April 11

Old MacDonald had a giraffe?

As I wrote before, I’m doing more songs with my YLs this year and thoroughly enjoying myself as I lead them in a few verses of “If you’re happy and you know it”.  However, the original songs can be somewhat restrictive in the language they expose our students to and I’m always on the look out for ways to incorporate a wider range of vocabulary into the lessons.  Fortunately, a town close to us has a zoo which the majority of students go to at some point on a school trip.  So the lyrics of Old MacDonald have now begun,

In Jerez there is a zoo

E I E I O

And in the zoo there is a…

Before starting the song I ask students to think of a number of animals they can see at the zoo and write them on the board, making the song more personal for them as well.  The trouble is sometimes figuring out on the spot what sound some of the animals make…koala (snoring), seal (clapping), giraffe (munching on tiptoes), lemur…I’m still stuck on that one – any ideas!?

 

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March 24

An Ode to Munchbucket

This is a writing activity which Nina Lauder presented at the recent FECEI conference in Madrid.  Instructions on writing your own ode are below.

 

 

 

Munchbucket,

Fluffy, grey, on the sofa

Munchbucket

Sitting – snuggly, quietly, strokably

On the sofa

Fluffy, grey, cute, mine

Munchbucket

 

 

 

To write an ode…

1. What/Who the ode is for

2. Two adjectives to describe it

3. Where is it?

4. Repeat 1

5. What’s it doing?

6. Three adverbs of how it’s doing the activity

7. Repeat 3

8. Repeat 2

9. Two new adjectives

10. Repeat 1

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October 28

Guess the Question

Here’s a good student-led activity to build into your routines which gets students asking questions.  On a piece of paper, write a question – with my class of ten-year-olds I’m using simple questions such as What’s your favourite sport?  What’s the weather like?  How old are you?  Have you got a pet?

Nominate a student to come to the front and give them the piece of paper.  Other students then have to ask him questions, which he answers, until they guess the question.  Nominate a different student each week, that way everyone gets to practise answering the questions too.

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August 10

Telling stories

I REALLY love character builds as a way to introduce a topic.  Yesterday there was a text on Speed Dating and so to introduce the topic I drew my friend, a stickgirl, on the board.  I elicited from the students that her name was Mary, she was an English girl with long, curly hair and she was a teacher.  I then drew an unhappy face and asked them why she wasn’t happy.

“She hasn’t got any money.”

“The crisis, the crisis!”

“She can’t go on holiday.”

So I drew a stickman next to her and explained that it was her ex-boyfriend.  I then asked the students to tell me about him and it turns out his name is John, he’s Chinese and he’s very rich because he’s an economist.  Anyway, we quickly got rid of him as he had made my friend, Mary, miserable.

 

So we went back to Mary being unhapy and I explained that she wanted to find love and asked where people go in Cádiz to meet and find romance.  They gave me some ideas and, unsurprisingly, Speed Dating wasn’t one of them.  So I then invented a reason as to why she couldn’t go to the places they had suggested to find love:

The beach – Mary, being British, has very pale skin and she burns very easily so doesn’t like going to the beach.

A bar – she’s uncomfortable being in bars as she’s not a big drinker and feels silly sitting there with a glass of water.

The cinema – she doesn’t speak good Spanish and as all the films here are dubbed, she can’t watch them in the cinema.

The park – she hasn’t got a dog and feels a bit silly walking round the park aimlessly.

In the street – she’s a little suspicious of meeting men on the street.

 

Poor Mary!  So then I told them that I had suggested Speed Dating.  Nobody had heard of it, which led on perfectly to the first activity, which was a short text about what Speed Dating is and how it works.  The character build was a fun way to introduce a topic which was new to the students, and it involved them from the start.

Category: Miscellaneous | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 6

2 True, 1 False

When I was writing the post the other day about Getting To Know You activities, I was surprised to see I hadn’t already posted about this activity.  Or at least I could find it anywhere using the handy Search box on the side.  So here goes…

I’ve lived in Spain for ten years.

I can’t drive.

I’ve got two sisters.

With the Elementary group I wrote these three sentences on the board and explained that one of them was false.  They chatted to their partner about which it could be, then I asked them what they thought.  Having put their names on the board next to their choice, I asked them to ask me a question related to the sentence so they could find out which was false.

They then did the same activity in pairs: each person wrote three sentences (2 Truw, 1 False) and their partner had to guess which one was false.  They can ask follow-up questions as well and then feedback to the class about their partner.

This activity also works well when practising specific grammar points: students could write three sentences in the present perfect or three sentences using I wish…

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