Tag Archives: methodology

Revising, Teaching and Consolidating Different Crimes, Cristina’s Style

General, , , , , , , , , , ,

I have some awesome activities to share with you today! From traditional pen-and-paper tasks to the most advanced AI possibilities and more… I hope these fun ideas inspire you to create something exciting of your own. And if nothing else, I hope they make you smile when you see me dressed up as a police officer. 😄

When you’re teaching a C1 class and introducing a big topic like Crime and Punishment, jumping straight into phrases like “contest a verdict” or “beyond reasonable doubt” can be overwhelming. It’s just too much too soon—and nobody wants cognitive overload!

So instead, we took a step back. We began with the basics: different types of crimes. Just the vocabulary. A total of 25. Now, C1 students already know quite a few, so this was more of a review… with a little something extra. Like I always say, “just un poco más.” Once the crime words are clear—burglary, fraud, arson, and the rest—then it’s much easier to explore the more complex collocations and legal language. One step at a time, building confidence as we go.

Let’s hop into it!

FIRST CLASS: REVISING AND INTRODUCING VOCABULARY

Step 1: Preparation: A paper, a Bag and 10 crimes

Here’s a fun little activity we did using just some paper and a bag. I cut 10 small pieces of paper and wrote a different crime on each one. Then, I popped them all into a bag. I split the class into two teams so that each team would end up with five crimes total.

Let’s say Team A goes first. I pull a paper from the bag and read the crime aloud. Now, here’s the twist—any student on Team A who thinks they know the meaning of the crime in Spanish must stand up. The number of students standing becomes the number of potential points they could win—or lose!

How do they win or lose those points? A student from Team B chooses one of the standing students and challenges them to give the correct meaning in Spanish. If the answer is right, Team A gets all the points (equal to the number of students who stood up). If the answer is wrong, they lose those points instead.

Then it’s Team B’s turn.

The crimes in the bag were: burglary, harassment, shoplifiting, squatting, smuggling, hijacking, mugging, blackmail, bribery, forgery

Step 2. The Song "City of Crime": A Fill-in-the-gçGaps Traditional Exercise with a Personalised Twist
Time for more crimes —but hang on a sec!  Because there’s a world of difference between giving students  a boring list of offences … and, turning it into a full-blown musical experience. A song (yes, made with AI), sung by none other than me—in full police officer gear. Don’t I look very pretty?
Print the activity here
Now

City of Crime de cristina.cabal

SECOND CLASS: CONSOLIDATING VOCABULARY

Step 3.  An Interactive Personalised  Taboo Game

Yes, they’ve learned the crimes and offences—but if we want that vocab to stick, we have to  help them use it! So, it’s game time: an  AI-powered Taboo, totally personalized and right on trend with the whole vibe coding movement.In just minutes, I created an interactive crime-themed Taboo Game that’s fun, fast, and super effective.

Do I know how to code? Nope.
Do I need to? Not with AI!

Game

Step 4: Speaking

Now it’s time to put this vocabulary into action!  Students have learned the words and now it’s their chance to talk and share opinions.

Speaking: Crimes de cristina.cabal

 

THIRD CLASS:  SPACED PRACTICE: Poetry and Song (yes, again)

Let’s face it—our brains aren’t always great at holding onto new vocabulary after just one try. That’s where spaced repetition comes in! By reviewing content at regular intervals, we help our memory lock it in for the long term.

This time, we’re making it a little more creative (and a lot more fun) by revisiting this vocabulary through poetry and a song. Yes, but a different song.

Step 5: Poetry. Flipcards

No, I am not a poet, but it seems ChatGPT is. And hey, if when asked to create a song, he gives me lines that rhyme, who am I to say no to a good verse?  So, students read the lines with the correct entonation and try to guess the crime.

There are seven crimes. You might need to register to see all of them. Here

Step 6: Freeze that Crime

And  finally, we revise spelling. How??? With a song and some challenge.

I asked ChatGPT to create a song using some of the trickiest crime-related words to spell ( 8 words), placing each one at the end of a verse.

Here’s how it worked:

  • I told students I’d play the song and pause it 8 times. They numbered their papers from 1 to 8, and each time I stopped the music, they had to write down the last word they heard. The song is only played once.
  • Then, they swapped papers with a partner, and we corrected the answers together on the board. For every correctly spelled word: 1 point. Final scores were written on the paper before giving it back to the original student to check their mistakes.

Song Lyrics here. In red, the words where I stopped the audio,

Freeze that Crime de cristina.cabal

And of course—what’s a challenge without a prize? hahahahThe winner got a big round of applause and a sweet.

A super engaging way to lock in spelling and make it stick!

Some Spanish Slang, How to Say it in English and a Strategy to Make it Fun.

