Let’s start working on the grammar .
Let’s continue with a bit of Oral Practice. Make sure you use the verb Prefer when you answer.
Tag Archives: speaking
Listening: What is a vegetarian ?
I want to start this week with a positive thought. It is something I’ve read recently and that has been going around for some days inside my head.
Happiness is not getting what you want . It’s wanting what you have.
I should say that I am normally a glass-full type of person but sometimes, only sometimes, I need to remind myself.
Well, today I want to share with you this amazing site which has a lot of potential. 
Educaplay is a platform to create embeddable multimedia teaching activities . You can create interactive engaging activities like crosswords, matching exercises, dialogues, presentations, tests, dictations , interactive maps, word search puzzles and many more… but what I really like about this website is the possibility of creating a video quiz as the one I have posted below .
The structure of the activity, is defined by sequences that are composed of a video, or part of it, and a question that will be the end of the sequence.
To define the sequences, we go through three phases:
- Video election: We can use the search engine, or if we know, insert its URL directly.
- Sequence election to be held on the question.
- Definition of the question: Each question can be configured to ask for the answer in any of the following methods;
♥In a written form, by selecting one answer from various options or by selecting several answers from various options.
Another important feature is that it is entirely web based so you don’t need to download anything and … it is free, you only need to register.
And now, have a look at this videoquiz answering the question WHAT IS A VEGETARIAN?
Four Icebreakers to Get to Know your Students
that require no preparation 😉
♣The one I like best is Personal Star ,for many reasons but mainly because it requires no preparation and students always enjoy a bit of gossip about their new teacher.
I draw a star on the board and inside it 6 answers to questions about me. (My answers are black , London, December 9, tennis, Terry, English , and meat.)
Tell students that the star contains information about you. Ask them to try to guess the information behind the words by asking questions.If they don’t get the idea give an example. Tell them “My favourite colour is black. What question do you need to ask to find out this information?” Elicit from them, “What’s your favourite colour?” and cross out the word ‘black’ from the star.
Then , put the students in pairs. Ask them to draw their own personal star and put 6 pieces of information about themselves inside. In pairs they can ask each other questions to find out about their partner. When they have all finished, ask them as a group to tell the others what they have found out about their partner.
♥Interviewing your partner: Tell students they are going to interview four or five people they don’t know in the class. Ask them to write three or four questions to ask these people. Once it is done, students get up and walk around the classroom
♥Find someone who. .. (bingo)
This is a good icebreaker to practise questions and to get students moving.
Ask students to draw a grid (4 squares across and 4 down) . Now, ask them to fill in the squares with prompts such as : speaks French, likes mice, plays golf…e
tc.
Make sure students know how to play bingo- this is quite important , as you can guess. Students get up and walk around asking questions to everybody in the class but they have to have a different name for each grid. So if a student asks a question to a student and this student says “yes” , he should write the name of that student in the grid and move on; if the student says “no” , he can then ask this same student a new question. The first person to get a line down or across shouts “LINE” and the first person to fill in all the boxes with a name shouts BINGO.
I would , most definitely, encourage follow-up questions when checking, with the students providing the questions- of course.
♥Five Questions. Divide the class in five groups and ask each group to write a question they would like to ask you. In turns , one member of each group comes up to the board and writes the question. The students decide if the question is correct in terms of tenses, spelling …etc. Finally , the student asks the question. Before you tell them , give the students the chance to guess your answer.
Hope you find them useful and have tons of fun with your students!
Picture Description: Holidays in the City or on the Beach
I wouldn’t like to finish the course without publising another example of picture description. This time for the Elementary Speaking exam and kindly sent by Noelia Fernández.
Holidays in the city or on the beach
In both photos we can see two very different holiday destinations: a big city and a solitary paradise beach.
The picture on the right was taken at the famous street of New York Times Square. This street is always crowded with tourists, and in this photo I think there are too many. They are carrying photo cameras, video cameras or taking photos with their mobile phones. They are wearing summer clothes because it might beJuly.
In the other photo, there is a beach with clean sand and clear calm water without waves. In the foreground we see five sunbeds and palms.
In my opinion, the perfect vacation is a mixture of both destinations, a few days in the city to visit museums and emblematic buildings, to see a musical or a theater, to do some sightseeing and to make all the activities that you can, and then, other days at a resort to relax and enjoy the sun, the beach, sleep and enjoy the food.
If you’re looking forward to going to New York ,you need to save money because it is the most expensive city in which I have been, but it seems as if you are in a movie with all the famous places and you think ” I know this and that”.
Picture Description: Fashion
Another example of picture description for the Intermediate speaking exams. Thanks to Eloy Menéndez for kindly sending it.
These pictures are related to fashion and clothes.
To begin with, the photo on the left shows a group of young people wearing eccentric clothes, with a very particular style: most in black, large boots, fishnet stockings. Many people would say they look scruffy. Probably, they are in a music festival or in a concert and they seem as if they are having fun. In the other photo, we can see a catwalk, in which high-heeled models are wearing very expensive garments, probably from famous designers. Maybe, such events are more targeted towards shopaholics, who are always trying to be in the limelight and constantly renew the way they dress.
From some years up to now, clothes have become a distinguishing factor.
There are multiple urban tribes, some of them wearing outrageous clothes, others with colourful and bright garments, but each one with its own particularity, and they don’t care what others may think about them. They dress in the way they want. I am more keen on how the “skins” dress: shaved hair, tight jeans, suspenders, military boots. On the contrary, most of the teenagers are very fashionable because they are influenced by the media and constantly being fed with “tips” about what it’s cool to wear or not.
I would say fashion is cyclic and so are trends. Styles from the past are re-invented by designers or they just return in the same way they were many years ago: for that, vintage clothes, patterns, accessories and colours have become trendy nowadays.
One of the most widespread stereotypes is that women pay more attention to their appearance than men do.
I think that used to be so in the past, yet today more men are worried about how they are seen by the opposite sex. So therefore, most fashion ads are directed to both sexes.
I believe everyone has to wear those clothes which match their own styles, their thoughts and moral convictions. If you think the most expensive shirt, the old-fashioned skirt or the most ragged jacket fits you, that’s what matters. Dressing well or badly is something subjective and if you feel comfortable with that garment, go ahead.
Eloy Menendez