Part 1 Phrasal Verbs Battle Ships

Just a quick update for those of you who saw my recent post about Speaking Part 1 Battleships. I've recently updated it and added the new hand out here: https://sites.google.com/a/thenglishouse.com/harry/
Enjoy.

Odd One Out

do you ever find yourself drowning in a sea of exam papers marking practice exam after practice exam? I do. What's most upsetting, as I've said a great number of times before, is the fact that speaking practice in class has now drifted so far away from teaching English and deep into the rhelms of teaching exam technique.
One thing that is too often forgotten is pronunciation. Which itself is a huge part of speaking exams. Every nationality has its own little quirks when pronouncing English. Here in Spain there are a great number of them. I'll go into more detail in future posts about specific Spanish problems. With the help and input of the deeply knowledgeable font of information that is the great www.watersdw30.wordpress.com 
Today, however, I'm going to start with a universal activity that a colleage of mine, Beth Smith, introduced me to last week. It´s a great warmer or cooler and really helps students differentiate between different sounds. It's similar to the minimal pairs activity below but with a slightly more advanced twist.

As always with my classes I put students into pairs or groups and get them to read aloud the word groups below, one at a time. Students have to decide which word is the odd one out.
simple, effective and fun.

If you want more ideas or you want to tell me what I'm doing wrong. You can follow me on twitter @sirhofthebomb

Until the next time.

Parts of a Picture

Here I am then, back from the dead and ready to share more love with everyone.
I always use this picture at the start of a course. Especially with B1 whereby they have to describe a picture. I've found it useful with B2 classes as well as it gives students areas of a picture to compare and contrast. Most importantly though I actually find it useful language for students and not just exam bashing.

downlaods available above as always. (Just a few materials)

'Til tomorrow.

Speaking Part Three. What´s in Your Kitchen?

I thought today would be as agood a time as any to share one of my favourite and most successful ideas. I’ve found most books have a unit on food so I use this in conjunction with that unit. I usually do this as a two-three phased activity. First I remind students of the useful kitchen vocab before starting the task.I use either the worksheet below, or at this link https://sites.google.com/a/thenglishouse.com/harry/, or the PowerPoint on the same page. 

This actuvity, with the ppt, improves students timing during part three of the speaking exam, the discussion. It also helps with speculation(use the previous post's language grab to further aid students with speculation). The uses for the pictures are below. Have a guess at each one before you look ahead. 

Phase three of the kitchen discussion involes the students a great deal more. I ask each of them to bring their favoutire kitchen utnesil to class and then give them three minutes to answer the same question as in the activity below. This time with more confidence and a better knowledge of what the kitchen gadgets are actually used for. 


Vocab:  Phase 1

Task: Phase 2 (Works really well with speculation language grab).

1. All Round Avocado Tool. 2. Orange Squeezer. 3. Potato Masher. 4. Knife Sharpener. 5. Strawberry Huller. 6. Salt and Pepper Mill.


Students bring their own utensils: Phase 3.

As always you can follow new updates on twitter. @sirhofthebomb

Until tomorrow and more bright ideas.  

Language Grab - Speculation

Something I always find amazing is how unwilling students are to speculate. Rather than take a guess at what something might be they tend to say they don't know. Be it a picture in an exam, how people are feeling, an answer to a question or just what they're going to do at the weekend.  I use the below activity in the same way I do with my previous two posts.
Laminate, cut and pass them to your students.

I like to use them to help students describe pictures like the one below.

Ask students how the tree got like that? How long it's been there? Which animals it may have effected?

I can´t be sure but I think…	Obviously
I imagine	Probably/Perhaps….
Without a doubt	I´m pretty sure that
There’s no doubt in my mind that	It’s clearly
I guess	It must be
I don’t really know but if I had to I would choose…….	If I had to hazard a guess
It might be	It could be
To my mind	I reckon

Language Grab - Part 2 The Long Turn

Much like yesterday's post this one is aimed at getting your students used to using the required vocabulary during the speaking part 2 of the Cambridge exams.
I've found students tend to describe pictures rather than compare, contrast and speculate. This activity is aimed at helping them use a wide variety of language. As with the previous post you'll need to cut stick and laminate but, trust me, it's worth it in the long run.
As alaways you can download the printable right here: https://sites.google.com/a/thenglishouse.com/harry/ and updates can be followed, as it were, on twitter @sirhofthebomb

Happy Speaking.

Many thanks to www.jazzhands.co.uk for providing wonderful jazziness to all that is PowerPoint.

Language Grab - Part 3: The Discussion

Have you ever noticed how students tend to repeat themselves whilst doing a speaking activity? I know I do when I'm speaking Spanish. It's logical, right? Go with what you know. Now logic is fine and yes in the real world when you're having a friendly debate with someone in something other than your mother tongue you communication won't be impeded and your point will still be heard.

Sadly, however, if you’re in an exam situation saying I think 15 times won’t wash.  Nor does insisting you are agree.

This activity is designed to get students used to using a wide range of vocabulary on a regular basis so it becomes ingrained when they are in an exam situation and nerves kick in the words don’t disappear in to the mystical wonderland of ‘the other half of your favourite pair of socks’.

What I like to do is make enough copies, of the below worksheet, I usually do them on blue paper for everyone in the class.

