Causative Verbs

The aim of these activities is for to students to understand the use of causative, to review some phrasal verbs and practice listening skills and spelling. It is important to bear in mind that this activity was developed for a first certificate course, and that these students had already worked on most of the things included here. Therefore, these exercises are meant for better understanding of the structure.









Watch the trailer:

Complete the sentences with the appropriate verb form:

They forced him to rob a bank
They had him…..

They made him do the job
They got him….

Nick and Chet robbed the bank for the monkeys.
The monkeys had….

Nick included Chet in the mission.
He got….

Watch the video and fill in the blanks:



Carl: Hey buddy!
Jumper: Who are you man? Don’t ________ ________ I’m gonna kill ________. Don’t try to
________ me.
Carl: Ok
Jumper: What do you ________ ok?
Carl: I don’t mean ok, I’m just ________ me a ________.  I should say something to you ________. I don’t
really know what ________ ________.
Jumper: Man you are ________ at this, are you ________ a cop?
Carl: Hold on a ________ I’m thinking! Wait, I’ve ________ ________.
Jumper:  Where are you ________ man? …
Carl: don’t do it, I’m ________. ________ is a virtue.

Complete the song:

I wish you would step back from that ledge my ________,

You could cut ties with all the ________,

That you've been ________ in,

And if you never want to see me again,

I ________ understand.

I ________ understand.

The ________ boy,

A bit too ________,

Icing over a secret ________

You know you don't ________.

Well everyone I know has got a ________,

To say,

Put the ________ ________

Think of at least three sentences using causative verbs. What does he make him/ get him to do?

Example: The woman gets him to go talk to the jumper.



Teacher's:

Carl: Hey buddy!

Jumper: Who are you man? Don’t try anything I’m gonna kill myself. Don’t try to stop me.

Carl: Ok

Jumper: What do you mean ok?

Carl: I don’t mean ok, I’m just give me a second.  I should say something to you here. I don’t really know what it is.

Jumper: Man you are terrible at this, are you even a cop?

Carl: Hold on a second I’m thinking! Wait, I’ve got it.

Jumper:  Where are you going man? …

Carl: don’t do it, I’m coming. Patience is a virtue.

Complete the song:

I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend,
You could cut ties with all the lies,
That you've been living in,
And if you never want to see me again,
I would understand.
I would understand.

The angry boy,
A bit too insane,
Icing over a secret pain
You know you don't belong.

Well everyone I know has got a reason,
To say,
Put the past away

Question forms

A simple exercise to work on question forms. Students will order the words to make some questions. After that, they will listen in order to check whether they were right or not.

Here's the presentation.

Here's the audio:

  

This way they will practice grammar and listening skills. Besides, thanks to the power of music, people are more likely to remember a song than a formula and, therefore, naturally aprehend the structure.

Passive voice

I will share a set of activities I have used with different groups and levels in order to practice the use of passive voice.



A first activity could be the following:

Combine the words from the box to make sentences in passive voice in simple present. You get to choose the verb. Feel free to create any other example or use any other country or product.

Coffee Chocolate Perfumes Cars Pizza Meat Rice Celebrities Watches

United States Italy Switzerland France China Uruguay England Egypt Japan

Eg: Great meat is eaten in Uruguay.
Many celebrities are found in the United States.

Write at least 5 more examples:

1. _______________________________________________
2. _______________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________
4. _______________________________________________
5. _______________________________________________

Jeopardy time! Always effective, always fun. Who doesn't like competitions? I personally love this kind of game as a teacher and as a student.


General culture! I adapted the first activity from bogglesworldesl.com and developed the second myself. 

Jeopardy 1
Jeopardy 2

This is a great activity developed by Claudio Acevedo. It shows students how the active and passive voice interact.

Another possibility following the same line:

I created this presentation for students to transform active into passive voice.

As a follow up, students will go to glogster and create a brochure for one of the destinations in the presentation. They may do some research and the only condition is that they must use passive whenever possible. After that, they could role play an interaction taking place at the travel agency, deliver a presentation about the place, etc.

For more advanced learners:

They will transform sentences into the passive voice. After they do one, they will listen to a song in order to check whether they did it correctly. If they know the name of the artist, they get an extra point :).

Here's the exercise. 

