Tag Archives: video

Listening : Going Shopping

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I am going to teach Elementary Level a lesson about shopping and I have found this very easy short video to get started. There are so many things to learn/revise when you are teaching about going shopping! Teaching Going Shopping gives me the opportunity to revise numbers and prices, the shops in a city, items of clothing and a variety of questions including offers and requests. There will be several steps ending up with the students, hopefully, being able to use interactional language in a role-play situation. An example here

Watch the video (if you don’t want to see the introduction, start 40seconds into the video) and answer the questions. Then, activate the subtitles to check your answers.

Question

♥What does the woman want to buy?

♥What kind of …… is she looking for?

♥How much does the woman think the …….. costs?

♥How much does it really cost?

♥Does she buy it?

Lesson Plan: Stereotypes

Lesson Plan: Intermediate, , , , , ,

This is a lesson for intermediate students, which I thought would be interesting to share, mainly because of the video support, which I selected only after some wasted time listening to some very poor quality videos or  perhaps  good quality videos but which, unfortunately, were not appropriate for this level.

Step 1. What is a stereotype?

A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person related to their race, nationality and sexual orientation…etc

Step 2. Brainstorming Ideas.

Ask the class. What do you think of when you hear the word British? Give them one or two minutes to write down their answers, and then call on a few students to give you their answers. Play the video National Stereotypes, but don’t show the images, just the audio. How many have they guessed?

Step 3. Brainstorming
In pairs, students try to answer the same question but, this time, about Spain and the Spaniards. Embedded below are some of my students’ answers. Do you agree?

Mapa Mental creado con ExamTime por cristina.cabal

Step 4. Speaking: National Stereotypes
Ask students whether they agree or disagree with the following National Stereotypes
1. The British are violent mad football freaks
2. The Italians are good lovers but bad workers
3. The Chinese eat everything that moves
4. The Germans are very punctual
5. The Swiss love clocks

Have you ever wondered how we sound to speakers of other languages when we speak our native language? Some languages are easy to imitate, as for example the Italian language or the German one but I would never have guessed how a Spanish speaking native sounds to the rest of the world.
In this video the British Sketch comedian, Katherine Tate, volunteers to translate into seven different languages. Hilarious! And I hope nobody takes offence!

Step 6.Speaking. Students in pairs answer the following questions about stereotypes

♥What do people think of when they think of Spain and the Spaniards? Do you think these stereotypes are true or false?

♥Do you know of any stereotypes about British people?
♥What are some stereotypes you know of about women?
♥What are some stereotypes about men?

♥ What stereotypes exist about people who are blonde?
♥Do you think some stereotypes are true?
♥What stereotypes exist about religion?

2 Interesting Sites to Learn English through Videos

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These are two sites to learn English and practise Listening through films.

♥Learn English through Movies : Practise your English with trailers and  video clips. Basically, you need to watch the video  and do different tasks. You always have the choice of taking an easy or difficult  Fill in the Blanks Exercise Quiz .

♥Lingual.net which  provides interesting movies, with subtitles, scripts, and quizzes, to help you practice English listening. They have a variety of videos: music, comedy,…etc  They also have some games  like Listening Master you need to try.

Hope they are useful!

Video Lesson: What your Signature Says about You

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It is said that your signature tells a lot about your personality. What do you think?

Try this simple exercise. On a piece of paper write a short note to someone and then sign it. Done??? Let’s now analyze your signature. Ready?

♥If your first name is more prominent than your surname , then you have positive feelings about your childhood and your “private” life is more important than your “public” life.

♥Do you use initial letters in your signature? If it is in your first name , then you want to keep your personal life more secretive

♥If you have a legible signature, then you have clear ideas and objectives. If it is illegible , then you are less confident and tend to avoid conflict.

♥If you have a rising signature, then you are optimistic and ambitious. A descending signature will indicate you lack self-confidence and tend to get depressed. A horizontal signature will suggest you are a well-balanced person.

♥If you sign in capital letters, then you are arrogant.

♥Finally, if your signature is bigger than the rest of the document , it means you have a high opinion of yourself and if it smaller you might be insecure and have low self-esteem.

Well, well…  after learning all these things I might consider changing my signature. What about you? Do you believe in Graphology?

Watch this video where a graphologist analyses the signature of several famous people and try to answer the questions

Question 1. What does the underscore in a signature tell us about this person?
Question 2. What do we learn of Elisabeth I from her signature?
Question 3. According to the expert, what does a rising signature indicate?
Question 4. What does an underscore looking like a dollar sign say about the person?

Answers: Watch the video again in youtube (click here). Activate the subtitles feature  and check your anwers.

Learning the Alphabet

A word on Grammar, American Cultural aspects, Audio, Funny Stuff, Games, General, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, , ,

Sometimes I can write three posts in a row; I feel everything I want to convey flows naturally and… some other times I’m at a loss for words. I know what I want to say but I don’t seem to find the right words. I write and cross off, write and cross off and the whole process is repeated all over again until I find myself wondering what the point of writing a lengthy introduction is when I can never be sure if there is anybody out there reading it. And then, this week three teachers from different parts of the world kindly wrote a line to let me know they are on the other side, and paying attention. Thank you, you cannot begin to imagine how motivating your words have been.

Learning the Alphabet is fun but even in Advanced Levels vowels still pose a problem, especially for Spanish students – our “i” /i/ is the English “e”, the English “i” is pronounced /ai/ and our “a” is pronounced /ei/. The letters “g” and “j” are also difficult and students find it difficult to hear the difference between “b” and “v”. That’s why it is important to dedicate some meaningful time to learning something so useful in everyday’s life.

These are the two activities I’m going to use this year to teach/revise the alphabet.

♥The first one is a video. I have found that adults still enjoy- or shall I dare say more than enjoy- clips aimed at little children. If you are an adult, watch the following clip to revise the alphabet and tell me what you think. You might need to remind students of a traditional nursery rhyme that goes like this

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,

before playing the video.

♥The second activity is nothing to write home about. It is the world famous Hangman, but this year, played in groups and instead of displaying words, I’m going to try a short sentence:

Divide the class into two teams. You’ll need a red pen for Group A and a black pen for Group B ( or any different colour 😉 ). On the board write the gaps for two different words of any length ( or a short sentence). Group A and B take it in turns to choose one letter of the alphabet. If the letter is correct, fill in the gap (in red if it’s A’s turn and in black if it is B’s). If the letter is not contained in the selected words, start drawing portions of the hangman (remember red or black). The game continues until all the letters have been guessed or all the parts of the hangman are drawn. If groups manage to guess the words, count the number of red or black letters to announce who the winner is.

You might also want to have a look at what I did to teach the alphabet three years ago. Click here