Creative and fun lesson Lesson plan: Telling stories     Age group: 7-11       Aims:   To promote visual literacy, and to show that a photo represents only a single moment in time.   To encourage children to make links between their own lives and the lives of other people.     What to do:   You will need:     the photo gallery;   http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/photopps/gallery.htm     writing and drawing materials.     Divide children into small groups. Let them look through the gallery, and allow each group to choose one photo with people in it. Ask groups to decide what time of day they think it might be in their photo. What visual clues did they use? When groups have decided, ask them to imagine what might happen at other times of day - morning, afternoon, evening, and night. One person in the group could act as a scribe, and make notes of suggestions. Using their photo as a starting point, children can draw pictures to illustrate the activities they have imagined. When they have finished, the pictures can be displayed in a sequence or 'storyboard', including the original photo. Older children can then write captions to go with their pictures, and display them for the whole class. Alternatively, children can present their narrative orally, or mime key activities.     Note for teachers:   You can print out the photos straight from the gallery. They print out three to a page, so will need cutting up.     Extension work: 30-40 minutes:   Ask the children to choose a person from the photos and write a letter to them describing a typical day in their own life. What would they like to tell them? They may also like to ask questions about that person's life.     Note for teachers:   This activity is a good way to challenge preconceptions that children may have about the lives of people in other countries. What are the similarities and differences between children's own lives and the lives they imagine for people overseas? Do children make assumptions that are challenged by the photos? Encourage children to think of ways they can find out more about the places and people shown in the photos.     Planned outcome:   That pupils begin to challenge preconceptions that they may have about the lives of people in other countries.   January 13, 2006 Lesson plan- fact fiction and opinion   Lesson plan: Long Walk to Freedom - fact, fiction and opinion     From the Nelson Mandela online resource     Resources:   You will need:     the class dictionary;     the Worksheet: Extract 1 from Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela;   http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/literacy/mandlpws8.htm     the Worksheet: Fact, fiction and opinion table;   http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/literacy/mandlpws4.htm     the Worksheet: Fact, fiction and opinion statements.   http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/literacy/mandlpws5.htm     Introduction and whole-class activity:   Show the selection of books again. Ask the pupils:     1. What is the difference between the books written about Nelson Mandela and the book written by Nelson Mandela?   2. Why would someone want to write about their own life for others to read?   3. What can you learn about a person by reading about his or her life?     Write the words 'biography' and 'autobiography' on the board. Ask a couple of pupils to look up and read out the dictionary definition of each word. Make a list for each with ideas from the pupils. For biography, you should expect suggestions such as these:     tells us about the person's environment;     what effect that person has had on others;     shows that the author knows a lot about the person;     telling facts about a real person's life;     showing the truth, the person's strengths and weaknesses;     tells us why this person is interesting;     tells us how the writer feels about the person;     is written in the third person.     For autobiography, as well as some of the above, you should also expect that it:     is written by the central person in the book;     shows the emotions and feelings of the writer;     tells of the people who have had the biggest influence on the author's life;     recounts the main significant events that have changed and influenced the author;     is written in the first person.     Read Extract 1 from Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela.     Group activity:   Show the pupils the Fact, fiction and opinion statements worksheet.     Read out two statements about Nelson Mandela. The pupils need to decide which is fact and which is fiction.     'Nelson Mandela was born in South Africa.'     'Nelson Mandela was born in South America.'     Write each statement in the correct column.     Say, 'I think Nelson Mandela is a very courageous man'. Ask the pupils where they think that should go.     Give the pupils the fact, fiction and opinion statements. The pupils should cut them up and stick them in the correct column the fact, fiction and opinion table.     