Tag Archives: B1

A Fun Writing Activity to Practise Giving Advice . Students in the limelight

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Raise your hand if you have never had a problem!  Nobody??? Good! That’s what I thought! Now, raise your hand if you have never asked for advice!! I see !! OK ! Maybe some of you don’t like to ask for advice!!

Ok folks !!! What’s clear is that we all have problems and and when we have them, we most usually turn to friends or family asking for advice; it remains to be seen whether we follow the advice but even if we  end up feeling that the advice  given hasn’t helped much, I’m sure, at least, you would  feel grateful  just because someone you trust has been willing to take the time to listen to you.

In this post, I want to share with you an activity to practise giving advice, which has worked really well with my students (see photo below)

LEVEL: B1

AIM: to give written advice using

♥I think / I don’t think you should…

♥ If I were you , I would…  

MATERIALS: A clean sheet of paper and a pen or you can download the template here.

STEPS

1. Introduce / revise the two structures above, used to give advice. Share with your students a problem and ask them to offer you advice using the two structures above. Choose the funniest or most sensible advice as the best offered.

2.  Give students a copy of I NEED SOME ADVICE or display the template so that they can copy the information on a clean sheet of paper.

2. Students write their name  and their problem in the space provided and leave it on their table, face up.

3. Introduce the idea of Agony Aunts ( see definiton here) and tell students they are going to act as agony aunts to solve some problems.

4. Students stand up and they go around the class reading their classmates’ problems and writing their piece of advice in the space provided, together with their name inside the brackets. The same advice cannot be repeated. Allow 10 minutes for this step

 5.  Students sit down at their desks, read the advice offered for their problems and decide on the best. Problem and advice will be read aloud. The students who has offered the best advice gets one point. See who gets more points and name him the new Agony Aunt.

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Some Nice No-Prep Activities to Practise First Conditional

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When we  get back from a relaxing holiday (Easter in this case) it is difficult to just drop everything and go back to routine, back to work, back to studying English without feeling a bit down.

Now, I shouldn’t say this but I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t care if you feel down at work, but not in my classes. Listen, dear students, the course is almost finished and I want you in high spirits and highly motivated!!!

You might think learning, let alone studying  Conditional sentences  is boring. Nothing further from the truth. Trust me! It can be fun, too! Let’s try these activities to get your first conditionals rolling!!

The best about these activities is that they require no preparation, something very much appreciated  when we, teachers, are already  busy writing exams.

THREE NO-PREP NICE ACTIVITIES  

1.SITUATIONS

♥ Situation 1. Tell students they are all 18 (I can almost hear their giggles)  and that you are their mother/father (more giggles). They have a very important date with the girl/boy of their dreams and they really want to impress their date; for this reason, they need to borrow your beautiful back sports car, which you are reluctant to lend as the student has just got his driving licence.

They’ll need to convince you to lend them your car. You’ll lend the car to only one student, provided he offers something good in return. Be prepared for a big round of promises, of which you’ll need to choose the one you like best.

“Mommy :), if you lend me your car, I’ll do the washing up for two months”.

“Mommy, if you lend me your car, I’ll wash your car every week for a year.”

♥ Situation 2. Tell students they are all 12 ( this time they are roaring with laughter- remember I teach adults)  and that you, as their teacher, are really disappointed with their behaviour in class. Tell students you have no other option but to inform their parents. On the other hand, students  do not want their parents to get upset, especially because there is a great party this weekend and they don’t want to be grounded. They need to convince you not to phone their parents.

“Teacher, if you do not tell my parents, I will do my homework every day”

“Teacher, if you do not phone my father, I’ll sit still during the rest of the term”

2. MURPHY’S LAW.

Ask students if they have ever heard about Murphy’s Law. Explain that Murphy’s Law states that if something bad can happen, it’ll happen. Elicit an example of Murphy’s Law .

Example: what happens if you are in a supermarket waiting to pay and you change queues? The queue you were in before will move faster.

Divide the class into two groups and ask the group to write five sentences using the first conditional in the humorous context of Murphy’s Laws. Allow 5 minutes for this step.

Groups take it in turns to read the beginning of their sentences Ex “If I don’t take an umbrella, ….”. The other group has to guess the words to complete the sentence (they have two opportunities). If they do, they score one point.

You, as a teacher, can also take part in the game reading your own sentences and asking both groups to try to guess the ending and so getting more points for their team .

 3. ELECTION TIME

I don’t know about other countries but here in Spain, elections are a month away and candidates for the different political parties are busy making promises.

Divide the students in groups of three or four students and ask them to write their election promises  using the First Conditional in sentences such as

If I am president, I will

If  you vote for my party , we will…

A spokesperson for each of the groups is asked to stand up and read their promises to the rest of the groups. The audience is encouraged to ask questions to the candidates or challenge them by asking questions such as …. Yes , but what will happen if ….?

When all the promises are heard, they will need to vote for a candidate which will be different from their own.

 Learn English and Have Fun!

Picture Description: Homes 1

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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

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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