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It's import to expose your students to everything regarding English, so they can be "culturally fluent". Cultural fluency doesn't mean memorizing every cultural nuance. It's knowing when to listen, when to ask for help, and when finally to speak. There are several areas in which British and American English differ. This video shows the main ones to be aware of. Enjoy!
"When it comes to setting rules in the classroom, in some ways the old adage "hope for the best, but prepare for the worst" rings true.
Starting the school year on the right foot includes establishing classroom rules that will last the whole year through. Many teachers involve students in establishing their classroom rules. (Surprisingly, student-created rules are often much the same as -- or even tougher than -- rules a teacher might create. After all, students want to attend school in a safe environment, and they want to know the boundaries when it comes to classroom behavior.
Starting the school year on the right foot includes establishing classroom rules that will last the whole year through. Most experienced educators say the key to creating classroom rules is to keep those rules few and simple -- and to establish up front the consequences if the rules are broken."
Source: http://www.educationworld.com
Our fellow teacher Fabio Oliveira has found a great video that perhaps will help students understand the importance of rules.
Activity:
1) Show the students the video and ask them to write down all the things they feel is needed to fix the traffic jam problem.
2) Ask the following question, and promote a little discussion:
Why are rules important?
3) After a quick debate pass a piece of paper around and ask students to write down the rules they feel are important for the classroom.
This activity aims to teach the
imperative mood of verbs in a fun way.
Grammar:
Imperatives are verbs used to give
orders, commands, warning or instructions, and (if you use "please")
to make a request. It is one of the three moods of an English verb (indicative,
imperative and subjunctive).
You can also use "let's"
before the verb if you are including yourself in the imperative. The negative
of "let's" is "let's not".
Note that an imperative sentence does not require a subject; the pronoun
"you" is implied.
Activity:
The students watch a video in which the
participants are given several instructions to accomplish tasks.
The students should list down all the
instructions given throughout the event.
After that, they have to order the
events according to when they happened in the video.
Extension:
Ask the students to imagine they are in
charge of commanding those participants in the video and they have to add three
or more instructions for them to perform. Depending on the group, they can
choose the student who gave the best instructions and role play it in the
classroom (Simon says).
Brainstorm:
Have your student discuss about the
following:
What are social networks?
Is it possible to coordinate similar events to the one they
saw in the video? Give examples.
Have they ever participated in any
similar event? Talk about it.
1) Arrange your students in groups of 3 max. 4 people.
Show "The Symphony in Slang" and ask groups to pay
attention. Make strips of paper with the script (check below) written on
it, and spread all over the classroom. Play the video again and ask your
students to pick up the idioms as they come up on the video.
3) To consolidate this activity students can create
their own drawing, an image that reflects an idiom.
Script:
“I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”
“I grew up overnight.”
“At the crack of dawn…”
“….I woke up with the chickens.”
« Don’t count your chickens before they ‘re hatched » : you are
warning them not to make plans according to what they expect to happen before
it has actually happened ( informal epxression)
“I got a job slinging hash…”
“…because the proprietor was short-handed.”
“But I couldn’t cut the mustard…”
“…so the guy gave me the gate.”
“I went back to my hole in the wall.”
“I was beside myself with anger.”
“I decided to get a train ticket to Texas. There I
made some dough punching some cattle.”
“From there, I flew to Chicago.”
“There, a beautiful girl stepped into the picture.”
“Our eyes met.”
“My breath came in short pants.”
“And I had goose pimples.”
“I was all thumbs.”
“Mary’s clothes fit her like a glove.
“…with her hair done up in a bun.”
“She had good lookin’ pins too!”
“Finally, she gives me a date.”
“I put on my white tie and tails.”
“And brother, did she put on the dog!”
“We went around together for some time…”
“…painting the town red….”
“…going to the Stork Club…”
“…we had a box at the opera.”
“…I had a cocktail and Mary had a Moscow Mule.”
“…Mary let her hair down…”
“…and ate like a horse.”