Once the pupils have completed the worksheet, they will need to think about their own opinion of Nelson Mandela. They may already have their own ideas for this section; if not, they will need to consider what they have learnt and what they now think about him from the information they have read.       Plenary:   Check through the statements. Did all the pupils put the statements in the correct column? Do they all understand the difference between fact, fiction and opinion?       Ask some of the pupils to share their opinions of Nelson Mandela. What made the pupils have these opinions? What influenced them?       From the Nelson Mandela online resource           January 13, 2006 Surveys Writing/Reading Activity: Student surveys   Grammar: Simple present for habitual action   Procedure: Students work in small groups in class, each group creating one survey. (If your school has a computer lab, now’s the time to use it.) to practice the simple present for habitual action. Surveys should include boxes to check which say "always," "sometimes," "rarely," "never." Students then construct sentences (10-15 sentences per survey) around an assigned topic.     Some topics for the simple present are: entertainment, hobbies, music, family, food, sports, and English. As the students are working in small groups, you assist with the writing where necessary. Once the surveys are in final form, you collect and check them. Then, make multiple copies for the next class meeting. Pass out the surveys so that every student gets a copy of every survey. Give the students enough time to respond to all the surveys. Encourage them to ask their classmates who wrote the surveys for clarifications. Once the students have responded to all the surveys, they should meet with their groups again to tally the responses. Each group then gives a short presentation of the results to the whole class.     Source: www.eslpartyland.com January 19, 2005 Teaching the English Newspaper Effectively Many Japanese students would like to read English newspapers, but they find it too difficult, in part because they do not know enough about the conventions of newspapers and newspaper articles. Since the early 1980s, I have been teaching students how to read newspapers. As a result of the lessons students became interested in reading newspapers and could learn to read them independently using a dictionary.     For this series of lessons, I developed materials to introduce English newspapers and exercises to help students understand newspapers (Kitao & Kitao, 1989; Kitao & Kitao, 1991; Kitao & Kitao, 1992). The following is a list of basic areas I cover in these lessons and a review test that I devised to help students identify the concepts they had been learning.     Importance of Reading English Newspapers   English Newspapers Available in Japan   Organization of English Newspapers   news stories   feature stories   business section   news stories   feature stories   the stock market report   exchange rates for foreign currency   sports section   news stories   feature stories   columns   editorials   Ietters to the editor   reviews   schedules   cultural events   other   comics   classified advertisements   weather reports   Headlines   one- or two-sentence summaries of the article   deletion of short words (articles, "be" verbs, etc.)   verb tenses (different from ordinary use)   abbreviations   short words instead of common longer words   Organization of News Stories   bylines, credit lines, and datelines   arrangement of news articles (inverted pyramid)   leads   Grammar of Newspaper Articles   shorter sentences   omitting relative clauses   using more noun phrases   avoiding using "of" forms and prepositional phrases   Specifying the Source of Information   Objective; Avoiding Writer's Opinions     --------------------------------------------------------------------------------   The following is the review exercises which students do using any copy of an English newspaper, which is included in the teacher's manual of our textbooks.     REVIEW EXERCISES   Year_____Dept._____Number_______ Name_________________   Use a copy of an English newspaper and answer the following questions. If the question is not applicable (for example, if the type of article asked about in the question does not appear on that day). write "NA."     How many pages are there?     How many pages are taken up by news, business, sports, TV and radio schedules, and feature stories?     What is on each page?   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -     What is the most important news story? Where is it? How many columns does it take? What percentage of the page does it take up? Does it have a photo?     What is the second most important news story? Where is it? How many columns does it take? What percentage of the page does it take up? Does it have a photo?     How many news articles are there on the front page? How many of them are domestic news? international news?     Classify the news articles on the front page according to dateline, credit line. and whether they have a byline.   dateline   credit line   with byline / without byline     Where is the index? What page do you find news articles on? business news? radio and TV schedules? sports news?     