Search results matching tags 'writing' and 'adults'

Global Population – 7 billion people and you

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:15:59 GMT

There’s a really nice app on the BBC website that lets you figure out where you come in the global population statistics – for example, when I was born I was the four billionth, 50 millionth, seven hundred and sixty four thousandth, one hundred and sixty first person alive on the planet. It goes on to let you look at country population statistics and average life expectancy. Check it out here: BBC News – 7 billion people and you: Whats your number?.

The app is based (primarily) on data from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) , who have their own app at http://www.7billionandme.org/. This asks you for more detailed information, not only your date of birth, but birth location, current location and such like, but it does then break down the data into a much wider spread of infographics that compare the situation back then, with the way things are now. Anyone who’s helping learners work with describing trends and/or numbers (big numbers!) would find this a useful place to go to get some personalised data for the learners to work with.

Also on the web via UNFPA, is http://www.7billionactions.org which is hoping to inspire people to take positive actions in their communities and around the world. One of the more powerful ways they hope to achieve this is by people sharing their stories: 7 billion stories. There is a registration form to complete (the usual) and you need a picture to upload. Participants also need to be 13 years old or over. Then you write a 600 character “story” about yourself and how you hope to influence change, give it a title and go!

It seems like there’s a fairly obvious lesson plan there! The kicker though, is that it is only 600 CHARACTERS – not words! So learners will need to be concise! It may also help learners to look at the existing stories to get a better idea of the type of content that’s expected of them.

Worth a look anyway! At the time of writing, the world’s population stands at 6, 999, 175, 608. So be quick if you want to get there in time for 7 billion!

First Lesson or First Week Ideas

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:30:14 GMT

Back in July I posted a selections of 20 ideas and activities that might be worth trying out as you get to know your new classes this school year – and since then there’ve been a couple of additional ideas to throw into the mix:

Recently, the 24th Edition of EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival : A Journey in TEFL got posted on Eva Buyuksimkesyan’s “A Journey in TEFL” blog. I strongly recommend taking a look here if you’re in need of inspiration – Eva’s collated over 40 (I lost count) posts from different contributors.

The Lesson Plans Page also has a wide range of back to school resources and materials, though these are aimed more at native speaker young learner classes than a language learner class – and I’ve not tried any of them, so can’t vouch for them personally!

First Lesson: I don’t know what you did last summer!

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:30:07 GMT

A very quick alternative to the standard composition task “What I did on my Summer holidays”.

Essentially, you ask the learners to write the composition (100 words? I guess length will be age & level dependent) about somebody else in the class.

I think I’ve blogged a similar activity at some point before, but not sure when. Anyway, the key to the activity, is that if John is writing about Amy’s holidays, John can’t talk directly to Amy. John has to ask the other learners in the class, Frank, Marta and so forth to ask Amy the questions that John wants to know the answers to.

Thus through a constant process of questions and answers John eventually gets enough information to write Amy’s composition for her. Of course, Amy will be writing Marta’s, Marta Frank’s and Frank John’s, so it all evens out eventually.

This is intended as an alternative for classes where learners do know each other – but it also works really well as the final part of a lesson with a class where nobody knows each other, as John will constantly be explaining to his classmates WHO Amy is, thus meaning everyone should have a much better idea of who everybody else in the class is by the end of it!

Having gathered together all the information during the lesson – the actual writing up of the composition can either be done in class or as a homework task. What can then be interesting is for the writer and the subject to check how close to the truth the composition is. The subject can then feedback and edit both the content and language of the composition for later revision – though this would be an optional stage depending on the abilities of the class.

Working with Project Classes

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:02:14 GMT

This is an entry for everyone currently working at an ELT summer school somewhere in the world! It’s not always easy and there’s a lot of hard work – hopefully this post will help out a bit! I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy my summer school experiences immensely over the years and one of the things I’ve enjoyed doing most has been the project classes. This post takes a look at what’s important to remember before the project class kicks off and gives some ideas for different projects and how to stage them.