“By then, my money started running out on me.”
“So I wrote a check. It bounced!”
“I was in a pickle…”
“The proprietor drew a gun on me.”
“So I gave him the slip…”
“…and head to the foothills.”
“The law was on my heel.”
“…the judge tried to pump me.”
“…everytime I opened my mouth, I put my foot in it.”
“So he sent me up the river…”
“…to do a stretch in the jug.”
“I was up against it…”
“…and felt myself go to pot.”
“I raised a big stink.”
“…let me talk to an undercover man.”
“I went through a lot of red tape…”
“…he sprung me!”
“It sure felt good to stretch my legs…”
“…I caught a Greyhound…”
“…I dropped in on Mary…”
“…and threw myself at her feet.”
“But she turned her back on me.”
“But she got on her high horse. I couldn’t touch here
with a 10 foot pole!”
“She wouldn’t say a word. Guess the cat got her
tongue.”
“So, I walked out on her.”
“After that, I went to pieces.”
“…where a bunch of the boys were hangin’ around.”
“The guy at the piano played by ear.”
“I felt a tug at my elbow…”
“We sat down and chewed the rag a while.”
“I heard through the grapevine…”
“…Mary was going around with an old flame.”
“That burned me up!”
“Because I knew that he was feeding her a line.”
The guy really spent his money like water.”
“I think he was connected with the railroad.”
“As they danced, I tried to chisel in…”
“…but the guy got in my hair.”
“Outside it was raining cats and dogs.”
“I was feeling mighty blue.”
“And everything looked black.”
“But I carried on!”
“I went to the 1000 Islands.”
“There, I became a beachcomber.”
“…and a tear ran down my cheek.”
“So I sends her a cable.”
“The next day, she sends me a wire.”
“I rushed back to the US on a cattle boat…”
“…and I hotfooted it over to Mary’s apartment.”
“When I opened the door, I noticed quite a few
changes…”
“Why Mary, she had a bunch of little ones.”
“The groom had his hands full, too!”
“So, all this struck me so funny, I died laughing!”
As teachers we should always try to create new ways to help students
understand, relate to a subject and perhaps present rules. Teenagers respond a
lot better to ideas that activate their brain or can be used on a day to day
basis.
During adolescence, the sense of perception towards the world changes
which affects behavior, attitude, habits, personality, etc. It's an essential time for teachers to set good examples, help students organize their thoughts,
and be supportive.
If there are ways of making things more appealing why not make it more
fun. The Fun Theory project is an initiative of Volkswagen to help change people's
behavior for the better. On their site (check below) there are great videos you
can show your students, the one we selected is a great example ofhow fun can go a long way and change
people's attitude.
Enjoy:)
Special thanks to our friend and fellow teacher Andrea Catarineli for introducing us to this video:) Soon we will be posting more activities, we just love all the videos and
we are full of ideas!
This activity will increase the use of new vocabulary by promoting
interaction amongst the students, and introducing a topic they are quite
familiar with: Social networks.
1) Tell your students that they are going to watch a video that shows
where we are in terms of social evolution. Ask them to write down all the
information they consider surprising.
2) Divide your students in pairs or trios and give each group a copy of
the text below: The power influence has to make things happen.
3) Still in groups, the students can make posters about the social
evolution numbers. Display on the board the social network word bank (check below).
4) Depending on their level, they can create a social network hit that
has a great potential to go viral:
Eg:
protect the environment
protect the animals
children’s rights, etc…
OBS: Remember, you don’t need to use a real social network to do this
activity, it all can be done using paper, cut outs, or even drawings, what
really matters is their creativity, and the use of new words and structures.
Think of your influence like water.
Water in motion is a very powerful force. We’ve all seen the pictures of a flood
carrying away cars and even homes.
This is similar to what can happen today if you launch an idea and it
goes viral on the Internet. It becomes
like a flood. It moves rapidly over all
the obstacles in its way. Nothing can
stop it.
We often hold back launching our ideas because we think it won’t make a
difference, but what if others embrace it?
