Tag Archives: speaking

Ready-Made Lesson: Food and eating

18 October 2015Lesson Plan: IntermediateB1, eating, food, lesson plan, listening, picture description, speaking, video, vocabulary, writingCristina Cabal

Lesson on Food and Eating at Intermediate Level.

Vocabulary
Listening Comprehension
Picture description
Questions for discussion
Writing

STEP 1. VOCABULARY. You can download the pdf here.

To talk, you need words. These are the words I think my intermediate students will probably need.

Adjectives

fresh fish
frozen lasagne
low-fat /high fat cheese
raw fish
spicy chicken
takeaway pizza
tinned meatballs
ready-made dish
delicious /nice taste
it’s nice/ it’s disgusting
fizzy drinks
healthy/unhealthy food
fatty food

Verbs

to eat out
to eat sensibly
to cut down on sugar
to cut out sugar
to be on a diet
to lose weight
to put on weight
to order food
to take vitamins
to take food supplements
to try new food
to contain vitamins and minerals
to have a balanced diet

Nouns

(food that is high/low in) carbohydrates “carbs”
(rich/high – low/poor in) proteins
(high in ) sugar
eating habits
a nutritionist
fats

STEP 2. LISTENING COMPREHENSION

At this level, students know what a “vegetarian” is. So write the word VEGETARIAN on the whiteboard and ask students if they know any vegetarians and if they do, what it is like for them when they eat out. Write the word “veggie” and explain that it is another term for vegetarian. Play the listening below, just for fun! It only lasts 36 seconds and it is worth every second of it!

The word “vegetarian” is a blanket term used to describe somebody who does not eat meat, poultry, fish or seafood. But then, within this term there exist different sub-groups. Ask students if they know any of these sub-groups and if they think a diet without meat is better than a diet with it.

Tell students they are going to do a listening comprehension about the different types of vegetarians.

STEP 3. SPEAKING. You can download the pdf here

Picture description: Students describe the pictures talking about the topic suggested .

EATING OUT IS NEVER A HEALTHY OPTION. Do you agree?

Interaction. Students in pairs or in threes talk about the questions elaborating on the answers.

Is there any food or drink that you couldn’t live without? How often do you drink/eat it?
Is there any food that you dislike? Which is it?
What was your favourite food when you were a child?
Do you eat healthily? Explain
Do you ever have…

ready-made food?
takeaway food?

Do you prefer to eat at restaurants or at home?
What’s the best restaurant you have been to?
Is a vegetarian diet better than a diet that includes meat? Why?
What kind of diet would you recommend to a friend?
Eating habits have changed a lot in Spain . Do you agree?
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” Do you agree with this proverb?

STEP 4. WRITING

Write an opinion essay on :

Eating meat can cause serious health problems so the best option is to become a vegetarian. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Check out how to write a for and against essay in my Writing Section here.

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook

An Engaging Combination: First-Day Introductions+Indirect Questions + Concentric Circles Technique

8 October 2015Create your own stuff, Funny Stuff, Games, Grammar and Exercises, Lesson Plan: Advanced, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Slides, SpeakingB1, B2, concentric circles, first day activities, icebreakers, indirect questions, methodology, speaking, writingCristina Cabal

Last week was crazy. No lessons yet but lots of tests to be marked and tons of red tape to go through. So, I am shockingly super excited about beginning a new course; yes, excited about getting up early and teaching non-stop for six hours and no… I did not trip and fall into a bucket full of cider 😉 (typical drink where I live).

First days are for introductions and little more, but this year I think I am going to kill two birds with one stone and combine introductions and some grammar that needs to be reviewed. So, I have got this idea in mind of asking students to introduce themselves to each other using indirect questions. I hope most of my new students will have, at some point over the years, studied with me and for the rest, I will have to find a way to deal with the OMG- shocked looks I am sure I am going to get. But let’s cross that bridge when I come to it!

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. Click to follow!

