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!
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!”
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.
This activity is great because it allows students to understand adjectives in a more wholesome, meaningful way. Make sure to select adjectives that won't encourage disrespectful or bad behavior. It is always nice to personalize your activities according to your groups' profile.
When your class begins give each student a card with an adjective written on it. Tell them to keep it a secret from their other classmates.
Write the definition of all the adjectives given on the board, and tell your students to role-play according to the adjective they were given throughout the entire class.
Suggestions of adjectives:
Impatient
Cheerful
Shy
Confused
Energetic
Easy-going
Moody
Helpful
Calm
Friendly
Conservative
Stubborn
Talkative
Dreamy
Happy
Proceed your class as normal and let them have fun, at the end of your lesson ask students to match the adjectives to their classmates, then ask them to reveal their adjectives to each other .
To consolidate your lesson, or perhaps as a wrap-up activity, ask them to describe their real selves using five adjectives.
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.
This activity will
require plastic letters and blindfolds.
Divide your class in
groups (3 students per group). Write the vocabulary words that you want to work with
on the board (3 to 6 words).
Ask the groups to
select one of the members to be blindfolded first, and then ask them to seat on
the floor. Spread the plastic letters around the blindfolded students and let the
race begin.
The groups must help their blindfolded member to
find the letters and spell the word. Once
the student is done finding and spelling his word, he can put the blindfold on a different group
member. The race ends when all the words are spelled.
This activity really help students’ spelling and
vocabulary!
