How to boost your students’ interest in their English as a second language class

When students learn English, they will be able to understand more movies, songs, books, series, video games, etc. This is a great way to develop their cultural knowledge. Humour is also a good example: there is nothing like understanding a joke or a pun in its original language. Here are some activity ideas that center on culture:

• Ask your students to suggest a current hit or one of their favourite songs to study and learn in class as part of a karaoke activity
• Encourage your students to watch a movie in English that they have already watched dubbed in French (remind them to make sure the movie’s original language was English)
• Ask your students whether they have ever been unable to play a video game because it was available only in English. If so, encourage them to try it (after all, the challenge is half the fun!). Alternatively, you can ask your students to familiarize themselves with the menu of their favourite English-language game and share their impressions with the class.
• Share English jokes or puns with the class and ask your students to come up with their own
• Watch and discuss clips from a comedy, play, improv show, or satire show as a class

Learning a second language is like doing gymnastics with your brain. In fact, research has shown that bilingual children have stronger cognitive skills, and that speaking two languages delays cognitive decline in seniors[1] [2] .  It can be helpful to remind students that in English class, we also learn when we make mistakes. Hence the importance of rewarding individual effort and progress and encouraging students to speak English in class without worrying about their accent or getting things wrong. Ideally, the classroom will become a space where your students can experiment and feel safe making mistakes so they can improve, just like when learning any other new skill.
Here are examples of activities that will give your students’ brains a workout: 

• Attempt to solve riddles or puzzles
• Learn tongue twisters
• Play Guess Who or 20 questions
• Go over false cognates or translate expressions
• Play Scattergories-style games
• Play charades or Taboo
• Do creative writing or improvisation exercises by drawing themes from a hat
• Play hot potato: students have to quickly say a word related to a particular theme
• Fill in the speech bubbles in a comic strip
• Create exquisite corpses
• Have a brainstorming session on a specific topic
• Act out scenarios, such as ordering a pizza

Without a certain level of proficiency in English, it can be hard to get by in other parts of the world! In many foreign destinations, English is not just an asset—it is essential if you want to be able to communicate and find the information you need. This means that you can use the idea of travelling to get students excited about learning. Here are some activity ideas: 

• Write an itinerary for a dream vacation
• Plan an imaginary road trip
• Give an oral presentation on the food and culture of a country or region (link in French)
• Discuss books and articles about travel
• Write letters to a pen pal
• Write a postcard

One of the most obvious reasons to learn English is to access the wide range of content available in English on the internet. This type of content can be useful for adding some variety to your lesson plans. Here are some examples of how to use online content in the classroom:

• As a class, listen to and discuss part of an old radio show from an online archive such as Old Radio World or Internet Archive
• Listen to a podcast on a topical issue
• Watch a documentary
• Invite an expert on a topic to speak in class or via video conference and prepare an interview or brief Q&A session with your students
• Make a podcast together as a class
• Bring in clippings from an English-language newspaper and learn about current events
• Search for virtual exhibitions or museums online, for example on Google Arts & Culture, and read the information panels in English

Learning English not only opens up more job opportunities, but also allows you to understand more academic texts and publications while in school. Moreover, in Quebec, students are required to complete second language course credits in Secondary V to earn their DES. A good resource for practicing and reviewing material that will appear on the ministry exam is our Crash Lesson series covering all the essential information. Using this resource with your students can help minimize pre-exam jitters.