Level: Intermediate and Above

Time Required: 30-45 minutes

Description of the Activity .This engaging activity has been designed as a first-day oral introduction activity and to teach/help students revise how to make indirect questions . I will use the concentric circles technique, which is a mingle activity .The technique is explained below and I have also published a picture of my students doing the task.

STEP 1.Revision of Indirect Questions.

Indirect questions were studied last year, so we will just do a quick revision with this video I have created using the free tool powtoon.com

If necessary, we will spend some minutes brushing up in two different ways

Doing some online exercises you can find here or , here or if you do not have a computer, you might want to photocopy this worksheet here

Orally producing some questions and asking students to provide the indirect question.

STEP 2. Writing .

Ask students to write a question they would like to ask their classmates. For example: ” Do you speak any other languages?”, “Where do you live?” or “How long have you been studying English?”.

Give students slips of paper containing the beginning of an indirect question and ask them to make sure they know how to ask their question beginning with the phrase on their card. Cards here. (template downloaded from Teknologic). For example : “Can I ask you where you live?” or “Would you mind telling me how long you have been studying English?”.

STEP 3. Explaining the concentric circle technique.

This technique is a kind of mingle. Although mingles can be a bit noisy and a bit disorganised, most students love it.The distinctive feature of a mingle activity is that all the students work simultaneously and switch from one classmate to another while speaking. Mingles allow constant repetition and this raises students’ confidence in their use of English.

Students arrange themselves so that they are facing each other in two circles. The inner circle faces out, the outer circle faces in, so that each participant has a partner that they are facing (Note: If the group has an uneven number of people, the teacher should participate in the circles). Each student from the outside circle, after speaking with the person facing him or her, moves one step clockwise to speak with a new classmate from the inside circle. I would suggest asking students to switch partners every four minutes for this activity. This concentric circle technique can very well be adapted to talk about any given topic of discussion. Encourage students to elaborate on their answers and use targeted language structure.

STEP 5. Speaking.

Students introduce themselves to the person they are facing and then ask their indirect questions making conversation with their partner. After four minutes, call time and rotate for the next question, forming a new partnership.

The conversation might go something like this:

Student A: Hi, I’m (student’s name)

Student B: Hello, my name’s (student’s name)

Student A: Can you tell me how long you have been studying English?

Student B : (answers the question giving as many details as possible)

Student B : Can I ask you a question now? Would you mind telling me why you are studying English?

Student A: Answers

Teacher says :” Rotate” and students from the outside circle move one step clockwise to speak with a new classmate from the inside circle.

Model an example of a conversation with a student.

Stop the activity when they have had a chance to speak to most students.

Phonetizer: an online free tool to help you improve pronunciation

30 September 2015Phoneticsonlinetools, phonetics, pronunciation, speakingCristina Cabal

One of the most difficult things about learning a language is its phonetics. Unlike other languages that have pronunciation rules, the English language has very few pronunciation rules and lots of exceptions. Knowing the International Phonetic Alphabet can help you pronounce words correctly.
Phonetizer is a little tool that transcribes English texts into the International Phonetic Alphabet. Phonetizer is very easy to use. It has two panels: in the first one, you write or paste the text and then click “Transcribe” and in the second panel you will get the transcription. In this second panel you can also select a word or a phrase and click “Speak” for the software to read your selected words or phrases.

Wanna have a laugh? Try to guess the answers to these jokes. They are written with phonetic symbols using the International Phonetic Alphabet. (answers below)

1. Nothing. It just waved!

2. Because he had no body to go with.

3. Because it had a virus.

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook

Introducing Question Tags Using What you Know about your Students

24 September 2015Lesson Plan: Advanced, Phonetics, Speaking, Writing, Writing skillB1, B2, lesson plan, methodology, question tags, speakingCristina Cabal

Introducing, Understanding and Using Question Tags

I don’t know about you, but I have like 15-20 students per class. This number suits me fine as it allows me to do plenty of activities which require group work without students feeling the class is too crowded to interfere with academic success. At the same time, this number of students also gives me the chance to get to know my students quite well, even know some personal details about them, which are going to prove useful to introduce question tags in an easy way.

