ID cards in the ESL classroom
Language Skills: Writing and speaking about personal contact details
Lesson Time: 30 – 40 minutes
Student Level: Suitable for all levels
The first lesson of an ESL class can sometimes be a bit awkward for both the teacher and the students. If you are a new ESL teacher especially, you may be struggling to think of ideas of just what to do for that first all-important lesson. After all, you don’t know the students, they don’t know you and, if it is a brand new class, they may not know each other.
Accordingly, I find making ID cards to be a nice, gentle activity for any first lesson. The exercise can easily be adapted to different age groups and ability levels and can be used as an ice breaker for classes where the students don’t know each other well. The completed ID cards also help me to become familiar with my students and to quickly put names to faces.
For the lesson, you will need some lined filing/index cards of the kind found in stationery shops. These cards come in various sizes usually with a pre-punched hole in the top left corner so they can quickly be bound together and flipped through.
I recommend size A6 for most students. This first photo shows an example of a completed university-level ID card:
For lower-level students, who can’t write as much, I use size A5. Here is an example of an elementary school grade 4 card:
The Lesson
-The teacher distributes one card to each student and draws the front of the card out on the board indicating the punch hole should be in the top left corner ( keep a couple of spare cards for the students who will invariably get this wrong!).
-The teacher draws a square in the top right corner to indicate where the ID photo will be stuck ( I usually quickly sketch out an unflattering version of myself, but a simple face will suffice).
-For older classes, the teacher requests that the students bring in a passport-type photo to stick on the card in the near future (You will be lucky to get the whole class to bring in a photo, but I find most usually will have a spare one).
For younger classes, the students enjoy sketching a picture of themselves.
-The teacher informs the students they are going to write down some personal information on their cards and asks them what is the first thing they should write, which of course is their name.
-The teacher proceeds to elicit other personal/ contact information the students think should be included on their card, writing up their ideas. Depending on the class’s age and level these will differ.
The first board photo below shows a sample card for a university-level class:
This second photo shows a board ID card set up for a junior class:
-As each item is added to the board the students can go ahead and fill it in, writing down their own personal/contact information.
Questions and answers
Once this stage is completed, the teacher can start to ask a few, ” What is your…..?” questions. Starting from the top of the card:
What’s your name?
Here I can 100% guarantee the student will answer with a long-form answer:
My name is Julia Sanchez
So this is a good time for the teacher to demonstrate a short-form answer on the board:
What’s your name? My name is Julia Sanchez —–> It’s Julia Sanchez
What’s your major? It’s nursing
…and so on.
-The following board photo shows a card with some further useful speaking points highlighted:
-In the photo, I’m explaining how to say a few points in English (1)-(5):
- When spelling my name it is smoother and clearer to say ‘double g’.
- We can say ‘oh’ or ‘zero’. Which one is easier to say?
- When saying a phone number, if two numbers are the same, we can say ‘double’. Here I would say ‘Double oh’.
- When saying an email address, the ‘@’ character is pronounced as ‘at’.
When saying an email address the ‘ . ’ is pronounced as ‘dot’.
-Once I have enough basic contact details, I add a couple of more headings, where the students can start to express themselves:
Likes:
Dislikes:
-You can keep this simple and just ask the students to write down the ‘things’ they like and don’t like. I write up a couple of examples on the board:
Likes: I like pizza and computer games
Dislikes: I don’t like cucumbers and homework
-This above example can be used to point out to the students that some nouns are countable (computer games) and require a plural ‘s’ whereas some nouns are uncountable (homework) and do not.No biggy at the moment as I go into this distinction in more detail in this lesson.
One step more
For slightly higher level classes, I like to make it a little more challenging by asking the students to write about the ‘things’ that they like and don’t like ‘doing’, using the gerund activity form. For example:
Likes: I like eating pizza and playing video games
Dislike: I don’t like eating cucumbers and doing homework
-I also introduce the option of using other adverbs and verbs to help the students express themselves:
Likes: I really enjoy eating pizza and playing video games
Dislikes: I really hate eating cucumbers and doing homework
-When they are writing out this part of the card, students usually make plenty of writing mistakes. So it’s a good idea to zip around the class and point out mistakes as the students are making them.
-Finally, for higher-level classes, if there is enough space on the card, I ask the students to write down a phrase or motto in English that they like. If they don’t know one…well everyone has cell phones!
So the finished card on the board should look something like this …..
The Back of the Card
Don’t forget the back of the card!
-It can be a useful space to keep a record of homework grades and exam scores. Again this will be different for every age/level. The card below shows the points a university student accrued over a semester. The student was graded on homework, classwork, mid-term exam, final exam, and attendance.
For younger classes, the back side of the card can be used as a sticker reward space. I have the students draw two sides of a river bank and sketch some stepping stones in between. Every time the student wins a game or completes a task they get to put a sticker on a stone. This student is well on their way to a brand-new eraser…woohooo!
Review Exercise: ID Card Information Exchange
This can be a follow-up/review exercise for the next class.
-For the lesson, the students are divided into pairs (facing each other if possible).
-The teacher hands out fresh blank cards to each student.
-One student takes on the role of asking the questions and the other student answers the questions.
-The aim of the exercise is for the first student to correctly write down all of the second student’s information on the ID card by asking ‘What is/are your….’ questions. For example:
What’s your first name?
What’s your phone number?
What are your interests?
A couple of the useful expressions found in this lesson will come in naturally helpful for this exercise. The two expressions are:
Can you repeat that, please?
How do you spell…..?
-During the exercise, the teacher monitors around the classroom to check and encourage the use of these expressions by the students to help them write down the correct information
-Once the card is completed the two students can check for accuracy with the original ID card and then change roles.
Notes
Regarding the storage of the ID cards. If you entrust them to your students they will lose them, tear them or their dog will eat them. I collect them at the end of each lesson and keep them safe and dry attached to a binder ring.
Ok, that’s a wrap! see you in the next lesson right here…