Beetle Brawl
Posted: May 16, 2016 Filed under: Documentary, lesson plan | Tags: appearance, beetle, listening, ordering, personality, speaking, vocabulary 4 Comments
MAIN ACTIVITIES describing personality and appearance, watching a clip from a nature documentary, ordering a text
SUITABLE FOR teens and adults, pre-advanced (B2.2) and above
Click here for the Teacher’s Notes.
Mr Foley
Posted: June 27, 2013 Filed under: lesson plan, Short Film | Tags: Foley, Jurassic Park, ordering, personalisation, speaking, vocabulary 2 CommentsThis lesson is all about sound. Students see a clip in which a Foley artist explains how she made the sounds of a dinosaur hatching in Jurassic Park, and then they watch an award-winning short film in which a patient wakes up in hospital to find that his life is being soundtracked by two Foley artists and a string quartet. Throughout the lesson, there are lots of opportunities for both sound and non-sound related vocabulary to come up.
Click here for the Teacher’s Notes.
Image made using photos taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @mkofab, @esolcourses, @sandymillin, @aClilToClimb used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
Inside Every Good Dog
Posted: May 7, 2012 Filed under: Advert, lesson plan, Song | Tags: dogs, listening, observation, ordering, personalisation, speaking, vocabulary, YouTube 2 Comments
Horace by Rob Stringer
During first day “getting to know you” activities in my classes, the subject of dogs usually comes up. Like many teachers, I bring in photos related to my life for one reason or another and ask students to guess the connection. One of the photos is of a dog. After establishing that it’s the dog I would have if I were to get a dog, I ask students who has a dog, who likes dogs etc., and more often than not, dog owners and dog lovers make up the majority of the class. And that’s the topic of dogs done and dusted. We move on to the next photo, I make a mental note to get more mileage out of dogs, and never get round to it. Until now.
This lesson is based on an advert for Purina, a pet food company, which may make the dog lovers in your class have a “cute attack” or even go a little bit misty-eyed! The lesson starts by exploiting the the song used in the advert , then the images, and finishes off with a ranking activity and some conversation. All the way through, there are lots of opportunities to use both canine and non-canine related vocabulary.
Click here for the Teacher’s Notes..
Blind Date
Posted: May 12, 2011 Filed under: Animation, lesson plan | Tags: Aardman, Blind Date, food, observation, ordering, speaking, storytelling, vocabulary, YouTube Leave a commentThis activity is based on the beautifully animated Aardman clip Blind Date. Apart from finding or downloading the clip, there’s no preparation required. The activity starts off with a vocabulary game and finishes with storytelling. Between the two, students watch the clip, order the vocabulary and predict the ending. I’ve done this activity with several classes over the last few months and they’ve all really enjoyed it.
Up
Posted: March 2, 2011 Filed under: Film clip, lesson plan | Tags: observation, ordering, speaking, vocabulary 6 CommentsHere’s what the experts had to say: “This movie is remarkable for a brilliant montage sequence at the very beginning…it is a masterclass in narrative exposition…” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian “If it had lived up to its golden first five minutes, Up would have been the film of the decade.” Ian Freer, Empire Magazine Our first lesson is based on the critically-acclaimed silent scene near the beginning of “Up” where we see the story of a married life in less than 5 minutes. It’s brilliantly done, but be warned – it’s also a bit sad! There are three different exercises all based around vocabulary acquisition and students are asked to guess, remember and finally chat about themselves using what they’ve seen. We’ve included a detailed description of how we’ve been working on this last part with students so that they get the most out of the ensuing conversations. We hope you and your students enjoy it.
Here are the Teacher’s notes and the Student Worksheet.
All at C 