I’m really stressed now. Internet has been down for three days and I only had it serviced this morning after countless phone calls to the company.
Preparing exams, marking exams, preparing classes, publishing…. this is all part of who I am and what I do for a living …. but listen!, catching up on my email has been nothing short of a nightmare. Christmas is coming and it seems all the companies have got hold of my email address ’cause there were like 500 emails waiting for me. Most of them junk! Really, if I get one more email informing me that I can get a 40% discount in ( insert shop here) I am going to go postal.
Anyway, I am sure my students have been checking my site to see if I have published their last oral test as promised. Here it is guys! Sorry to keep you waiting !
The topic: Fashion and Trends
First of all, three nice pictures you need to use as an excuse to talk about the given topic
and now some questions to talk about. Time to show off, guys!
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?
Mind mapping is a very important learning tool for visual learners. This mind map has been created with Exam Time, which is very easy to use and embeddable, a feature I always appreciate.
There are some steps previous to this mind mapping we wrote on the board, essentially reading and listening about this issue. Form these listenings and readings we gathered and sorted vocabulary that was, then, written on the board.
Step 2. Mind Mapping
What you see below is a nice way of displaying what was written on the board of the classroom with the help of my students.
For this activity, instead of the typical photocopy with the list of questions to talk about, I have put students in groups of three or four and given each group a set of cards, which they had to place face down on the table. Students in turns pick up a card and talk for as much as they can about the given question. At this point I give my students the usual talk about how important it is now, to “show off.”
This is a snapshot of the cards. Click here if you want to print them.
This year I am teaching two different levels, the 2nd course in the Elementary Level and the 2nd course in the Intermediate Level. Teaching the last courses within a level means my students will have to, necessarily, take the Certificación exam if they want to pass to the next level. The exam has different parts but I know you’ll agree with me if I say that the most stressful one is the Oral test. I know it is not everyone’s cup of tea to face a board of two or three teachers listening, very attentively, to every word you say. Haven’t you always wanted to be centre of attention 😉 ?
The oral Exam in the Elementary Level has two parts. The first part is a Role-Play. Here, the students will have to interact with the teacher. Students will be presented with a situation and they will have to take one role, while the teacher takes the other role.
To prepare my students for these role-plays, I often use PhotoPeach, an online tool which allows you to create a free slide show in seconds. Dying to try my other slideshows with Role-Plays? Click here
This is the last I have uploaded: Renting a House. Prior to this online Role-Play, students, in pairs, have written an advert for a house/flat for rent and from this advert they have written a dialogue, which they have later performed.
