bored learn English ???

Bored of Learning English? Five ways to make learning fun!

By Wil on October 13, 2009

Do you ever feel a little bored when studying English? Maybe just a tiny bit? Learning a language is hard work and takes a long time so it’s natural to feel bored or frustrated occasionally. Here are some ways to make learning fun again:

1. Watching movies – Teachers really often mention this as a good way to develop listening skills and hear people speaking at a natural pace. It can be difficult to follow the dialogue at times, though. Especially if the actors have heavy accents or are using a lot of idiomatic vocabulary.

If you have trouble following, it’s fine to put the subtitles on but remember to have them in English. Reading and hearing the words at the same time usually helps with comprehension.

If you don’t have time to watch a movie, watch an episode of a TV drama or comedy. The language used there is most likely to be natural, too. Watching TV shows for kids in English can be fun, as well and it’s a nice family activity.

Remember, whatever movie or TV show you choose, make sure it is one you enjoy. Don’t force yourself to sit through a boring show just to learn English.

2. Imitate adverts or people on TV – This sounds a little childish but can be a really good way to develop your intonation and speech rhythm. Try recording your favourite actor and copying the way he speaks. It’s fun and great practice.

3. Singing – Not everyone likes to sing and that’s fine. If you prefer not to sing, try one of the other methods instead. If you do like singing, do it as often as possible in English. It’s a great way to build your pronunciation skills and confidence, too.

4. Reading – Read subjects you are interested in. If you are interested in a subject, you are more likely to try to understand all the words and expressions in the text than you would of you were reading something boring.

5. Actually doing it! – What was the reason you started learning English? I bet it wasn’t so you could just sit in a classroom for hours. Actually putting your English into action by talking to foreign colleagues or English speaking friends makes all your hard work worthwhile.

If you don’t have any English-speaking friends, make some. You can meet friends online. There are Internet forums on any topic you could imagine. Join one related to your hobby or field of work and get involved in a discussion in English.

Try volunteering to be a tour guide. Many historic sites need tour guides to show foreign tourists around. This could even turn into a part-time job!

Start your own conversation club. If you have some friends or classmates who want to practice, meet up for a coffee and agree to only speak English to each other for a few hours.

I said at the beginning that learning a language is hard work and that’s true. It’s important to remember, though, that hard work doesn’t have to be boring. Approach leaning in a way that’s fun and relevant to your life and you’ll find your skills improve faster than you could imagine!

English Vocabulary ...

Learning English Vocabulary

Many of Vocabulary Learning Fun’s vocabulary word games are organized with dozens of categories of vocabulary lists. By making connections between words and ideas, and between words and pictures, we build vocabulary skills. Connections between vocabulary words make the process of building vocabulary skills faster and more efficient. The fun of English vocabulary games can help both native and foreign speakers of English build their English language vocabulary skills. There are vocabulary word games for all levels of English.

HangMouse

HangMouse is a fun, friendly online hangman game for kids. Hangman games are a great way for students to practice their spelling words, and HangMouse is a favorite among Vocabulary Spelling City users. HangMouse can be played on individual computers or on an interactive whiteboard as a group activity!

HangMouse Instructions: To play this free hangman word game, click on letters, one at a time, to try and complete the spelling or vocabulary word before the cat catches the mouse! Click the Next button to move on the next word. Be sure to play all the way to the end of HangMouse to become an expert hangman solver and share in the mouse's victory!

Above are some lists for you to choose from to play the HangMouse kids' hangman online game. Since it is one of Vocabulary Spelling City's free online games, you can also play HangMouse with your own list or use any of the word lists available on our site. Hangman has never been so much fun!

 

Word Search

Children love to play word search puzzle games! This traditional word find game acts as a custom puzzle maker that will scramble your words into a grid. The object of Word Search is to locate and outline all of your spelling or vocabulary words within the grid. It's easy to build a word search on Vocabulary Spelling City!

Word Search Online Instructions: To play Word Search, choose the level of difficulty, the length of the game, and whether or not you wish to use the timer, then click play! When you find a word, click on the first letter and drag to the end of the word, then release the mouse button. You can play Word Search online or make a Word Search worksheet.

Word Search Printable Instructions: Unlike other printable word games on Vocabulary Spelling City, Word Search may not be printed directly from the Games page. To create a printable word search, make your selections and click play. Once the word search puzzle appears on the screen, click the print button at the bottom of the grid.

