Before introducing new words to the students, it's always good to start class with a hello. A longer and more complicated greeting conversation would be even better, with the teacher asking, "How are you?" so that the students respond with how they are feeling: "I'm happy/hungry/sleepy," or simply "I'm fine, thank you."
Teach Left, Right, Straight, and Back
- The teacher draws four arrows on the board, including up for straight (forward) and down for back.
- Left and right are taught first; students mimic the teacher several times, gesturing with the proper hand in the appropriate direction.
Students and teacher should be oriented in the same direction, to minimize confusion.
- Arms forward and back, respectively, are the gestures used to teach the remaining two direction words.
- Following the order written on the board, the four directions can be practiced as a set, as a chant, several times: left, right, straight, back.
Dance Choreography
- With the same chant, all the students should be asked to stand, speak, and move their feet (and arms) in the stated directions, with the teacher leading. The dance-chant should be repeated, faster this time.
- Writing another set of arrows in a slightly opposite order, for example: right, left, back, straight, the class should dance to the new set, then speed up.
- At this point, the students may be ready for a set of 8 directions, written on the board, for example: left, right, straight, back, right, left, back, straight. The dance should repeat and speed up.
- Students can then sit to take a break as 4 volunteers are selected to write a new set of 8 directions high on the board so they are easy to see in the back of the class.
- The writers become leaders, to dance at the front of the class.
- The class should have a chance to practice the dance with words only, before everyone stands up to perform the dance.
Depending on time, more students can try making new dances. Because it's easy and funny, students should be able to dance in the same direction a few times in a row.
Teach Go
- After practicing pronunciation several times with the students, the commands “Go left, go right, go back, go straight,” should be explicitly explained (and translated into the students' native language as necessary).
Direction Challenge
- If the students are not seated in rows and columns, the classroom should be rearranged.
- Picking a student near a corner of the room, the student should pick a direction toward another student.
- If he says “Go straight,” for example, then the speaking role passes to the student in front of him. That direction-receiving student should “go” (pass the speaking role) toward another student, in front, to the left, or to the right, using appropriate English.
- After the role passes through a few students, let only those students who already gave "go" directions remain sitting.
- The rest of the students stand, and the teacher announces the rule that once a student gives a direction, he can sit.
- The challenge is to have each and every student give and receive a direction properly in the shortest amount of time.
Seated students are not "out" of the game. If a direction-giving student has no standing students nearby, that student can "go" toward seated students, who can in turn pass the speaking role, as they sit, toward the remaining standing students. The teacher should carefully monitor the students to make sure that once the students give a direction, they sit, and that they are giving and receiving proper directions.
- When the last standing student gets his turn, he should say “Stop,” instead of a direction.
- The teacher announces the amount of time taken for the entire class to sit.
- The teacher chooses a different student to start, and the game is repeated.
Teach Up and Down
- With finger gestures, the teacher adds two new directions: up and down.
- As a class, mimicking the teacher's finger gestures, everyone practices “Go up, go down, go left, go right,” with finger gestures.
Follow-My-Finger Game
- The teacher practices rock-paper-scissors (“1-2-3, Go!”) in front of the class first, then demonstrate with a student volunteer.
- The winner of the rock-paper-scissors game gets the chance to simultaneously point in a direction and say, for example, “Go up!”
- If the other person looks up as directed, he loses.
- The game repeats, with the winner of rock-paper-scissors winning the chance to give a direction to the loser.
- Students practice with a nearby classmate.
- After spot-checking to verify understanding, the class is free to stand up and play, mingling with many different partners.
If time remains at the end, the dance activity can be restarted, with (stand) up and (crouch) down added to the left, right, straight, and back moves.
Class ends with the teacher telling the students goodbye, and the class returns the goodbye.
The teacher should then be able to leave the classroom with the satisfaction of thoroughly teaching the students very useful words using simple activities that can be fun for both elementary school students and teachers alike. The basic directions vocabulary is an excellent base to build from, to be used in subsequent lessons.
Kyle Timmermeyer - I'm a Catholic, a novelist, an ESL teacher, a Japanese language buff, and Bucketman. I have been writing since I was first able to tell ...
