Clear a spot in your lesson plan for this engaging activity because you are going to love it. This is a small writing guessing activity using Present Perfect Simple and Present Perfect Continuous- you can also throw in Past Simple if you are feeling adventurous- with an added touch of technology.
Skills and subskills: writing, vocabulary, speaking and grammar
Strategy: whole class, individual work, whole class
Revise vocabulary related to jobs using the FlipTiles template on Wordwall- see the game below. If you don’t want to create your own, you can always use mine. I’d be honoured.
In the Flip Tiles, you will see vocabulary for professions or jobs they already know like teacher, architect… and some more challenging ones like priest, street vendor or surgeon. That was the idea, to revise old content and introduce new.
And so, we spent some time guessing the words and flipping the tiles.
Bonus. Fun revising activity: after revising all the vocabulary on the tiles, I pointed at one job and instructed students to repeat after me but only if the word matches the tile and remain silent if I was making a mistake. Fun! I told you.
More? Yes! You can do the same with pronunciation. Instruct students to repeat after you only when you have pronounced the word correctly. 😊(most of the times I give myself away when doing this exercise)
Step 2: Writing. Using Grammar.
Individually, students choose a job from the ones displayed.
Ask students to write clues for this job without mentioning the job. Tell them they will then read their sentences aloud one by one and the class will have to guess their job.
They will need to write three sentences:
Using the present perfect continuous
Using the present perfect
Optional: using the past simple
Example.
I have been training all morning ( 3 points)
I have scored two goals today (2 points)
Yesterday, I played a match (1 point)
Step 3: Here comes the fun
Ready to play? Divide the class into 2 teams. Instruct a student from Team A to read his/her first sentence, ie, his/her first clue to the job. If members of the other team guess the job only by listening to the first sentence, they score 3 points; if the second sentence needs to be read, they score 2 points and well, you know what the score is if the student needs to read sentence number 3 or if they can’t guess the job.
I hope you have enjoyed this little game. If you use it, let me know how it goes.
Is there a limit to how long you can spend teaching and talking about a topic? I wonder, how many subtopics are there to talk about? It’s been one month since the course began and I am still doing lesson One. OMG! At this pace, I am never gonna reach the end of the textbook.
Here is a little something I did with my C1 students. Unit 1 was about cities, but how do we talk about cities and not about Housing? My thoughts exactly, we cannot.
Topic: Housing
Level: C1
Activities: Speaking, Listening, Mediation, Vocabulary. Board Game
PDF ( available at the end of the post) 🙂
Optional lead-in: Speaking
Students get into pairs and talk about these 2 questions.
It is said an average person lives in 11 homes in their lifetime. What is your number?
If money was not a problem, where would you live and what kind of house would you have?
Revising Vocabulary
It is always a good idea to give students some time to come up with vocabulary they already know. You can do it in different ways.
The traditional way: give students a couple of minutes to come with as many words or expressions they can think of related to housing. This can be done in pairs with one person writing down the answers. Get group feedback and write the most interesting words/chunks on the board.
Using technology to create a word cloud on the board: you can use Answergarden, Mentimeter or Wooclap for this. (hover over the name of the tool and it will take you to the tool)
Fun extension: ask pairs to write a sentence using as many words as possible from the board. Score pairs a point per word and award a bonus point for the longest.
Introducing Vocabulary
affordable home
low-income housing
budget
low -income households
mortgage
tenants
landlords
overburdened with housing costs
homeowners
social housing
to make a down payment
disposable income
average price
to evict /eviction
homelessness
rising home prices
overcrowding and under occupations
real state bubble
subsidized
housing issues
cohousing
utility bills
to downsize
squatting/squatters
to rehabilitate /rehab, rehabilitation
Listening and Speaking. Video: Affordable Housing
Time to listen
Before watching the video, ask students to predict the answers to these questions. This will hopefully lead to some discussion where students will be encouraged to use some of the vocabulary above.
Play the video and ask students to check their predictions. Comment on the answers. Were their predictions accurate?
Making housing more accessible would help reduce…
What share of a household budget do you think is spent on average on housing?
Why has the price of housing risen so dramatically in the last decade?
What share of a household budget is spent on housing in low-income households?
In many countries, a large share of young people is still living with their parents. Predict: is your country one of these countries? Justify your answer
Reading and speaking
Divide students into pairs for this activity
STUDENT A: cohousing
Cohousing, which is a form of intentional community, originated in Denmark in the 1960s Intended to recreate an “old-fashioned sense of neighbourhood” through resident participation in the design and operation of their communities, this type of community model allows families and individuals to occupy private homes while at the same time contributing both time and money to common facilities that are owned and managed by the larger community.3 Community members pay monthly or yearly membership dues and often help with tasks such as cleaning and repairing shared resources. While residents contribute to the financial responsibilities of acquiring and maintaining common facilities and resources, each member maintains an independent economy and personal income.
