Tag Archives: C1

A Website with 346 Writing Prompts to Ignite your Creativity

I found this website quite by chance. It’s one of these sites that you definitely want to bookmark as it comes in very handy when you want to do some writing practice, need to come up with a good story starter or some prompts for a five-minute writing activity and your inspiration has run dry. Don’t worry! It happens in the best families!

The site is called Creative Writing Prompts. Right now, they have 346 prompts and as you can read on their  page  you just have to choose a number, point your cursor to this number, read the prompt and then write your story.

Some suggestions to use this website:

  • A quick writing activity in class. Students decide on a number and write for about 15 minutes. You can do this activity often as it only takes 15 minutes and gives them a lot of practice if done regularly. They also get direct help from the teacher as it’ s a class activity.
  • You can also divide the class into pairs or groups of three, depending on how large your class is and ask each group to assign a writing task to another group in the class by choosing a random prompt. Students write their stories. Set a time limit of 30 or 35 minutes. Put their stories up on the walls of the class  for all the students to read.
  • Brainstorm vocabulary recently studied. Make sure there is a variety of nouns, adjectives, phrasal verbs, idioms…etc to choose from. Write them on the board. Ask  students to choose two numbers and write the two prompts on the board too. Students choose one of these options and write their story including some of the  target vocabulary.

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Reading or listening to a biography?

Nobody can deny the pleasure one gets from reading a good book. I always boast  that I’ll never be bored as long as I have a good book by my side.

Reading certainly helps  students learn and biographies are definetely something quite light to read . Today I want to show a website I came across just by chance when I was looking for information about Whitney Houston (rest in peace). The site is called biography.com and here you can watch exclusive biographies about famous people like Christian Dior, Bob Dylan, Sarah Palin or Michael Jordan to name just a few. What I especially liked about this site is that you can choose between watching a minibio (2-4 minutes) or watching the full bio. What’s your choice? Don’t tell me  I think I can guess .

Now, watch this minibio about Pablo Picasso and tell me what you think about this site.

Newsy- the video news you can easily understand

I just can’t wait to share this amazing site with you. It’s so very much what any teacher teaching advanced levels has ever wished for. It not only presents the world’s news coverage through two or three minute video segments but it also gives you the transcript. Wow! Amazing …! no more playing and replaying to get the transcript for the piece of news you want to bring to your classes and definitely,a chance also to improve pronunciation by reading the news at the same time as the presenter.

http://www.newsy.com/

Now, watch this video about Lady Gaga  getting 13 awards at the VMAs. The video you can see here is embedded so you won’t be able to see the transcript. To see it, click here http://www.newsy.com/videos/lady-gaga-dominates-vmas/. Ready? Enjoy!!!

The Weather: The British National Passion

Isn’t it true that one of the first things that comes into your mind when you hear the word “England “is bad weather?

Contrary to the popular belief IT does NOT RAIN everyday but the thing is that talking about the weather is a national obsession and pastime. In England this is an ever-interesting, even thrilling topic, and you must be good at discussing the weather . It’s also important to learn this rule:”Never ever contradict anybody when discussing the weather”. Should it hail and snow, should hurricanes uproot the trees from the sides of the road, and should someone remark to you: “Nice day, isn’t it?” – answer without hesitation: “Isn’t it lovely?” (adapted from How to be an Alien)

It’s therefore important that you know how to respond to comments about weather as it often seems to be the device to start a conversation. Now that you have been warned, don’t miss the opportunity to do this lesson plan I have prepared for my Advanced students on The Weather. Click here to see the whole Lesson Plan

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