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Feel free to send your ideas to my email: mariazabalapena@gmail.com / englishforeso@yahoo.es. To use the lesson plans in my blog, you do NOT need photocopies for students. You MAY need to print instructions or to use a projector and/or a computer.

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Browse LABELS to the right, underneath to find prompts and tasks.New!! VIDEO BLOGS on English for Communications and on English for Office Applications (Computers). See links below.

* English for Communications. Click HERE. By Beatriz Papaseit Fernández and myself, María Zabala Peña

* English for Office Applications (Computers :Word 2007 and more). Click HERE. By Beatriz Papaseit Fernández and myself, María Zabala Peña

Sunday, November 7, 2021

ESL Debate. Adoption

Objective: Students discuss to decide what to do with twin foundlings

Level: B2 +

Timing: 1 hour

Materials: Projector to show the list of criteria for adoption. Otherwise, copies of criteria

 Procedure: 

 Students work in groups (3 or 4 max.)
A)
  • Tell students the story of the abandoned child (Story below) 
  • Ask the questions. How should authorities react? ( Most groups would try to find the parents).
  • Ask teams of students to be specific about practicalities:  the means to find the parents, how to ensure the parents are the real parents..., etc. Also,  authorities need to make sure the baby is not sick.
B) 
  • Tell students the parents were not found. The foundlings are up for adoption.
  • Tell students the administration is deciding on the adoption criteria. Project the criteria below.
  • Students create a YES/NO checklist to decide the characteristics of the ideal parents. Students need to accept or rule out the adoption criteria (See below) providing compelling reasons.
  • Ask students to add other criteria or caveats for the adoption. (See suggestions below)
  • Students share their ideas/debate 
The story:

A truck driver was in a gas station. He was just about to get into his truck when he heard two babies screaming right in front of his wheel. He picked the babies up and took them to the authorities.
The authorities need to react.

Adoption criteria to discuss:

The ideal parents should:

[ ] be under 30 years old

[ ] be of the same racial group as the child

[ ] be of the same religious group as each other

[ ] be a married couple

[ ] be a heterosexual couple

[ ] both have jobs

[ ] have other children in the family

[ ] not be living in poverty

[ ] have some professional experience of dealing with children, i.e. as teachers or nurses


Suggestions

Authorities should a foster family, not family to adopt just in case the biological parents turned up

Siblings should not be separated.


Sunday, October 3, 2021

Using 5 senses to describe a story.

 Are your students stories a bit "bland"?

Maybe we need to remind our students what the 5 senses are and what's their potential. 

Level: medium to high 

Materials: Rap video (see below), different sounds (use youtoube), different objects that teacher can bring. 

Procedure:

  • Ask SS what the five senses are
  • Brainstorm vocabulary for every sense: Ex: touch: rough, smooth.. 
  • Students listen to RAP about the five senses. You may download video HERE if the  embedded video   fails to  open.  




  • Sense of touch/smell : Students work in pairs/teams of 3. One of the students is blindolded. Students need to guess what the object is. They need to describe what they feel when they touched it and what the smell is like. Preparation:  teacher needs to bring objects. Students can pass the objects from group to group. You will need as many set of objects as number of groups: Suggestions: a bottle, skein, rubber band, sandpaper, paper bag, a potato, some salt/sugar...
  • Sense of sound: Teacher plays sounds. You will find many on the internet. Suggestions: birds singing, baby wailing, sound of sea, cicadas, rustling of clothes, gusts of water,  pouring rain ... Students identify the sounds, and their names. 


Lazy stories to practice hypothesis: 3rd conditionals + modals ( might have, may have...)

Level: intermediate to high

Previous knowledge: 3rd conditionals/ compound modals 

Procedure:

  • Download the handout with the texts to read: Click HERE to download the texts by George Chilton 
  • Teacher (or students) read short texts for students to decide what might be happening or what they would have done.
Example: Text One.

I awoke one night to the sound of an insistent scratching at my bedroom window.
The wind was howling loudly and, very close-by, there was the distinctive cry of a baby wailing in distress.Where was it? On my window-ledge? This could not be! My whole body shook with fear.
Then I turned over and went back to sleep.

Click HERE to download the texts 

The source of the is: https://designerlessons.org/2012/01/21/esl-lesson-plan-student-centred-writing-activities/

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Advanced reading. Telling about news with a fun twist

Level: upper intermediate/advanced  

Materials: 

Students need to read online news in teams. Therefore for this task, teacher will have to use either a personal computer per team or allow students to use their mobiles.  

If you do not have any of these devices available, you can choose the "Weird" pieces of news to print. 

