Hello, dear Colleague!

For over 30 years at Ivanovo State University (Russia) we are using limericks for teaching English rhythm and other language skills in the classroom. We are using regularly a metronome to help the students with accentuating the words in a limerick discourse. Every spring we have a Limerick Contest for the 2nd students who have to show their phonetic skills to the jury board (recitation of limericks to the metronome rhythm, in various tempo gradation - from slow to fast) . The students also translate limericks from English into Russian, observing the meter, compose their own limericks in English. Besides, they dramatize limericks with elements of humour, they sing them in different musical genres. And they illustrate them in albums using their drawing skills. All the faculty members are present during such a wonderful event. And lots of former students come to the Limerick Party. Some of them are winners of the previous competitions. We also have Shakespeare's Readings with costumed performances at the faculty.

Do you have any chance to send me the video records of some part of the competiton ? I want to see watch them on action. Your technique is perfect and I would like to try...

Dear Colleague,

Thank you for your positive response. I could find smth in a short while, I hope. I don't keep many archives.

There are mostly photos of costumed students. There are some videos, but not of very good quality, rather amateurish. Yet memorable. I must admit Limerick parties is such a long-standing tradition, stays long in the students' memory. And, after graduation they use this technique at schools with pupils.

Last year i traveled to Moscow City Pedagogical University to participate in a conference on the Culture of Oral Non-Native (Foreign) Speech, and i had a master class there on teaching English rhythm by using limericks. The two photos i'm sending in the attachment only demonstrate the students' enthusiasm. Also, you can see smth in the Internet, rather old (i couldn't revive the site because the student who helped me to make it graduated from the Uni and forgot to leave me the password). But it can be of help for you: www.limericks.narod.ru .

Kind regards from Russia,

Prof. Galina M. Vishnevskaya

www.limericks.narod.ru

Hello dear colleague,

In general, games are undeniably capable of making classes more lively across age levels. They are more favorable for kinesthetic students. Few can feel being offended at adult age. The problem with most games that I experienced in teacher's training are that they are mostly used for rehearsal rather than learning new items of language (vocabulary or grammar). If you use games along the classroom activities, students barely get new language home. The wiser use of games is at the last period of teaching, in confirmation and or evaluation stages where teacher can expose students to the use of language that they have learned.

Kindest regards

Sojuangon Rambe, from Indonesia

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09588221.2019.1648298?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=ncal20