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Teaching time is hard. It seems like a simple thing to us adults who learned it so long ago that we may not even remember learning it. But it's hard. And it's REALLY hard when your students don't speak the language. It's even harder when you have students that are in 5th or 6th or even 11th or 12th grade that never learned how to read a clock and now are embarrassed to be seen trying to learn. So what on EARTH to do as an ESL teacher?! Read on to find out how to navigate teaching this critically important skill.
Let's take this step by step. This is a lesson where I break things down to a MICRO level because students can quickly become overwhelmed. First of all, numbers are notoriously difficult to learn, memorize, say, etc. in any language. So the very first thing I do is review all the numbers the students will be needing in order to tell the time (1-60). For the first lesson, I only teach about time to the hour, so I only review numbers 0-12. I do a Round Robin where we go through the numbers in a circle, fast and faster each time. Then, I might have students write the number words on a whiteboard after I call out a particular number.
*If you want to incorporate even more math content into this little review warm up, you can write simple equations like 2+1=3 and the students must read the equation aloud. See the picture to the right. -->
Teaching telling time is one area where I use Google Translate quite a bit.
I usually never use it in my classroom, but there are exceptions. Now, that doesn't mean that I just put up a translated paragraph in Spanish or Ukrainian and call it a day and let the kids try to manage. I explicitly teach telling time with pictures, actions, games, and writing exercises, BUT I do provide some supporting explanations in the students' L1. The picture to the right is an example of a Google Translate based activity that I use to pre teach some of the Telling Time vocabulary. Before AND after they translate, we will practice pronouncing the words together. I do this activity in Google Slides so that they always have a translated vocab page to refer back to.
Next, I teach the hands of the clock. I start out with color coded clock hands so that it's easier to
see and understand what goes where. Here again, I am teaching more vocabulary like short, long,
hour, minute (students will have a fill-in-the-blank time vocabulary activity later in the lesson).
Then, I provide a clock and an example sentence. Then, on the SAME page, I ask students to try. I always make sure they have access to my example to refer back to.
Now for more practice. The ESL students must read the clocks that I have put into the activity
and write a full sentence such as "It is 2 o'clock."
For the next slide activity, I have them use Google Images to go find pictures of clocks with the times that I have written down on the slide.
By now, even within the span of one lesson, students can talk about the parts of a clock, can read time to the hour, and can say and write a simple time sentence.
For extra practice for learners who are struggling, I make a BOOM Cards deck that they can do independently on their Chromebook (no shame, just practice). BOOM cards are self correcting, so the student gets immediate feedback.
Finally, I always include a challenge exercise for the ELLs who pick this up right away and need another task. For these learners I make them use time to describe their daily routine.
This activity expands their use of English in an authentic way (describing routines and processes) AND their use of content-specific vocab (time and measurement).
Check back soon for how I continue this lesson over a series of days to teach telling time to the half hour, quarter hour, 5-minute, and minute increments.
If you'd like to purchase any of the resources I described, CLICK HERE or simply click on any of the pictures.
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