Tag Archives: A2

Present Continuous Games

5 December 2012GeneralA2, B1, games, grammar, methodology, present continuousCristina Cabal

If you’ve been reading me for some time you’ll probably have guessed that I favour kinesthetic learning.The activities where students take an active part and enjoy while learning are my favourite.I like them getting up and moving around the classroom and I even welcome the noise because they are using English.

And you cannot even begin to imagine how proud I feel when I see that they have been able to overcome their natural shyness at making mistakes and just concentrate on using the language and having fun.

These are two of my favourite activities to orally practise present continuous. Hilarious, trust me!

♥MIMING

I divided the class into two groups Group A and Group B; one student from Group A comes up to the front of the class and is given a card with a sentence containing the Present Continuous, like for example, I am watching TV. The student has to mime this activity and the members of his group have to guess, exactly, the same words written on the card. The student is given one minute to mimic as many sentences as possible.

Suggestions

I’m cleaning the house
He’s cooking an egg
She is dancing in the disco
I am playing the guitar
He is drinking a coke
He is reading a novel
I am thinking about my teacher
My mother is working now
He is walking to school
He is painting the house
I am studying History
I am not sleeping
I am playing tennis now
She is reading a newspaper
She is eating chocolate
I am riding a blue bicycle

♥DESCRIPTION OF A PHOTO

For this activity, the students are sitting in pairs, one student facing the board and the other with his back to the board. Using the OHP, a picture of people performing something is displayed. Now, the person seeing the picture has to describe it in as much detail as possible and the other person has to draw the picture. Allow them four or five minutes and then choose the best picture. Below are two of the pictures that I used:

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. Click to follow

Jack-o-Lanterns in Halloween History

28 October 2012American Cultural aspects, ListeningA2, B1, customs, halloween, listening, videoCristina Cabal

I hope you’re not getting sick of so many posts about Halloween. This, if my memory doesn’t fail, is my third post about this tradition but I’m afraid you haven’t seen the last of it as we’ll be throwing our Halloween party on Wednesda . I’ve boarded the Halloween train and I have no intention of getting off .
As if cooking and decorating were not enough for my students, this video about the history of Jack O’Latern will set the mood for the halloween party and do the trick

QUESTIONS FOR PRE-INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS. Click here

QUESTIONS FOR INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS . Click here

Stonehenge: one of the world’s most ancient landmarks.

22 October 2012freeware, ListeningA2, listening, online, videoCristina Cabal

and one of the most mysterious , too! In fact, over the course of years, scientists and philosophers have tried to attribute their origin to Merlin the wizard, to druids and even there are some crackpots who think aliens were involved but the truth is that even nowadays, after countless studies, nobody can say for certain why it was built. Was it an observatory, a temple for sun worship, a healing centre, a place to bury the dead or a giant calendar? How did they manage to carry the huge stones and then, without any metal tools or machinery build this impressive, unique structure?

I’ve selected this video about StoneHenge for my elementary students. I have chopped the original from YouTube using TubeChop because it was too long and probably too difficult, too. Hope it is useful!

I have decided on the True/Flase exercise because I think it is easier than the Open Questions option.

AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO, DECIDE WHETHER THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ARE TRUE OR FALSE AND CORRECT THE FALSE ONES.
1. StoneHenge is in Northern England
2. According to the Medieval legend Merlin, the wizard, built it.
3. According to recent scientific studies,it was built 500 years ago.
4. Each of the stones weighs between fifty and eighty thousand pounds
5. The stones were carved using metal tools.

Fashion Victims?

4 October 2012Create your own stuff, Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, SlidesA2, clothes, picture description, speaking, video, vocabularyCristina Cabal

So, once again, here we are, working with items of clothing and talking about fashion!

Though I cannot consider myself a shopaholic, I wouldn’t be completely honest with you if I didn’t tell you that, once a week, I leave husband and kids at home and I……. burn plastic!!!! Well, I reckon I deserve a treat or two from time to time, don’t you think so?

Now, this is the activity I’m going to do with my fourth-year students (Pre-intermediate). I hope you find it useful!

The main activity will be displaying a video of a catwalk where students will have to be the commentators, describing what the models on the catwalk are wearing. A video such as this one … or maybe the one below it… to add more variety.

They have previously worked with patterns and materials (striped, checked, plain, silk, leather…etc) but I used some pictures from my iPad, so this vocabulary has already been covered.

Though I hate to say it, most of my students will know “trousers and shoes” but they will probably need some help with some other less common items of clothing. That’s why I’ve prepared these slides about clothes, divided into Elementary and Intermediate.

Clothes – diapositivas

Wanna sing along with Rihanna?

2 October 2012Listening, MusicA2, fun, songCristina Cabal

Probably a bit too early in the course to be singing songs but as I’ve already mentioned in one of my previous posts, Unit 1 of my pre-intermediate course is about Music.