Tag Archives: B1

A Guess the Word Game to Practise Relative Sentences and Paraphrasing

Create your own stuff, Funny Stuff, Games, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Slides, Speaking, Students' Corner, Vocabulary, Vocabulary Games, , , , , ,

What do you normally do when you are talking to a person in English and you don’t know the word? I guess you don’t tell the person ” OK, right, hold on! I am going to look it up on my mobile phone”. You might be tempted to do it, but know that the person you are talking to might lose interest in what you are saying.
So, the thing to do would be Paraphrasing.

How do we paraphrase?? There are some expressions you can use
It’s A KIND OF house
It’s THE OPPOSITE OF lazy
It’s LIKE cleaning but… trying to explain what you want to say but using other words you know. That’s calle
It’s SIMILAR TO book but..
FOR EXAMPLE, you do this when
It’s A SYNONYM OF..
It’s A PERSON/SOMEBODY WHO…
It’s a THING/SOMETHING WHICH…
It’s SOMEWHERE/A PLACE WHERE

It can also help to say “ It’s a noun, or an adjective…. “ If it’s an expression, you can also say “ It’s an expression and there are three words in it”

Right, now we are ready to play the game. It’s called WHAT’S THE WORD?

How we play the game:

  • Divide the class into two teams
  • Ask a member of Team A to sit on chair with his back to the whiteboard.
  • Display the first word on the screen
  • The members of the team have two minutes to describe the word but they cannot use any parts of the words on the screen. For example if it is “teacher” they cannot use the word “teach”.The aim is for the student to guess as many words as possible in one minute. Every word in black scores one point , the ones in red score two points.
  • Then, it is the other team’s turn to choose someone to take the hot seat.
  • Needless to say, you keep the score on the board for everybody to see. Have fun!!!

 

Get Students Out of their Seats with a Lesson on Gender Stereotypes

Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Speaking, Students' Corner, , , , , , , , , ,

My beloved father was a chauvinist doctor and my mother was an undercover feminist. I am sure you’ve heard the saying “opposites attract”and that appeared to be the case with my parents. It was not an easy combination to live with. My father was the main breadwinner and my mother was the housewife. These were their roles in the house and to be honest, I don’t think my mother had an issue with that arrangement. The problem was he expected us (three sisters) to fully cooperate doing housework while my only brother did nothing but smile when we complained it was unfair. My father, on the other hand, and contradictorily,  expected us to get the best marks at school ’cause we were expected to go to university and get a degree so as not be the housewife my mother was. Who understands men? 😉

Today I want to share with you a lesson I did with my Intermediate students about Gender Stereotypes. This is a lesson where common general stereotypes about men and women are challenged.

Level: B1/B2

Aim: Get students to discuss general stereotypes about men and women using different expressions to give opinion.

STEPS 

1. Give handouts containing expressions used to give opinion. Here. Encourage students to use a variety of expressions when they give opinion.

2. Ask   Do you know any stereotypes about men and women? Instruct students to talk for about five minutes and then ask them to give feedback.

3. Play the video  Differences between Men and Women to get students into the mood. It’s a funny little video. I hope nobody takes offence.

4.Using Blue-tack, stick the posters containing the statements they need to discuss on the walls of the classroom. Posters here

5. Ask students to, working in twos or threes, wander around the classroom and randomly choose the posters they want to discuss.

Sticking posters on the walls of the classroom enables students to get out of their seats and talk to different people. As always it is important to make sure they understand the importance of using English and only English.

Learn English and have fun!

Giving Opinion: Driving

Students' Corner, Writing, , , , ,

For the past week I’ve been raking my brains looking for a nice way to display these statements   and finally for lack of something that took my breath away, I have decided to stick to the overused  writeacomic.com , which works just fine … but for a few details there is no point in getting into right now.

So , right below , you’ll find some statements  about driving . This is what you need to do

TASK

♥Choose one statement  (only one , please)

♥Write a comment (5-8 lines) explaining  your point of view and why you agree or disagree with the statement.

♥Use some of the expressions here

I am pretty sure we all agree that these weeks before Three Wise  Men’s Day  are chaos. We’re all  super busy buying , wrapping ,eating and drinking (OMG!) so I don’t think I’ll be back in this space  until lessons start again.Thanks for being there!!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!!

Listening: Kids around Christmas Time

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I am in Christmas mode. My class already has a Christmas tree  decorated with white stars, some silver baubles  and not a trace of tinsel- I don’t like tinsel. Christmas carols  are already playing in my hi-fi and I am trying to figure out what to cook for Christmas Eve and Christmas day without ending up dead tired and falling asleep in the middle of the dinner.

So, fully into Christmas mode,  I have chosen these two clips from The Cosby Show  to help my intermediate students get into the mood  and  improve their listening skills, too 😉 Hope it serves both purposes!

I wish this show was still on air. For me, it is probably one of the best sitcoms ever  and the scenes with Olivia among my favourites.

 

What Race is Santa Claus?.  I would suggest playing the video once  without bothering with the listening task .Watch it on youtube here

Kids at Christmas Time. Again, I would suggest playing the video once  without bothering with the listening task. Watch it on youtube here

A word on Grammar: Old or Elder, Farther or Further

General, , ,

Very often I have been asked this question in class. What’s the difference between Farther /ˈfɑː.ðər/  and Further  /ˈfɜː.ðər/ and between Older /əʊldə/ and Elder/ˈel.dər/?

♥ Farther /Further

– Distance: both  farther and further are used to talk about physical  distance . There is no difference between them.

 Ex :    Leon is further /farther away than Oviedo

– Additional: Further  is used  when we want to mean ” additional” ” extra” “more advanced”.

  Ex : For further information, see page 153.

 ♥Older/Elder

We use Elder when we want to talk about the order of birth of the members of a family . They are only used before nouns, ie, in attributive position

Compare:

My elder /older daughter has just found her first job

My sister is two years older than me

My eldest /oldest daughter has just found a job

Peter is the oldest student in his classroom

Now, fancy doing some practice?