Tag Archives: A2

Lesson Plan: Talking about Your Hometown .

American Cultural aspects, freeware, Lesson Plan: Elementary, Speaking, Vocabulary, , , , , ,

This is a lesson for Elementary students.

Step 1. Reading and Listening

Mind mapping is a very important  learning tool for visual learners. This mind map has been created with Exam Time, which is very easy to use and  embeddable, a feature I always appreciate.

There are some steps previous to this mind mapping  we wrote on the board, essentially reading and listening about this issue. Form these listenings and readings we gathered and sorted vocabulary that was, then, written on the board.

Step 2. Mind Mapping

What you see below is a nice way of displaying what was written on the board of the classroom  with the help of my students.

por cristina.cabal
Step 3. Speaking

For this activity, instead of the typical photocopy with the list of questions to talk about, I have put students in groups of three or four and given each group a set of cards, which they had to place face down on the table. Students in turns pick up a card and talk for as much as they can about the given question. At this point I give my students the usual talk about how important it is now, to “show off.”

This is a snapshot of the cards. Click here if you want to print them.

Role Play : Renting a House

Slides, Speaking, , ,

This year I am teaching  two different levels, the  2nd course in the Elementary Level and the 2nd course in the Intermediate Level.  Teaching the last courses within a level means my students will have to, necessarily, take the Certificación exam if they want to pass to the next level. The exam has different parts but I know you’ll agree with me if I say that the most stressful one is the Oral test. I know it is not everyone’s cup of tea to face a board of  two or three teachers  listening, very attentively, to every word you say. Haven’t you always wanted to be centre of attention 😉 ?

The oral Exam in the Elementary Level has two parts. The first part is a Role-Play. Here, the students will have to interact with the teacher. Students will be presented with a situation and they will have to take  one role, while the teacher takes the other role.

To prepare my students for these role-plays, I often use PhotoPeach, an online tool which allows you to create a free slide show in seconds. Dying to try my other slideshows with Role-Plays? Click here

This is the last I have uploaded: Renting a House. Prior to this online Role-Play, students, in pairs, have written an advert for a house/flat for rent and from this advert they have written a dialogue, which they have later performed.

This is the last step.

Writing and Speaking : A Biography

Create your own stuff, Speaking, Students' Corner, Writing, , ,

It’s with great pride that I  show you the work of two of my students; they are  twelve and thirteen-year-old students  who, with a lot of effort on their part,  have managed to overcome the difficulties of speaking and pronouncing a different language. My Congratulations and Thanks  to Patricia Alonso and Juan Fernández for their effort and contribution to this blog. Keep up the good work!

Patricia has written and recorded  Marco Polo’s Biography  and Juan has done the same with  Fernando Alonso.Ladies first!

 

Useful Posts to Revise for Finals

A word on Grammar, Create your own stuff, freeware, Grammar, Grammar and Exercises, In the Computer Room, Plain Grammar and Exercises, Resources, , , , , , ,

I have been meaning to give MentorMob a try for some time and I never got around to doing it but when my students asked me where to revise for finals, MentorMob flashed in my mind and I saw the light. ;).

This little tool  allows you to organise your favourite posts or websites into a playlist  in a very easy way  and then you can always share it and embed it in a blog or website. In this way you can easily organise videos, pdfs, documents, websites, articles….. into playlists and then  assign them to your students in the computer room, as homework or  in a flipped classroom setting .

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Going to the Doctor!

Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, , , , , , , ,

This is a lesson I created about three years ago. As it often happens with my lesson plans I have written  some of the exercises myself, while some others have been taken here and there; in this case, some of the tasks link to a website ELLA, which I highly recommend  not only because  it is run by some of my colleagues from different EEOOII in Asturias but also because it is the best I have found so far that offers, for free, lesson plans where you can work all skills.

At the time of creating this lesson I wrote a post dedicated to my father  that you can read here. He passed away a few years ago but I still miss him and think he was the best doctor ever  and not just because he was my father and girls always think the best of their fathers but because, when treating his patients,  he relied more  on  instinct and experience than on books and this is essential to a doctor.

Click on the picture advertising the lesson plan if you want to do some practice.Level: A2