It happens every day. Common
people become famous in an instant.
Movements are created. People
rally together behind a cause. Influence
makes big things happen.
Of course, not all ideas go viral, still influence is powerful. It can work like erosion. Slowly, but surely, over time erosion changes
entire landscapes.
You have this power inside you.
We all do. It is all about how we
choose to use it.
Social network word bank:
Tweetup - noun: a meeting or other gathering organised by means of posts
on the social networking service Twitter. [from tweet + up on the pattern of
MEETUP].
Hashtag - noun: a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables
Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain
similarly tagged items and view thematic sets.
Tag cloud - noun: a visual depiction of the word content of a website,
or of user-generated tags attached to online content, typically using colour
and font size to represent the prominence or frequency of the words or tags
depicted.
Slashdot effect - noun: the slowing down or crashing of a small website
due to a huge increase in traffic when the website is linked to another, much
more popular one.
Unfriend/defriend - verb: to remove from one's 'friends' list (e.g. on a
social networking website).
Freemium - noun: a business model in which some basic services are
provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional,
premium features or content.
Paywall - noun: a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is
only available to paying subscribers.
It was believed that the brain was fully developed by the end of
childhood, but research has shown that adolescence is a time of brain growth and change.
This is a video of a proposal. This guy made a trailer for his girlfriend to ask her hand in marriage. It's a great video to practice ED and ING adjectives, because we can see her reactions throughout the movie.
First write a brief explanation on the board.
ing adjectives are used to describe things: 'The lecture was boring.' ed adjectives are used to describe our feelings: 'I felt very bored.'
Ask your students to watch the video then create sentences using the adjectives below.
This activity is done
in three steps and it is a great way to consolidate Simple Present and Present
Continuous. When narrating a story, we can use thesepresent tenses
to recreate the events in an active, dynamic way. The narrator can relate the
story as if it is happening at the moment.
1) Set your students
in pairs. One of them will have to face the back wall and not watch the
animation. Show the first 3 minutes of it (check video below), and ask the
student watching to narrate the events while the other writes them down.
E.g.
The film is set in
Washington.
The man is crossing
the street.
The man gets a bag
from another man.
The man is eating
a donuts.
2) Stop the video at
the three minute mark and ask the pairs to switch. Now the narrator will write
down and the writer will narrate. Show the remaining 3 minutes.
3) To make sure the
students didn't miss any event in the animation, show the video for the second
time and ask the pairs to check it.
Enjoy!
**Special thanks to
our friend and fellow teacher Karla
Silva for showing us this amazing video!
Learning English through songs is a great way to practice speaking, reinforce grammar structure, get students motivated, and embed new vocabulary.
With just a little creativity, the video below can be used in many different ways:
Here are some activity suggestions: - In pairs ask students to listen and write down the Present Perfect parts of the songs. - Ask students to sing the Present Perfect parts only. - Divide your class into 2 groups. One team watches the video while the others seat outside the classroom. The team who watched has to dictate the Present Perfect songs to the other group.
Past perfect
is not always an easy grammar topic to teach. “The curious case of Benjamin Button” can also be used to teach it. The activity below is a lot of fun and will help your students understand it better. There are 3 steps to this activity.
1) Ask your
students to watch the movie segment and note how many actions happened. Then
give them strips of paper with sentences (check below) and tell them to
number them according to the order in which they appear in the movie.
Sentences to be put on strips of paper:
A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping.
The taxi driver dropped off a fare earlier.
Daisy finished rehearsing.
Daisy and her friend came out of the theatre.
She got her coat.
The girl broke up with her Boyfriend
The package was done being wrapped.
The phone rang.
The girl broke a shoelace.
Daisy was rehearsing at the Paris Opera House
The taxi driver picked up the lady, who was going shopping
The man forgot to set his alarm.
She forgot her coat, she went back to get it.
Daisy took a shower
The woman went outside to get a taxi.
