Tag Archives: writing

Guess Who!

Good morning folks!! I hope you are having a great week!!! Me?? So far, I can’t complain!!

Here we go once again with an activity where you ‘ll need to use your writing abilities in a game . Have a look at the mosaic below; I guess you’ll recognise most of our celebrities but if you don’t , don’t hassle , for this game you’ll need to write about one of them .

TASK.

Aim: to describe both, physical  appearance and personality, of one of the celebritities in the mosaic  without mentioning their name.

Steps

♥ Choose one of the celebrities  and without mentioning who he/she is ,write a description of both physical appearance and personality.

♥ Don’t forget to use adverbs of degree  : quite, slightly, a bit, a little

♥ Show off, I guess you can see the difference between these two sentences: I think she is 70 years old  and I think she’s a 70-year-old woman. You are an Intermediate student, let the whole world know!

♥ Write a maximum of eight lines. See what other students have done here

♥You think you have finished? Right, you haven’t !! Now,  read what you have written several times to correct grammatical and spelling errors .

♥Now that you are confident everything is Ok, click on the “leave a comment” section and write your description.

♥In class, all descriptions will be read and the celebrities guessed. Enjoy! 😉

 

 

 

 

Lesson Plan : Technology

Oh my God! can you believe we are already in May??? Three lessons left with my intermediate students and so much to teach them!

I have to admit that we are all tired. If last week felt long I wonder how is  this next week going to feel? I read somewhere that this feeling is called Short Timers Disease ( a disease, really?? ). Apparently , it is an ailment that prolongs time and saps your enthusiasm when a holiday is imminent.

So, being in May, are you suffering from this mythical Short Timers Disease?? Let’s hope not.

These are the Speaking Activities I am planning to do with Intermediate Students . There is a bit of everything in the hope that  they  enjoy my last lessons.

You can download the whole lesson plan here.

TASK 1. JUST FOR FUN . Ask one student to read the following poem aloud. ( good to introduce some new vocabulary). It is called BEFORE THE COMPUTER

BEFORE THE COMPUTER
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account!
And if you had a broken disk,
It would hurt when you found out!

Compress was something you did to garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You’d be in jail for awhile!

Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!

Cut–you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider’s home
And a virus was the flu!

I guess I’ll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody’s been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!

TASK 2. PICTURE DESCRIPTION. PREPARING FOR CERTIFICACION EXAM. Student describe  and comment on the following pictures. (useful vocabulary here)

TASK 3VIDEO Ask students if they know what the term Nomophobia means. Play the video I forgot my Phone and ask students to share their thoughts.

Task 4. SOME QUESTIONS TO TALK ABOUT

· What are some of the benefit and dangers of the Internet?

· What is your favourite piece of technology?

· Are there any new gadgets that you really want to get?

· What are the main ways in which technology has changed society?

· What do you think elderly people think of modern technology?

· How have technological advances affected your life?

· Do you think modern technology reduces or increases stress? Why?

· How has technology changed education?

· How do you think face to face communication differs from communication using computers?

· Are you connected to the Internet at home? What do you use your connection for?

· What’s your favourite website?

· Do you often buy things over the net?

· Do you use social network services such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

· If you do, How often do you use it/them?

The memorable life of….

There is little that gives more satisfaction than publishing students’ work; they are  the reason behind all the hard work that means keeping  this blog going.

Today, I want to show you some essays written by students in the Elementary level under the heading “The memorable life of… . I would have wanted to include all of them but the truth is that they were too many so I have just published half the ones I was sent. I hope nobody is disappointed!

As I have often done in the past, to publish the content I have used the free digital publishing platform Issuu.

Click to enlarge .

Carmen Menéndez’s presentation of The Memorable life of Amelia Earhart is also worth  publishing . I hope you enjoy it!!

A Formal Email

I know it might be a tiny bit too late to be posting this but I’ve  just come across it and given that we are having the test on Monday/Tuesday I sort of hope the idea of visiting the blog crossed your mind and you are one of the lucky  who will be reading and doing the interactive exercises on the website where these snapshots have been taken from:      http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/.

Scroll down their  page and make sure you do the following exercises

  • ♥Check your writing: indirect questions
  • ♥Check your writing . gap fill: Useful Phrases

Students’ Views on….

…two hot issues. On the one hand, Estibalith Solaguren expresses her opinion on whether Famous People are Treated Unfairly by the Media or Not  and on the other hand, Dulce Mariño gives her view on Whether Sex Education Should Be Taught at the Schools. Two very interesting issues that are food for thought. Thank very much to these two Intermediate students; I really appreciate you taking the time it takes to type and send me your contributions.

“Are famous treated unfairly by the media? Should they be given more privacy, or is the price of their fame an invasion into their private lives?”

Nowadays we can see that famous people seem to have no right to privacy. In spite of the fact that gossip programmes have so many followers, I completely disagree with how they treat celebrities.

It is true that a famous person’s life is more interesting than an anonymous one yet, they are treated unfairly.

Firstly, because there are lots of reporters waiting twenty-four seven at their doorsteps. They cannot go to the bakery without being shot, even when they go with children.

Secondly, gossip journalists give us fake news and they do not apologize if it proves to be a lie.

There are definitely different kinds of celebrities. On the one hand, there are people who are known because of their job e.g. singers, actors, … whereas, we have people who are known because they have sold their privacy. In any case, the media cannot abuse people in that way, even if they have sold their lives. It is like a prostitute who sells her/his body, it does not mean that she/he can be raped.

To sum up, the media are to inform us, but it is not necessary to attack, without mercy, a famous person to obtain a scoop.

“Sex in the schools”

Sex education for children should be approved in High School. Some people believe that it’s worse for children because they think that they are rather immature. Personally, in my view, it’s pretty important for young people to prevent teen pregnancy and sex diseases.
Firstly, the children from the age of twelve to nineteen are physically in a period of change and sex education can help them to understand the change of their sex organs.
Secondly, students are taught how to use condoms. I think that they are very embarrassed to speak with their parents about this. In addition, sex education helps to avoid social problems like early marriage, teen pregnancy, sex abuses and sex diseases.
In conclusion, I believe that sex education in the schools has important advantages for both teenagers and the society.

Now read the essay below, with a sample Opinion Essay from the British Council and if you feel you need more practise, click on the picture to do the interactive exercises on their website.