Tag Archives: onlinetools

Lesson Plan: Families

6 November 2015Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Listening, Picture Description, Speaking, VocabularyB1, family, flashcards, listening, onlinetools, speaking, video, vocabularyCristina Cabal

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

4 October 2015Common Errors, Create your own stuff, PhoneticsA2, B1, B2, C1, errors, onlinetools, pronunciation, quizCristina Cabal

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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Phonetizer: an online free tool to help you improve pronunciation

30 September 2015Phoneticsonlinetools, phonetics, pronunciation, speakingCristina Cabal

One of the most difficult things about learning a language is its phonetics. Unlike other languages that have pronunciation rules, the English language has very few pronunciation rules and lots of exceptions. Knowing the International Phonetic Alphabet can help you pronounce words correctly.
Phonetizer is a little tool that transcribes English texts into the International Phonetic Alphabet. Phonetizer is very easy to use. It has two panels: in the first one, you write or paste the text and then click “Transcribe” and in the second panel you will get the transcription. In this second panel you can also select a word or a phrase and click “Speak” for the software to read your selected words or phrases.

Wanna have a laugh? Try to guess the answers to these jokes. They are written with phonetic symbols using the International Phonetic Alphabet. (answers below)

1. Nothing. It just waved!

2. Because he had no body to go with.

3. Because it had a virus.

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Conversation Starters: An Interesting Site to Help you with the Speaking Test.

27 May 2015In the Computer Room, Resources, Speakingconversation, onlinetools, oral, speaking, starters, test, topicsCristina Cabal

“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy – I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” Art Williams

Of all the parts in the English exam my students, without a single doubt, fear the speaking test the most.

Oral exams require lots of study and preparation. Don’t dream for a minute of taking this exam without putting some real elbow grease into it. It’s only the very skilled ones who feel at ease while facing a board of two or three teachers asking questions and taking notes.

Very often my students feel frustrated by their inability to react to questions; they mention things such as their mind going blank, panicking, having absolutely nothing to say on the issue, words not coming etc. While it is true that in an oral test you have to think on your feet and some students don’t have this ability, it is also true that, very often, you know or can guess what topics you can expect in the exam ( they are quite a few, yes, I know 🙂 ) so before the test, why don’t you practise how you would answer some questions and see what vocabulary you need to study ?. If you do it, you’ll be absolutely fine!

So, my nothing-to-write-home-about tips

♥ Write a list of all the topics in the exam

♥Think of some questions you might be asked for each topic

♥ Study relevant vocabulary to talk about these topics. If you are talking about Technology, you might want to use the expression” keep in touch” or the word “gadget”

♥ Practise how you would answer these questions

♥ Record yourself

♥ Concentration during the speaking test is essential.

♥ Be positive. “Believe you can, and you’re halfway there”

To help you prepare for this part of the exam, I am going to share with you a nice site to practise your responses to questions you might be asked in the test. The site is called Conversationstarters .com and it generates random questions for different topics. So, click the button and start practising!!

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Feeding your Own Newspaper with the News you Want to Read

9 April 2015Create your own stuff, freeware, ReadingA2, B1, B2, C1, onlinetools, reading, vocabularyCristina Cabal

Isn’t that what everybody would like? Isn’t it a good reason to read every day? In this post I am sharing with you a wonderful tool that is basically a newsreader with wonderful customizable features. The idea is to encourage students to read every day the things they like to read about.

The benefits of reading when learning a language are many and nobody can deny that. When you read you:

– acquire new vocabulary in a natural way

-learn to infer meanings

-learn to punctuate

-write better

-speak better

– learn the grammar in context

We, as teachers, tend to ask our students to read mainly graded books or the texts in their textbook. We certainly feel confident our students won’t be struggling to understand or won’t get demotivated because they cannot easily grasp the meaning of the words.

On the other hand, I firmly believe we need to show our students how to develop strategies to encourage autonomous learning. It is essential if we want our students to keep improving when the course finishes.

Whenever a student asks me, “Are there any compulsory books to read this term?” I never fail to remember the 50 or 60 books I had to read if I wanted to have a chance at passing some certain subjects at university. I used to be keen on reading but having to compulsorily read, I would say “swallow” those books chosen by somebody else turned me, for some years, into someone who would refrain from getting close to a bookshop, let alone a library.

For this reason, I never choose the books my students have to read. We go to the school library together and choose the ones they find most appealing from their level section. I encourage them to read regularly, every day if possible, and not to use the dictionary every single time they don’t know a word, as this would discourage them. Instead, I ask them to try to guess the meaning and only use the dictionary if it blocks comprehension or it appears frequently in the book.

Reading books is Ok, but what about magazines, blogs, newspapers… In this post, I would like to share with you a tool to motivate students to read every day and the key to motivation is READING WHAT THEY LIKE.

The tool I use is called FEEDLY . It ‘s for me the best way to organise and read my favourite sites on the Internet. It’s mainly a newsreader and it’s highly addictive. Everything on the same place with a very nice layout. Imagine Feedly as a newspaper with only the news you are interested in. You feed Feedly with online sites that interest you.In this sense I recommend my students to feed it with a variety of sites including news, fashion, cooking, IT, learning languages …etc and why not, gossip.

Feedly is customizable and the only thing you need to do is Click on Add content, paste the url of the blog or site you want to have in your newspaper. Can I suggest you try adding this blog and this other one 🙂 to get started?