely. They give us  examples of everyday vocabulary and common grammar. What is more, they are easy memorising due to the rhymes. All of these make them a useful teaching tool. Concidering  them very effective,  I    use  this type of poems for the classroom activity as often as possible.
 

 As a rule, I start studying a new topic with a poem that  is connected with the content of the  current unite.

•  Firstly , read a poem to your pupils,then explain the meanings of all new words.
• Pupils should read this poem alone ( as a variant - with different emotions : sadness,happiness,  and so on)
•  Then we have to pay attention to the grammar structures used in this poem.
•  After this we start our work targeted on the developing pupils' speaking skills.Ask them to make  sentences using the words and phrases from this poem. It can be done in a form of a team game or a chain - story when each pupil adds his sentence to the story. It's really funny!
• You should finish this work asking the pupils to make a cartoon  or write a composition. They will be glad to show you and their parents how well they can do it now!

 For example, I offered my 9-year-old pupils  this poem while studying the topic "Winter" .

It’s snowing! It’s snowing!

What a lot of snow!

Let us make some snowballs

We all like to throw.

It’s snowing! It’s snowing!

Let’s sledge and ski!

When I’m dashing downhill

Clear the way for me!

 It was a good background for creating a description like this:

It is winter. The weather is frosty. It’s snowing. What a lot of snow! Some children play snowballs. They like to throw them. The other children sledge and ski. Look! They are dashing downhill! They are happy. They like winter very much.

These short poems were used for the  lessons about spring.

This springtime, this springtime,

Cold winter is past,

Warm breezes are blowing,

And May’s here at last.

The birds are returning,

Their songs fill the air,

And meadows are smiling

With blossoms so fair.

In the garden.

  It’s good to be back at the soil again

  Out in the garden to work again

It’s good to plant and sow again,

To dig and to rake and to work all day.

I’m happy and marry, I sing all day

Because today is spring again.

Now pupils can describe spring time themselves. 

 It’s spring again. I’m happy, because I like this season very much. Spring is a beautiful time, everything  is in blossoms. We can see green grass, first leaves in the trees, first flowers everywhere. The songs of birds fill the air.

But spring is the time of hard field work for farmers. Many people work in their gardens.  They dig the ground and rake it, plant trees, flowers and vegetables, sow seeds. They are happy to be back at the soil again, after the long and cold winter.