Talking in the past: short graffiti video

 Use this scene as an oral prompt or a writing task prompt.   
Materials: short silent video (1 min, 30s)
Level: students need to be able to explain the story in the past. This can be done using simple past or compound tenses, depending on the level of students
Possible special occasion: International day of disabled people

If you want to practise the future, stop video at minute 0:49 and students can predict the end of the story.
This silent short movie tell us an intimate love story between two members of a family

The video has .wmv format.

Click HERE to download or watch the video (full screen)

You have the video in my blog too, below






Idea for the activity: Carme, our school secretary, sent me the video and I prepared the activity.

Hunger awareness day: "Chicken a la carte" video

Level: lower intermediate and upper
Possible special occasion: hunger awareness day
Language items:
Students need to be able to say/write simple sentences in present and future.
Students need to talk about pros and cons of junk food
Students need to know some adjectives to describe feelings
At the end there are suggested oral and written activities to choose depending on the level of students

Activity based on video: Chicken a la Carte by Ferdinand Dimadura ( summary of the short film underneath). Length of video: 6 minutes

Ferdinand Dimadura’s video shows how a poor family lives on the leftovers of normal citizens. The video consists of images and music. The proposed activities (PowerPoint) make students think about their manners, eating habits and good luck.
Materials:

1. Instructions for teachers
2. The PowerPoint presentation that leads students through the different activities
3. Video (if you do not have an internet connection in your class)

Click HERE to download PowerPoint, word document with instructions and video in MP.4 format


DON'T FORGET THIS: you can watch the video:

A) at the YOUTUBE LINK PROVIDED in the POWER POINT

B) by downloading it from my site (see link above). Make sure you have current versions of REAL PLAYER, MEDIA PLAYER or VLC installed in your computer as these are MP4 videos.

C) by using the embedded version underneath (full screen not possible)

1. Preview of power point . This is a preview and therefore, links and transitions with mouse clicks won't work. To use this in class, download Power Point from my site. The link to my site is provided above.

YOU CAN PREVIEW THE ACTIVITY HERE

Link to video: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081/Chicken-a-la-Carte#videoDetail

Watch video on blog ( full screen not available)


Film synopsis: This film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are 10,000 people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition. This short film shows a forgotten portion of the society. The people who live on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left this people.

Genre: Drama | Produced In: 2005

Idea for the activity: Carme, our school secretary, sent me the video and I prepared the activity.

How to download videos from YOU TUBE

How to download videos from youtube: 
In order to download videos from youtbe you will need a small program. 

• 

  This is what Free YOutube Donwloader looks like when you open it

• Go to any trustworthy free downloading site. I recommended softonics. You can access this site by clicking here.
• Use the softonic's search engine to find "Free Youtube Downloader".YOu can also use "Freestudio"
  
• Download the program and install it in your computer 
• Open the "Free Youtube Downloader" (or free studio) and paste the URL of the video you want to download.
• TIP! Make sure you tell the program WHERE to download the video 

If you need instructions on how to use the Free Youtube Downloader program, watch this video

Christmas song: The Things I like from the Sound of Music

Level: any level
Special Occasion: Christmas
Materials:

OPTION 1 : Provided PowerPoint + Provided Teacher Instructions + Internet Connection + Projector

OPTION 2: If internet connection is not available in the classroom, you can download the videos from my site and watch them from your USB pen

This is the site: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD power point + teacher instructions + videos

Make sure you have the suitable software to view the videos (VLC recommended)


Students listen to the "The things I like" , Julie Andrews. The PowewerPoint provides teachers with exercises and visual cues that help students learn the vocabulary

In the end students make a list of things that make them happy

DON'T FORGET THIS: you can watch the videos:

A) at the YOUTUBE LINK PROVIDED in the POWER POINT

B) by downloading them from my site (see link above). Make sure you have current versions of REAL PLAYER, MEDIA PLAYER or VLC installed in your computer as these are MP4 videos.

C) by using the embedded version underneath (full screen not possible)

YOU CAN PREVIEW THE ACTIVITY HERE
1. Preview of power point . This is a preview and therefore, links and transitions with mouse clicks won't work. To use this in class, download Power Point from my site. The link to my site is provided above.

