Monthly Archives: April 2015

Picture Description: Homes 2

Picture Description, Speaking, , , , , ,

In this post you’ll find some  material to practise describing two pictures about Houses/Rooms in a House. There is some useful vocabulary  and expressions as well as  two different sets of pictures  with some questions that might give you some ideas of what you need to talk about in this part of the exam. Remember that you’ll  need to practise describing , comparing and giving opinion . Download the pdf here

To see an example of two students doing this exercise, go to Pictures Description Homes : Part 1. 

For further practice, visit the Picture Description Section in this blog.

Step1. Study this vocabulary and expressions before you start describing.   Useful Expressions:

  • It is too expensive for me to rent/buy a house
  • decorate in my own taste
  • a place of my own
  • live on my own
  • can’t afford to rent
  •  crowded with furniture
  • the room is airy and light

Special Attention to Prepositions:

  • live in a city/the country
  • live on the outskirts of a city
  • live on the north coast
  • live on the second floor

Types of Houses

  • a detached house
  • a semidetached house
  • terraced houses
  • cottage
  • bungalo
  • block of flats
  • a motor house
  • skyscraper
  • a mansion
  • a house boat

Step 2. Practice 1: Describe, compare and give opinion Some ideas to help you:

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in a house or a flat?
  • How many different homes have you lived in? Which did you prefer?
  • What do you think about people keeping big dogs in flats?
  • What is your relationship with your neighbours?
  • What is your general feeling about the architecture in your local area?

  Step 2. Practice 2: Describe, compare and give opinion   Some ideas to help you:

  • Do you have a lot of decorations in your home or is it bare?
  • What would you say the decoration style of your home is?
  • What would your ideal house or apartment look like?
  • Is your home clean? Are you a very organized person?

 

Picture Description: Homes 1

General, , , , ,

Resting on your laurels? No way!  Finals are fast approaching!! Time to give your English a final push!

Here you have another example of picture description. This time the theme is Houses.

Remember that in the  Oral Exam you’ll be shown two ( sometimes three) theme-related photographs ( eg types of houses). You’ll be asked to describe and compare them and to talk about them in relation to yourself for a short time (approx 3 min.)

More examples and practise here

 

 

Source: Premium B2

 

 

 

 

Feeding your Own Newspaper with the News you Want to Read

Create your own stuff, freeware, Reading, , , , , ,

Isn’t that what everybody would like? Isn’t it a good reason to read every day? In this post I am sharing with you a wonderful tool that is basically a newsreader with wonderful customizable features. The idea is to encourage students to read every day  the things they like to read about.

The benefits  of reading when  learning a language are many and  nobody can deny that. When you read you:

– acquire new vocabulary in a natural way

-learn to infer meanings

-learn to punctuate

-write better

-speak better

– learn  the grammar in context

We, as teachers, tend to ask our students to read mainly graded books or the texts in their textbook. We certainly feel confident  our students won’t be struggling to understand or won’t get demotivated because they cannot easily grasp the meaning of the words.

On the other hand, I firmly believe we need to show our students how to develop strategies to encourage autonomous learning. It is essential if we want our students to keep improving when the course finishes.

Whenever a student asks me, “Are there any compulsory books to read this term?” I never fail to remember the 50 or 60 books I had to read if I wanted to have a chance at passing some certain subjects at university. I used to be keen on reading but having to compulsorily read, I would say “swallow”  those books chosen by somebody else turned me, for some years, into someone who would refrain from  getting close to a bookshop, let alone a library.

For this reason, I never choose the books my students have to read. We go to the school library together and  choose the ones they find most appealing from their level section.  I encourage them to read regularly, every  day if possible, and not to use the dictionary every single time they don’t know a word, as this would discourage them. Instead, I ask them to try to guess the meaning  and only use the dictionary if it blocks comprehension or it appears frequently in the book.

Reading books is Ok, but what about magazines, blogs, newspapers… In this post, I would like  to share with  you   a tool  to motivate students to read every day and the key to motivation is READING WHAT THEY LIKE.

The tool I use is called FEEDLY . It ‘s for me the best way to organise and read my favourite sites on the Internet. It’s mainly a newsreader and it’s highly addictive. Everything on the same place with a very nice layout.  Imagine Feedly as a newspaper with only the news you are interested in. You feed Feedly with online sites that interest you.In this sense I recommend my students to feed it with a variety of sites including news, fashion, cooking, IT, learning languages …etc and why not, gossip.

Feedly is customizable and the only thing you need to do is Click on Add content, paste the url of the blog or site you want to have in your newspaper. Can I suggest you try adding this blog and this other one  🙂 to get started?

 

 

 

If you want to know more about how  Feedly works, here is a very visual tutorial here .

Are there any sites or blogs you would recommend? Please, let me know

 

Fixed+Movable Page: Challenging Students to Speak Better

General, , ,

Yes, it’s this time of the year. My students’ second term has already finished. Time to start a new one. The last one. It’s when every single year, I have serious doubts about whether I should be doing something else to help them improve. It’s like the yin and yang. The selfish side of my brain tells me I am giving them my best, staying up late preparing  classes, creating new material students seem to swallow in 5 minutes …etc-  and here 🙂  I cannot but remember my grandmother when she complained about how quickly we ate everything it took her all morning to cook- ; while the other side of me keeps reminding me of all the times I had to rush through a specific point or how on a particular day we didn’t have time enough to discuss a given issue in detail…etc.
But the truth is that although I should say that I honestly think I am doing my part, sadly the truth is that some students, unfortunately more than I wish, don’t seem to be able to understand that

                                                       Studying+Practising= Improving

The main difficulty my students need to overcome is their insecurities. They feel safe using a limited number of structures and they are afraid to use the new ones. New structures, new vocabulary is like a challenge to them and it is my intention to help them rise to this challenge; so this is what I’ll be trying next time we focus on Speaking.

1. FIXED PAGE
I am going to ask my students to write at the back of their notebooks some structures we have learnt this year; structures they instinctively know would show they have acquired the necessary level, like for example:

• It is not worth+gerund
• Get/be used to +gerund
• There is no point ….
• Want/ would like someone to do something
• It’s easy/difficult /nice + to infinitive

Students should be aware that this is their own personal list, to which they will be adding new structures or expressions they want to use as we move on towards the end of the course.

2. MOVABLE PAGE.

Most of the activities we do in class are topic centred, so we talk food, health or technology. Lessons in textbooks are also normally topic – based, and they provide students with the necessary vocabulary, phrasal verbs, readings …etc.

Before we start speaking about a given topic I am going to ask them to write on separate piece of paper all the vocabulary, expressions, idioms they can remember related to the topic. This should take like about two minutes and will give them an idea of how much they already know and how much they still need to study and then I am going to ask them to compare it with their partners to give them the opportunity to add any new ones they might have forgotten.

FIXED +MOVABLE PAGES. Once the speaking task is set, students will need to try to use as much vocabulary written on their movable page and as many expressions as they have at the back of their books. My experience is that most students tend to rush and just speak without caring about the structures or vocabulary they use, so I’m pretty sure that if I want this experiment to be successful I’ll need to use lot of persuasion and monitoring, but I think it’s worth a try. What do you think?