Where do you find editorials? columns? feature stories? information about the stock market?     Is the editorial reprinted from another newspaper? If so, from what newspaper? When was it originally published?     On what page do you find reviews? What is being reviewed? Is the reviewer Japanese or non-Japanese?     On what page do you find TV and radio schedules? What else do you see on that page?     On what page(s) do you find comics? How many are there?     On what page(s) do you find classified ads? How many are there? What are they about?     On what page(s) do you find letters to the editor? How many are there? Were they written by Japanese or non-Japanese people? If any of the letters were written by non-Japanese people, can you tell what country the writer came from?     On what page(s) do you find reprints of articles? How many are there? What are they about? What publications are they from?     Where do you find international news articles? domestic news articles? How many of each are there?     What are the three largest headlines, in order of size?   a.   b.   c.     Look for examples of headlines with the following characteristics, and fill in the chart with the page number, the headline, and the headline rewritten as a regular sentence.   a. "and" omitted and replaced with a comma     b. a "be" verb omitted     c. a pronoun omitted     d. an article omitted     e. a simple present tense verb that refers to a past event     f. an -ing form of the verb     g. "to" and a verb     h. a past participle used for the passive voice     i. three headlines with abbreviations for names of countries or regions     j. an abbreviation with an apostrophe     k. an abbreviation with a period     1. the name of a capital city used to refer to the government of that country     m. three other abbreviations     n. three short words often used in headlines           Page                Headline                       Regular Sentence   a.     b.     c.     d.     e.     f.     g.     h.     i.     j.     k.     l.     m.     n.     Find three wire services, besides American and Japanese ones. What are they?   a.     b.     c.     Find three articles with bylines. Who wrote the articles?        headline                                         author   a.     b.     c.     Find three articles with datelines outside of Japan and the US. Where did the articles come from? What were the dates?        headline                           place               date   a.     b.     c.     Find leads with the following information:   a. what, who, where, and when     b. what, who, where, and why     c. what, who, where, and how     Find one sentence where a relative pronoun is avoided by putting the noun phrase before the noun it modifies.     Find a sentence where a noun or noun phrase has been substituted for the name of a person or organization, in order to give more information about that person or organization.   a.     b.     Find two examples of sentences where "of" is avoided.   a.     b.     Find a direct and an indirect quote.   a.     b.     How many feature stories are there? Choose five feature articles, and fill out the following chart.      Headline            Topic                  Author(s)   a.     b.     c.     d.     e.       How many sports news or sports feature stories are there? Choose four sports stories and fill out the following chart.       Headline        News or Sport        Japanese or feature?      international?   a.     b.     c.     d.       Where can you find an editorial? What is the topic? Is the topic of local, national, or international interest? What is the editor's position on that issue?     Fill out the chart below with information about the columns that appear in the paper.         Page            Column            Headline          Topic          Author     a.     b.     c.     d.       List the articles on the business page. How many of these are international?     What is the selling price of the yen against the dollar?     What was the Dow Jones average?     How many classified ads do you find? What are they?     Are there any foreign movies or other foreign programs on TV in the Kansai area? What are they? What channel are they on?     What subject is the advice column about? Is the person giving advice Japanese or non-Japanese? What is the advice given?     What topics do you find digests for (news, business, etc.)? How many individual stories are there in each digest?     What else do you find in this newspaper?       --------------------------------------------------------------------------------     List of References   Kitao, K., & Kitao, S. K. (1989). Reading English newspapers. Tokyo: Kirihara Shoten.     Kitao, K., & Kitao, S. K. (1991). Hajimete yomu eiji shinbun [Reading English newspapers for the first time]. Tokyo: Kirihara Shote     Kenji Kitao   Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan)   k.kitao [at] lancaster.ac.uk   This is an excerpt from "Culture and Communication" (1995) Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shooten.     