Aim: Introducing , Understanding and Using Questions Tags with a Falling Intonation

Level : B2

STEP1. Introducing. Surprise your students by producing some statements about their lives. Make sure your intonation is falling as we are just checking something we already know.

Esther, you are a nurse, aren’t you?
Felix, you have been to France several times, haven’t you?
Isabel, you spent your childhood in France, didn’t you?
Laura, you aren’t married, are you?
Carlos, you don’t work in a bank, do you?

At this stage, students are on tenterhooks waiting for you to say something about each of them so you have all their undivided attention. While I would say the first sentences containing the tags in a normal way, for the last ones I would emphasize the question tag so that they realise something is going on.

Step 2. Understanding. Focus on meaning/form/pronunciation. At this point , some students would have probably asked the question “When do you use them? “Tell them you use question tags with a falling intonation when we are sure of the answer, so the question tag here is not a real question (meaning). With the students‘ help , write some of the previous sentences on the board for students to infer the rules (form). Focus on intonation now, making sure all the students have had a chance to do enough practice before we move on to the next step (pronunciation).

Step 3. Using Question Tags

♥Controlled Practice. Now ask students how much they know about you and ask them, in pairs, to write some facts they think they know about you. Students tend to write positive sentences, so encourage them to write negative ones, too. Once they have written their sentences about you, point to the board where hopefully the rules will still be displayed and ask them to write the question tag .

Stundents take it in turns to read their sentences aloud asking for confirmation (gently correct if necessary) and the teacher answers accordingly.

Cristina, you worked in EOI La Felguera some years ago, didn’t you? Yes, I did.
Cristina, you don’t eat meat, do you? No, I don’t. I’m a pescatarian.

At this stage, it is important to teach students how you answer to a question Tag.

If you answer Yes, do not use contracted forms.

If you use No, contracted forms are possible.

Yes, he is.
No, he is not./ No, he isn’t/ No, he‘s not

♥Freer Practice. Students, individually now, write five facts they think they know about their partner using question tags. Allow 5 minutes for this step helping students with vocabulary and questions tags. Students carry out the speaking task in pairs. The teacher monitors, promts and corrects gently.

Question Tags Grammar Handout here. (black and white version here)

Some Priceless Topic-Based Videos to Help Students Prepare for the Speaking Test

14 September 2015Listening, Speaking, VocabularyB1, B2, exam, speaking, videoCristina Cabal

Hi, hey! How are things?
Have you read my last post?? It’s all about first-day activities to get to know my new students. Are you going to be one of them? I hope so!
Lessons start on 5 October and I am totally in teaching mode. In September ,some of my students will need to take the oral exam again and I thought it might be a good idea to share with you some priceless videos that I found on youtube this summer. I wish I had shared them with you before exams in June, but I didn’t know about them just then. Anyway, I hope you can still make good use of them.
What I am going to show you in this post is the website of an English teacher, Marek Connell ,and his awesome videos on how to answer the questions in the Escuela Oficial de idiomas Intermediate (B1) and Advanced (B2)speaking exams. I have to say here that in my region (Asturias) EOI exams don’t follow exactly the same procedure Marek explains in his videos, ie, students cannot take notes and they do not have 10 minutes to organise their speech, but what I like about his videos is that he shows how a fluent speaker would answer the questions related to a given topic.

For each topic I will show you:
• From my own website: some questions you could be asked
• From Marek Connell ‘s website, his own videos showing how a native speaker (himself) would answer some of these questions. Click to visit Marek’s website

So, pen and paper at the ready? Here we go.

1. FAMILY, FRIENDS, RELATIONSHIPS

♥Questions about Friendship,

♥Questions about your dream partner