FCE Reading Part 7 Made Fun.... well, slightly less boring at least

In my experience this is the part of the reading exam where students do best. They tend to get at least 6 or 7 right, becuase it's usually quite obvious. I created this class to make it more interactive and for students to think individually but then also as a team. I also used it to enable students to improve their paraphrasing and as a way of retelling what they'd learnt. In the end it was really successful and every group, even with the weakest students got at least 8 correct answers.

So what's the process.

First up I find a vaguely interesting reading. With something, at least mildly, relatable to the class. Something to do with sport perhaps.
I find any tricky or complex vocabulary and preteach it. I draw students attention to the wide range of collocations used in the text and allow them to reflect for a moment or two on their own speaking and writing. It gives the students time to digest everything before the task.

Next I ask students to get into groups of 4 or 5 and have a quick talk about the topic of the text their about to read. (Perhaps it's one person speaking maybe it's 4/5 differdent people. There is, however, a central topic that can be discussed at length. I try and ensure students use some of the vocabulary taken from the text in order to solidify its meaning and useage.
In the example below I picked out
Big Grins
unstoppable Appitite (I also mentioned insatiable as a collocation)
Rolling Waves 
Vast Amounts
Hang Around
Itching to do something
A drop in temperature
To blossom
Spray
instinctive
hair-raising
never be bothered

Next tell them the title of the text they are going to read and get students to hypothesize about what they are going to read.
In this case the title was from the online handbook sample paper:

Walking On Waves

Sarah Whiteley talks about her love of surfing and how it began

After they've spoken for 4-5 minutes tell students they are each going to get a paragraph of Part 7.

But first they are going to read through the questions, paying close attention to key words and underlining them (here they're in bold).

1. feeling satisfaction that her determination resulted in better performance?
2. the problem of having to wait for conditions to be favourable for surfing?
3. a change which helped her to pursue her hobby?
4. continuing to surf even when the conditions were unfavourable?
5. the pleasure she gets from seeing others succeed?
6. being aware that it would take time for her abilities to be recognised?
7. her enthusiasm for the sea being recognised by someone else?
8. an admission that she doesn’t think about what she is doing when surfing?
9. not being concerned that she stood out from others?
10. people appreciating her serious attitude towards her surfing?

This is when I give each student a different part of the exam.

Person A in each group gets:

 

Person B: 

Person C: 

Person D:

Person E:


When students have finished reading they tell each other abou their paragraph. Not only what it was about but also any interesting language or collocation they came across. EG: Person D might say, it mentions vast amounts of hanging around. Which is a better way to say we had to wait a long time.
Person C might mention something not happening overnight, which means it takes a long time.
Person B could talk about the collocation to be exceptionally good at something and how they'll try and use it in future. 

After the students have talked about their paragraphs they again go over the questions and decide which paragraph pertains to which question. They then have to underline the relevant text.
When it's all finished they report back to the class.  Low and behold most of them will get 8 or 9 at the very least.

My final step is to then give students 15 minutes to do a different part 7 of the exam. This tends to calm them down.

A worksheet is avilable here Walking on Waves.

Below are the answers for the about take.
1)C
2) D
3) A
4) B
5) E
6) C
7) A
8) E
9) B
10) D

Talk to the Stars, Class Idea

Not so long ago I was driving along, at my usual pedestrian pace, singing as if I were the star of diva. It soon occured to me that perhaps I wasn't Whitney Houston reincarnated. I was, and am, in fact a 34 year old bearded English teacher whose range when it comes to singing isn't even close to that of the late great songstress. Anyway, I decided instead of singing along I'd simply ask Whitney some question, which she could then answer from beyond the grave. 

Between the point of laughter and annoyance my wonderful lady wife told me that what I was doing would be a good activity for the students in my class. From that moment on it crept into my classroom. First as a filler and later I developed it into a full hour long (or longer) class. I've since presented the idea at a couple of conferences and a nuimber of language academies. Each time the feedback has been great, upon using it with their classes a number of teachers have got back to me and told me it has been very motivating for their students. 

It is particularly good for question formation but it's also great for using more natural language.

The way I've developed the class is as follows. I'll give instructions and examples.

• Split the class into 2 groups. 

