INTERACTION MATERIALS

Here are the materials from Thursday´s session on Interaction. PowerPoint and links will be uploaded shortly...

INTERACTION MATERIALS

INTERACTION RESOURCES AND LINKS

Below you´ll find attached the resources from last week's session on Interaction. Any questions, please let me know.

INTERACTION RESOURCES AND LINKS

INTERACTION Slideshow

Hi again,
Here you have the slideshow from last Thursday's session. Keep us posted on any activities that you try here.

Strangers and Interaction

Here's an interesting article about Interaction in Cities which I came across a few days ago. Did you know that Interaction between Strangers is a subject at university?

Although no linguistic implication is discussed, it seems to me that the ways we as "individuals" may choose to interact (or not) with strangers may also shape how we choose to activate our skills and use language in context.

Read it here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/stranger-studies-101-cities-as-interaction-machines/62315/

Get your students reading with Minifiction!

Have you ever wanted to use some authentic writing in your classes but found it too time-consuming to look for (and read!) material, only to decide that it´s not useful / suitable for your class?
I´ve just been in this situation and found a really useful article on the British Council website, which talks about using "minifiction" or "flash fiction" in the classroom.

The article is here , so you can decide for yourslef!

Personally, I think it´s another option for those of you who want to use some authentic texts in class, as the stories are short and need less preparation on the teacher´s part in terms of reading, extracting  language, grammar points etc. AND....the students feel satisfied at having read something "real"!

Songs

Songs are a good resource to learn grammatical structures. There are many songs that repeat the same sentences, so it is easy for the children to recognise these structures. A good example is the song Moon Shadow, by Cat Stevens:

I'm being followed by a moon shadow

moon shadow-moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow

moon shadow-moon shadow

and if I ever lose my hands
lose my plough, lose my land
oh, if I ever lose my hands
oh, if...
I won’t have to work no more

and if I ever lose my eyes
If my colours all run dry
yes, if I ever lose my eyes
oh if …
I won't have to cry no more.

yes, I'm being followed by a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow

and if I ever lose my legs
I won't moan and I won't beg
of (oh)* if I ever lose my legs
oh if...
I won't have to walk no more

And if I ever lose my mouth
all my teeth, north and south
yes, if I ever lose my mouth
oh if...

I won't have to talk...

Did it take long to find me
I ask the faithful light
Ooh did it take long to find me
And are you going to stay the night

I'm being followed by a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
leaping and hopping on a moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow
moon shadow - moon shadow

As we can see, in this song there is a repeated structure "If I ever lose..." so children can work with conditionals. After the first paragraph, we can miss the words "If I ever lose" and we ask the children to fill in the gaps. As it is repeated all the song, it won't be very difficult to them to recognise the words.

In this specific example we can also work with present continuous "I'm being followed" and future simple "I won't have to".

Keep up the inspiration!

Hello,

I´ve really enjoyed reading about the way you are using some of the ideas we´ve been discussing in the Workshop! I am glad that your students are enjoying the activities. It´s great to have such responsive and responsible participants as yourselves...Thanks for sharing your ideas and experiences and keep posting!

Hi mates!

 Last week I had the opportunity to put into practice some of Neda's ideas and the results were very positive. Course: 4th ESO.

We worked with a song (Adele's "Someone like you"). As an icebreaker, I told them to listen to the song and write all the words they could understand. After that, they had to discuss what the song was about in groups of 3 with the help of the words.

Only some of the students had a clear idea of the meaning of the lyrics. So, I decided to give them all the lines of the song. The problem was that they were not in order. Their task was to put these lines in order  and listen to the song again.

I think that this can be a motivating activity to introduce a grammar point or some vocabulary that is in a song. In this way, we can catch students' attention easily.

My experience with Neda's Idea.

Hi everybody.

First of all I'd like to thank Neda and Pilar. Neda for her amazing workshop. I'm having a great time and learning a lot. And Pilar for organizing everything so well.

Juan after these compliments I would be recognised with 5 more hours than you.

Finally, my experience.

I've tried one of the ideas that Neda suggested. I had a Reading. A text in the book ( Interface 1º ESO ). It has a Listening. I told my SS to close their books and open their notebooks. I told them to write down every word or sentence that they hear. I played the text twice. First time the whole text. Second time making stops. Afterwords I asked them  which words they've heard and to try to guess the topic of the Text. AMAZING !!!. TRY IT. Sole

Tongue-twister

Hello everyone,

I want to share with you another activity for third and fourth years. I propose a tongue-twister, a good way to improve pronunciation. Firstly, students will try to say some parts of the tongue-twister separately, in order to pronounce them correctly. In the end, they will try to say the tongue-twister as fast as possible, but also pronouncing it correctly, linking the words.

Another way to work with these tongue-twisters is separating the class in groups and make each group say one part of the tongue-twister.

Below I write you some examples of tongue-twisters:

-"I can skateboard with a black hat and eight bags"

-"I'm happy when it's hot and I'm on holiday"

-"The spider and the grasshopper are under the flower"

-"Five fish eat ice cream with a knife"

-"The green witch is wearing punk jeans"

-"The rich prince likes chicken and English"

-"The snake and the spider eat spaghetti"

This idea was taken in a formation course by Enma Thomas.