FULL VIDEO FOR FIRST ACTIVITY 1 (MUSIC + LYRICS + IMAGES) :





KARAOKE VIDEO for singing activity (YOUTUBE link also provided in power point)




Thanks to Christine Wilson. She gave me this idea at the 5th British Council ELT conference held in Barcelona in 2009

Speaking practice. What can I do for you?

Mingling Activity: What can I do for you?

Level: low intermediate and upper

Students need to be able to say/write simple sentences about what they can do. They may do so without using the verb “can” (see examples underneath) , if they wish.

When students report their activities they may need to create simple sentences in the past.

Materials: Some pieces of (recycled) paper or some cards
Procedure: Distribute a piece of paper to each student.
A) On one side of the paper the student writes down something s/he can do and that might be of interest to the rest of the class.

E.g.:

I can make free phtocopies
I am a Judo Teacher
I am very good at English
I have a house on the coast. Come and visit me
I have a powerful computer you can borrow

If students prefer, they can invent the services they wish to provide.

B) The teacher collects the pieces of paper and distributes them around the class. Students move around and see the servicies other students provide.

C) The students choose 4 services that interest them and go around looking for the students providing those services.

At lower levels the structure: I am looking for a person who… may have to be pretaught

E.g. I am looking for a person who can teach me English. Are you that person?

D)Teacher should encourage studets at higher levels to talk about the activity and arrange an appointmet /Lower level students can just find the person and jot down his/her name.

E) Some students report to the class: Who they met and what this person did.

Thanks to Carme Porcel, my teacher of French at EOI for providing me with this activity.

Third conditional drill with pictures

Materials:
A) Picture prompts contained in downloadable power point (see link underneath)

B)  Projector to see pictures

Baby in Trouble 

Procedure: 

Download Power point presentation to to your USB pen from link or open the power point on line (need to have internet connection in the classroom)

This power point offers prompts to help students create their third conditional sentences. "Baby in Trouble" is just one of them.
Click HERE to access the power point picture presentation

Depending on your teaching style
a.  you may want to skip the first slide, which provides the  students with the third conditional structure. 
b. you may want to skip all the slides up to the ones with the title "IMAGINE". These first slides provide students with help to use the "if" third conditional structure.

You can preview the PowerPoint here:  remember this is not the PowerPoint. To download the PowerPoint go to the link provided previously.  Any errors in this pre-view have been corrected in PPoint.

Compoud nouns revision

Level: Intermediate and upper
Time: Flexible
Materials: some pieces of paper
Procedure:

1. Give pairs of student a piece of paper. Pairs of students need to write at least 6 compound words. Make sure they leave room between words and that their hand writing is biggish. The aim is to obtain a list of compound words that have been seen in class or that students know.

2. Pick the words and cut them. This way you can shuffle the words as if they were cards

3. Divide the students in teams of 3, 4 or 5 members, depending on how big your class is.
4. Give one member of each group a word and model the activity.

The student needs to elicit the compound nouns by miming each of the constituent words. To begin, a player indicates 'first word' by raising a finger and then acts in such a way as to suggest this word. Those watching call out any words they think of until someone calls out the correct one. The player miming then nods and begins miming the second constituent word. For example, if the word is 'basketball', the player tries to elicit 'basket', and then 'ball'. The player must not, however, mime the word 'basketball' itself by running around as if playing the game.

If no one has guessed the word within a reasonable length of time, ask for the player miming to state it

5. Be ready to give more words to groups once they have guessed the word or quit

6. Depending on the type of students, the teacher may have all the groups acting at the same time or may decide that the groups need to act one by one.

Also the teacher may decide to set a time for each word.

7. The students who guessed more words in each team are the winners.

Source: http://www.teflgames.com/wtw2.html
Adapted by Maria Zabala to avoid photocopies

Vocabulary revision from more than one unit

Purpose: vocabulary revision for more than one unit

To see vocabulary revision games for CURRENT UNIT, please click HERE

Any level but students need to have practised techniques for defining words.

Timing: from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how many times students are willing to repeat the game.

