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Lesson Plan: Are you a Risk Taker?

Lesson Plan: Advanced, , , , , , , , ,

In this engaging series of activities students will discuss different actions that involve taking risks. It aims at developing students’ communicative, listening and writing skills through the acquisition of new vocabulary.

Level: advanced

Time required: 60 minutes

Materials: handout 1 and handout 2

Warming up: The video

  • Do a quick survey asking students: Do you enjoy taking risks?
  • Play the first 55 seconds of the video and pause it. Ask students in pairs to discuss what they would do in this situation. Get feedback. Ask the class as a whole to predict what might happen to the people who decide to run the risk and take the two empty seats.
  • Play the video until the end. here

Step 1. Speaking based on visual prompts

  • Class as a whole. Ask students: What’s the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done?
  • Put students in pairs. Tell them you are going to show them different activities that involve taking risks. Ask students to discuss whether they would be willing to try them or not, giving reasons for their choice.

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Step 2. Working with vocabulary .

  • Put students in pairs and ask them to write, in two minutes, words related to taking risks. On the board, write their suggestions.
  • Give them handout 1. Focus on any new words/expressions.
  • Prepare slips of papers with the new vocabulary and follow the steps given for activity number 4 in the article “Nine ways to revise vocabulary using slips of paper”.

 

Step 3. Speaking. Using new vocabulary.

We all know how difficult it is for students to introduce  new vocabulary when they speak. This activity aims at encouraging students to use new words.

Step 4. Listening Comprehension

Tell students they are going to see a video about parkour. Hopefully, students will remember what parkour is, as they came across this word at the beginning of the lesson.

  • Link to the activity here.
  • Direct link to the video here

 

If you are running short of time, you can always set this activity as homework.

Step 5: Writing

Ask students to write a “for and against essay” on one of these quotes

  • “To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while” Jean- Paul Sartre
  • “The biggest risk is not taking any risk”-Mark Zukerberg

Tips on how to write a “ for and against essay” in the Writing Section of Blog de Cristina.

 

The quiz: 13 Modern Words Recently Added to the Dictionary in 2015

Dictionaries, Did you know?, Funny Stuff, Games, Slides, The English language, ,

Three years ago, a colleague of mine wrote the word “selfie” on the board. She says none of her students knew what the word meant. Nowadays, even my great grandmother, should I have one, would most definitely know what a “selfie” is, and would probably have taken one or two to send her peers.

It is said that the English language has more words than any other language in the world and it seems it might be true. The Oxford Dictionary Online stores over 600,000 words. Despite this number, new words are coined, clipped and blended all the time and although some of them are very soon forgotten, others make their way into the dictionary.
But how do they choose the words they include in a dictionary? The answer is simple: people need to use them. Basically editors watch the word for several years to see how it is used in both spoken and written English. They check to see that the word is used to express an idea clearly, and that the idea is understood. Then, when the word is seen in writing and speech regularly, it can go in the dictionary.

New words are added every year, but also words that are no longer used are eliminated.

Every year, the Oxford Dictionary selects a Word of the Year. “Selfie” was chosen Word of the Year three years ago. This year, the award has been given to the emoji (plural emoji or emojis) Face with Tears of Joy. The decision to choose a pictogram as word of the year, when it is clearly not a word, has been publicly criticized by many. But despite the selection of this word being frowned upon in many circles, the question to consider is: if words are used to communicate, aren’t emojis also used to communicate feelings and emotions in this new digital era?

So, as stated above, lots of new words enter the dictionaries every year. In this little quiz below you will find some of the most recent additions to the dictionaries

Are you up to the challenge?

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Inspiration for Writing: Inference Riddle Games

Games, Writing, , ,

Who doesn’t like a good riddle?

It seems to me that children nowadays never listen to riddles. In fact, I don’t think I have ever asked a riddle to my children, but when I was a kid, things were different. I don’t know if things have changed for the better or for the worse, but they have certainly changed.  I used to sleep over at my grandma’s twice a week when I was at primary school. I have such good memories! I looked forward to those evenings spent playing cards and singing old Asturian songs. My granny had a memory like an elephant and could even remember the lullabies her mother used to sing to her… and the riddles, she always surprised me with a new one. It’s a pity she’s not here anymore, she would have helped me write this post. Unfortunately, I have a memory like a sieve and I can only remember one of the riddles she asked me and my siblings. She gave us one clue at a time and we wouldn’t let her continue until we had run out of ideas; then she gave us the second clue and so on

  • a minute has one
  • a moment has two
  • but a second, none . Who am I?

Answer: The M

Giving homework to our students is something we often do. I’m not going to discuss in this post whether this is a good or bad thing to do, though with me teaching adults and being flexible for this reason, I cannot see any disadvantages to dedicating some time to brushing up on some of the contents studied during the week. It will surely hurt nobody! Having said this, I also want to point out that giving students assignments they will enjoy and assignments where they will have to produce their own content, makes all the difference.

Level: B2 (Advanced)

Aim: to improve writing through riddles

GETTING READY FOR THE TASK

  • Write the word “Riddle” on the board and ask students to explain or give an example of what a riddle is (A question or statement intentionally phrased so as to require ingenuity in ascertaining its answer or meaning-Oxford Dictionary).
  • Give two examples of riddles and ask students to guess the answer.

