From Boring to Exploring: Utilising a Location Finder Website to Teach Minimal Pairs

At the beginning of each semester, I usually ask my students to write one metaphor for learning (as a class activity to build a rapport with them). Surprisingly, the metaphors the students come up with are usually witty and perhaps even thought-provoking (for example, “Learning is like taking a shower – you do it only when you feel like doing it”). Among the many interesting ones, my favourite is, “Learning is like riding a bike – you have to keep your balance to keep moving forward”). This is not only touching, but it also somewhat relates to the lesson idea presented in this article. If learning can be compared with biking, learning then should be playful, with the potential to encourage students to explore things outside the classroom, and involving the creative use of real-world resources. For these reasons, I decided to create a minimal pairs lesson with the use of the what3words website (a website which is obviously not designed for language teaching).