I'm sharing this year's last activity. A worksheet to discover, practice and apply in a productive way relative clauses. I used the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer.
Thanks to all the people who took some of their time to send feedback and supportive comments. This bolgger is going on vacations now; I will see you online next year or face to face in February's congress.
I'm sharing an activity I developed for the Abs congress in August on functional language related to emotions. The aim of this activity is to categorize different functions taking into consideration the emotions behind the words, to broaden the reperoire of expressions and put them into practice. Furthermore, students will analyze what happens in the scene and discuss how it could have been avoided.
I believe it's a good activity to use with teenagers (I'd love to hear their views with regards to this scene) and/or adults. What do you think?
I'm sharing and activity to classify and apply the use of cause and effect connectors. I created this for a Business English course and I chose a scene from one of the best trilogies I've seen: Batman directed by Nolan. In this scene, Wayne Enterprises' shares plummet and as a consequence, Bruce is removed from the board.
I'm sharing an activity to introduce and practice the use of past perfect and its interaction with the simple past. I created in with the Minions movie trailer.
I'm sharing an activity I presented in the I teach kids and teens congress. It's a lesson plan for elementary students to work on emotions, adjectives, nouns, functions and frequency adverbs!
I haven't had the chance to try it with my students yet; therefore, I wait for your comments on how your students liked it.
Thanks to all the people who attended the workshop yesterday, for the feedback and enthusiasm shown. It was a real pleasure to share two days surrounded by colleagues eager to share and to enrich their practices. I also want to give thanks to Laura for the oportunity and trust, and for being there on her birthday!!! And thanks to all the colleagues who have taught me along the way that community building and sharing should be our lighthouse; which is this blog's objective.
Here you have some some pictures as I wait for yours to come from Paraguay, Tucuman or elsewhere ;).
I'm sharing an activity for students to work on comparisons and how to be more precise when performing them.
Students first watched the trailer in order to understand the plot of the movie, then they tried to apply the expressions so as to communicate exactly what they had seen. Finally, they role played a situation where they produced using the sructures seen.
Here's the activity:
Warm up:
What features do super heroes have?
What about this one?
Are good intentions enough?
Watch the trailer and complete using the words from the box:
I'm sharing an activity I created for students to discuss the hot topic of gender roles and men and women at work. The whole lesson revolves around the movie big eyes and the grammar my students applied was comparative forms and expressions for giving an opinion.
I hope you find it useful and your students enjoy it as much as mine did.
I'll take advantage of the post to let you know that next month I'll be presenting in ABS International's congress: "I teach kids & teen". There I'll share some ideas about how and why to work with movie trailer. I want to thank my colleagues Paola Vilardo and Victoria Dieste, with whom I have shared many years of enriching experiences, writing and sharing materials, ideas, lesson plans and most important, friendship. I'll be asking you for feedback before the presentation ;).
I'm sharing an activity I developed to talk about marketing, the concepts we sometimes have about certain brands and how they are constructed. I found a great scene from the movie "What women want" which shows two people working on a famous brand's image and I used it to revise the use of tag questions and discourse markers. Throughout this lesson, students will identify and apply this useful structures.
I hope you find it useful. Warm up:
What features do you associate to the following brands?
Why do you think this happens?
What do you take into consideration for choosing a brand over another?
Activities 1 and 2: Identification
Activity 3: Practice
Here's the video (play the first activity until the last phrase, stop it there and play the rest for activity 3).
Role playing
Role play the situation using the words from the box:
I mean
You know
Wouldn’t it?
Didn’t you?
Actually
Isn’t there?
Perhaps
Don’t you?
Student A:
You have just found out that your reputation may be affecting your
profits and as a consequence you agreed to work on your image, in order to
change this situation. You try to be flexible and cooperative although deep
inside you believe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Student B: You are thrilled to hear that Mr. Burns
has finally decided to be a better person, at least, to other people’s eyes. Explain
him how important is to treat the employees humanely, to reduce the impact they
have on the environment and to contribute to the community.
I'm pleased to be back and to keep receiving encouraging feedback and positive comments. Thanks for taking the time to post them.
I'm sharing an activity I created to work with B1 students, to introduce, practice and apply the use of imperative forms.
I chose one of the first scenes from the hilarious lego movie which shows how a man can fit in by following certain instructions.