Summarize what you have just read and give your opinion
STUDENT B: Squatting
Squatting has a long history in Spain, often fuelled by high rates of homelessness. But there is now a darker phenomenon too – squatters who demand a “ransom” before they will leave a property. And this has led to the rise of private eviction companies, some of which use threats to achieve their goal.
Summarize what you have just read and give your opinion
Speaking: Conversations questions+ Board game
Driven by my obsession to make students use new vocabulary, I am constantly thinking and trying different ways to “force” new vocabulary into my students’ speeches. In this case, I have created a board game here using the vocabulary above. A dice, some counters and some conversation questions and they are ready to go. Students throw the dice and try to use the word/chunk in the square they have landed on. They can also try to use the word/chunk in the previous and following square. If they do so, they can move forward one square.
Is giving homeless people homes more effective and sensible than making them stay in shelters or on the street?
How much is Airbnb affecting the housing market in cities where rent is on the rise?
What can be done about rising homelessness in big cities?
Does it make sense to encourage homeownership through tax policies?
Should housing policy be more balanced, supporting rental housing and homeownership on a more equal footing?
Source https://www.nytimes.com/
Exam-oriented task using vocabulary
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In this case, I gave them this task and asked them to discuss the prompts in pairs. Needless to say, encouraging them to use the new vocabulary,
Engaging, challenging and highly effective activity to teach students how to do a Listening Cloze Exercise! This is a must-do activity to help students learn the technique for a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.
If I have to name the activity most of my older students find highly frustrating, it is probably doing a listening comprehension activity and not being able to understand anything. At least, that’s what they tell me. I suspect they are stretching it a tiny bit and they have managed to get the gist of what is being said but, already in a black mood when the audio finishes, they just feel they will never get better. The truth is that getting the gist is not enough when you are unable to answer the questions posed, especially when tested in an exam. That, we both know.
Though I always tell them that they need to work on this and promise that if they make a habit out of listening every single day, they will eventually get it and blah, blah, blah…, the truth is that we, as teachers, also need to find the time to explain how to do this kind of listening exercises. Because although it doesn’t work magic, there is a technique… and it can help them.
It seems to me the beginning of a course is the right time to do it and so, this past week, I set out to explain this technique.
But, you know me. With a game. Playing.
Step 1- Choose a Cloze Listening Exercise.
Step 2: Form Groups
Give all students the exercise on paper and ask them to form groups of 3ish people.
Step 3. Explain the Task
Explain that prediction in this kind of listening exercises is key. Stress the importance of trying to predict two things:
The grammatical category of the word(s) that will fit in the gap: is it a noun, a verb…etc?
The challenging part: ask students in their groups to try to guess the word (s) that they think will fill the gap. Ask students to name a secretary in the group that will be in charge of writing down their guesses.
For example in Number 1, one group might write “their teachers” but another group might decide “parents” is the best option.
Give students some individual time to read the text and start thinking about the options. Then ask them to join their groups and decide on one option for each gap.
Step 4. The Whiteboard
Divide the whiteboard in as many columns as groups- see the picture- and ask the secretaries of each group to come up to the whiteboard and write their options. Comment on any coincidences to build suspense- in the picture, have a look at question Nº 2, they all wrote “culture”-. Remember you are teaching them the technique, but it is also a game.
Step 5: the Listening
Play the audio (2 or 3 times). At this point, ask students to focus on their exercises and forget about their guesses.
Step 6: The Winners
Correct the listening exercise. Write the correct answers on the board and give 1 point for every coincidence. You know who the winner is, don’t you?
Note: In one class, one group got as many as 4 correct answers without even listening to the audio. Amazing, isn’t it?
Do you want to try? Follow all the steps and then listen to the audio. Check. How many wild guesses did you get right? Surely, you can’t expect to wild guess the exact number for gaps 3,5 and 6 but you know that it is a number and that, is saying a lot. Answers here.
It’s a gorgeous spring day here, in Asturias. My classes end tomorrow, and before I find it impossible to resist the siren call of a full shift to summer mode, I wanted to tell you about one last fun, fast-paced pandemic-era game I have adapted from one game I heard on the radio.
Does it happen to you? Every time I see a new game in a TV show or listen to a game on the radio, I am like a dog on alert, ears pricked, bodyweight rolled forward and tail lifted, eager to see if it’s possible to adapt and use it to teach English. Yes. That’s how my mind is wired!
So, I came up with this game while listening to the Spanish radio station, KISS FM. The game the presenters (Xabi and María) were playing with their listeners was called “El Milnuto”, but since I have adapted it, I will officially rename it “The Golden Minute”. I know, not so good!
Why this game?
First of all, because it can be used as a warm-up for the first 5-10 minutes of the lesson and you know, how important these 5 minutes are.