General, , , , , ,

If you love giving quizzes to your students or if you are a student yourself, you’re going to love doing this quiz. Why? Because in this quiz, students are going to learn some expressions that are not in the dictionary. Well, some of them might be. Plus, they are going to take an active role when answering the questions in the quiz. All of the students. Keep on reading!

Why is not giving the quiz enough for me?

It very often happens that when you display a quiz such as this one for the whole class only a bunch of students – normally the ones who volunteer for everything you do in class- actively participate in giving the answers.

Well, this is not enough. Not for me. I need all the class to participate. And I don’t really mind here whether the answers are correct or incorrect. That’s not the point. The point is that they are, at least trying. And trying is learning, And making mistakes is learning.

NOTE: I am well aware that there is not just one way of saying the expressions in the quiz. This is just the way I say them.

(Click on the image, it will take you to the quiz)

Procedure
  • Give each student two pieces of paper; 10×7 cm approx. will be perfect.
  • Ask them to write on one side the letter A and on the other side, the letter B. On the second piece of paper, ask them to write the letter C. Tell them to write the letters big enough to see from a distance.
  • The letters A, B and C correspond with the three possible options in the quiz. For example, if they think the second answer is the correct one, they should choose and show the letter B.
  • Tell students they will be competing in pairs and they should keep score of the points each of them gets. If both students guess the correct answer, no points are awarded; but, if one student beats the other one in a question, that’s when they score a point.

BONUS: A nice idea to keep track of the points they score is to use, for example, chickpeas, pasta or peas. That adds a fun touch to the exercise.

 

  • Display the first question. Give students 10-15 seconds to think. Say “UP” and have students display the correct answer. Students in pairs compare their answers and score points, if necessary.

Follow-up

Sadly, just because they do the quiz once does not mean they are going to learn the content in it. You will need to revise it, and not just once. So, this is what I do:

      1. Once they finish, ask them to write down all the expressions they remember and share them with the class.
      2. Display the quiz again, one question at a time, but do not show them the answers. Students will need to try to remember the correct answer.
      3. Give them the link to the quiz to practise again at home.

That’s all! I hoe you have enjoyed the post!

7 Activities and Ideas to Practise B and V sounds

General, , , , , ,

Let’s not beat about the bush.

Some of us are probably spending lots of time and energy teaching how to pronounce the schwa /ə/ or helping our students’ /ð/ sound just right, and while this is not a bad idea and something we obviously need to do, we might be overlooking a very subtle yet essential pronunciation distinction: the difference between the /b/ and /v/ sound.

If you are Spanish, it might be even more difficult for you as there’s no difference in the pronunciation of b and v.  In Spanish, despite differentiating in writing between “vaca” and “baca”, when it comes to pronouncing them,  the “v” sound is miraculously transformed into a /b/ sound. 

So, it is imperative that we teach our students that the “v” sound exists much like Teruel) and here are some exercises we can do to help our students with this elusive sound.

One. The obvious. Practise the sounds in isolation.

Demonstrate how to pronounce the sounds /b/ and /v/ and ask students to imitate you. I can guarantee they will have no problem pronouncing the bilabial plosive /b/ sound but some fun and a bit of reluctance on their part are bound to happen when they attempt to pronounce the labiodental fricative /v/. 

Now, give them a minimal pair they can easily recognise like “boat/vote” to do some practice and help them while they struggle with the “v” sound.

Two. Guess the words. Lady Gaga and Beyonce's  video "Telephone"

Nope. We are not going to sing.

For this exercise -not necessarily done after  One above-, we are going to use a short clip (4:30-4.55)  from Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s video “Telephone”.

Play the video once without sound. Tell students they will need to guess Beyonce’s words. You might want to stop the video to elicit that Gaga is leaving prison. I can already warn you the first time you play it, students will look at you and tell you: “It’s impossible to guess“. Do not give up. Tell them it is a very short sentence containing “v” and “b” words. Play it a couple more times and listen to what they think Beyonce says. Play it with sound now. The important thing here is that they realize how the “v” sound is pronounced when emphasized.

Write the sentence on the board and play the video once again to pronounce along with Beyonce. If only Gaga was called Vivien, it would be perfect!!!!!!

You’ve been a very bad girl. A very very bad bad girl, Gaga!

Three. The Clever Parrot.

 1. On the board, write some minimal pairs and drill pronunciation.  If possible, listen to all the students individually pronouncing a set of minimal pairs.

 2.  Tell students you are going to point to one of the words on the board and pronounce it. They should only repeat after you only if they think the pronunciation is correct. If they think you are mispronouncing the word, i.e. pronouncing a /b/ when it should be a /v/, they should remain silent. Repeat and reinforce the correct pronunciation of all the words on the board.

Four. On their own now. Minimal Pairs Pyramids.

