Student Pairs

"It's your turn."

"No, it's your turn.  You read here . . . "The people are . . ."

Teachers like me frequently pair students together for classroom work.  It can sometimes be very rewarding for the students, as they get to read and listen to each other.

Sometimes, though, it is a situation bound up with personality and other differences--one wants to read faster than the other, one is a better reader, etc.

I have been doing a lot of exercises lately from www.listenaminute.com.  One student reads half of a paragraph to the other, and that other student has to fill in missing words (it's called a "gap fill").

Some students seem to enjoy doing the exercise, but other don't; either way, the activity is very good for them, as they have to read and listen and write.  Enunciation is important,, and they have to ask questions such as "Can you repeat that?, "Can you read more slowly?", and "How do you spell ____ ?"

If our class is in one of the rooms with a computer, I sometimes have the students listen to the paragraph read by listenaminute's author (Sean Banville).  He's British and reads a bit fast, but it's good practice for the students.

Other times we do a crossword puzzle, where student A has half the answers and student B has the other half.  They read the clues to each other and fill in the answers.

In sum, active pair work is a vital part of my teaching strategy; it keeps the students on their toes and it's truly amazing, when I think about it, what they can do in a second language.