To be honest, the tool was suggested to me by one of the teachers (Marga Valdés) attending a talk I gave last year. It was a talk about creating activities for the classroom using free online tools, and when I finished the presentation, this teacher came up to me and said she was surprised I hadn’t mentioned Genial.ly. I confessed to her I didn’t know the tool and promised I would give it a go.
It was almost the end of the course and although I gave it a quick try, my mind was in holiday mode, and I didn’t put my heart into it. Now, after trying the tool, I run the risk of becoming addicted to it!.
Genial.ly works like Thinglink but, in my opinion, it’s a lot better. Genial.ly is a web tool to create engaging interactive visual content. You can make interactive pictures, infographics, presentations, posters and questionnaires or guides. And, for me, the best thing about this tool is that you can choose from a wide variety of free templates to create very professional interactive content or you can upload your own pictures and start from scratch. It also gives you the ability to integrate videos, audio, and any embeddable code among other things.
THREE ACTIVITIES I HAVE CREATED USING GENIAL.LY
Using how long+present perfect in combination with simple past
Aim: To orally practise asking and answering questions using Present Perfect and Simple Past.
Competition: revising irregular Verbs.
Click on “instructions” to see how to play
Indirect questions + questions about money.
A speaking activity revising the grammar for indirect questions and questions about money.
After much discussion Oxford Dictionaries has decided to choose the adjective “post-truth” as its Word of the Year 2016. The adjective means ”relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” and although it has existed for a decade now, this year has seen a spike in its use due, mainly, to the referendum in the United Kingdom and the US elections.
Some common collocations for the adjective are:
post-truth politics
post-truth age
post-truth era
post-truth democracy
post-truth society
The term, closely associated with the noun“post-truth politics” has been chosen ahead of terms such as “Brexiteer” (someone who supports the Brexit) and “alt-right”, (group of people with far right ideologies who reject mainstream conservatism in the United States).
I would gladly explain and elaborate a bit more on this adjective, but it isn’t worth the effort as Oxford Dictionaries has published a beautiful explanatory article giving all the details. You can read it here.
I’m not going to lie. This week has been tough for a multiple of reasons, and believe it or not, one of the things that brought a smile to my face was designing this little quiz with all the new words added to dictionaries this year. To be honest, I didn’t know most of them and learning what they meant and inventing false definitions for the quiz was something I really enjoyed.
So, without further ado, here’s the quiz. I hope you enjoy it!
Writing is a process. For some students it might seem like a daunting task, but if you look at it as a succession of small steps to follow instead of looking at it as the big final product, writing can be fun and easy.
Write down all the ideas you can think of. You can try mind mapping your ideas. It is a good technique to generate ideas and expand on them. You can begin by writing a big bubble in the middle of the page with the topic and then use arrows to draw new bubbles with ideas and again arrows with more specific points or observations about this idea.
At this stage, don’t worry about spelling or grammar mistakes.
Organise your ideas
Decide which ideas to keep.
Group similar ideas together.
Organise your ideas according to the writing task.
Focus on language
Think of words and expressions you will need in your work.
Write a draft
Write quickly. Don’t worry about things such as accuracy or neatness.
Use a pencil so that it is easier to make corrections and erase things.
If you are writing your draft by hand, leave a wide margin for notes and space between the lines for additions and corrections.
If you can’t think of a word in English, write it in your own language. You can look it up in a dictionary later.
If you don’t know the spelling of a word, write it anyway you can. You can look it up in a dictionary later.
Use a checklist to improve your work. See the one my students use here.
Read your draft aloud. Circle the things that need to be improved, reworded or clarified.
Take a break from writing and reread your draft after 30 minutes. Does everything sound right?
Write a final draft
Copy your corrected work neatly on a clean sheet of paper.
Make sure your paragraphs are clearly indicated.
Adapted from Burlington Books
Part 2. Writing an Essay
An essay consists of several paragraphs about a topic. Although there are many different kinds of essays, they all have the same basic structure.
Opening
It is the general presentation of the topic. Try to get the reader interested in your essay. How can you do that? For example, by beginning
With a surprising fact.
Humans usually imitate the speech of someone with a strong accent due to empathy and to create a bond and assimilate with them.
With a short anecdote.
“If you could interview anybody in the world, who would you choose?” asked the teacher. “Nelson Mandela”, I replied.
With a question.
