Writing Words on the Board

This is a very simple tip when writing up words on the board. It gives the students a bit of extra practice and increases their input whilst reducing yours.

When a word comes up in class and you want to write it on the board, instead of turning your back to the class and writing it up there and then, get the class involved:

• Write the first letter of the word and ask the class as a whole to call out the next letter.

• Once the class is familiar with this, you can play with it so that if the class calls out a letter and then if someone repeats it or is late in calling out, write the letter up twice (to make a deliberate spelling mistake) and then turn to the class and gesture that it's wrong and have them correct it. You can also "mishear" what the class says and have them correct you.

• You can select a student at random to call out the spelling for you. Or have different students for different letters.

Note that you don't get the students up to write on the board as this can take too long. Instead, the idea behind this quick tip is to inject a little student input into the teaching rather than you do it all yourself.