Daily Slides
Daily classes are focused on day-to-day activities, travel, people, life goals, hobbies and interests. It's aimed at people who like to travel, share culture and use English for leisure.
Daily slides are slightly different depending on level: Basic, Advanced & Super (see our Level Guide). The slides are in the following order:
- Front Page
- Tell A Story
- Skit (Basic Only)
- Think About It (Advanced/Super)
- Scenarios
- What Do You think? (Basic Only)
- True Or False (Advanced Only)
- Debate (Super Only)
- Conversation Corner (Basic/Advanced)
- Sharing (Super Only)
- Next Week
1. Front Page
The front page contains the title of the weekly slides, a big image and a warm up question.
The questions might be worded slightly differently at the three levels. Usually simpler wording on the basic classes. Allow the students to answer the questions, but make sure that the students get roughly even speaking time - quiet students might need a follow-up question, chatty students might need to be interrupted if they go on.
Use this slide to get the students into the topic. Feel free to use this slide to do brief intro to the topic before launching into the warm up question.
You may change or alter the question or ask follow up questions if the situation demands.
2. Tell A Story
This slide is used to get the students talking at length and trying to get them to describe what they see. Basic classes will have Example Words and Phrases. Advanced and Super will only have the images.
Encourage the students to use the images as a jumping off point, to use their imaginations. You don't need to be too strict on getting them to describe the images perfectly. It's okay to let them each tell their own story, that way you can help them express themselves on subjects that interest them.
Some teachers ask the students to use all 4 images, others allow students to use any number of images.
It's also a great place for a teacher to highlight objects or situations the students didn't pick up on and ask questions about it.
3. Skit (Basic Only)
The skit is practice conversation with key words, phrases and a sentence building section.
The skit is great to help less confident students start talking and a good opportunity to teach new vocabulary. Don't be afraid to correct student's pronunciation and drill it with them.
Try to ensure each student gets a chance to read each role. If you have a 6-person class it can be challenging, so in that case make sure each student gets a go speaking.
Feel free to teach students any expressions, slang or words that you use. Suggest alternative phrases. Give them pronunciation tips.
4. Think About It (Advanced/Super)
This is a discussion slide with related vocabulary. The language will be more challenging at super level.
This is a good chance to get the students to share their opinions in detail and justify their points of view, a good place to practice phrases of agreement and disagreement. After they are done, feel free to correct the student to help them express themselves better.
Some teachers go through the vocabulary first and ask the students to give definitions or to use the word in a sentence. Many teachers ask the students to use as many words as possible in their answer to the discussion question. Students often want to know the definition of the words and how to use them in a sentence.
This slide is a great chance to maximise student talking time. You as a student can even ask follow up questions, especially useful when students need encouragement to give detail.
5. Scenarios
The scenario slides are used to get the students talking to each other, working in pairs.
When doing a scenario, split the students into pairs and get them to act out the situation. If you have an odd number of students, make sure they all get a fair chance at doing the role play. Some students like to talk a lot in these role plays, so please be confident in stopping the students if they go on to long. It's often useful at the start of each role play to tell them something like "please keep the role play to around X minutes".
You can choose which scenario you'd like the students to do, or you can ask them if they have a preference.
Allow the students to speak uninterrupted (unless they go on for too long). While they talk, take notes or write corrections in the chatbox. At the end, you can talk them through your corrections, suggestions or practice pronunciation with them.
6. What Do You Think? (Basic Only)
This is a discussion slide focused on basic level students, similar to the "Think About It" slides for Advanced and Super level students. The slides have a list of useful phrases to help students express themselves.
Encourage the students to talk and share their opinions. They will struggle a lot more than higher level students, but feel free to encourage them and ask follow up questions.
If a student gives a simple one word answer, speak slowly and ask them them to explain why, give reasons or examples. This is your chance to build the student's confidence with speaking for themselves.
Feel free to suggest other words and phrases that are good for sharing opinions.
7. True Or False (Advanced Only)
The true or false slide is a guessing game you can play with advanced students. It has a list of statements the students can use.
This is a good slide to end a lesson with and a chance to have fun with students and get them to practice telling and detecting falsehoods.
Get each student to tell a story, then get the other students to "interrogate" them by asking questions. Then you can get them to guess whether the storytelling student was telling the truth or not.
8. Debate (Super Only)
This is a simple slide with a single provocative statement or question used to spark a debate.
You may use this slide however you wish, and adapt it to how much time you have and the students you are teaching.
Some teachers split the students into groups, one group is for the proposition, the other is against, and they take it in turns to debate the point.
Other teachers use it as a discussion jumping off point and ask the students to give their true opinion. Teachers can challenge the students to play the devil's advocate too.
9. Conversation Corner (Basic/Advanced)
These slides are a list of questions related to the topic. The wording of the advanced questions will be more complex.
You can go through the questions in whatever order you like, cherry pick the ones you think will be interesting, or even add in some of your own questions.
This slide is useful to end a lesson if you have a few minutes left, but feel free to use it creatively.
10. Sharing (Super Only)
Like the debate slides, these are fairly simple slides with a simple activity asking the student to share a story related to the topic.
This is a chance to challenge your super level students to tell a story without the aid of materials. If they struggle to come up with ideas, make a few suggestions or share your own story related to the topic.
This is another good slide to fill a few minutes at the end of the class.
11. Next Week
This is a simple slide showing next week's topic and giving the warm up topic question for next week.
Most classes don't get time to use this slide, but feel free to show them it at the end or suggest they start prepping for the topic next week,