Food for Thought at TESOL Spain 2013
Posted: March 10, 2013 Filed under: Talk | Tags: advertisement, cooking, food, images, personalisation, speaking, vocabulary 4 Comments »Thank you to the TESOL Spain team for organizing a great conference. As usual, I wish I could have split myself into two or more parts to get to all the talks I wanted to….
Here’s the handout for my talk. Thanks to everyone who came – I hope you enjoy using the activities.
Dumb Ways to Die
Posted: January 8, 2013 Filed under: Advert, Animation, lesson plan | Tags: advertisement, listening, vocabulary, YouTube 6 Comments »Happy New Year from allatc! In December just gone, three separate people sent this video and issued a challenge to do something with it – never something we were going to be able to resist! It’s very funny, full of wonderful vocabulary and has allowed us to make use of the fabulous eltpics website. It’s also our first blog post to use content from Australia – something long overdue. And it has a dance routine…
Click here for the Teacher’s Notes.
Image made using photos taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @sandymillin, @cerirhiannon, @fionamau, @annapires, @sandymillin, @sandymillin, @mkofab, @dfogarty, @dfogarty, @teacherphili, @sandymillin, @thornburyscott, @sandymillin, @sonrisadelcampo, @yitzha_sarwono, @sandymillin, @sandymillin, @cgoodey, @theteacherjames, @ij64 used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
The Snowmen
Posted: December 10, 2012 Filed under: Advert, Animation, lesson plan | Tags: advertisement, Christmas, jigsaw, John Lewis, observation, speaking, vocabulary 2 Comments »
Image made using photos taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics by @nutrich, @cgoodey, @thornburyscott, @steve_muir, @evaguti and @leoselivan used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/“
This time last year John Lewis released a sentimental advert featuring a boy who can’t wait to give his parents the perfect Christmas present, and we based a lesson plan on it. This year’s version is in a similar vein. Featuring a love-struck snowman, the ad contrasts nicely with the more irreverent take on the traditional Christmas commercial from the makers of the infamous Scottish soft drink, Irn Bru, which we’ve also included in this activity.
Click here to find out what we did with it.
Flash Anzan
Posted: November 29, 2012 Filed under: lesson plan | Tags: abacus, Flash Anzan, pronunciation, reading, speaking, vocabulary 8 Comments »One of my students prepared an activity for class last year where we made our own mini-abacus and learned how it’s used to make calculations in Asia, something that was far more interesting than it sounds! His son was learning the method – called “Aloha” here in Spain – but known as Soroban in Japan. So when the Guardian ran an article on Anzan (and you’ll have to read to find out!), I had to take advantage. The video of a Flash Anzan competition will blow your mind……
TESOL France 2012
Posted: November 18, 2012 Filed under: Talk | Tags: frozen planet, hello, Sleeping Beauty, sloths, wedding Leave a comment »A big thank you to Beth Cagnol and all the TESOL France team for organizing a brilliant event.
Thanks to everyone whose talks I went to, and to everyone I hung out with in talks, between talks and after talks. I’ve come back inspired and full of ideas and exhausted.
Thanks to everyone who came to my talk – here’s the handout . I hope you enjoy using the activities.
Friends for Life
Posted: July 13, 2012 Filed under: Advert, lesson plan | Tags: advertisement, friendship, Harvey and Rabbit, images, observation, vocabulary, YouTube 2 Comments »This TV ad, called Harvey and Rabbit, made me laugh and on that basis alone, I had to come up with an activity for it! The idea of the ad is the unexpected nature of the scenes, which both grab your attention and make you eager to see the next one. I’ve made the activity into a group competition combining memory and accuracy of expression…..
Friends for Life Teacher’s Notes
And that’s all from us for the time being. Tom’s working on a teacher training course at a Dublin University in July and August and Steve’s going to Hong Kong to work on summer school at the British Council. We’re both back to real life in mid-September, so look out for a new blog post shortly afterwards. In the meantime, have a great summer!