Material: one piece of blank paper per student plus one piece of blank paper per group. To save paper, these pieces of paper can be a sheet cut in 4s

Procedure:
1. Distribute students in groups of 4 or 5. Groups need to have the same amount of students. If this is not possible, make sure that two students understand they are working together as if they were ONE person.
2. Give each student a piece of paper.
3. Each student, individually, writes on the piece of paper words that he/she has learnt that year or in certain units (depending on what the teacher wants the students to revise)
4. Students compare their words and make sure there are no repetitions.
5. Nominate students in each group A, B, C, D (F, if they are 5 students) and check everybody knows who they are (As, raise hands, Bs raise hands, C…)

6. Students A from each group pick up all the pieces of paper in their group and give them to the group next to theirs, clock wise. Students A distribute the pieces of paper that have been given to them to every member of their group. The information is SECRET: students should not show their words to the other members of their group.

7.The teacher distributes one blank piece of paper to every group.

8. Teacher models. Imagine I am A, I start defining any of the words in the list. B, C, D, F (if there is F) need to guess the word. If C guesses, he/she writes the word next to his/her name in the blank sheet that belongs to the group. This piece of paper is a record of all of the words that have been guessed in every group.

E.g. A: this is a fruit. It is yellow
C: Banana!!!
C writes “Banana” on the piece of paper with a C: Banana C (this way we know that C guessed one word)

After one minute the teacher will shout “B start“ and then B has to define as many words as he/she can and A, _, C, D, F need to guess the word. This continues until all the letters/students have had the opportunity to define and guess.

9. If students do not get tired, you can have a second round. As collect all of the papers with vocabulary from their groups and they pass them clockwise to the next group. This way every group has a new set of words. Normally two rounds are enough.

10. Finally GROUPS NEED TO count:
10. a How many words they have guessed
11.b. Who was the person who guessed more words in every group? A? B? C? D? of F?


By Maria Zabala based on Julie McGuiness talk in Barcelona, Macmillan workshop in 2009

Green card/Citizenship

Laguage: Questions in present, past and future
Level: lower intermediate and upper
Materials: A sheet of paper per group of students
Possible special occasion: Saint Valentine
Procedure:
Ask students what a person can do to obtain citizenship. Prompt students to say word “MARRIAGE”.

1. Make groups of 4 or 5 students. Two people are going to be married and the other 2 or 3 are policemen that need to make sure the students got married for love and not for papers.

2. The married couples need to leave the classroom and agree on normal aspects of their everyday life (where/when/how they met, colour of toothbrush, likes and dislikes, pets, birthdays, honeymoon, which side of the bed they sleep in…)

3. The policemen need to think of 10 questions to ask to  the couple

4. The teacher needs to go out and help couples to orientate their answers if the policemen’ questions are very different from what the couples are preparing. Just stick the head out and say (have you thought about your animals or the names of your in-laws)

5. The teacher needs to help the policemen to understand the aim of the game. Some questions need to be different for each of the member of the couple, others can be the same:

e.g. “What is the name of your mother?” should be rephrased for the other member of the couple as “What is the name of your mother-in-law?” whereas “Where do you live?” is valid for both members of the couple.

6. When questions are ready, the first member of the couple comes in and answers the questions. The policemen need to record the answers. Then the second member of the couple comes in and answers the questions. The first member of the couple can stay in and sit behind his/her/wife/husband in such a way that both members of the couples can not see each other

7. If couples get 7 or more answers right they get citizenship


By Maria Zabala inspired by the game Crack the Alibi and the film Green Card

Find me at: http://mariaenglishforesonophotocopies.blogspot.com/2009/09/laguage-questions-in-present-past-and.html

Small talk questions

Level: any level but students need to know how to ask basic questions about other people's job (where do you work?, marital status (Do you have a husband/wife?, everyday activities (Where do you usually eat lunch? ) ...

Material: provided video + provided teachers' pack with questions for students. PHOTOCOPIES FOR STUDENTS ARE NECESSARY

Click HERE to access the video and teachers' pack

ATTENTION!

A)this is NOT an activity without photocopies and therefore is not located in this blog. I have a blog for students in vocational training programmes. This is the blog where you will find the materials.


b) the teachers' pack contains possible answers for exercises. These answers have been designed for students in vocational training. You will have to adapt the answers to a high school setting if your students are not adults. The questions are the same for teenagers and adults.



Click HERE to access the video and teachers' pack

Sarah’s terrible day. Third conditional drill practice

Purpose: practice of:
IF + HAD (N’T) PARTICIPLE, WOULD (N’T) HAVE PARTICIPLE

Materials: a print out of the story (see below)

Teachers read the story:

1. Students write each problem and its corresponding result on the board

EXAMPLE: Her alarm didn't go off – she overslept.