There are a number of advantages to doing project work with learners – projects can be (if done right):

Collaborative – they encourage learners to work together to generate something personal and meaningful
Communicative – by their very nature they put learners in a situation where communication is necessary in order to achieve the goal.
Cross-Curricular – they don’t have to be based solely in the language classroom but can draw on learner knowledge from other areas
Cross-cultural – they can be used to develop learners intercultural awareness and intercultural communication skills, both towards the target language culture, but also across the classroom cultural spectrum.
Task-based – there will inevitably be a set of linguistic items that learners need to perform the task successfully. Projects can provide a “real” need for language in order to successfully accomplish the goal.

For me, any project needs to follow five main stages: OUTLINE – PLANNING – GATHERING – CREATION – OUTCOME.

OUTLINE: obviously in a summer school context where the projects might involve more than one class, the decision as to what type of project or what topic area to be investigated might be taken out of the learners’ hands. The OUTLINE therefore needs to be discussed amongst colleagues or decided by the teacher in advance of the class. If you’re only doing a project with one class, then you can involve the learners in this discussion stage, thus making it a bit more relevant to their lives, a bit more consensual and less imposed. At this stage te.achers will also need to think about what the OUTCOME of the project might be, to make sure that they have the relevant materials or technologies available. Sample OUTLINES for six different project ideas are given below.

PLANNING: Once the project outline has been decided, it can (if not already) be handed over to the learners for further development. With younger learners, or in the summer school context, the main role of the teacher is one of restraint! You need to make sure that what your learners are planning is achievable in the time frame or with the resources available! In essence, you need to make sure someone thinks about the practicalities. Keep asking those questions like: ”That’s a brilliant idea! So where are you going to find the elephants for the parachute display?”

GATHERING: Most projects will involve a degree of information gathering – but not all. So depending on the project, this can be an optional stage. But you could also see this stage as a deeper exploration of the ideas generated in the planning stage.

CREATION: Where it all comes together. Break out the scissors, glue and cardboard. Book out the computer room, make friends with the art department. Throw the relevant supplies at the class (making sure there’s not too much glitter) and stand back. If you have identified learners in your class with tendencies towards perfectionism – make sure they’re working together so that you only have one unfinished group at the end of the class and so that everyone else is more likely to contribute!

OUTCOME: It’s worth remembering that not every project needs to involve glitter and glue – in fact the more memorable projects might not involve any. Arts and Craft is great, but at a summer school the kids get arts and crafts lessons separately – they probably don’t need more of the same. In other words – the primary outcome of the project should be linguistic. One of my proudest TEFL memories is watching 150 students do a whole school survey mingle (details below). A colleague recalls watching a student shine during a poetry recital (the student in question is now part of the administrative staff). The most important thing about the OUTCOME is that somebody else should see it. Not just the class that made it – but everyone else in the school! Or the teachers’ room, or parents. But somebody and that these people should have the chance to provide feedback in some way. After all – what’s the point in spending three days making a poster on global warming if it just stays up in the classroom? The students know what it looks like – they made it!

So the outcome should be primarily linguistic and highly visible. If possible, some sort of competition or vote by and amongst the learners on the work performed by their peers?

So finally – here are some of the ideas that I’ve worked with over the years:

PROJECT:	LESSON 1:	LESSON 2:	LESSON 3:	OUTCOME:
Interclass Surveys	SS decide what they will survey and generate a questionnaire	Whole school mingle (somewhere!) and SS ask and answer each other’s questions	SS collate the data from their surveys and prepare their displays	SS poster displays are put up in the corridors etc. Other SS view the displays.
PhotoStory	SS plot their stories and decide which scenes need pictures taking	SS take their pictures out and about. (NB – need sufficient digital cameras?) Teachers print pictures	SS organise their images and write text captions / plot synopses.	SS poster displays are put up in the corridors etc Other SS view the displays.
Performance Poetry Festival	SS research some poems they like and choose one	SS dramatise the poem into a mini play?	SS gather to watch and perform	Performance based
Board GameBattle	SS plan and design a board game (on any topic / idea) and request materials	SS use the materials to create their board games. T feeds in “game” language etc	The SS and the games gather somewhere and play each others games and vote for the best one?	Demonstrations and playing of different games
Class Newspapers / Magazines	SS research news stories, either from their own country or elsewhere	SS incorporate / edit their stories into a single “newpaper” / magazine.	SS gather somewhere, swap their efforts and read each others – vote for the best?	Written / typed newspaper (copies to take home?)
Shopaholics	SS spend half the time finding out how much they can buy for 50 pounds and half their time planning and designing their own shops	SS actually create their own shops (online pictures of items / shop catalogues?) T teach polite requests & Shopkeeper argot.	SS then go shopping. The idea is to buy the highest number of things for 50quid without buying more than one of the same item	Whole school roleplay / “controlled” language practice

If there’s any clarification needed of any of these ideas – let me know!

Postie Postie / Agony Aunt

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:10:04 GMT

This is a great activity that you can use as a warmer or as a fun practice task in a number of situations.

I should acknowledge that I originally saw my Dip tutor Peter Moran do this during a lesson in Wroclaw in 2006 – in various forms it’s been one of my staple activities ever since!

I can’t remember why Peter did this – though as I recall he was stepping in to cover an absent colleague – and I can’t even remember what the lesson was about… In fact now that I think about it, it might have been an input seminar and not a lesson. But there we go – the important things matter….

In it’s basic form, “Postie Postie” needs only a lot of scrap A4 paper chopped into quarters (or not – depending on how you want to adapt it). As I recall Peter running the activity you give every learner or pair or small group a large amount of chopped up bits of paper. The bits of paper then play the role of the message medium – in other words, the learners write short notes to each other. When they finish writing the note, they shout “Postie Postie” and the teacher delivery system swings into operation. Or you collect and deliver the messages. From that point of view, it’s probably a good idea to ask the class to address and acknowledge their messages in a “to” and “from” format.

Adaptations:

As a warmer – if you brainstorm topic areas / conversations issues to the board (i.e. what everyone did at the weekend – or for summer schools -what the trip was like yesterday / how hot are the teachers / what’s different between my country and yours). Then learners simply write brief notes to each other in question or reply.

As a “freer” practice task – I have a suspicion that originally I saw this done in the context of “emailing” each other. It could of course also work in the context of a text messageathon – if text english is a lesson focus.

I used it that other day as an “agony aunt” style task. The learners were paired and had a bunch of scrap A4 paper. They were encouraged to think Jerry Springer style (e.g. My husband is in love with a tree / My daughter wants to marry our goldfish) but it was basically all their own work. They addressed their “problem” to another pair/group in the room and wrote their letter. As a grammatically correct postman – I refused to deliver letters with mistakes in them – but that was my choice, you could be more lenient!

At the end of the task we decided which problems and which solutions were worthy of awards…..

The general idea is a nice variation on a mingle style task. The learners can stay where they are and can work collaboratively in a way they can’t so easily in a mingle. Plus, as teacher, you get to vet the messages (essential with any class under the age of 16…) for content appropriacy and grammatical accuracy. As a really pedantic postman….. this task can run and run….!

CAE: Writing Part One overview / revision

Anonymous — Mon, 30 May 2011 18:21:07 GMT

It’s almost exam time again – hence the recent trend in teflgeek posts! So here’s a lesson on CAE writing, (though with some slight adaptation it’ll work for FCE / CPE as well).

At this stage, it’s probably best used as a general organisation and presentation review lesson, reminding learners what the different text types should look like and what, in general, they are trying to achieve with their writing. It’s a little prescriptive and reflects my beliefs about what learners need to do. My obsession with presentation and leaving one blank line between paragraphs is included here because, as someone who is not an examiner but who has nonetheless had the privilege of marking thousands of practice scripts and mock exams, I believe the psychological impact of a nicely presented piece of writing cannot be underestimated. Plus there’s that target reader person to consider too….