Secondly, because you can never go wrong with a game. Learning is a serious business, but this doesn’t mean they cannot have fun while doing it.
Thirdly, because it helps them revise and reinforce content.
Ready? Here we go:
Preparation: prepare a set of 10 questions to revise vocabulary or grammar. They need to be short and to the point. If you add a funny question in between some more academic ones, that would be a blast.
Materials: a stopwatch to monitor 1 minute.
Procedure:
Tell students you are going to ask them 10 questions in 60 seconds ( to be honest, I give them a minute and a half, but I don’t tell them)
Ask them to write down numbers 1 to 10 (see picture below) in their notebooks. This is an important step for 2 reasons:
They won’t waste time writing down the numbers.
You will use up the whole minute and this means you will have time to repeat some of the questions but always beginning with question number one and then number 2… etc. Writing down the numbers will facilitate identifying the ones they haven’t answered.
When the time is up, ask students who have managed to answer all the questions to raise their hands and ask the students sitting next to them to check their answers.
The prize? a big round of applause or perhaps a free homework pass.
TIP: There should be a variety of questions: difficult, easy, translation of one or two words, a surprise funny question not content-related… etc
So, this is the game… creating the right atmosphere to play the game is kind of up to you.
Example of questions:
Preposition that collocates with “depend”
What’s the past of “forecast”?
Phrasal verb beginning with “look” meaning ” to admire someone”
Write the word pronounced /prəˈsiː.dʒər/
Finish this proverb ” An apple a day keeps the doctor..”
Elisabeth II’s grandson: Harry or Larry?
How do you say in English? sotenible
Which is correct: people is or people are?
Which is correct: despite of or despite?
Phrasal verb beginning with “look” meaning ” to despise”
Are you teaching vocabulary? Silly question. Who isn’t?
On the flip side, perhaps the chunk “teaching vocabulary” might sound a bit weird to you; and yes, controversial opinion alert… can vocabulary be taught? I don’t know. I think you can teach form, pronunciation and meaning but arguably, this is not teaching vocabulary; this is more like presenting vocabulary. Vocabulary needs to be used to be learned and that’s my ambitious aim in every single lesson.
And yes… I feel you dear fellow teacher, whose life is as crazy as mine right now, who has a hard time finding the time to prepare the lesson, who knows his students are beginning to feel tired after so many months struggling to understand their classmates when talking through their facemasks and who stares at the book thinking… what can I do today that will bring a spark to my lessons and engage my students?
I see you. I feel you.
So since I see you and understand you because I am just like you in these feelings, today I am sharing with you two ideas to activate vocabulary. I hope it helps you and makes tomorrow’s lesson planning easier.
Vocabulary. First things first: the vocabulary we are going to work with. Get the PDF here
Activity one: Choose a quote
In this activity, which has two parts, students are presented with 4 quotes and asked to choose one.
Quotes:
“Health is the greatest possession” Lao Tzu
“A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite” Leo Tolstoy.
“Your body hears everything your mind says” Naomi Judd
” Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory” Albert Schweitzer.
Part 1: students in pairs
Put students in pairs and ask them to make sure they do not talk about the same quote.
Give students 4 minutes to prepare a 2-minute speech sharing what the quote means and whether or not they agree with it. In their speeches, they should include at least 10 of the words in the vocabulary list.
Students get into their pairs and listen to each other. While Student B listens to Student A, he needs to mentally keep track of the number of expressions/ collocations used.
Part 2: whole class
Divide the class into two teams. Team A chooses a representative to give his speech to the rest of the class. While Student A is talking, members of Team B listen and write down the words from the list Student A has used. Then, it’s Team B’s turn to choose a representative to try to beat Team A.
Activity Two: Chain Talking
In this activity, we are going to use a random wheel, which is fed with the target vocabulary. My absolute favourite is random wheel is wheeldecide.com.
Pair students up. Explain you are going to pose some questions related to health and each student in the pair, and in turns, will have 45 seconds to talk about the question. For each question, students will have two opportunities to speak. This means student A talks for about 45 seconds, then Student B for 45 seconds, then back to Student A and then, Student B again.
Tell them you are going to use a stopwatch and every 45 seconds, you will ring a bell.
Display the wheel using the OHP and tell students that, in their conversations, they will have to use the word on display in the wheel. Every time a student talks, a new word will be displayed.
On the board, write controversial statements or questions and let’s the show begin!
” Modern lifestyles can seriously endanger our health”
Countries should make vaccination compulsory
Do you think the numbers of vegetarians and vegans will continue to grow? If so, what explains their continued popularity?
How do you feel about surgery? Would you consider having surgery that isn’t completely necessary, like plastic surgery?
Lifespans are getting longer. How long do you think the Millennials Generation (1980-1994) will live on average?
