I just love this section in the British Council website. Word on The Street is a co-production of the mighty BBC and the British Council. If, on their own, they produce superb material you can only imagine the outcome when they decide to join efforts and work together in the production of short videos (4 or 5 m) to teach everyday life and different aspects of the British culture. The videos are easy to watch, some of them accompanied by captions that help elementary students follow and divided into scenes for a deeper understanding. There are several tasks you can do after watching the video and you can also have a look at the tapescript. Some of the most popular videos are: Oxford, Travel and Transport, Camden, Animals…etc. Aren’t you dying to try some of these? My favourite will most definitely be Camden. I am in love with the market!
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.
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?
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?
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.netwhich 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.
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.
the British Council. If, on their own, they produce superb material you can only imagine the outcome when they decide to join efforts and work together in the production of short videos (4 or 5 m) to teach everyday life and different aspects of the British culture. The videos are easy to watch, some of them accompanied by captions that help elementary students follow and divided into scenes for a deeper understanding. There are several tasks you can do after watching the video and you can also have a look at the tapescript. Some of the most popular videos are: Oxford, Travel and Transport, Camden, Animals…etc. Aren’t you dying to try some of these? My favourite will most definitely be Camden. I am in love with the market!