My students found the scene very funny and even discussed the different rules they had to follow at work or even here in Argentina in order to be active members of the community. It was very interesting and enriching.
I hope you find it relevant as well.
Watch the video:
As a follow up, students could prepare a poster in glogster or a presentation in order to expose their ideas.
I'm sharing an activity I created to work with A2/B1 students.
This great romantic comedy has the perfect trailer for students to identify, discover and apply the use of the 0 conditional, and it might as well trigger some interesting theories regarding relationships.
The first activities will help the students understand the language on the trailer, so then they can focus in the intention of the movie: How can you know when he/she is really interested?
Finally, students get to write their own rules in order to apply the grammar and make the activity more meaningul. They could also role play different situations where they need to use it:
Or they could even prepare a presentation so as to express their theories.
I'm sharing an activity I created to work with B2 students. We were talking about feedback, communication and negotiation, and I used this great trailer which synthesizes all these points. The movie is "Carnage" and if you haven't watched, I definitely encourage you to do it. In this class students revised the use of nouns and adjectives.
Here's the trailer:
Here's the activity:
Here's the worksheet and the answer sheet for the listening tips:
Face the speaker and maintain eye contact.
In most western cultures,
it is considered a basic ingredient of effective communication.
Be attentive but relaxed. You
can look away now and then and carry on like a normal person.
Keep an open mind. Listen
without judging the other person.
Try to picture what the other
person is saying. Allow your mind to create a mental model of the
information being communicated.
Don’t interrupt and don’t impose
your solutions.When
listening to someone talk about problems, refrain from suggesting solutions.
Wait for the speaker to pause to
ask clarifying questions. When something is unclear to you, of course you
should ask for clarification. Ask questions only to ensure understanding.
Try to feel sympathy.
Empathy is the heart and soul of good listening.
Give the speaker regular
feedback. Show that you understand where the speaking is coming from by
reflecting his/her feelings: “you must be thrilled” “I can see you are
confused”, etc.
Today I'm sharing an activity I developed to work on the use of comparative forms with B1 students.
We were talking about working conditions and I used a scene from the Internship to present, practice and produce very specific comparisons.
This scene had been posted in Claudio Acevedo's mandatory blog; therefore, in order to access to the video, you'll have to go to his amusement park for teachers.
It's been almost a month since my last post and yet, the blog has reached the 21.000 visits. This means more than 3000 visits this last month! I am astonished by this number and I am very happy to see people are interested and they find the blog useful; as I've said many times, it is one of my main objectives. I foresee, however, a hectic year and probably the number of posts won't be as regular as last year. Anyway, I will try to find some room to share new materials :).
Today, I'm sharing a very simple activity for students to work with the use of number. It is a scene from the movie "Hotel Transylvania" which can be used with A1/ A2 students and although it is pretty dynamic, it is quite clear as well. Animated movies are great and, most of the times, there are scenes for basic students to understand and enjoy. I hope your students enjoy this one as much as mine did.
Summer's almost over in this part of the world, and it finds me on the other side of the river! Taking advantage of this (in theory) quiet Argentinean week, I'll start something I have promised some of you: to share some websites I've been using and how.
Here's my first post regarding this topic.
The only requirement: sit back and enjoy The (mandatory) Doors as you read :)
To begin with, simple and effective tools to use in the classroom (great to work with interactive whiteboards):
Score boards, timers, student selectors, etc. These two websites provide a set of easily customizable tools, allowing the teacher to use them in any way he/ she can imagine.
Although they have different features, they are both very powerful tools for assessment through production. They are both very flashy and engaging, great for working with multimedia. I have used them to assess grammar, to work on pronunciation, on linkers, for creative writing, among others.
They are not difficult to use, though I have always use them with youngsters; some adults may find it a bit challenging. After devoting 1 hour of class, students were able to create posters and stories like the ones below:
Mybrainshark is one of the best applications I have seen and used in the last two years. It allows you to upload power point presentations and add narration to it, without losing the animation features.
It's easy to use and very effective. A free account is required.
Here's another great site to create lessons: lessonpaths.com (ex mentor mob).
Here's an example you might have seen in one of my previous posts:
Well, that's all for the moment. If you have any questions or you any other ideas on how to use any of the resources shown in this post, post a comment!!!
