Starting off a new EAL group

[LynzE]

sounds good! I don't mind putting the work in at all as I really feel for the students, it must be hard enough to start a new school and country, then to have a barrier with language as well. I definately want to work on their writing skills as they willl be entered into exams in the summer, but I want to build confidence in their speaking skills so they can participate in the classroom a lot more.

[abra]

I wonder what areas of vocabulary your students need particular help with. After all, they have plenty of speaking practice with other kids!
The book on vocabulary I love using is called Wordbuilder, by Guy Wellman in Heinemann.
It has loads of words, and is fun, too. My students enjoy working with it.

[LynzE]

Thanks for that! They do all chat away to each other so Iam sure they will be picking up voceb. Another area I want to focus on is constructing sentences and word order, as that is where many of them are a little weaker

[abra]

Yeah, and that's where writing comes in useful, I suppose...Any ideas on how I could get my 13-16-year-olds in Moscow to write short texts on a wide range of topics? I seem to need a list of headings for short opinion-essays I could ask them to write.