Above are some lists for you to choose from to play this fun, free Word Search or you can use any of the lists available on our site. The activity also acts as a word search maker when you use your own list, creating custom word searches that students and children can play as free online puzzles or complete as printable word game worksheets!

 

VSC WordFind

VSC WordFind is a fun way to study your spelling and vocabulary words while searching for new words. How many words can you make using the letters in each word on your list? The more words you find and the faster you find them, the higher your score will be! You may even be ranked on the high score table!

WordFind Instructions: The box on the left of this word game tells you how many words you need to find (in addition to your spelling/vocabulary word) in order to advance. To create words, click and drag the letters into the boxes. Once you have created a new word, click the Submit button. To shuffle the letters, click the round button with the arrows. To clear the boxes, click the Clear button. If you need a hint to figure out some words, click the Hint button. Click Hint Type to alternate between definitions and sentences.

Once you have found enough words to advance, you can click on the Next button to move forward and start your word search all over again with the next word. You can also continue finding words until you have found all possible words to boost your score. As an extra challenge, see if you can find any anagrams for your words! Anagrams are words that are formed by using all of the letters in a given word, but in a different order - like "vase" and "save".

For more word games and online puzzles that make studying your spelling or vocabulary words fun, check out Vocabulary Spelling City's Word Search or Sentence Unscramble, which is a game similar to Jumble™.

 

Sentence Unscramble

Sentence Unscramble Instructions: The object of Sentence Unscramble is to place the words in the correct order to form a complete sentence. You may click the words in order or click and drag them into the box. To rearrange the words within the box, simply click on the word you wish to move and drag and drop it into its new position. Click the Hint button to hear the sentence read aloud. Sentence Unscramble is available as an online sentence anagram activity or you may create a printable Sentence Unscramble worksheet.

Sentence Unscramble is very similar to our word jumble activity Unscramble, except instead of rearranging letters to form a word, in this sentence jumble activity, you rearrange words to form a complete sentence.

Above are some lists for you to choose from to play the Sentence Unscramble game. You may also play Sentence Unscramble with your own list or use any of the thousands of existing lists on our site.

Songs for children ...

How to Use Songs when Teaching English as a Second Language?

Instructions:

1      ACCESS THE AGE AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILL LEVEL OF YOUR CLASS. This will determine not only what songs you use, but also what games or exercises you will use to teach the English lesson.

2     DETERMINE WHAT IT IS THAT YOU WANT TO TEACH YOUR ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE CLASS TO LEARN. Is this going to be a lesson in vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, or concepts.

3 IF YOU HAVE YOUNG LEARNERS, USE SONGS THAT ARE REPETITIVE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND. For example, one of the best songs to teach a young learner with few basic English language skills, is "Old McDonald." This not only teaches children the different animals in English, but also helps them with pronunciation and grammar. You can also use easy to understand and G-rated Pop songs.

4       FOR TEENAGERS, USE CURRENT OR FAIRLY CURRENT POP AND ROCK SONGS TO IMPROVE THEIR ENGLISH SKILLS. There is hardly a corner in the world where American, British and other English language popular music isn't listened to. This is absolutely one of the best ways to keep teenagers interested. Assuming the teenagers have some English language skills, the music can be more difficult to understand and with more difficult vocabulary and concepts. This will test their listening skills, language and conversational skills.

5      FOR ADULT LEARNERS WHO MAY HAVE A MORE IN DEPTH KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH, USE SONGS THAT ARE AGE APPROPRIATE AND INTERESTING TO THE GROUP. Adult learners may be more subdued about the concept of honing their English language skills by listening to songs, but once they get started you will see that they enjoy it. You can use a song that tackles a difficult concept or social dilemma. For example, you could use Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic." This has a great deal of vocabulary and good illustrations of what irony is, which can be a difficult concept to teach when using the English-only rule in class.