Did you know that there is an island in Japan that has more than 450 people living above the age of 100?
The Body.
The body can have one or more paragraphs which develop the topic. The first paragraph should contain the strongest argument or example. The second paragraph the second strongest argument and the third the weakest.
A paragraph consists of several sentences about a certain topic. It has the following parts:
A topic sentence, i.e. an idea.
One or several supporting sentences to expand on the idea.
A concluding sentence.
The parts should flow logically and the ideas should be easy to understand.
Go from general to specific. Give a general idea and then expand it.
Avoid unnecessary repetition by using pronouns to refer back to nouns already mentioned.
Use connector to join sentences and show the connection between ideas.
The Closing
It is the paragraph that summarizes the main idea or presents a conclusion, depending on the kind of essay you need to write. Some things to bear in mind:
It should not bring new ideas.
It shouldn’t be very long.
It can be similar to the opening, but presented in different words.
13 Tips to Raise your Essay Score
Read the assignment thoroughly, several times if necessary and underline anything relevant. Sometimes there is a question or several. Make sure you cover all of them. Focus on the purpose of the composition, on the tone and the style required and also on the length requirements.
Plan your writing. You need to dedicate several minutes to planning what you are going to say and how you are going to say. It makes a big difference.
Write a first draft. Use pencil, if possible, to erase or correct errors.
Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence and then write some supporting sentences about this topic sentence. 1 idea= 1 paragraph.
Use a variety of vocabulary and grammar structures. Avoid repeating the same words over and over again. Use synonyms or paraphrase. A thesaurus or a lexicon is useful as a source of alternative words. Use a range of grammar, sentence structure should be varied and clear.
Use connectors to join ideas. They also play an important part in stringing together sentences and paragraphs.
Time management. Organize the time you are given to write the essay. If you have one hour to complete the task, dedicate 10 minutes to planning and organizing your ideas and allow about 10 minutes at the end to proofread your essay before giving it to the teacher. You will still have 40 minutes left to write and develop your ideas.
Keep to the topic. Don’t write about things that have nothing to do with the assignment.
Sound natural. Just because you know lots of connectors, it doesn’t mean you have to use all of them.
Punctuation. Pay attention to punctuation, especially to the correct use of commas and periods. Your text can be confusing if you don’t use them adequately.
Style. Think about the purpose of the assignment and the audience it addresses and use the correct style and tone. If it’s informal, you can use colloquial language, simple and shorter sentences, contractions, abbreviations and emotional language. On the contrary if it’s a formal assignment, you will need to use more complex sentences, avoid contractions and abbreviations and you should definitely avoid emotional language or colloquial expressions.
Proofread your essay. Have a coffee or go for a walk. Come back, take your essay and reread it aloud. Does it sound “right”? Then, it’s ready!
Read a lot and try to write about anything for 30 minutes every day. You’ll soon get better.
Do you speak Spanish? Then, it’s your lucky day today! Why? Because without you being aware of it, you know lots of personality adjectives in English. Unfortunately, in most cases, you’ll still have to learn the Germanic equivalent if you want to sound informal, but we are off to a good start and besides, sometimes we all want to sound a bit more academic, don’t we?
A bit of history first.
Why does English have so many words of Latin origin?
Although some of the most frequent used words in English have Germanic roots, there are lots of words in English that have Latin origins.
This is due to the fact that during the Renaissance period, which started in France but reached England via France, there were a lot of new ideas or old ideas rediscovered. The problem was that there were no words to describe them in English, so the language adopted or adapted Latin words. In fact, during this period the English lexicon is said to have doubled in size.
What is more, for more than a century, the English aristocracy couldn’t speak any English. William the Conqueror had conquered England (1066) but he didn’t speak the language and although he tried at first, he very soon gave up. He was the first Norman King of England and all the barons he appointed spoke French. But not only did the aristocracy speak French, the religious institutions also spoke French. And that’s the reason why Latin words sound more prestigious than Germanic ones.
About 10,000 French words entered English in the century after the Norman invasion.
It was not until 1204 that the English nobility lost their estates in France and it is then when they started to adopt English as their language, but the Latin form coexisted with the Germanic one.
So, English has a huge number of synonyms, where the main difference is the level of formality, being the prestigious form the Latin option.
Think for example of the adjectives friendly, motherly or clever and their synonyms amicable, maternal and intelligent where the difference is the level of formality, being the Latin choice the most formal one.
