Use of English Part 4 Made Fun. CAE

I knocked up a little powerpoint with some of my students favourite activities to practice UOE part 4. This is for the Advanced exam but it can be easily adapted for CPE and FCE.

There are 4 basic "games"

The first one is to simply remove the word. students then try and guess the newly transformed sentence and with it the missing word.

The second is a little more tricky. One student (S1) has to sit with their back to the board. The other students (S2) work out the answer and must relay the answer to S1. S1 then has to guess what the first sentence is. This is an excellent activity as it makes students think carefully about exactly what grammar they have used. Whether S1 has to use a noun or a verb. If it's a set phrase or a phrasal verb. It's really tough at first but once they get the hang of it they seem to really enjoy it.

The third activity is mix and match. Students have to find which sentences match and then try and guess what the answer is. They are provided with all of the words, however, they have to figure out which one goes with which question.

The final activity is by far the most fun. It's exactly the same as the previous one but done with glue and a piece of card. Students are given six questions cut up into their various parts. They have to stick them down in the correct order, with the correct word and then figure them out.


I hope you find this useful. My class and I spent a full hour and a half working through these as did my CPE class last year. I was told it was the most useful class they'd had in terms of exam prep, so I hope your students like it too.

You can find the PowerPoint just here and the Cut and Stick workshet here.

Enjoy

Movie reviews with a twist. Or just twisted movie reviews?

It's been more than just a little while since I last posted anything. That's not to say I 've been resting on my laurels, I most certainly have not. I've merely been lacking in what some might call free time. Be that as it may, the summer has arrived and I shall be presented with a little more free time. For that very reason I'm going to try and churn out as many ideas I've come up with/adapted over the last six months, in the coming months.

Today's post came about thanks to one of those silly games I tend to play with a group of friends that lends itself very well to teaching. We decided to make new movie titles by taking old ones and adding just one word.

Some of the first to come out were things like NOT Saving Private Ryan and Million Dollar Baby Sitter.

I took this game into a classroom environment. As a warmer I got students to think of as many films as they could in English. After two minutes I gave them an additional two minutes with their phones to get as long a list as possible.

as soon as they'd got their list at the ready I told them to get started on the game.
Captain South America, Paranormal Sexual Activity, The Rubbish Pianist and African American Beauty were but a few of the titles that popped up.

After their lists had been compiled I asked students to get together and talk about what their films would be like and who'd star in them.

Next up was reading reviews of real films. I gave the students a list Review sites and set them about looking for reviews of some of the films we'd talked about. I also ensured they took some useful chunks of language from the reviews for later use.

All that was left after the discussion was to set the homework. After going through a few movie reviews online I set got them to set about the task of writing their own. using at least 3 phrases they'd come across in the movie reviews we'd read together in class.

The results were nothing short of spectacular. I had by far the largest amount of homework handed in this year with this activity and it was by far and away of the best standard.

I found that doing exam style tasks just a little away from the exam really gives the students a chance to express themselves.

right that's all from me today.

I hope this gives your class something to write about.

Until the next time