Get each group to come up with as many different musical genres as possible in 2 minutes.
Next students come up with as many artists as they can.  (Encourage students to use language of disappointment at this stage "ohh yeah, of course" or "I can't believe I didn't get that one." It's a great opportunity to work on their tone)

• Now split the class into pairs. 

Students then come up with a list of their favourite songs of all time. Allow 3 or for minutes.
Ask each group for a top 3 songs and get them to expalin to another pair as to why they like those songs and what they are about.

These two warmer activities should take between 10 and 15 minutes.

• When everyone has finished discussing their favourite songs get each pair to choose one of their top 3 and write it on the board.   

Have a vote amonst the students as to which song they want to work on throughout the next section of the class.  

• I'm going to pretend my class voted for  I have nothing  by Whitney Houston. I have nothing They usually go for something like Perfect by Ed Sheeran, or Happier, by Ed Sheeran. And sometimes Photograph...... by Ed Sheeran.
• The next step depends on whether you have a multilingual class or a mono lingual class. I teach in Spain and thus the class is monolingual.  I next get the students to take the first (or any) 5 or six lines and translate them one by one. SO they can fully understand the meaning of the song. 

Share my life

Compartir mi vida
Take me for what I am
Tomame por lo que soy
'cuase I'll ne ver change
Porque nunca voy a cambiar 
All My coulours for you
Todos mis colores para ti

The translation may not be 100% accuate and there may be phrasal verbs or phrases that don't always work in the students´given tongue but it does give them a general idea of what the song is about and what the singer is trying to say. 

• The fun really begins now as you tell them they're going to interview the celebrity. They have to (as a group) come up with questions that will be answered by each line of the song. This is a wonderful place to introduce some more natural language and make the activity more exciting. 

Here is a quick example. You need to be ready with your youtube link queued to pause and un pause giving the celebrity a chance to answer. 

"Hi, Whitney, thanks for joining us today. I've got a few little questions for you. Firstly, what would you like me to do?"

(Unpause) Share my life

"Wow, we've only just met that's very forward. What should I take you for?"

(unpause) Take me for what I am.

"I'll bear that in mind, Is there something you'll never do?"

(unpause) 'Cause I'll never change

"Change what exactly, and for whom?"

(unpause) All my colours for you.

You get the gist. Rather than simply working on the questions it really helps students become more natural. I also did it with Adele's hit Hello, in the form of a phone call. 

• When you've gone through the activity with the class, the next step is to let the students go off on their own and work on their own song. I f you have time remaining in the class do it then and work with them on corrections, or simply send it as homework and check it in the following class. Ther interviews only tend to last between 10 and 30 seconds. Those students who want to do more let them do more. 

To close the class I use Lyrics Training to see how much they've learnt from the song and to give them a chance to hear the whole thing again.   

In the following months this activity can be used as a simple 10 minute filler and is great for students struggling with quesiton formation. 

I hope this comes in handy over these cold winter months. 

I'll leave you with my phone call to Adele, Let's see if I have time to upload a video in future. 

"Hi, Who's calling?"

Hello, it's me 

"Ohhhh, Adele, Long time no speak. What have you been up to lately?"

I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet

"Ok, no problem my dear, why do you want to meet?"

To go over everything

"Wow, everything, that is an awful lot of things. You know they say time is money. Will we have time for that? 

They say that time's supposed to heal ya But I ain't done much healing

"Ok so they say more than just time being money they also say it heals. Well get well soon Adele". 

So there you have it a nice class based on music, revolving around questions and ending in fun.  

Facilitating Fluency

Right, so it's taken me 100 posts to actually get down to the bones of the matter. How on Earth are we to improve the fluency of our students? Well, generally speaking it's easy. Ensure they know that speaking in a language that isn't their mother tongue isn't easy and that making mistakes is both natural and useful. Once they're past that everything should start looking rosey.

How do we get past that and how do we apply it to a totally unnatural exam situation? Again, there are more ways that one. I'm just going to whizz you though a lesson I did with a few classes just last week based on an idea another teacher, and friend, came up with.

The lesson starts with a fairly simple statement. Ensuring students that the day will be about fluency over accuracy. Mistakes are ignored (not completely of course) and thinking (well, overthinking) is actively discouraged.

