Carlos and the bandits

Today I worked with 1st year students. I introduced 911, and we discussed emergencies.  I showed them a news clip about Carlos, divided them into two groups and handed out a news writeup on the story and had the students list the nouns and determiners.  This took them about 10 minutes.  They wrote the nouns on the board each from their own group, then a member from the opposite group filled in the determiner for each noun.  Then I gave them a fill in the blank sheet, which they did perfectly because they copied from their notes :-/
We went over the sheet in class, then watched a different Carlos newsclip.
Students then wrote 5 questions and in 2 co centric rings asked each other questions.

St Patrick's day

the 4th year students learned about St. Patrick's day today.
I used this 13 page handout as a guide for the lesson.  It seemed to go ok, nothing here about the article however.  Students seemed to enjoy the last part where they interviewed each other.  I had them stand in rotating co centric rings for the interviews.  I was able to listen in and correct some errors in article use.

Sites I found dealing with the English article

stuff on the web on the article
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/articlestext.htm
http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/blathe.htm
http://usefulenglish.ru/grammar/part-3-specific-use-of-the
http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/esl.html http://www.english-test.net/esl/learn/english/grammar/ei008/esl-test.php
English Grammar Tests - Learn English Online at English-Test.net
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/allexercises/Grammar/Grammar-articles.asp
http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/english-grammar-noun-article-agreement/
http://www.english-zone.com/index.php?ID=1
http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/articles.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/grammar/Articles/Exercises/