A good boss

I'm sharing a short lesson I used with B2 students. We were talking about work and I decided to take advantage of the oportunity to revise the use of modal verbs for necessity and suggestion. In this lesson students discussed, evaluated and constructed the concept of being a good boss.

Warm up: Classify the following adjectives as positive or negative for a boss. Justify your choice. (Student's answers)

Confident - friendly - sociable - pushy - kind - ambitious - generous - shy - 

I think _____ is positive because...
You have a point but sometimes...
I believe _____ is negative because...
Maybe but sometimes it is goo/bad because...

Activity 1: Understanding a scene.
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Activity 2: True or false? 

1. Nick thought he was going to be the new senior vice president                  
2. The boss decided to absorb the responsibilities                                               
3. He is going to remodel is office                                                                       
4. He will take a 70% of the additional salary                                                    
5. Nick has a bad reaction                                                                                   

Activity 3: Are the men shown in the video good bosses? Why? (Student's answers)


Closure: In groups, define what a good boss is using the following expressions. Then report it to the class.

A good leader should...
He/ she ought to...
A good boss must...
He/ she has to...
A good boss can't...

Stay tuned,
Claudio

Wishes

I'm sharing a simple activity to assess the use of wish statements, pretty similar to the one I had posted a while ago. The idea is to have students listen to fragments taken from songs in order to identify the singers' wishes. I generally devide students in groups and the only condition for them to participate is not to repeat the ideas. I used this activity with A2+ students and although they felt a bit challenged at first, they could understand most of the songs and they really enjoyed the task.

Here's the audio:

Here you have the fragments:

"Oh darling, please believe me"

Eg: He wishes she believed him. He wishes she loved him. He wishes she were more credulous, etc. (accept any logical inference)

The rest:

Don't you cry tonight I still love you baby don't you cry tonight  (Guns n' Roses)
I can get no satisfaction and I try (The Rolling Stones)
This is not America (David Bowie)
Oh Dream about me (Moby)
Go Johnny go, johnny be good (Chuck Berry)
I can't find anyone (Boom Boom Kid)
I'm sorry, so sorry (REM)
To be yourself is all that you can do (Audioslave - Chris Cornell)
I want you so bad (Bob Dylan)
I eat too much, I drink too much, I want too much, too much (Dave Matthews Band)
Mystic Highway that I'm on, take me home, Mystic Highway that I ramble, take me home (John Fogerty)
Born in the USA I was born in the USA (Bruce Springsteen)
Don't be afraid, don't be afraid of darkness anymore and try to be strong (Boom Boom Kid)


I sometimes have them compete for the artist's name as well, that's why you have their names as well.

Would you use it with your students?

See you around,
Claudio

Ed or ing?

Here's an activity created for B1 students to revise, identify and apply adjectives ending with -ed or -ing. I took advantage of these two great actors' popularity and used the movie "Larry Crowne".


Warm up: How would you describe these two people? What do you know about them?

Write on the board all the adjectives ending with ed or ing your students mention (if they don't come up with any, provide a couple yourself). Then have them discuss the difference in meaning. 

Activity 1: Choose the correct alternative.

Activity 2: Complete the plot summary.

Closure: writing.

Here's the worksheet.

Regards,

Claudio

Time contrasts

Here's an activity I used to revise past, present and future forms with A2+ students. Although I found the movie rather disappointing (perhaps due to my high expectations), I decided (in fact it was my wife's idea) to work with "Cloud Atlas". I really liked the concept they try to develop in the film, and in the trailer the interaction among past, present and future is clearly shown. I hope you find it useful.

As a warm up: I showed them some pictures from the movie for them to spot the differences. 

Activity 1: Complete a short description using the correct verb form.

	He____________ (be) a doctor. He ____________ (be) dishonest. He ____________ (travel) by ship.
	Now he ____________(be) a  scientist. Nowadays he ____________ (be)  very correct.  Now he ____________(travel) by  car.
	In the future, he ____________  (help) people in a different way. In the future, we don’t know  how he ____________(be). In the future, he  ____________(walk).

Activity 2: Look at the following pictures and contrast this person's lives as you did in the previous exercise. Use your own ideas.

Activity 3: Watch the trailer and check if the sentences are true or false.

• The song sounds familiar to the woman                                        
• The young man plays music the old man dreamed of                 
• The man experienced a déjà vu                                                       
• In the future, the waitresses have the same face                        

Activity 4: Fill in the blanks.

Yesterday, my life __________ (be) headed in one direction. Today, it __________ (be) headed in another…Fear, belief, __________, phenomena that determine the course of our lives. These forces begin long before we __________ (be) born and continue __________ we perish.

Our lives __________ (be) not our own. We __________ (be) bound to others, __________ and __________ and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our __________.

I believe there __________ (be) another world waiting for us, a better world, and I __________ (be) waiting for you there.       

Closure: How has your life changed? Write a short description using the expressions below.

As a child, I used to….

Five years ago, I…

Nowadays I…

Next year, I’m going to…

In five years, I’ll…

In ten years, I might… 

What do you think about the activities?

Here's the worksheet.

Regards,
Claudio

Inversions

I'm sharing an activity I created for C1 students to review the use of inversions. We were talking about science and technology and after some heavy classes, I wanted to review grammar in a softer way. I decided to use the song"The scientist" by Coldplay.

Here's what I did.

Activity 1: Once they had the whole lyrics, they had to relate a part of it to the inversions they had below.

Activity 2: Then they discussed in pairs up to what extent they agreed with the singer's opinion, and came up with their own ideas.

NB: When presenting their reflection, they had to use at least an inversion per idea developed.

Finally, they watched two segments from The Simpsons discussed the concepts they thought were being conveyed there. Again, they had to use the structure at least once to explain their points.

To conclude: they role-played different parts in this activity I downloaded from www.businessenglishmaterials.com/

Here's the worksheet.

See you around,

Claudio