Procedure:

  • Divide classes in teams of 3 to 4 ss
  • Give each student a different source of strange news. I suggest these: (some of the news may contain adult content) 
  1. Weird News - Strange and Odd News Stories | Sky News
  2. Weird News (huffpost.com)
  3. Strange News - Weird Science News and Discoveries (livescience.com)
  4. Weird News - Latest Bizarre & Strange News Stories - Express.co.uk
You will find more sources by typing  "Strange news" or "weird news" on any browser
  • Each group picks a piece of news
  • Each group invents a piece of news
  • Each groups presents both pieces of news. Make ss explain difficult vocabulary first.
  • Groups decide which piece is true,


Sunday, September 26, 2021

Weatherman. Weatherwoman

Be ready to be the Weather Person 

Level. Intermediate or higher 

Timing: one hour

Procedure: 
Students watch TWO VIDEOS. Available HERE

Students prepare their own weather forecast. 

First video: This video provides B1 or + weather expressions.

Video title: Talking about the weather in English. (8 minutes) 

Students need to take notes of the vocabulary (chilly, freezing, you can see your breath, bundle up, drizzling, mist, spitting, chucking it down, overcast, dark overhead, a storm is brewing, scorching, boiling, baking hot, sleeting, frost....

Second video + vocabulary list:

Video title: Kaddy Lee Preston.Weather Woman ( 1 minute 50) 

Handout to project: Kaddy Lee Preston. Words to remember/learn

Student should make sure they understand the sentences/expressions on Kaddy Lee Preston Handout

Students listen to video and raise their hands when they hear the sentences.


Prepare to produce your own weather forecast to share it with the class or your team 

Debate. Structure, vocabulary and expressions. For and Against essay. Team work

 Level: intermediate and higher 

Students should be relatively fluent and be mature enough to bring arguments to class.

Materials: 

Projector

Enclosed docs:

  • Model text to project/read: ‘Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss"
  • Expressions/Vocabulary for debates
  • Model text to discuss: Junk food should be banned
  • List of topics for debates

Access docs  HERE 

Procedure:
A) 
  • Divide students in groups of 3/4. 
  • Assign roles within groups: Take notes of FOR argument/ take notes of  "Against Arguments"/ Take notes of language structures  (you can give the same roles to students)
  • Project the text: Advantages and  advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss. You may copy the text into a Teleprompter HERE
  • Students take notes according to their roles
  • Students share their notes 
B) 
  • Project and discuss the text: Expressions vocabulary for debates 
C) 
  • Project model text: Junk food
  • Encourage students to create sentences using the vocabulary/ expressions in step B) 
D) 
  • Project list of topics for debate
  • Each team creates a for/against text on a different/same? topic
  • Students share their text
Access docs  HERE 

Sources:
https://evajorgeteacher.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/for-against-opinion-essays.pdf
https://debatewise.org/31023-junk-food-should-be-banned/
https://www.myenglishpages.com/english/communication-lesson-useful-expressions-for-debating.php
https://debatewise.org/
https://www.teachenglishabroad.co/ultimate-guide-to-engaged-ells/100-esl-debate-topics-that-will-get-your-students-fired-up

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Expert-approved tips to tackle parenting in a pandemic/lockdown



Wondering how to handle sibling fights? Parenting expert Alyson Schafer checks in with The Morning Show to answer your lockdown parenting questions. 8 min video 

Level:
medium to upper
Procedure
  • Students make sure they understand the expressions/words from the list. 
  • Students answer the questions themselves
  • Students compare their answers with those  provided by Alyson Shaffer
A) Expressions and vocabulary
**Read the following expressions and vocabulary before listening. Make sure you understand them in context  when you watch the video. . 

To be at each other’s throats
Cry for help
Kerfuffle (British for commotion)
Throw one another under the bus
To grow mold
To win teenagers buy-in
Take the door off the hinges
Find like-minded people
To get the wheels back on track (on parenting)
Get a handoff (children have a sleepover for the weekend)
Let the tears flow

B)  Think of your  answers to the following questions
  1. Why do teenagers tend to fight when the parents are busy?
  2. What is the reasonable amount of time to allow teens to be alone in their room?
  3. What can parents do if they run out of patience, are cranky, and snap at their children?
  4. How can parents ensure teens are not lying and going behind their back to see their friends?

C) Now listen to The Morning Show (8min video). Compare your answers with the expert's advice


 

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Different ways to practice mixed future tense practice by Alex Case

 Level: low  to intermediate 

Source: Alex Case  at TELF net. Click here for the original post 


Actually

People often respond to future questions with a different tense or structure, e.g. “Are you meeting your girlfriend tonight?” “Actually, she’s going out with some friends of hers so I’m going to stay at home and watch some videos that she doesn’t like.” In this example, the different structures are because the person imagines that their friend must have an arrangement but in fact, they have only a plan. The same is possible for any pairing of future tenses. 

