Category Archives: ESL Pictures/Video

Conjunction Junction

Using School House Rock's Conjunction Junction is a really clever way to teach your students how to use and, but, or and nor.

Here’s a great little activity you can do with your intermediate level speakers.

Divide the class up into boys and girls. Teach them the lyrics to Conjunction Junction from School House Rock’s classic animated short video. It’s only about 2.14 minutes long, so it is totally doable, especially if you have to fit it into an assembly or some other school production. Since I’ve already divided the script up for you, all you need to do is teach them the song. It is a bit fast in some places and the girls seem to get all the easy parts, but if you closely work with the boys, I’m sure they will catch on quickly.

Be sure to coach them on the subtle intonation and inflection found in the song. Really have them listen carefully to the lyrics and encourage them to mimic the singers. Trust me, you don’t want them singing in a flat monotone voice for this production.

It’s lots of fun, especially when it comes to the part where the boys get to bellow out Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

You can download the video here.

School House Rock – Grammar – Conjunction Junction – this is the link to the song only.

An alternate source for the video can be found here.

An alternate source for the lyrics can be found here.

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Free PowerPoints

PowerPoints are a fantastic way to capture your student's attention.

I love using PowerPoints in the classroom. Once you get the hang of it, you can knock them out fairly quickly. You can jazz it up with pictures, media and audio too. Also, there are lots of free PowerPoint templates that you can download to keep things interesting. (I’ll post more on that subject later.)

If using PowerPoints in the classroom seems like an overwhelming task then please read this article by Don L. Fisher and put your mind at ease. Also, I found this tutorial that will walk you through the process.

Now back to the topic at hand, there are loads of great free PowerPoints all over the internet. The problem arises when you are looking for a specialized topic, but if you are looking for general ESL PowerPoints then there are plenty to choose from.

Below are a few sites that offer free PowerPoints on general ESL topics:

Scroll down for a few free demo PowerPoints from ESLgalaxy.com
The Internet TESOL Journal has a handful of free PowerPoints on verbs, contractions, and common root words.
ESL Castle has a few free Powerpoints on grammar.
English 4 Kids has a list of four PowerPoints that can be used as games or used for grammar review.
ESL Kids World has several PowerPoints to choose from.
EL Civics has a large assortment of Powerpoints including holidays and US Citizenship.
4 Kids ESL has a a list of about 4 free PowerPoints to choose from.

Check out the links below, especially if you are looking for something specific in the content area:

And finally, click here for some really creative ideas for getting the students involved using PowerPoint presentations in the classroom.

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Short Animal Conversational Clips

A video archive of animals. Watching these short video clips with your students will make great discussion starters.

Put on the board questions like:

What kind of animal is that?
What is he/she doing?
What is the owner doing?
Do you have a pet?
What kind of pet do you have?
What is your pet’s name?
If you don’t have a pet, what kind would you like to have and why?

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50 ESL Pictures & A Few Teaching Variations

1. tactile variation: let the students color/trace/cut out the images 2. kinesthetic variation: have the students act it out. Both ways help the students acquire “muscle memory” which helps in the acquisition process. (It lowers the affective filter too.) Auditory learners may benefit from not only hearing & repeating the target vocabulary a few times, but it may help if you can search around and find a sound bite to go with the image as well.

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