Boardwork

Boardwork refers to the effective classroom use of the traditional blackboard, its modern version, the whiteboard/wipeboard or an IWB. In this context it also includes the flipchart and transparencies for the overhead projector, and now with the increasing presence of IT in the classroom, PowerPoint presentations and the like.

It is an especially important visual aid much neglected by teachers, some of whom might do well to take a couple of steps backwards and take a long, objective look at their boardwork in order to analyse how clear and effective it actually is. One good way to do this is to ask a co-operative student to use a camera phone to take snapshots of the teacher's boardwork which the teacher can consider at leisure and later include in their teaching portfolio.

Long gone are the days when teachers wrote up whole lessons on the board and students had to copy it all into their notebooks. Nowadays the "board" is more usually used as a way of pointing out individual vocabulary items, pronunciation work (including use of the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols), highlighting word stress, checking word order and correcting mistakes.

Warmers and word games such as hangman and mindmaps are especially suited to boardwork, and for the latter layout and use of colour is especially important.

Whiteboard games
Students, especially young learners, usually enjoy activities or games with an interactive twist. The board can be used effectively for this by allowing students to manipulate the board presentation or by selecting items from a distance using a projectile such as a ball or a sucker/sticky ball.