6 USE VOCABULARY WORD FORMS, FILL IN THE BLANK FORMS, AND SING ALONGS. *For young learners, have them stand up and use total physical response to underscore the words they are hearing in the song. Make it a game. For example, write the main vocabulary words on a blackboard or whiteboard if you have one. Otherwise, tape up individual sheets of paper with the words on them. Explain each vocabulary word to the class so that they understand what it means. Have the class listen to the song the first time with only you pointing to the vocabulary word as it comes up in the song and you acting out the song as much as possible. The next go round, have the class split into teams and play the song again. This time whichever team hears a vocabulary word and can be the first to identify it on the blackboard, gets a point. The next time you play it, have the class try to sing it and act out the words.
*For teenagers and adults split them up as teams of two, or singles, and play the song through once. Then pass out the song lyrics with the vocabulary words blanked out. If your English class is not advanced, you can put a vocabulary list on the board and explain each word so everyone understands what it means. Play the song again and have the class try to fill in any blanks they can. Get a show of hands to see how many words they got. Keep replaying the song until all, or most, of the class fills in all the blanks. Answer any questions that your class has about the meaning of the words or the concepts, and play the song again and have those who want to sing it, sing along. Everyone else can just follow along with the lyrics. The repetition reinforces your English lesson.

English is fun by song and video ... :)

Using English Videos And Music In English Foreign Language Classrooms
By Kisito Futonge

a) Music:

English songs can be used for a wide variety of ESL learning and teaching activities. They can start discussions on a topic or even become the centre of debate. This is especially true of songs that develop a particular theme. Songs are also great for teaching listening. One of my favorite exercises with music is completing the blanks as students listen or listening and choosing the correct words from two words than rhyme, for example cry and try. You can teach grammar with songs in many ways. Most English songs sometimes sacrifice grammar for smooth rhyme. This makes them very good grammar teaching tools. You can ask students to find the mistakes or ask them how we would normally say it. Most songs reflect the background of the singer, why not do activities on something like varieties of modern English; or simply by comparing two songs ask students to figure out where the speaker is from and why. This is especially good for lessons that show the differences between British and American English. Of course you can teach new vocabulary with songs and students would understand them better within the context of the song. These are just a few of many ideas for using songs in ESL/EFL teaching. See the section on using music in ESL classrooms and download sample worksheets.

b) Videos:

Like English songs English videos can be used for an assorted variety of language teaching and learning. The main difference lies in the fact that you see and hear. Television is however a lazy medium, providing little challenges for the mind, by spoon-feeding the mind with sounds and sights, thereby providing little room for one’s imagination to thrive. So how do we make this lazy medium a useful classroom tool? Lots of ideas come to mind. How about turning of sound and asking students to create the dialogue from a scene? Or how about, getting one part of the class to watch and describe to the others? Yes! How about simply using a freeze frame technique where you watch and pause when it gets very interesting, then ask your students a number of questions about what happens next? View some worksheets on how to use videos. One video I often use is MR. BEAN. It is great for prompting students to describe what they just saw.

English is fun

English is fun by using games

by Andrew Wright, David Betteridge and Michael Buckby

Cambridge University Press, 1984.

'Learning about English language is hard work ... Effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long period of time. Games help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest and work.'

'Games also help the teacher to create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. The learners want to take part and in order to do so must understand what others are saying or have written, and they must speak or write in order to express their own point of view or give information.'

'The need for meaningfulness in English language has been accepted for some years. A useful interpretation of 'meaningfulness' is that the learners respond to the content in a definite way. If they are amused, angered, intrigued or surprised the content is clearly meaningful to them. Thus the meaning of the language they listen to, read, speak and write will be more vividly experienced and, therefore, better remembered.

If it is accepted that games can provide intense and meaningful practice of language, then they must be regarded as central to a teacher's repertoire. They are thus not for use solely on wet days and at the end of term!' (from Introduction, p. 1)

Why Use Games in Teaching English Language?

by Yin Yong Mei and Jang Yu-jing
Daejin University ELT Research Paper. Fall, 2000.

§  Games are fun and children like to play them. Through games children experiment, discover, and interact with their environment. (Lewis, 1999)

§  Games add variation to a lesson and increase motivation by providing a plausible incentive to use the target language. For many children between four and twelve years old, especially the youngest, language learning will not be the key motivational factor. Games can provide this stimulus. (Lewis, 1999)

§  The game context makes the foreign language immediately useful to the children. It brings the target language to life. (Lewis, 1999)

§  The game makes the reasons for speaking plausible even to reluctant children. (Lewis, 1999)

§  Through playing games, students can learn English the way children learn their mother tongue without being aware they are studying; thus without stress, they can learn a lot.

§  Even shy students can participate positively.

How to Choose Games (Tyson, 2000)

v A game must be more than just fun.

v A game should involve "friendly" competition.

v A game should keep all of the students involved and interested.

v A game should encourage students to focus on the use of language rather than on the language itself.

v A game should give students a chance to learn, practice, or review specific language material.