Alejandro – Lady Gaga

In the Computer Room, Listening, Music,

It’s not like me to pick this singer for one of my posts. I normally go for R&B or ballads but ,as the old saying goes, “when in Rome , do as the Romans do” and I cannot certainly choose Sade or The Beatles to get to my 12-year-old students. They adore Lady Gaga and this is just what I’m going to give them . Having said this, I have to admit that Lady Gaga is in my MP3 and I usually listen to her when I am running on the treadmill and if I have to be honest and make a clean breast of it  I find her songs quite funny and full of rhythm .
Well, here it is ! The popular ALEJANDRO with its catchy chorus. As I said it’s for elementary students , so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Click on the image and it’ll take you to the exercise. I haven’t , so far, found a way to embed a Hot Potatoes exercise in a WordPress blog. (please, dear reader, if you know how , kindly let me know)

 

A Word on Grammar:Collective nouns

A word on Grammar, , ,

Only last week I had to deal with this issue in class when one of my students asked me.
“Does the word “team” take a singular or a plural verb?” and my answer was: “Both”.

There are some singular words in British English that can take both singular or plural verbs and pronouns depending on what you want to say about them.

Singular forms are used when we see the “team” as one thing, as an impersonal unit.

The team is going to lose

Plural forms are used when the group is considered as a collection of people doing personal things like taking decisions, hoping or wanting .

The team are full of enthusiasm (referring to every member of the team)

Group nouns which can be used with both singular and plural are:
party   school    staff    team   government   jury  family
public     club     class     firm     the BBC    comittee

“police”, on the other hand, is normally used with a plural verb

The police were not able to find anything

Lesson Plan: Films

Audio, freeware, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, , , , , , , , ,

Mixing traditional and modern teaching? What’s the right balance? That’s a hot issue and one I haven’t yet found the answer to but I feel that there’s nothing like the interaction between teachers and students or students among themselves.
In this lesson plan Focus on Films I’ve combined both traditional teaching and new technologies. I’ve even published one exercise Film Genres that I’d rather do with my students in class with them taking an active role in their learning process. You choose but what comes below  is how I  definitely plan to do it with my students.

I ‘ve prepared one set of blue strips of paper with the names of famous films and another set of green coloured strips with film genres. All in all I’ve written 10 strips of paper and then placed them on my table. Students will then come up to my table and do the matching exercise using blue-tack to stick the strips on the blackboard. I’m planning to revise  by showing them only the films and then only the genres.

On the other hand, there is another exercise in this lesson plan where, if I were a student, I’d definitely choose to do using a computer and I’m referring to the brainstorming exercise we normally do on the blackboard. Well,  I’ve had a lot of fun ( and also wasted a lot of time ) doing this brainstorming  about films with this little application called Simple Diagrams, which I highly recommend (mainly because it’s free)


It must have been sheer luck that I bumped into this cool site only last week, just when I was gathering material to use  in the FILMS lesson.


This site has been nominated as one of the 50 best sites in 2010 and it contains about 12.000 film snippets that can be searched by genre, director, props, setting…etc. Isn’t it just unbelievable that you can even choose Action  and under this category choose whether you want a clip with a cough or a bump or a cry? Isn’t it just as amazing that you can choose the clip by Mood; do you want something inspiring,creepy or maybe funny?

The whole lesson, designed for intermediate students, comes with Vocabulary, Reading, Listening and Writing exercises. Click HERE to do it

A Word on Grammar: Cannot or can not?

A word on Grammar, ,

Many students ask me why the negative of “can” is “cannot ” but the negative of “could” is not “*couldnot”.
In British English, the single form “cannot” is used, while in American English, you can use both “cannot” and “can not”, though “cannot” is more common.
The contraction for both “cannot” and “can not” is “can’t”.
In summary, “cannot” is, by far, more usual and it’s the one I’d recommend you use. Having said that, there some cases when it’s necessary to use the form “can not”. When?

♥ When it’s used for emphasis.
No, you can not go out on New Year’s Eve. You’re only fourteen!

♥ When “not” is part of another construction as in, for example, the rather formal structure,” not only…. but (also)”
She can not only play the piano but also the violin

I hope to have answered your questions!