This presentation made by the well-known Penny Ur, author of a number of books that I really appreciate, was a real ‘treat of the day'. How often do you complain that your students are not responding properly, they are reluctant to fulfil the task you are giving them? Who do you blame in this situation? Most teachers will blame their students. But you yourselves, have you ever tried to fulfil those tasks? Try. You are very likely to be bored and reluctant to respond. We tried several activities in class. The teachers didn't seem much enthusiastic about describing a picture or opening the brackets using Present Perfect. But their enthusiasm grew when some touch of challenge and creativity was involved. Don't ask your students to describe a picture, try to turn it into a game: in pairs (or threes) let them say as many sentences using ‘there is/ there are' structure in limited time. That's much more exciting! Do you have to teach your students how to spell word correctly and think that dictation is the only way to do that? Think creatively! Crawl into your students' skin and invent something that would really encourage them. For example, show the words you want them to write (scattered on the board), let them look at the words for ten second, then hide the words and ask the students to write them down. Then let them compare the result with the neighbour and then show the words again of the blackboard. That way teaching spelling becomes much more motivating.

Well, you can make your own activities like those. Just bear in mind that for these activities to be successful they should:

• - be open-ended
• - ensure full participation of all students
• - Have a clearly defined task
• - Have a game-like challenge
• - Have constraints {like time limits)

If you have any questions, email to pennyur@gmail.com

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