However, there are websites designed for EFL/ESL students, such as News in Levels and Simple English News. Most newspapers and websites require a fairly high level of English to understand, and the content isn’t interesting for most children. Reading the news is a more advanced activity. Give parents a playlist to put on in the car or when they wake up in the morning. With younger kids, just having them listen to English songs is enough. Ask them why they like the music, how it makes them feel, etc. Introduce your students to some new artists, and encourage them to share songs they’ve enjoyed over the week. Supplement this by studying the lyrics in class. You can make this a structured homework, assigning specific songs, with the aim of recognising certain words or grammar structures.

Many students will already listen to music in English, as it’s popular around the world. This one applies to learners of all ages and levels. For younger kids, you’ll need the support of the parents.įor more on vocab learning techniques, check out my article Best Method to Improve EFL/ESL Students’ Vocab. they can take photos of things they see and share them with their classmates.Īny student who has their own phone can do this activity. If they go shopping, to the park, on holiday, etc. It doesn’t have to be restricted to things in their home, either. They bring the pictures to class and start learning the words. Students go around their house and photograph things they’d like to learn the name for in English. They take a photo and add it to a list of vocabulary to learn. You can do it in class, with students searching for things they don’t know the word for in English. Depending on your class, they might not all be applicable, but there’s something for everyone in the list.Ī Word Hunt is a vocab acquisition activity (a technique I describe in my article How to Elicit Vocabulary). With that in mind, I’ve come up with 9 engaging homework ideas. They need more regular practice to develop real fluency.

Students fail to hand them in and rarely learn much from them.īut if we don’t give our students something to do between classes, the only time they’ll learn is when they’re with us. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of handing out boring grammar worksheets and writing exercises which nobody wants to do. I used to find setting homework a challenge in EFL/ESL classes.

English homework for beginners