The woman picked up a package
The girl wrapped the package
The taxi driver stopped to get a cup of coffee.
The woman was back in the cab
The taxi was blocked by a delivery truck
Daisy was getting dressed
The Delivery truck pulled off
The taxi stopped for a traffic light
The man left for work five minutes later than he normally does.
The lady missed getting the earlier cab
The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street
Daisy was hit.
Promote a quick discussion so your students can reflect upon this quote from the movie!
"Sometimes we
are on a collision course and we just don't know it... Whether it's by accident
or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it..."
Exemplify:
A woman in
Paris was on her way to go shopping _______ and Daisy was hit.
A lot has
happened between these two events, and they contributed to the last one: “Daisy
was hit”.
Show
the video segment again, and ask students to check the order in which the events happened.
2) Write the
past perfect structure and explanation on the board, and then give them the
fill in the blanks script exercise (check below):
HAD + PAST
PARTICIPLE
The Past
Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the
past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the
past.
3) Fill the
blanks in the script below:
A woman in Paris was
on her way to go shopping…
But she
__________(forget) her coat...and went back to get it... And when she
__________(get) her coat the phone __________(ring) and so she __________(stop)
to answer it... and talked for a couple of minutes... And while the woman was
on the phone; Daisy was rehearsing for that evening's performance at the Paris
Opera House...And while she was rehearsing...the woman, off the phone now...
__________(go)outside... to get a taxi...Now a taxi driver... __________(drop)
off a fare earlier... and __________(stop)to get a cup of coffee...And all the
while Daisy was rehearsing...And the cab driver who __________(drop)off the
earlier fare, and __________(stop) to get the cup of coffee...
__________(pick) up the lady, who was going shopping... who __________(miss)
getting the earlier cab...The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street
who _________(leave) for work five minutes later than he normally did...
because he forgot to set his alarm...While the man, late for work, was crossing
the street... making the cab wait... Daisy, finished rehearsing, was taking a
shower...While Daisy was showering; the taxi was waiting outside a Boutique for
the woman to pick up a package... which hadn't been wrapped yet because the
girl who was supposed to wrap it... __________(break up )with her boyfriend the
night before and forgot to...When the package was done being wrapped... The
woman, who was back in the cab... the taxi was blocked by a delivery truck...
All the while Daisy was getting dressed...The Delivery truck pulled off and the
taxi was able to go...While Daisy, the first to be dressed, waited for one of
her friends who __________(break)a shoelace...While the taxi was stopped,
waiting for a traffic light...Daisy and her friend came out of the theatre…
Daisy was hit.
Answer key:
A woman in Paris was
on her way to go shopping…
But she had forgotten her
coat...and went back to get it... And when shehad gotten her
coat the phone had rung... and so shehad stopped to answer it... and
talked for a couple of minutes... And while the woman was on the phone; Daisy
was rehearsing for that evening's performance at the Paris Opera House...And
while she was rehearsing...the woman, off the phone now...had goneoutside...
to get a taxi...Now a taxi driver...had dropped off a
fare earlier... and had stopped to get a cup of
coffee...And all the while Daisy was rehearsing...And the cab driver who had dropped off the
earlier fare, and had stoppedto get the cup of
coffee...had picked up the
lady, who was going shopping... who had missed getting
the earlier cab...The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street who had left for
work five minutes later than he normally did... because he forgot to set his
alarm...While the man, late for work, was crossing the street... making the cab
wait... Daisy, finished rehearsing, was taking a shower...While Daisy was
showering; the taxi was waiting outside a Boutique for the woman to pick up a
package... which hadn't been wrapped yet because the girl who was supposed to
wrap it... had broken up with her boyfriend the night before and forgot to...When the
package was done being wrapped... The woman, who was back in the cab... the
taxi was blocked by a delivery truck... All the while Daisy was getting
dressed...The Delivery truck pulled off and the taxi was able to go...While
Daisy, the first to be dressed, waited for one of her friends who had broken a
shoelace...While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light...Daisy and
her friend came out of the theatre...
