Category Archives: Resources

Comparatives and Superlatives Practice

I wanted to say Happy Tuesday but this weather is really getting me down in the dumps. You might not believe it but it has been raining nonstop for more than two months now and I feel I need some sun to cheer me up. Added to this is the fact that I’ve been working mornings, afternoons, evenings and also two weekends in a row. Only today, I am quickly writing this post to leave again to go to work .

Anyways, these are two activities I’m planning to use with my Elementary students to practise  Comparatives and Superlatives. I found them via BusyTeachers and they are just what I need right now: highly motivating activities which require no preparation . Thank you  so much for sharing,Susan. (see her profile here).

Look Around You Race
Students in groups of four compare students in the classroom. Set a time limit of about 5 minutes and on your signal each group of students should write as many comparative and superlative sentences as they can about the people in their classroom. At the end of the time period, have one group share their sentences. If another group has the same sentence as the first group, both groups should cross that statement off their list. Continue until all groups have read all of their statements and any duplicates are eliminated. The group with the most statements remaining wins.

These Are the People in Your Family
Students are given about 10 adjectives that can be used to describe people: hard-working, tall, young, old, funny, intelligent, tall, fat, happy, pretty… Then challenge them to write a sentence using the superlative form of each adjective about a person in their family. Once the sentences are completed, each person should write a list of the family members who appeared in their sentences. Students in pairs exchange the lists of people but keep their sentences to themselves. Each person should ask questions about their partner’s family and try to match each person to their superlative adjective. For example, a person might ask, “Is Lucas the oldest person in your family?” The other person should answer with a yes or an explanation. “No, Lucas is only four years old.” Give students time enough to ask each other questions, and then see who in your class figured out the most family member qualities!

Creating Word Clouds with Tagul

And again it’s this time of the year when all my free time goes to preparing and marking exams so I don’t have much time left to dedicate to the blog. To tell you the truth, I don’t feel inspired! I start a sentence, I know I want to say something … but inspiration never comes. So I’ve given up! maybe, next week, I’ll be back to my usual self. Meanwhile, enjoy this site for creating Word Clouds. It is called Tagul .

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How to Download the Audio File from YouTube

A very short post to share  this tool with you.

ListenToYouTube.com is an online application for converting YouTube flash video to MP3 audio. The service is fast, free, and requires no signup. All you need to do is copy-paste the  YouTube URL, and the application will  extract  the MP3, and give you a link to download the audio file.

Tag Galaxy: Flikr Images to create a 3D photo-sphere

Do you know anyone, especially students, who would not rather have a lesson spiced up with pictures?   Now, this  is  an amazing tool to work  with and  just plain fun! Tag Galaxy appeals to all visual students and it helps spice up a boring lesson. Have I  just said” boring lessons”??? Sorry! a slip of the tongue!!

How does it work? Easy peasy! You enter a tag  – I wrote Hobbies-  and as soon as you click GO , you will see a 3D galaxy with lots of planets of different sizes. The biggest one is for my Tag ( in this case Hobbies) and the smaller  planets will be words related to the keyword orbiting around my keyword

At this point you might click on another planet to combine words ( Hobbies+ books) and form a new galaxy.

Click on the big planet and see your picture collection , straight from Flikr  assembling.

Spin the globe  with the mouse. Click to select a picture and get a close -up. Cool!

Tag Galaxy in the classroom: I’m sure my students will be delighted to watch the whole process but leaving aside the cool part, I think using this wonderful tool can be highly motivating for my students.

♥ At the moment I’m teaching  Simple Past tense to my Elementary students and  I’m planning to use it  to do some speaking with the structure:

When did you last….? (play football)

I last( played football )( three weeks ago) +  the follow up questions.

♥It could also work  for Picture Description

♥Writing Skills: Students are given the beginning of a story such as: it was a stormy night … Students write “storm” as the keyword and the picures will help them spark their creativity.

Let’s go to the cinema!!!

This is a very simple activity to do some speaking about films I intend to try with my Elementary students. Nothing too complicated but I guess they’ll love to see how  film titles are translated  into English. Who, in the name of God, translated the film DIE HARD  starring Bruce Willis  into LA JUNGLA DE CRISTAL or SOME LIKE IT HOT starring Marylin Monroe  into CON FALDAS A LO LOCO. Was it Google Translator???

Anyways, there is a whole lesson plan about films ( complete with vocabulary, listening, reading and writing) that I created some time ago, if you feel like doing some more practice ( Click on the picture if you are such a hardworking student), otherwise and for the time being we will just focus on speaking.

THE GAME: SPEAKING. The game is easy: the class is divided into two groups. In turns, one member from each group sits on the Hot Chair facing  away from the whiteboard. The members of their group have -like one minute- to describe, without mentioning the title ( that goes without saying, but just in case, I’m saying it), the film being displayed .

They will need to talk about.

Kind of film/ Nationality of the film/ director/ plot/

Some hints:

♥The film ‘_______’ is a(n) _______ film which takes place in _______.
♥The film is set in __(ancient Greece)__.
♥The story is based on __(a popular novel)__.
♥The film is directed by _______.
♥The main character(s) in the film is/are _______.
♥_______ is a character who _______.
♥__(Johnny Depp)__ stars as __(Captain Sparks)__.
♥In the film , __(Jack Black)__ plays __(a rock guitarist)The story is about _______
♥The best scene of the film is_____