Anyway – the lesson asks learners to consider the purpose and impact of what they’re asked to write and includes a matching task based on task descriptions adapted from the CAE Handbook (link to pdf) before including a diagramming and labelling task for the organisation of the four text types.

You can download the lesson plan and materials in pdf form here: teflgeek – CAE Writing Overview lesson.

One further note on the lesson – it ends shortly after the feedback on the labelling task, which might be a little abruptly for some tastes? If you have access to a test book or coursebook with a selection of tasks (or you could use the sample tasks from the handbook) a little further discussion on what learners feel their strengths and weaknesses are, followed by a learner choice writing task for homework might be an option.

Habitat for Humanity: Lesson Plans

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2011 10:08:49 GMT

I’ll be honest, I don’t really know much about Habitat for Humanity. I’m mentioning them here because they posted a comment under one of the blog posts and I just went and took a quick look at their site.

They have quite a wealth of lessons (detailed plans, learning outcomes, materials etc), categorised by age ranges. The bad news is that these lesson plans are not aimed at foreign language learners. So the stuff in the 5-8 category might be a bit beyond the non-native speakers, though there are a couple of colouring tasks which might work?

I think adaptation is going to be the name of the game here. I think there’s quite a lot of stuff here that is likely to be of interest to learners and some things that might make some nice end of year/term projects. It should appeal to the cross-curricular / CLIL crowd….

Habitat for Humanity operates in a large number of countries around the world, so the chances are you’ll be able to find a local office, which might make things a bit more relevant to the learners?

Habitat for Humanity lessons — Habitat for Humanity Int’l.

Online Teaching Resource: Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Anonymous — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:38:56 GMT

The visual thesaurus was pointed out to me some time ago as a great alternative to the standard online dictionary search, and also as a great way to help learners broaden their vocabulary, particularly with higher level students who have a tendency to rely on a more limited than necessary lexical resource.

But…. I’ve tended not to use it because of their policy of only giving users a limited set of “tries” on the online version before shutting you down. There is of course a way round that, which involves deleting all the cookies on your computer and clearing down your browser’s history and such like (check out this nifty and free download, if you want to know more about how to do that), but the hassle is a little too much to bother with….

However, the other day I went back and discovered the visual thesaurus has evolved into something more…

There is a growing collection of lesson plans related to use of the visual thesaurus, 53 and counting thus far, and while many seem more intended for native speaker language lessons, there are those that are aimed and EFL / ESL, and those that are adaptable to it (like the one on prefixes – word formation anyone?).

Other things on the site that I think are worth a mention include:

Michele Dunaway’s “Teachers at Work” blog, whose most recent post encourages us to think differently about the way we teach creative writing to our students.
the “wordshop” collection of vocabulary activities (same caveat about target market applies…)
and finally, the vocabgrabber, which you paste text into and which generates word lists of “the most useful vocabulary words” from the text. I’m not so sure about this one, but it might be useful in deciding which items you want to pre-teach to allow learners to access a text more effectively. Though that would require you to type the target text into the website…. like I said, not quite sure about how best t0 use this tool.

State of the World’s Mothers 2011 Statistics and Facts – Save the Children

Anonymous — Tue, 10 May 2011 23:54:20 GMT

State of the World’s Mothers 2011 Statistics and Facts – Save the Children - thanks to Greg Fuller for posting this on facebook…..

There’s a lot of information here and obviously the most interesting thing for any class to do would be to pull out all the statistics that relate to their country and decide whether or not they agree with them, why, and what could be done to change the situation….

Who knows – we could start a social revolution right here?