Writer:   Kenji Kitao received his MA and PhD in TESOL from the University of Kansas. He is a professor at Doshisha University. He is co-author of "Intercultural Communication: Between Japan and the United States", "Hajimete no CAI", "Computer Riyo no Gaikokugo Kyoiku", and numerous English language textbooks.   Source:   Kitao, K., Kitao, S. K., Headrick Miller, J. Carpenter, J. W., & Rinner C. (Eds.). (1995). "Culture and communication". Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shoten. pp. 291-298. ISBN 4-8411-0787-8 C3082     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------     Source: http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Kitao-Newspaper.html January 15, 2005 THE NASA GAME This is a good lesson for a speaking class on a dead Friday afternoon. The situation is relatively plausible, and in my experience the students seem to throw themselves right into it. It’s hard to get it to work for a small class, but as long as you have more than ix students, it’s normally OK.     STAGE 1: Students brainstorm “space” vocabulary – the names of the planets, astronaut, moon, spaceship and so on. (If you have a multilingual class, it can be quite interesting to find out the names of the planets in different countries, particularly outside of Europe. STAGE 2: Explain the following situation: “You are all astronauts. You have been travelling to the Moonbase, but your spaceship has crashed 200km from your destination. You have all got protective suits, but you need to decide which of the following objects most useful. Put them in order 1- 15, with 1 as the most useful, 15 as the most useless.” Then either hand out the list on paper, or write them on the board. I prefer both, as the students can then check the meanings with you as they go along. The objects are as follows:   A box of matches (15), concentrated food (4), 20 metres of nylon rope (6), parachute silk (8), portable heating unit (13), two pistols (11), one case of tins of dried milk (12), 2 50 kilo tanks of oxygen (1), star map (as seen from the moon) (3), life raft (9), magnetic compass (14), 20 litres of water (2), signal flares (10), first aid kit (7), solar powered radio receiver/transmitter (5). (The numbers in brackets are the correct answer as suggested by NASA.)     STAGE 3: The students now have to decide on their order ON THEIR OWN and think about why. This is an opportunity for the students to check difficult language and so on. After the first few students have finished, put them into groups, or with a small class (less than 12) pairs/threes. The groups must then decide together on a final list.     STAGE 4: Once the groups have finished, change the groups – with one person from each old group in the new groups. The purpose of this is simple – inevitably there will be one or two people in the original groupings who won’t say anything. By putting them in a new group, they are being put in a position where they need to communicate the ideas they have discussed.     You can either finish the class with a final discussion, then announce the NASA answers, or just announce the “correct” answers. It’s important, as I found the first time I tried this, to think of the reasons why as students often ask that question.     Variations   You can change the situation – e.g. the Arctic, a desert island, the Sahara Desert or whatever. You’ll need to change the items accordingly – for the desert island I use items like a bottle of whisky, a knife, some thin string and so on.     You can change the way the lesson works of course. Perhaps the students only need to find the top five and bottom five items, or the top eight?     Notes   This is an old idea which has been published in several books, but I’ve always found it to be a real humdinger. Most books say this should be a ten to fifteen minute activity for upper intermediate students, but this approach seems to work from pre-intermediate upwards. April 11, 2003 SPEAKING CARDS. level: intermediate+ You preteach a few key terms relating to playing cards (the names of the suits and so on).The class is divided into four groups, and each group is assigned a suit. Each suit is assigned a subject area: Hearts = emotions, Diamonds = Dreams & Ambitions, Spades = Ideals and Clubs = Describing. Each group then writes a question for each card from 10 – the Ace. The teacher checks and makes sure the questions/tasks are realisitic and reasonable, as well as accurately written. The questions/tasks are copied and distributed, then each group is given a pack of cards which are placed on the table in the middle of the students face down. The students then take turns to take a card and then has to perform the task/answer the question.     Variations.   You can, of course, change the values of each suit to match your students.     Each card (10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace) is given a subject area, e.g. You, Your family, Your home etc. The suits are then divided up between the groups and the groups have simply answer questions from the other students in their groups based on the cards. this is obviously much shorter!     This is an activity adapted from the One Stop English Website which has a more detailed version, with the questions already prepared April 11, 2003