PowerPoint Presentation no. 2
The English Alphabet: miscellaneous

Juan Ráez Padilla

Juan Ráez Padilla, PhD. Teacher trainer at the English Department of the University of Jaén, Spain.
E-mail: jraez@ujaen.es

This is the second of a series of three original PowerPoint presentations for the English classroom. For more information on PowerPoint and ESL / EFL see Ráez Padilla, Juan, "More power to PowerPoint: ideas, examples and resources for the ESL classroom", Humanising Language Teaching, Year 8, Issue 3, May 2006.

The level of this PowerPoint presentation is that of Primary Education. Its main objective is to actively involve students in the learning process, with a view to elicit, explain or review in a funny way the English alphabet, and to foster interactive and collaborative attitudes on the part of the students.

In this presentation I made use of the numerous multimedia material resources online, some of which can be found in the section "Bibliography and resources for the ESL teacher" in the article above. The process is simple: you only need to download the material you need for your presentation from a clip gallery section that fits into your topic. If you cannot find any material which satisfies your needs, you can always draw your own designs, scan them, and transfer them to your presentation.

The objectives and pedagogical implications of this presentation are quite similar to those of "PowerPoint presentation no. 1: The English Alphabet, fruits and vegetables", published in the previous issue of Humanising Language Teaching (September 2006, Year 8; Issue 5). This time students learn vocabulary that belongs to different semantic fields. It is also worth noting that, unlike presentation no. 1, where the complete word of the different fruits and vegetables appears straightaway when the teacher clicks on the mouse (e.g. asparragus, for letter A), in presentation no. 2 the different vocabulary items appear letter by letter, each one spinning around after the precedent one (e.g. A-P-P-L-E, for letter A). Consequently, I usually use presentation no. 1 when I want to concentrate on listening: after the students have their go at the different vocabulary items (e.g. A=asparragus), it is usually me who pronounce first the word once it appears straightaway on the screen, then I pronounce each letter carefully so that they pay attention to the right pronunciation and, finally, I make them repeat each letter. On the other hand, I usually use presentation no. 2 when I want students to practice speaking: the time gap in between each revolving letter allows students to spell the words themselves, and then I make any possible corrections after the student has finished spelling the complete word. Therefore, I usually use presentation no. 1 as a first approach to the English alphabet mainly on a listening basis, whereas presentation no. 2 proves an ideal follow-up revision practice, this time (once students are supposed to know the ropes of it) on a speaking basis.

I hope this presentation may well be the trigger for the creation of other presentations which may meet the particular needs of each particular English teacher.

The presentation can be found here: TheEnglishAlphabet-Miscellaneous.ppt

Please check the What's New in Language Teaching course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Primary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.