Drama and role play can help improve students' speaking and listening skills and help them work together in pairs or small teams. Role plays can mimic everyday situations, helping students gain the skills they need on a day-to-day basis. For example, the teacher could ask students to practice being in a job interview, buying a train ticket or buying goods in a store. Alternatively, more creative activities can be used to help students develop more sophisticated language skills. They could be given a scene (such as a bank robbery) to act out, or asked to develop dialogue for their own plays.
Games using words can be a great way for ESOL teachers to grab students' attention and get them to think quickly when using English, as well as enhance their vocabulary and spelling. For young beginner students, the teacher could have them come up with as many words as possible beginning with a particular letter, either working individually or in teams. More advanced students could play a game where the name of a famous person is taped to their forehead, and they must ask questions to the other students about the person in order to guess who they are.
Images can be a great teaching aid, both for beginners and advanced students. For students with no English at all (especially children), using images is an essential part of teaching, as until they learn some English words, there is no other way for the teacher to communicate. Paper or computer images can be used to teach basic vocabulary, and students can begin to build up their own picture dictionary. More advanced students could be given a more complex image (such as a piece of art or photograph) and asked to discuss it.
Using discussion as a teaching method can be a great way to engage intermediate and advanced students, and to make learning more relevant to them. A newspaper or magazine article on a controversial topic could be discussed in class, with students telling each other whether they agree or disagree with the writer of the article. They could then write their own article on the same topic as homework. Younger students could discuss their families, holidays or homes, describing and comparing them with others in the class.