Tag Archives: slides

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!!

Preparing for the Certificación Oral Test: Role Plays.

You won’t probably need to be reminded that in the Certificación Oral Test there are two parts. No matter what level you are taking there is always an Interaction with the examiner and then another part where you’ll be on your own talking about whatever is shown in the pictures the examiner will offer you.

Today I want to help you practice the Interaction at Elementary level. I hope these slides help you. More will be coming , so keep posted!!!.

Speaking: Practising Modals

I shouldn’t be saying this but I have to… I hate teaching modals and I am not a hundred per cent  sure I  am the only one to blame for this. Maybe grammarians should reach an agreement on how best categorise them ?

Anyway, let’s face the teaching of modals with some speaking activities to help lift spirits. Mine, of course!

ACTIVITY 1.EXPRESSING ABILITY: CAN

Work with a partner. Take turns asking your partner questions about the abilities in parentheses. Use Can in your questions and Can or Can’t in your answers. Demonstrate you can -let’s have fun, shall we?- where necessary:)

♥ (say the alphabet backwards)

♥ (wiggle your nose)

♥ (read in a car without getting sick)

♥ (touch the end of your nose with your eyes closed)

♥ (curl your tongue)

♥ (remember your first teacher’s name)

♥ (raise one eyebrow without raising the other)

♥ (cross your eyes)

♥ (pull your fingers backwards to your wrist)

Do you have any other outstanding abilities?

Ready to continue…?

ACTIVITY 2. In pairs once again, talk about the following…

Speaking: Describing a Dish

Happy New Year to everybody! I am back!!! Hard to get started once again after this longish holiday. It’s been eight days now since we have let 2014 in and it is time we get down to some serious work, don’t you think?

Talking in class about food related things after some huge binge eating and drinking is not precisely what appeals to me most, but unfortunately I cannot choose.
This is an activity I am going to do with my Elementary students after some serious work practising food vocabulary.

The activity is simple. The students are sitting in pairs, one student facing the board and the other with his back to the board. Using the OHP, a picture of a popular dish is displayed. Now, the person seeing the picture has to describe it in as much detail as possible, talking about its ingredients and the way it is cooked and the other person has to guess the dish. Allow them two or three minutes and then display another picture for the other student to do the same. Below are some slides with the  dishes that I am going to use.

Some useful vocab they are likely to use

Nouns: pan, cinnamon, olives, tuna, blood sausage,

Verbs: to beat eggs, to fry, to boil, to add,  to stir with a spoon,to slice (apples)