This lesson starts off with a brilliantly edited video mash-up; Dutch filmmaker Matthijs Vlot took Lionel Richie’s 1984 hit Hello and mashed it up with short clips from a number of Hollywood films so that the words in the clips synch perfectly with the song lyrics.
Students have to count, chat, listen and write in class before going home to watch the original video of the song, which was voted worst music video of all time in a survey by music channel The Box. In the next class, students say what they thought of the video and then watch the Starburst commercial (just because it’s funny).
Joe Cocker’s version of “With a little help from my friends” is widely considered by music critics to be the greatest-ever cover version. For our first post of 2012, we ‘ve gone for a radical revision of “Eye in the Sky” by Noa, she of the hauntingly beautiful voice. The original, of course, was by The Alan Parsons Project. Which will your class prefer? There’s also a lovely lead-in to see how much attention you and your students actually pay to the lyrics of your favourite songs…
This lesson is based on a clip from the Gordon Ramsay TV show The F Word.
About a year ago, Jamie Keddie of the excellent Lessonstream pointed me in the direction of this clip when he was writing for the TeachingEnglish website. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to use it in class; it just seemed made for exploiting in the ELT classroom. Have a look and see if you agree.
Since this programme was broadcast, Gordon Ramsay has updated the Beef Wellington recipe for Christmas. For homework, ask students to watch and note down the differences between the original and the Christmas version, and make one of them themselves. And that’s all from us for 2011. Enjoy the holidays and check back in the new year for the next update.
What can we say?! We’re amazed and delighted with our second-place finish in this year’s Edublog Awards in the category of Best Teacher Blog. We’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who voted for us. We really appreciate your interest and your support and hope you’ll continue to visit us in the future.
We’re very excited and honoured that allatc has been nominated for best teacher blog 2011. If you want to vote for us, click this link best-teacher-blog-2011
Select best teacher blog from the category drop down menu, then select allatc from the menu below and press vote.
I came across this and was spellbound by the beautiful music, the wonderful little boy and the unexpected ending. It also fit the bill perfectly for a jigsaw-style video activity I’ve been wanting to try for a while now. It’s taken a good hour-and-a-half with every class we’ve tried it out on but they’ve all said the time flew. And they were desperate to see the ending! Try it out and see what you think, but first, watch it yourself!
What do a cat, an urn and a tall story have in common? They all feature in one of my favourite scenes from Meet the Parents, the highly entertaining, occasionally cringe inducing, sometimes laugh out loud funny story of a man who tries too hard to please his future parents-in-law.
This activity begins with a vocabulary game, leads on to some watching and listening, and finishes off with some pronunciation and prediction. And hopefully it will raise one or two laughs along the way.
As a “mature” EFL teacher, I have fond memories of the classic comedy show “The Two Ronnies” on the BBC. Among their most famous sketches was one which took place in a hardware shop and is known simply as Four Candles. It was based entirely on complicated but very clever puns or double meanings. This week’s post is an updated version of that sketch starring the survivor of the original duo, Ronnie Corbett, but this time set in a fruit shop. It’s a little piece of scriptwriting genius, and I think I can guarantee that all students will get it from the brilliant opening exchange……
I met Sophie Pietrucci, a teacher in Paris at TESOL France at the beginning of November. She had also spotted the classroom potential of My Blackberry Is Not Working and made a worksheet, which you can find here:
