Reported Speech: Famous Quotes

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Happy Thursday to everybody!  Yes, Ok, in Asturias  we have rain, clouds, and cold but I’m trying to keep my spirits up!

Next week I’ll be focusing on Reported Speech and I thought this could be a good way of getting their attention. I have chosen  a  few quotes from  some  famous people  and created a Power Point Presentation  Hope it’s useful!!

 

Visit my Intermediate Section for more exercises on reported Speech and also read another article (Reported Speech: questions and Orders)  I published some time ago with more ideas here

Food for thought: Two quotes by Dr HaimG.Ginott

General

I really need to frame it somewhere to read it first thing in the morning as a reminder and definitely, before teaching certain groups of students.

I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.”

Haim G. Ginott, Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers

“What do we say to a guest who forgets her umbrella? Do we run after her and say “What is the matter with you? Every time you come to visit you forget something. If it’s not one thing it’s another. Why can’t you be like your sister? When she comes to visit, she knows how to behave. You’re forty-four years old! Will you never learn? I’m not a slave to pick up after you! I bet you’d forget your head if it weren’t attached to your shoulders.” That’s not what we say to a guest. We say “Here’s your umbrella, Alice,” without adding “scatterbrain.”
Parents need to learn to respond to their children as they do to guests.”
– Haim G. Ginott, Between Parent and Child: The Bestselling Classic That Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication

Writing lesson: Stretching a Sentence and the Verb Shaker

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Writing is probably one of the most difficult tasks students have to tackle but it is also true that we never dedicate enough time to improving this skill; there never seems to be enough time during lessons. Added to this is the fact that we are not used to writing in our own language, let alone in a foreign one. Therefore, what we normally get from our students are short sentences which usually fall short of our expectations.
In this session I have used two activities, slightly modified, from two different blogs; Stretching a Sentence (original source here) and the Verb Shaker (original post here )

♥STETCHING A SENTENCE
I have created a PPT presentation (see below) to heighten the idea of a telescopic sentence.
The main idea is starting with a verb or a noun and stretching the sentence by giving the students some hints in the form of questions (who, when, where, what, why). In the end, they easily and effortlessly come up with a sentence that has some consistency and that I hope will help  them get rid of their fear of writing. This exercise does not focus on complex sentences as it is aimed at elementary and pre-intermediate students. It might also be necessary to point out that previous to this exercise, we have worked on the order of adjectives before the noun (basically Opinion+Size+Age+Colour) so you can imagine how colourful their sentences were.

♥VERB SHAKER

This funny idea came form the wonderful blog Crazy Speech World and though dyeing the rice and laminating the cards is an awesome idea I have to confess that I don’t have the time, so my students will have to make up do with just the box and the paper cards.
My idea is using this game with elementary and pre-intermediate students. I have written the verbs in two different colours:  in green, the easiest verbs to use in a sentence  and in blue, verbs which could be a bit more difficult to use. Using two colours, they can be easily separated. I have also included some blank cards in the box.

The game: one student picks up a verb (eyes closed) from the box and students, in pairs, have about 90 seconds to write a sentence including the verb. The longer the sentence, the more possibilities they have of getting the point, which will be awarded to the pair with the best sentence. (Remind students of the Who, What, When, Where, Why from the previous exercise). If a student draws a blank card, he can choose the verb he fancies.

To make things easier for me, I’ll provide them with slips of paper  to write their sentence so that when the time’s up they can raise it up and I can have a quick check. Sentences with mistakes will be automatically discarded and the remaining sentences will be read aloud and voted. The pair with the best sentence gets the point.

Edited: Intermediate 1 and Intermediate 2 verbs

Hilarious! Who’s your favourite?

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Happy New Year to everybody! Time to go back to school ! Facing  the fact that my students have forgotten almost everything  they have learned really throws me in a funk but…. that’s life!!!
Classes are starting again and I wanted to take a minute to thank you guys for all the visits (more than 100.000 now) and nice comments to this blog. It really keeps me going!

This hilarious video will help me revise Family with my first year students. Something funny, something they can understand and the perfect introduction to go over some already-acquired vocabulary. The perfect way to start off the term, with a smile on their face and loving English

isn’t she cute?

The Voice:Blind Auditions. Revising Physical Descriptions

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Whether you are a fan of this kind of programmes or not, nobody can deny this talent show has been a big success worldwide. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about The Voice is a singing competition that consists of a blind audition where four coaches (famous singers ) select the members of their teams, a battle phase and then the final, where the audience selects The Voice. It started in The Netherlands like two years ago and since then the format has been sold to many countries where it has also been a big success.

The idea for this activity came from the French teacher in my high school, Yolanda (see picture). Just by chance she commented  on how much fun their students had just had doing this activity and  right away I asked her to borrow her idea for my English class.

The instructions are fairly simple.

♥Students in pairs and with their backs to the whiteboard  listen to someone singing but they won’t be able to see them, that’s why it’s called Blind Auditions.
♥Working with a  partner, they decide what the person they are listening to looks like (see handout).
♥When the audition finishes and without turning their backs, they need to decide whether they want this person in their team to be THE VOICE. If they want them, they should raise their hand making the V gesture and saying I WANT YOU!
♥Now, they’ll have to compete against the other students who also want the singer. The singer will belong to the team who has the most accurate physical description of the singer.

I have selected these two videos you don’t like the game, at least enjoy the music!!