                 Example 1. What flies forever, and never rests? (The wind)

For the second example of a riddle, read one clue at a time and let them guess before you read the second clue.

Example 2

  • a minute has one
  • a moment has two
  • but a second, none . Who am I?

                                             Answer: The M

EXPLAINING THE TASK

  • Tell students their task at home will be to write a riddle to be read in class and for the other students to guess. They can decide whether to write a short riddle like example 1 above or an inference riddle with some clues as example 2 above.
  • Go to  philtulga.com and play some inference riddles with them. For a more student-centred approach, you can ask volunteers to read the clues.

REPORTING THE TASK

  • In this stage, students will need to read the written assignment.
  • Depending on how large your class is, you might want to ask students to work in pairs or in small groups.
  • Groups will take it, in turn, to read their riddles to the rest of the groups. If it is an inference riddle with several clues, ask students to read one clue at a time. With each clue, groups will need to make a guess. Allow only one guess per clue.
  • Points should be awarded for every correct guess.
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Lesson Plan: Families

Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Listening, Picture Description, Speaking, Vocabulary, , , , , , ,

FAMILY, in capitals, because is there anything more important in this world?

“Family is not an important thing, it’s everything.”Michael J. Fox. How far do you agree with Michael J. Fox?

This is a lesson for Intermediate students (B1) about Family. In this post you will find

  • A video about traditional and non-traditional families.
  • Some vocabulary you might need to revise/learn when discussing this subject.
  • Guided speaking: questions to discuss+ answers offered by a native speaker  (Flip Cards).
  • Freer Practice: pictures to describe and some questions to discuss in pairs or small groups

The first activity in this lesson (the video) will be set as homework.

1. The Video. What Is a Non-Traditional Family? – Definition of Options.

It is a long video. It lasts 8 minutes so I’d suggest breaking it up and asking students to work on different parts of the video.  In the video five non-traditional /alternative households are mentioned.

  • In class, show students the video and explain it discusses traditional and non-traditional families.
  • Explain that everybody will need to listen to the introduction where the concept of traditional family is explained (from the beginning – 1:02).
  • Explain that in the video Erin Long-Crowell, an educational psychologist, talks about five different non-traditional/alternative households.
  • Form groups of five students and tell them that in the next lesson they will be working in groups of five and each of them will share what they have learned about their assigned non-traditional household.
  • Assign tasks for the different students in the  group

Student 1: single parenthood 1:07-2:20

Student 2: cohabitation 2:20-3:23

Student 3: GLBT 3:23-4:32

Student 4: Polygamy 4:32-5:21

Student 5: Singlehood 5:21-6.30

(video no longer available on youtube) Click here to see it

2. Vocabulary. Family Life

Phasal Verbs

  • To take after your mum/dad
  • To bring up a child
  • To fall out ( with your sister)
  • To make up
  • To get on (well) with sb
  • To get along with sb

 

Verbs

  • To raise your children
  • To adopt
  • To quarrel with your siblings
  • To get divorced/ to be divorced
  • To share ( a bedroom)
  • To cohabit/kəʊˈhabɪt/
  • to start a family

Expressions

  • To have (a lot of) things in common
  • To get together
  • (A cousin) on my father’s side
  • To be close to
  • (not) to see eye to eye
  • To be the main breadwinner= the person in the family who earns the highest income
  • to be under age
  • to come of age

Nouns

  • A family gathering/ reunion /get-together
  • Childhood
  • Birth rate
  • Birth order
  • relationship
  • Immediate or nuclear/extended family
  • Twin
  • a spouse
  • Sibling (rivalry)
  • A parent
  • your significant other = Aspouse or long-term sexual or romantic partner
  • one-parent families
  • In-laws
  • Exhusband
  • Half brother
  • relationship
  • Step brother
  • A relative
  • Ancestors=aperson, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended
  • An only child
  • memories

Adjectives

  • traditional and non-traditional family
  • single parenthood
  • Close knit family

PDF here

3. Speaking .Guided speaking: questions to discuss+ answers offered by a native speaker  (Flip Cards)

  • Students in pairs. Display question 1 and allow two or three minutes for students to discuss this question. Flip the card for them to see how a native speaker would answer the question. Follow the same procedure with the rest of the questions.

Conjunto de Fichas creado con GoConqr por cristina.cabal

  • Freer Practice: pictures to describe and compare.
  • Freer Practice:conversation questions.

PDF here

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Most Common Pronunciation Mistakes Heard in Oral Exams

Common Errors, Create your own stuff, Phonetics, , , , , , ,

Even for the most confident students  taking an oral exam can be quite stressful. Twice a year, in June and September,  I  assess students’ speaking abilities acting  as both an interlocutor asking questions and interacting with students, or an assessor listening to students’ performance.

It was while acting as an assessor that I  decided to write down the most common pronunciation  mistakes students make  with the intention of  going over them ,with my own students, at the very beginning of the course.

I  have created a quiz with, what I hope, will be the last I see of these pronunciation mistakes. I hope you find it useful!

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