Lovely exercise from www.myhappyenglish.com/.   The instructions for the activity are on the second page. I have demonstrated the activity twice before asking them to pair up and do the activity. They liked it so much that most of them did it more than once. Then, ask some students to volunteer to do it for the rest of the class. A great success. They didn’t want to stop.

Five.  Fun. Tongue twisters.

Tongue twisters are a fun and challenging way to encourage confidence.

Tip: the only way, if there is one, to get your tongue twisters straight is to do it very slowly at the beginning and then increase the rhythm. And to be honest, it is very hard to get it right but this is not the point, is it?

Write tongue twister 1 and tongue twister 2 on the board and ask students to practice them in pairs. After a couple of minutes, write tongue twister 3 and ask for volunteers to read it.

Six. Getting Creative.Creating your own tongue twisters.

Ask students to write a list of 10 words containing either “b” or “v”. Encourage them to write nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs… etc.  Give them about 2 minutes for this task.

Now, you can do this activity in two ways: you can write their words on the board- I find this very time-consuming- or you can ask them to use  Wooclap or Mentimeter and effortlessly you will get a very nice word cloud in under 1 minute.

Once their words are displayed, ask students to write their own tongue twisters with some of the words on the word cloud. Give them 2-3 minutes and then ask them to write their sentence on a slip of paper. Collect all the slips and put them on the walls of the class; ask students to stand up and gallery walk in pairs trying to read their partner’s tongue twisters. Lots of fun guaranteed!

Ex: Bob’s beautiful vase has been visited by visitors vaccinated with available vaccines.

Seven. Speaking Activity with the same Word Cloud

Ask students to write a question to ask someone in the class using at least a word containing a “b” sound and a “v” sound. Needless to say, I encouraged them to be creative and, as long as the sentence had sense and could be answered, use as many words as possible containing /b/ or /v/.

The sentence should start with… When did you last…?

Allow 2-3 minutes for this task.

Whole class: ask a student to ask his/her question to another student. The answer should start with the same words used in the question to further practise these two sounds?

Example:

A: Peter, when did you last watch a beautiful music video? Peter: I last watched a beautiful video last month. It was Telephone by Lady Gaga and Beyonce.

I hope you have enjoyed the activities. If you have, please share this article!

 

2 Activities to Activate Health Vocabulary in a C1 Class

General, , , , , , ,

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:

  1. “Health is the greatest possession” Lao Tzu
  2. “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.
  3. “Your body hears everything your mind says” Naomi Judd
  4. ” 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!
  1. ” Modern lifestyles can seriously endanger our health”
  2.  Countries should make vaccination compulsory
  3. Do you think the numbers of vegetarians and vegans will continue to grow? If so, what explains their continued popularity?
  4. How do you feel about surgery? Would you consider having surgery that isn’t completely necessary, like plastic surgery?
  5. Lifespans are getting longer. How long do you think the Millennials Generation (1980-1994) will live on average?

The Shopping List: a Vocabulary Revision Game

General, , , ,

Raise your hand if you find it hard to learn new vocabulary!  Make that two hands if you find it even harder to use it when you speak! For those of you who have raised a hand or two, I have created this exercise. A modern version of a shopping list, only this time we will be buying words. Words are worth points.

Pre-game: This is a retrieval practice kind of game. For those of you not familiar with the strategy, broadly speaking, retrieval practice is a strategy used to pull information out of the student. This strategy has proved to be a more effective way of learning as it challenges the mind to recall this information; but obviously, first, before bringing any information to mind, we need to push it in. Information= vocabulary

So, for this game, we have already taught students some new vocabulary. Time to pull it out to help them remember.

Setting the context

Tell students we are going to revise and use, in a speaking activity, newly-acquired vocabulary in a game called The Shopping List.

Step 1

Open the two editable lists and with the help of the whole class, fill in the two lists with the same number of words/expressions. You don’t have to fill in the 10 spaces, but you need to make sure the two lists are balanced in difficulty ie, if there is a phrasal verb on List A, there should be another on List B.

To see both lists displayed at the same time, I use the Google Extension Tab Resize. I have been using it for ages and it works great.

Step 2

Again, with the help of your students, assign points to the words on the list. I would give 1 point to the easiest and 2 points to the most difficult. To do this, you can easily project the lists on the board and write on the image.

Step 3

Divide the class into pairs A and B, and assign students their corresponding list.

Step 4

Give Student A  a question to discuss. Depending on the level, they will have to talk for about X minutes. While student A answers the question, student B jots down the words from the list he or she has used. When Students A finishes, he adds up the number of points according to the words used. Now, it’s Student B’s turn. Ask a new question and repeat procedure.

Note: Students can use the same list a number of times. In fact, the more they use the words, the more confident they will get. However, in my case, I will use the same list only 3 times and then ask them to swap lists so that new words are used.

Get the template for the lists here. Student A’s list and Student B’s list ( it will create a copy of the document on you Drive)