Verb seminar

Whew!! Glad that's over.  It actually went ok.  There were mostly students there maybe about 40, and about 5 teachers.  When I realized it was a lot more students than teachers I decided to turn it more into a lesson rather than a lecture.  There was hardly any response from them, but answers I did get just reinforced that they have major problems with the verbs.  Although they have good comprehension.   I told them about you Fred, and Ryan Research, and then about my research and told them my methods were telling stories and playing with blocks.  :)  Don't know how impressed they were.  One student asked me questions afterwards.  She is doing a thesis on different teaching methods.  So she is taking special ideas from each different method.  I told her she was more than welcome to sit in on my classes any time she wishes.  The other students who stayed behind just asked questions about if I liked Ukraine, and how I felt here with the language.  I was so nervous but I am glad it all went well.  Here's the PPP about it.  I was hoping they would say "wow" when they saw the charts, but they weren't impressed.   verb seminar

Looking for a job

Did two classes yesterday on job descriptions and looking for a job.  Then did a TPRS on finding a job.  The students were excellent.  They were third year students.  The first time I've had them, and they were very responsive.  Totally enjoyed the story part.  They did a good job using the business vocabulary we were covering too.  When I asked them to write their stories, they had very interesting stories, but they made a lot of errors with their verbs.  So I am thinking I am going to have to work specifically on verbs too.  Here are the pictures of the story.  It really is an excellent way to get students to talk.  The name of the story is Bill is looking for a job.  The students often gave him a different name in their stories.. one was James Bond, another was Chuck Norris.  They have fun.  I just hope they are learning something.  :)

Headhunters

All the pieces

Ok.  So I'm supposed to be teaching Business English. So I have a class where a few students walk out on me... so now I want to take vengeance!!!  I'm gonna teach them 'headhunters'.  Actually my idea for our next class is CVs.  I know these students already know how to do a CV.  So we'll cover what goes into a CV with some practice worksheets, and we'll do and exercise where they have to construct a cv from clues given,  then we'll play head hunters.  It's a board game fashioned after clue.  So we have on the board 8 different universities, there are cards for each university, there are transfers to different universities if they wish to transfer, there are 6 applicants for a job, each card showing the applicant and something about them, and there are 6 jobs. A tally sheet too, to tick off clues to identify who is or isn't in the envelope.( That's the paper in the background with the nice orange envelope... which, by the way, Trude says she made better than I did!! HA!)   One card each... university, applicant, and job is put into an envelope and they must make guesses while moving around the board who is in the card, which university they attended and what job they were successful in getting.

The board game with all the universities

 Here's a picture of the game.  Trude and I spent a lot of time this week working on it.  It can be modified to stress articles or prepositions too, or simply modified to "stress".. whatever your condition and desire is at present!! :)   If anyone is interested in the game I can put it into dropbox.  :)








 

The universities attended

game pieces

The applicants

  

The famous sought after  jobs.

Here's our new Halloween lesson for tomorrow:

First we'll brainstorm to find out how much they know about it, and to refresh their memory. Then we'll watch this video, which introduces some idioms about FEAR.
Next we'll play the board game that reinforces these and other idioms and vocabulary items re death, devils, etc.

There are "DEATH" cards and "DEVIL" cards, each of which contains an idiom or proverb using the words dead (or a derivative thereof) or devil. A question is asked re its meaning, and the answer is included in the multiple choice. This task is necessary if the player has landed on a ghost or grave (DEATH), or on a vampire or witch (DEVIL).
If they land on a jack o' lantern.they must create sentences using certain words from a vocabulary list.
After the winner has been declared and the game is over, we go on to conversation cards. Each student takes a card and has a few minutes to think of a story to tell (real or imagined) regarding fears, vampires, witches, etc.

The Black Cat

For a Halloween lesson, I'll try this for storytelling...

The story by Edgar Allen Poe can be found here
This video might be easier to work with in class:


Questions for storytelling are here .
Teaching Definite Associations, and an exercise.

I'd like to use this too sometime from BBC.
These questions are also useful.

Fake Pilot

This story about Andrea Sirlo was kind of a hit today.
I told it by showing the pictures and asking the following questions:

Slide 1:

1. Where are we?
2. What country is Turin in?
3. Have you been to Turin?
4. Where in Turin are we now?
5. Have you been to Turin?
6. Why did you go to Turin?
7. How did you get to Turin?
8. Are we at the Turin airport?
9. Who works at airports?

Have you been to an airport?