2. Students imagine Sarah had a good morning and use the third conditional:
If her alarm had gone off, she wouldn't have overslept.

Pairs of students make third conditional sentences with the remaining examples.

STORY:
Sarah had to be at the airport for her flight at 9am, but her alarm didn't go off and she overslept. She got dressed very quickly, threw everything into her suitcase and ran out of the house.

When she got to the airport she realised she had forgotten her passport. So she jumped in a taxi and returned home. She grabbed her passport from the coffee table, got in a taxi and went back to the airport.

One mile from the airport the taxi broke down. She tried to flag down another, but they were all taken and so she ran the rest of the way.

When she arrived at the airport, she saw that she had missed her flight. She had to pay 500 dollars for another ticket for the next flight.

While she was waiting, she went to buy a book. She was so preoccupied with her difficult morning that she walked out of the shop without paying and was arrested by the police.

The police detained her for three hours and she missed her flight again. Sarah went home and decided never to fly again!

Source: http://www.eslbase.com/resources/third-conditional.asp
Adapted by Maria Zabala

What's the question?

Level: Any Level
Purpose: review question forms previously studied in class

Option A for smaller classes ( up to 20 students)
Option B for larger classes

REMEMBER: its is important to simulate the game once before the real competition starts.

Option A)

Form two teams (three will also work, but two seems to add just the right amount of competitive tension).

1. Have two players--one from each team--come to the front. Style it like a game show if you like, with the students standing side-by-side. If you have access to bells or buzzers, it's even more fun.

2.Next, read an answer to a question and say, 'What's the question?' The fastest player to respond wins a point for her/his team. New contestants come to the front for a new round.

Option B)
If your class is too big for option A, make groups.
Ensure you have at least 4 teams of between 5 and 6 students.

1. Each group creates a list of possible answers. The teacher (of a student ) gives answers of group 1 to group 2, group 2 to group 3…clockwise

This way every group has a set of answers that was created by another group.

2. Nominate: 1 person in each group as the moderator

The moderator acts as the teacher: he/she reads the answer and the other 5 say/ write the possible questions

3. Set a time. When the teacher sees some groups have finshed, each group passes the set of answers to the next group, clockwise. Nominate a different student as moderator. Repeat as long as students are working

Source : http://iteslj.org/c/games.html
Submitted by: Tim
Adapted by Maria Zabala

Looks: Can you find what is different?

Level: Easy

Ideal for revising and accessory and clothing vocabulary (ring, necklace)
Option A) for small classes. Ask a volunteer to go out of the classroom. While the student is out of the room, the other students change their sweaters, shoes, coats and so on. Bring the student who went out of the classroom back inside. He/she has to guess the differences in other students' appearances (speaking in English, of course.)

Option B) for larger classes. To make this easier to manage, ensure you have teams of 5 or 6 students. Groups have 1 minute to look at everybody in their team. One person in every team leaves and the other remaining students have to make 3 changes.
Let students decide if they change back to their original clothes after each round.

Repeat the exercise until students are tired (about 3 times)

Source: http://iteslj.org/c/games7.html
Submitted by: Raquel Fiol
Adapted by Maria Zabala

Fold-over stories

Level: Any Level.

Students need to know question words
Procedure: Give each student a sheet of blank paper. Write the following words on the board one under the other: WHO?, WHAT ?, HOW ?, WHERE ?, WHEN ?, WHY ?

Explain that everyone will be writing a sentence story.

1. Tell students to write someone's name at the top of their paper, e.g. their own, a classmate's, the teacher's, a famous person that everyone knows.

2. Students fold the paper over once so that no one can see the name, then pass the paper to the person on their right.

3. Students write on the received paper what the subject did (suggest funny or outrageous actions), fold it over and pass it on to the right.

4. Students answer the next question (where?) fold the sheet and pass it to the right.

5. Repeat with the remaining question words.

6. Have the students unfold their stories, and read them silently. Help anyone who cannot read what the others wrote, or doesn't understand.

7. Ask one student at a time to read "their" story aloud and vote for the funniest.

Source: http://iteslj.org/c/games7.html
Submitted by: Vicki Konzen