 (available at this link as always https://sites.google.com/a/thenglishouse.com/harry/)  

Next every teacher’s favourite past time the ever exciting activity of laminating and cutting so your darling students don’t completely destroy them within 14 nanoseconds of them being placed in front of them. Finally play.

For speaking practice activities I like to get students to turn their card face down and as they start speaking turn each card over and force it into their discussion. The winner is the person who uses the most cards.

I also tend to get my students to do any book work we have to do in pairs so as to prevent wasting any precious class time on silence. When they’re hammering away at an exercise I encourage them to use their grab activity again.

I’ve been using these cards for about 18 months now and I’ve found with all of my students in this time frame their speaking exam technique has improved to a remarkable degree.

I hope you find it as useful as I have. A big thanks has to go out to Dave and Ruth Waters for the initial idea. Cheers guys. If you want to read more of their ideas and about the delights of wine why not click this link http://watersdw30.wordpress.com 

Tomorrow, Language Grab Part 2: The Long Turn

Shall we......?	I'd rather.......
I'd prefer to......	Why don't we......?
Let's move on to the next picture.	That's a great idea.
I'm not sure, but I think…	I don't think that's a very good idea.
I´m afraid I have to disagree.	As far as I’m concerned
How do you feel about that?	I couldn´t dis/agree more
We could.....	We´ll have to agree to disagree.

·         Cut out each phrase and give a set to each student. Ss should try and use as many of the phrases as possible while speaking throughout the class.

·         They’re equally useful when used during specific speaking practice. Shuffle the cards then Ss chose at random. Students must try and use as many cards as possible when forming their answers. 

Zombie Outbreak

Constant speaking exam practice can be rather dull for both teachers and exam students. Sadly, as we all know what's important during the exam isn't the students' opinions, it's the language that they use. Creating new, more interesting, speaking exams can engage your students a great deal more and lead to a much livelier debate.

Below is an idea which will forever be popular among teenage students, even more so now with the ridiculously popular TV show the walking dead.

I have to give huge props to Matt www.tiredwireframes.tumblr.com for the Zombie idea.
As always the PowerPoint and worksheet are availiable for download @ https://sites.google.com/a/thenglishouse.com/harry/

So now you've got them interested, how do you get them to use relevant language and stop repeating themselves over and over again? More on that later.

Another fun filler. Why is there a monkey in your bag?

Give a student an empty bag. Then ask them why they have a monkey in their bag. The student has to think of a reason why they might have a monkey in their bag. Obviously the levels of language can vary massively depending on the level.Kids, for example might say: “I love them” While a more advanced student might say: “I've been training him to become a thief much like the monkey in the movie Monkey Business.” 

After the student has answered a few questions from around the class relating to their monkey they then pass the bag on to another student and ask why they have something else in the bag. “Why have you got a motor torpedo boat in your bag?”

Great for their imagination and always good for a laugh.  

Building a Picture

 Ok then, Here´s a little activity I like to do with all levels. In the format below it's best suited to FCE and CAE students.

	•      Elect two team captains and two vice-captains. •      Give the team captains one photo each. Only they can see the picture at this stage. •      The other students are the subjects of the picture. •      Captains have to arrange their subjects, verbally, in a manner which represents the picture. •      Vice-captains then have a minute to compare the two pictures whilst trying to guess what they represent. Give the below prompts if necessary.* •      After being given the question and context ask different students to repeat the task. •      Reveal the picture to everyone in the class. NB: I always take photos of the 'statues' and use them again later in the year. I also encourage students to bring in their own pictures and get other students to guess which of their classmates' photo they are describing.
		*Make sure you include: ·         The answer to the question.  •      Where the pictures were taken. •      How many there are people in the pictures. •      What time of day the pictures were taken. •      How the people in the pictures are feeling. •      What type of activity the people are doing. •      Why they are doing those activities. There is an example below:

 

More Speaking Part 1 Fun and Games

I borrowed this idea from the Radio 4 panel show "Just a Minute". I then adapted it. It works really well in PowerPoint form or as flash cards covering questions.
There are a few ways you can do it depending on how much time you have and the level of your class.
I play it like Naughts and Crosses (Tic-tac-toe)

• Set up the board with dependent prepositions and put the questions underneath them. This works equally well with trending topics.

• Students make a sentence using a dependent preposition and let fate decide their (part one) question.

• Students must speak for as long as they can without:

•                               Repeating themselves.

•                               Pausing for more than three seconds.

•                               Using fillers. (umm, err,  etc)

• If a player fails to adhere to the above rules other students must make it known by using an animal sound. I find it makes it a lot more amusing. 

• Next, the student who interrupted can either be given the square or they can continue to speak for the rest of the minute to try and earn the square.

Here are a few sample part 1 questions: 

·         How much time do you spend at home? 

·         Tell us about a day you’ve really enjoyed recently? 

·         Do you like cooking?

·         What’s your favourite food?

·         Do you ever go to concerts? 

·         Where do you like listening to music?

·         Do you like going to the cinema? 

·         Do you enjoy playing computer games?

• Do you like to plan your holidays carefully or do you prefer to just go?

There is a printable worksheet and a powerpoint of this activity available from this link.
https://sites.google.com/a/thenglishouse.com/harry/

Give it a shot. It's a fantastic activity for improving fluency and great for a laugh.