Parisian Love: vocabulary, speaking and writing task

Aim: students speak and/or write about long distance relationships
Procedure: students prepare to watch a 50 second  video about a long distance relationship  by carrying  out the tasks provided on the enclosed PowerPoint. Later students write a composition on the subject.
Possible special occasion: St. Valentine's
Level: B1 or higher. Also a good task to help students write their first composition in PAST SIMPLE

You can download the materials from this site HERE 

Sample of task on Power Point

Materials:

•  Video: Parisian Love. You can watch it on-line (Youtube) or download it with the rest of the materials
• Teacher's Notes. Key to task
• Power Point with task for the students  

You can download the materials from this site HERE  

THIS IS THE VIDEO 

Tasks by María  Zabala Peña.

Thanks to John Lavery,  speaker at the September 2013 British Council workshops 
for providing me with this video

People's names game

Aim: students have fun learning new words
Level: pre-intermediate or higher
Procedure/ Summary: students or/and teacher translates names of class members or well-known local people into English.  Other students guess the hidden identity.

See next  an example for students in  Catalonia, Spain. You need to adapt the examples to your country.
These examples have been provided by John Lavery, 2013 British Council Workshop.

Part A: teacher "translates" into English the names people who are famous in Spain . Students guess who these people are

Example for Catalan students:


In pairs look at these two word texts. How are these people better known?

1. Joey Moneybox
2. Sawmountain Knight
3. Anthony Enjoy
4. Saviour Givehim
5. Andrew Goodfountain
6. Agnes Taylor
7. Anne Bottle
8. Arthur More
9. Justino Castor

Solutions: Josep Guardiola (guardiola in Catalan is a piggy bank), Montserrat Caballé (opera singer), Antonio Gaudí (Architect) , Salvador Dalí (Artist/painter) , Andreu Buenafuente (Tv presenter/Showman), Inés Sastre (model), Ana Botella (Politician), Arthur Mas (Politician), Justin Beever :-)

Part B: students in pairs or groups  "translate" into English  either the names of other famous people from their area or the names of  their classmates, or both.   The students write the names on the board. Later the whole class or groups guess who the people are. 

Thanks to  John Lavery,  speaker at the  September 2013 British Council Workshop for providing me with this idea.

Autonomous Learning: video tasks for teenagers and adults by the British Council

Aim: this British Council site contains videos with pre-watching and post watching tasks for teenagers but most of the topics should appeal to adults too.

 Click HERE to access the British Council videos for teens page.

Level: the level of the tasks are indicated under each video. Most I have seen are B1 or B2 but check for other levels.

This site belongs to the British Council

Topics: there is a very wide range of topics, from food, tourism and street art to homes of the future and European integration. See below for somme suggestions.

Procedure: Videos come with:

• on line self corrective pre-watching and post watching tasks.
• a printable version of the same  tasks that the teacher may bring to class. The t

These tasks could be carried out:

• by the students on their own.
• in class by projecting the on-line tasks on the White Board.
• in class, with the help of the teacher by distributing a photocopiable version of the tasks.

Suggestions:
B1 - Multicultural Britain: HERE
B1- Food in Britan: HERE


Click HERE to access the British Council videos for teens page