Slide 2:

1. Where do we want to go?
2. How should we travel to x?
3. Have you ever x'ed before?
4. Shall we fly to Turin?
5. Who flies planes?
6. Do you want to fly a plane?
7. How do you like to travel?
8. Is it better to drive or fly to Munich?
9. Is it safe to fly?

Slide 3:

1. What is this card?
2. When do you need an ID card?
3. Who is this person?
4. Do you trust him?
5. What does he want to do?
6. Do you have an ID card?
7. Why do you need an ID card?

Slide 4:

1. What is this?
2. Where is the airplane?
3. Who is in the airplane?
4. Have you been in an airplane?
5. Where is this plane going?
6. Who is the pilot?
7. Do you want to fly a plane?

Slide 5:

1. What is this a picture of?
2. Where are the windows?
3. Is it a car?
4. ...a truck?
5. ...a plane?
6. Do you want to fly a plane?
7. Who is in the circle?

Slide 6:

I didn't finish writing these up...

You might ask, "what was the learning goal of this lesson...well, I want my students to have a chance to talk, also I want them to use the article correctly, so this is the way we practice.

A Mountain out of a Molehill

The lesson last week about Larry and the Laundry went pretty well.  This story is from a textbook.  It may be too difficult, but I'll give it a try!

My first tpr speaking lesson...

Larry does the Laundry
pdf with pictures

Larry's washing machine is downstairs. He has lots of laundry to wash today, because all his clothes are dirty. His socks are really smelly, and all his socks are dirty, and he wants them to be clean, because Larry likes to wear clean clothes.

Larry takes the dirty laundry downstairs, and puts the dirty clothes into the washer. Before he starts the washer he needs to add laundry detergent. Larry doesn't usually do the laundry, so he has to read the directions, because he doesn't know how much soap to use when he washes his clothes.

The directions on the box of laundry say that ½ a cup of detergent is the correct amount of laundry soap to use.

So what does Larry do? He knows that his socks are really smelly. so he uses 2 cups of detergent! That's right, he put 2 cups of laundry soap into the washer, and turned it on to go through the wash cycle.

After that Larry went upstairs to read the paper.

What happens in the basement? Well, 2 cups of laundry detergent is too much soap to put into a washing machine. The machine gets full of soap suds, the basement gets full of soap suds, so full that the suds come bubbling up the stairs!

Trying the TPR Storytelling Method:

Establish meaning:

laundry, (uncountable) dirty clothes

wash clothes, do the laundry

washing machine, washer

laundry detergent (uncountable), laundry soap (uncountable)

bleach

read the directions

wash cycle

Pattern of circling:

1. Statement
2. Yes/No
3. Negative
4. Restate
5. Wh- question(s)
6. Restate

This is Larry, he wants to do something.

Does he want to go swimming?

Does he want to go to bed?

No, he doesn't want to go to bed, he doesn't want to go swimming.

He wants to wash his clothes.

Why does he want to wash his clothes?

Natalia, do you wash your clothes? (chain drill)

Larry needs to wash his socks.

Oksana, do you wash your socks?

Tetyana, why do wash your socks? (chain drill)

Larry is washing his socks because they are dirty.

Where does he wash his clothes?

...in the bathtub?

...in the river?

...in the washing machine?

Larry washes his clothes in the washer.

Larry put his laundry into the washer, what else does he need to put into the washer?

...bleach?

...salt?

No! What should he put into the washer?

Larry needs some laundry soap.

Viktoria, do you use soap when you wash your clothes? (chain drill)

Larry needs to know how much soap to use.

Should he use 1 cup of soap?

...2 cups?

...½ a cup?

He needs to use ½ a cup of soap.

Irina, do you use ½ a cup of soap when you wash your clothes? (chain drill)

Larry wants to use enough soap.

Is one cup enough?

No, one cup is too much!

Larry is using too much soap!

Nick, is Larry using too much soap? (chain drill)

Larry is putting soap into the washer.

How much soap did he put into the washer?

Olya, how much soap is in the washer? (chain drill)

Oh no! what is Larry doing now?

He wants to use enough soap.

How much soap is enough?

Is one cup enough?

...2 cups?

… ½ a cup?

Yulia is ½ a cup enough soap? (chain drill)

How much soap is in the washer?

Are 2 cups enough?

2 cups is too much!

Nick, are 2 cups of soap too much? (chain drill)

Larry needs to rest. He is going upstairs to read the paper.

Is he going to watch TV?

No, he is going to read the paper.

Oleksandra, do you read the paper? (chain drill)

Where is Larry going?

He is going upstairs.

Natalia, do you go upstairs?

Oh no! Look at all the bubbles!

Larry used too much soap.

Oksana, did Larry use too much soap? (chain drill)