Monthly Archives: May 2012

Introducing Have Something Done

A word on Grammar, , , ,

This is how I am planning to introduce the structure Have Something Done. I hope it is helpful!

Situation 1. Students are shown a picture  such as a wedding . Ask leading questions such as Would you like to get married? What sort of preparations are required for  this event?  Make sure students become aware that  one person cannot do it all alone. Ask the students what the solution is or how they cope to elicit that they pay people to do it for them.

Students will most probably tell you that the bride goes to the hairdresser’s and pays someone to do her hair or to paint her nails.

This should be the right time to introduce the structure.

Exactly, so the bride has her hair done at the hairdresser’s and her nails painted at the beautician’s.

Some  more hints :
Wedding dress/ design
Hair /do
Photographs /take
Nails /do
Wedding cake /decorate
Invitations / send
Music at the ceremony /play

 Situation 2. Being rich

Students imagine they are rich and could have all sorts of things done for them, like annoying everyday chores that nobody likes doing plus some luxuries that money allows for.

I’d have my back massaged every day.

Encourage students to use their imagination  and ask them to try to come up with something very extravagant. You can put them in groups of four and vote for the most extravagant luxury  within the group and then within the class. This will encourage everybody to participate and have a nice laugh while learning.

Grammar and some exercises here

Writing and Speaking Elementary : Describe a game

Pictures, Speaking, Students' Corner, Writing, , , , ,

Of all the skills a student has to become fluent at when learning a language  writing is, for me, the most boring one. I don’t think it’s the hardest by any means, this prize is awarded to Speaking but the truth is that students find it boring and we, teachers, almost always put off marking essays for as long as we can.

On the other hand, I find that it’s much easier for students to write a worthy piece of writing  if you provide a model, some guidelines to follow and also give them a topic  they are mildly interested in .

Last week’s topic for composition was Writing about a Game. I asked students to think of a game or a sport and answer the following questions

♥What’s the name of the activity? ♥How many players are there? ♥ How does a player start the game?♥What do the players do then?

I also asked some students to record their work and this is what they did (I used a tool called Fotobabble. I wrote about Fotobabble here). Thank you folks, good job!
Lucia Gonzalez Hide n Seek


Alba Feito “Marbles”

<iframe style=’border:0;’ height=450 width=400  scrolling=no  src=’http://www.fotobabble.com/api/fotobabble?apiKey=test&format=HTML&displayFormat=Player&id=cFo4UFNsVitSWjg9&height=450&width=400′></iframe>

Carolina Macas The Handkerchief

David Díaz The Liar Dice

 

Video Lessons: TedEd-Lessons Worth Sharing

Audio, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Listening, , ,

I’ve known about TED (Ideas Worth Spreading) for quite a long time but although I found their videos very interesting I thought they were too long or too difficult for my classes. Now TED has launched a  new  site, called TedEd,  with  a collection of educational video lessons you can choose by subject and view in class or assign as homework. Every video is accompanied by a lesson with Quick Multiple Choice questions that check your general comprehension. If you have one wrong, you can always check with the video hint and you can also have Think questions that further explore the topic.

For teachers , one of the most powerful features is the FLIP THE LESSON where you can customize the lesson by editing the title, giving your own instructions, select  or deselect any multiple choice questions…etc.

This is a lesson I have flipped for my students. I used the video Questions No One Knows the Answer To to give my students some practice using Reported Speech Questions. You can see my lessonhere