But information transfer tasks are good ways of processing information and creating a meaningful context for language learning to occur in, so designing tasks around the huge pile of data that Save the Children provide would all give a good reasons for learners to develop their linguistic resource. Poster tasks, presentations (with or without powerpoint), charts and graphs all spring to mind. Of course for IELTS candidates, there are a lot of graphs and charts just waiting to be described in the data!

There’s also a documentary available on the website which could provide the basis for both listening tasks and discussion afterwards (though maybe not a good idea to watch if you’re expecting, or have just had, a recent addition to the family).

These are all just some initial ideas – if you have any plans, materials or ideas you’d like to share to develop this topic, please let me know!

Oil Stories

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:52:16 GMT

The Guardian newspaper recently ran a series of short stories related to oil, as part of a project to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster – (see BBC story for background).

Called “Oil Stories“, the Guardian project contains eight short stories from different authors that seek to examine our relationship with oil. The stories aren’t particularly long and one of them comes in the form of a graphic novel.

This would be a useful opportunity for learners to access an authentic text (with all the implications relating to vocabulary etc that this carries) – perhaps more than that, it is a good opportunity for a group of learners to access a range of texts on the same topic (albeit, in one or two cases, somewhat obliquely). If the texts were given out as a homework reading task, then perhaps learners could peer teach any useful vocabulary at the start of the next lesson, as well as sharing the perspectives on oil as apparent from their texts and of course their reactions to it.

The teasing out of the themes, ideas and perspectives contained within the short stories and the sharing of these within the classroom could also create optimal conditions for a summary type task, where learners work together to create a single text summarising (and possibly directly referencing) the eight short stories.

Having had the discussion in their groups of eight, learners with the same texts could work together to create a brief 50 – 75 word summary highlighting the main points in their texts. They could then work back in their groups of eight to co-ordinate and organise the ideas into a cohesive whole. This might be a good opportunity, for those with computer room access, to try one or more of the synchronous editing tools I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

The Oil Stories project contains work by the following authors: China Miéville, Alain Mabanckou, Tim Gautreaux, Joanna Kavenna, Mohammed Hasan Alwan, Simone Lia, Robin Yassin-Kassab and Rose Tremain. Even if you decide not to use these with your classes – they’re all well worth a read. Enjoy!

Search results matching tags 'writing' and 'adults'

Global Population – 7 billion people and you

First Lesson or First Week Ideas

First Lesson: I don’t know what you did last summer!

Working with Project Classes

PROJECT:

LESSON 1:

LESSON 2:

LESSON 3:

OUTCOME:

Interclass Surveys

SS decide what they will survey and generate a questionnaire

Whole school mingle (somewhere!) and SS ask and answer each other’s questions

SS collate the data from their surveys and prepare their displays

SS poster displays are put up in the corridors etc. Other SS view the displays.

PhotoStory

SS plot their stories and decide which scenes need pictures taking

SS take their pictures out and about. (NB – need sufficient digital cameras?) Teachers print pictures

SS organise their images and write text captions / plot synopses.

SS poster displays are put up in the corridors etc Other SS view the displays.

Performance Poetry Festival

SS research some poems they like and choose one

SS dramatise the poem into a mini play?

SS gather to watch and perform

Performance based

Board GameBattle

SS plan and design a board game (on any topic / idea) and request materials

SS use the materials to create their board games. T feeds in “game” language etc

The SS and the games gather somewhere and play each others games and vote for the best one?

Demonstrations and playing of different games

Class Newspapers / Magazines

SS research news stories, either from their own country or elsewhere

SS incorporate / edit their stories into a single “newpaper” / magazine.

SS gather somewhere, swap their efforts and read each others – vote for the best?

Written / typed newspaper

(copies to take home?)

Shopaholics

SS spend half the time finding out how much they can buy for 50 pounds and half their time planning and designing their own shops

SS actually create their own shops (online pictures of items / shop catalogues?)

T teach polite requests & Shopkeeper argot.

SS then go shopping. The idea is to buy the highest number of things for 50quid without buying more than one of the same item