So, these are some of the adjectives to describe personality you didn’t know you knew. Warning: spelling sometimes is different. Every cloud has a silver lining!
Ten entertaining ways to practise personality adjectives with activities for all ages and levels. In this post, you’ll find listening,writing, speaking activities and games to help students master this vocabulary.
Ask students to work in pairs and write down as many personality adjectives as they can in two minutes.
On the board write three columns: positive, negative and neutral adjectives and ask students to provide adjectives for the three columns. Have students choose one adjective from each column to describe their personality and in pairs talk about how these adjectives they have chosen are representative of their personality. Ask students to elaborate on their answers and provide examples to support their choice of adjectives.
Roleplays
Prepare cards with a personality trait written on it (talkative, cheerful, arrogant, stubborn, immature, possessive…etc). Give students a card telling them this is their personality. Pair up students and ask them to start a conversation and act the way the card says until their partner guesses what adjective they were given. Ask students for example to talk about buying a present for the teacher or deciding on what do at the weekend.
Reading your signature.
What does your signature say about you? According to handwriting analysts, signatures reveal a lot about your personality.
Ask students to write the sentence Write soon on a piece of paper and then sign under the sentence.
Ask them to work in pairs and look at their partner’s signature and explain what it means. See interpretation here
Ask them to discuss whether they agree with their partner’s interpretation and why or why not.
What’s your job?
Research has shown that different personality traits tend to have distinct preferences in their choice of careers. On the board write the jobs below. Ask students in pairs to choose five and discuss what personality types the jobs would attract and why. Then discuss their choices with another pair:
Actor fashion model psychologist entrepreneur judge
Acting out
Prepare cards with personality adjectives. Divide the class into 2 teams. For each team’s turn, set a time (1 minute).
On the board write the sentence: I want to go to the cinema tomorrow.
Team 1 begins and choose a player to sit at the front of the class. The player draws a card and acts out the phrase according to the adjective on the card. When the team guesses correctly, he can draw another card. He continues until the time is up. The timer is set again for the other team, and turns continue until all the slips are gone. Count the slips and give those points to their teams.
Quotes.
On the walls of the class stick the following quotes. Students in threes stand up and discuss what the quote means and whether they agree or disagree with them.
Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. Bruce Lee.
It is better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you are not. André Gide.
If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am
Beauty attracts the eye but personality captures the heart.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
It’d never too late for what you might have been. George Elliot.
Guess who. A speaking or writing activity.
Speaking. Before the class, prepare a set of pictures of famous people with very clear personality traits. For this activity the students are sitting in pairs, one student (A) facing the board and the other (B) with his back to the board. Display the photo of a celebrity and ask student A to describe this person in general terms focusing on his personality.
Writing. Before the class, prepare a collage with pictures of famous people with very clear personality traits. Ask students to write a description of one of them focusing on their personality without saying their names. Descriptions are read aloud and students will need to determine the identity of the person being described.
The four big questions.
Tell students you’re going to analyse their personality by asking them four key questions to which they should answer using three adjectives for each question. Adjectives cannot be repeated.
1. Choose a colour, the first colour that comes to mind.
Once you have that colour, list three adjectives that describe it.
2. Choose an animal, the first animal that comes to mind.
Once you have selected an animal, list three adjectives that describe it.
3. Choose a body of water like a river, ocean, sea, or lake. Once you have chosen a body of water, list three adjectives that describe it.
4. Let’s say you are in a white room with no windows no doors, list three emotions that you are feeling.
When you are done answering those questions, highlight the following to get your results: your colour represents what you think of yourself, the animal represents what you think of other people, the body of water represents your love life, and the white room represents what you will feel like when you are about to die.
Birth order
Do you think birth order has any influence on our personality?
Ask students to work in groups of 4. Tell them they are going to see a video where personality is related to birth order. Assign each person in the group the task of writing down information they can gather from the video about either first borns, middle children, last borns or only children.
Whole class discussion. Starting with “first-borns”, write on the board all the information the students learnt from the video. Start a class discussion where first borns in the class will say whether they agree or disagree with the content in the video. Repeat procedure for middle children, last borns and only children.
Tic Tac Toe
Tic Tac Toe. also known as noughts and crosses or Xs and Os is a game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 (3×4 in this game) grid. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game.
In this game, to place their mark they’ll need to talk for about two minutes about the question in the box.
