Starting Tabletop English

Starting Tabletop English is a pack of fun, communicative, group activities for adult (or young adult) English language learners, at pre-beginner or early beginner level. There are 12 different activity types, with 10 activities in each set, so that learners can gain confidence with regular usev

Before you buy! Please download the Preview pack to see an example of each activity – and also to see if 'Starting Tabletop English' is right for your learner level. There is a second set of activities, Tabletop English, which is slightly more challenging.

These 'station rotation' activities cover language and topics related to learners' lives. They include 'cut-up-and-match' cards, board games, information gap activities, quizzes, group writing and more – but all with some interactive component, encouraging learners to have meaningful mini-conversations. They’re aimed at learners who are still developing literacy skills in English, and may need to take time to respond to text (so speed is not part of the activity).

These are low-tech ‘print and laminate’ activities (though of course you can extend them to include digital literacy, as learners take photos of completed tasks to send to an absent friend, or record their voice for at-home practice.

Each activity set also has a 'Giant' activity which can be used as a demonstration to the whole class, if that's needed. Everything comes in pdf file format, except for the templates (in PowerPoint or in Keynote for Mac), which you can use to create your own matching activities.

The activities have been extensively trialled (huge thanks to North Metropolitan TAFE here in Western Australia). There's been some great feedback on how they support learner engagement, connection and confidence.

So just summarising, you will get:

• An Introduction (teacher notes)
• 12 different activity sets, 10 activities per set, each set with teacher notes
• 12 giant demonstration activities with notes
• Templates to create your own activities

Coming soon: YouTube videos to offer some demonstration!

Licence: As with the reading books, the licences are for either one teacher OR one campus/site use. Please contact me for queries about multi-campus licences. Thanks for supporting teacher-created products!

The Preview package offers sample pages you can trial with your learners. If you decide to purchase, the licence page (and a few of the Giant activities in portrait layout) will be stamped with your email address in extremely tiny font at the top of the page. Please contact me on info@thebooknextdoor.com if you have any queries!