The audio:

Third conditional

This is great movie to speculate about the past for both young learners or adults. After having introduced the structure, you can  use this task as a first instance of practice.
Having practiced and gotten the grasp of this structure, students can watch a movie segment or read a passage where the person regrets having done something or how things happened. This is a great segment from the movie Benjamin Button and it is really useful for this structure. I want to mention that after working a couple of years with the segment,  I  found a similar activity in Claudio Acevedo's blog which is fantastic! He developed a worksheet to work on the inversion of the third conditional; which is absolutely worthwhile.

Here's the segment:



Students can discuss how things would have been different in a forum, in class, write a paragraph about destiny using the structure, etc.

As a follow up, they could listen to a couple of songs and discuss how these people's life would have been different....

Example: I will survive

I took this from lyricstraining.com, a great website for students to work on listening skills and spelling through songs.

Too and Enough

In this activity, students will be asked to analyze pros and cons by using too and enough. This activity was developed for intermediate level. We were talking about Governors, elections and this was the unit's grammar point.



There are two possibilities for implementing this activity depending on the students' skills. You can do it as displayed here, or just give them the quotations for them to come up with the sentences by themselves.

I designed this activity for class implementation. Since I generally have them watch for general information the first time, I would probably ask them something like this:

How would you define this man? Here you have some words that can help:

intolerant - pushy - funny - disrespectful - annoying - quiet - extravagant - sharp tongue - impulsive - creative - capable - confident

As they watch it for the second time, I would go a little deeper and ask them some questions as follows:

What analogy does he use to define politicians?
What kind of news does he work with?
How does he treat the press?
Who does he mention for secretary of the state?

After that, I would probably implement the grammar activity. It's always advisable to go from general facts to details, so that the activity flows smoothly and students get the most of the input and the content.

As a follow up:

Watch the following movie segment. Describe what you see using too and enough. 

Share your opinions here:

They could even go deeper and role play a similar situation.

Three people in the class will be candidates to mayor and the rest will present their concerns. Candidates will prepare their speeches, and the citizens their demands. Role play the situation. Then vote who the new mayor is.

This can be implemented in a forum, in a google hangout, in class, etc.

Connectors

The idea of this activity is that students focus on the use of connectors. Many times we give them worksheets that demand not only bearing in mind the use of the connector, but also understanding an abstract sentence without any context. After watching a movie and understanding the plot, they will only have to worry about the correct use of the linking word. I used the movie "Contact" because we were talking about mysteries when I developed this activity; however, it can be easily contextualized with any other trailer.

Watch the trailer and choose the correct option:



As a follow up, students can write the plot summary of this movie(or any other movie related to the topic) using the connectors seen.

Reported speech

The intention of this activity is to use the reported speech in a practical, meaningful and communicative way.

After having introduced the topic and the rules, show them this video and have them report three or four things the characters say. For example: She asked him if he was ok. 

As this movie segment shows, this grammar point is ideal for gossiping! Elicit some gambits people use before presenting fresh information, such as: I shouldn't be saying this, but...You won't believe this...Don't tell anyone, but I heard...

Tell your students that you have some juicy information about the people in the class and that you will share it with them. So as to avoid hurting students' feelings, make sure they understand this is a silly activity meant to be funny. Students should go around the class spreading this data and reporting  the facts they collect from others (Teacher should explicitly instruct students to use this structure and monitor that it is included and correctly used during the production stage.

You will use something like this and complete it with the students names:

§  Has another name. §  Inherited a lot of money recently. §  Hates the teacher.		§  Hates people who gossip. §  Always wanted to be a ballet dancer. §  Is dating a person from the class.
§  Doesn’t like anybody in the class. §  Has never studied for a test this year. §  Is a fan of collecting doll.		§  Is a secret agent working undercover. §  Usually lies to get what she wants. §  Loves gambling.
§  Owes money to some dangerous people.  §  Will become the lead singer of a famous American band. §  Hates the teacher		§  Is plannig to rob a bank. §  Used to appear in very bad t.v. ads. §  Is planning to cheat on the last test.
§  Will run for president in the next elections. §  Won the lottery last week. §  Has another name		§  Has a boyfriend who is much older than her. §  Would like to be a ballet dancer. §  Hates her classmates.

 

 Then you will cut it and give one to each of the students, checking that they don't get their own.

As a follow up and/ or for homework, they will report information that they have gathered. They will record it and embed it to the class' moodle page or share it by mail. They will use Vocaroo, which is a very simple website that doesn't require any software installation.