You can exploit this by asking students to respond to every future question with a different tense in this way. Students will probably need some help with the original questions (e.g. “Are you going to try to give up smoking again this year?”) and some sentence stems for the answers (e.g. “I don’t have any plans but…”) Most answers will need to be imaginary in order to match the available tenses.

Plan/arrangement/prediction
This activity can help students avoid difficult conversations like those in Actually above by choosing a tense that is more probably right in their questions.
Give students a list of future events, each of which could be an arrangement, a plan, or just a thing that they can predict (e.g. birthday party, retirement, exercise, and window shopping). 

A student picks one and guesses whether their partner already has an arrangement or a plan, or can only make a prediction. After their partner has confirmed which one it is, they then try to make a true sentence in the right tense, e.g. “You are having a birthday party this weekend” (arrangement), “You aren’t going to bother with a birthday party this year” (plan) or “Your family will probably arrange a surprise party for you” (prediction).

Discussion questions

Discussion questions can be used to practice tenses in two ways – giving the question in a particular tense (e.g. “How will this city change in the next twenty years, do you think?”), or designing the question so that a particular tense is supposed to come up in the answer (e.g. “Tell us about your plans for next weekend”). For more controlled grammar practice, students can then fill in gapped versions of the same questions or example answers.

Future tenses Ask and tell

Give students a list of topics and vocabulary that can be connected to the future, e.g. “retirement” and “ambition”. You should also include some that are a bit more risqué like “remarry”, “bet” and “holiday romance”. Students pick one word or topic (either their own choice or random, depending on how you want them to play the game) and then make a future question from it. They can make any question they like, e.g. “What would you do if your husband lost all your money betting on the horses?”, but they might have to answer the question themselves. This is decided by a flip of a coin. Heads mean that they can ask their question to one other person in their group, but tails (= tell) means that they must answer their own question.

Mixed video predictions
The easiest and most fun video prediction task is a well-known one – pause the video and ask the students to predict what happens next. You can use this for a mix of both “going to for predictions with future evidence” and “will for predictions” by picking moments where the present evidence is clear (e.g. someone being about to bump into something) and the consequences are also possible to predict. Students can then use “going to” for the first sentence and “will” for the latter.

You may use this dinner  scene from the Joy Luck Club:
 http://mariavocationaltraining.blogspot.com/2011/09/intercultural-awareness-manners-at.html


Plans and spontaneous decisions helping game
The easiest way of practicing these meanings of “going to” and “will” is for someone to say what their plan is (maybe from a list of suggestions like “You are going to have a housewarming party”), and other people to offer to help with sentences like “I’ll bring the booze” and “I’ll help you tidy up afterwards”. The last person to speak when everyone else has run out of ideas is the winner.

Plans and spontaneous decisions hindering game
In this game, when someone says what their plan is (e.g. “I’m going to take the train to the seaside tonight”), the other people have to think of a reason why that plan is impossible (e.g. “The last train leaves at noon” or “The weather forecast says that there will be a tidal wave”). The first person then has to say how they will change their plans, e.g. “Really? In that case I’ll go to the mountains instead.” The other people then have to think of a reason why that new plan is impossible. This continues until either side runs out of ideas.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

News in simple English: current affairs, science, society...


This blog entry is devoted to sites that present current news in simple English. 

Links are provided at the end.  Should any link not work, please write a comment to let me know. 

Level: lower intermediate and upper 

Timing: depending on the length of the article. From 10 to 35 minutes average

Objective: improve reading skills.  Learn about different  topics.  Improve vocabulary.  

Procedure:

  • Enter one or several of the links below
  • Choose/Read  some pieces of news (teacher should indicate  quantity and frequency)
  • Choose news on different topics. Example: it is ok to read sports news but  not exclusively. 
  • Copy the task below and complete it for every piece of news:
Task:

  1. Link to the piece of news:.......... 
  2. Date of the piece of news:.......... 
  3. Title of the piece of news: .......... 
  4. Topic of the piece of news:.......... 
         Possible ways to start section 4 (topic of the piece  of news) : 
  • This piece of news is about.......... 
  • This piece of news tells the story of .......... 
  • In this piece of news, I have learnt that .......... 
    5.  Vocabulary or expressions I have learned in this reading.  
        Write the expression or the word in the context is appears in the text.  Write the translation next to it. 
LINKS TO NEWS IN SIMPLE ENGLISH