The first activity is simple. Put thirty seconds on the clock and students just speak. In English. About anything. Anything at all. If they're feeling particularly shy you can provide them with some kind of stimulus. The colour yellow or something equally obtuse.

Activity 2. After students have losened up I like to move onto the next section. This is where "the exam" comes into play. Be it a PET, FCE, CAE what ever. go to the picture section of the exam. Remind students of the types of thing examiners listen out for. In PET, some complex grammar, what people are doing, a bit of speculation etc.In FCE far more speculation, questions answering and a bit of comparing. The next step is to ask students to think about what they're going to say for a minute or two and then try and say it without taking a breath. Simply say what thay can in one nice deep breath. Give students 3 or 4 attempts. When they manage to complete the task they'll notice that their hesitation has gone and there are fewer umms and ahhhhs than ever before.

Activity 3and 4. Depending on class size you can do this first as a group actvitity and then broken down into pairs/threes. For this activity I get students to continue looking at the photo section of the exam, a new photo, of course. This time they work with their partner/group to create "The Perfect Minute" First they decide what they're going to talk about, then they take turns in saying a word each. This can be adapted to a sentence each if you so desire. The fact of the matter is, if students are only taking one word each, they aren't going to say um, ah, er or even... hang on a second.  When doing this, they may start by feeling silly but soon enough your students will be working in unison and giving some of the best answers you've heard. This also helps with communication further down the line. But for now we'll focus on our fluency.

Right, that's about all you're going to get from me. Saturday night has turned into Sunday morning and I think it's time I went to bed.

'Til the next time.

H

What have you got, Taylor?

The other day whilst cruising along the motorway on the way home from seeing the in-laws I was doing what I do best, vaguely irritating my remarkably tolerant wife. Every time there was some kind of statement, question or... well basically anything, I was responding to the lyrics of the song. The song in particular was Blank Space, by Taylor. It's not the first time I've done it and I'm certain it won't be the last. It then dawned on my wife, who is also an English teacher, that this horrifically irritating habit could be turned into a fun classroom game.

I started by doing the same song in class:

What could you show me Taylor?
I could show you incredible things.

Like what exactly?
Magic, madness, heaven, sin

Fair Enough, Well what happened next and what did you think about it?
Saw you there and I thought
Oh my God, look at that face
You look like my next mistake

How long is it going to be?
So it's gonna be forever

and so on

This went on a wee while. I then set my students the task of choosing a verse of whichever song they liked to prepare and come back into class and have a conversation with their favourite pop stars. 

They did stunningly well. Even my weakest students were forming questions perfectly and it even seemed like they were producing some kind of natural language.

It was just one of the many sensational, inspirational ideas given to me by my significantly better half.

Have a go.

@ELFluencyfella

When's your birthday?

A little idea that popped into my head just the other day whilst doing a wee bit of research (looking on wikipedia) with my good lady about her birthday.

It was a simple little idea about a mini project. Either written or spoken. Or better still both.

We're told in the world of TEFL that translation is bad. I tend to disagree with this idea as I feel it has a useful place in almost any class. Perhaps not as a general rule but as a one off activity it seems foolish not to utilze this option. This very activity thrives on the translation side of learning.
Much like many activities using songs! But that's for another day all together.

Anyway, this super simple activity can make students feel valued and that you genuinely care about them. After all what's better than someone remembering your birthday and not thanks to a notification on facebook. This activity will get it stuck in your mind and you might learn something new yourself.

I simply sent my students home and told them to research their birthday on wikipedia in their native tongue. I then asked them to choose 5 events from their birthday in history, translate them, research them a little and come up with a quick 10-15 minute presentation. Leaving them just 2-3 minutes on each event/celebrity birthday.  I emphasis that it needs to be searched on wikipedia in their own language is that each different page has different events and national events are often more interesting to the students.

My birthday, for example, is one of the least interesting days in history with very few notable birthdays and a derth of interesting events.

My quick presentation consisted of a mini biogrophy of Clyde Barrow and his antics with Bonnie Parker.
James the VI of Scotland becoming James I of England.
The Abolishion of slavery in Venezuela.
Elvis being drafted into the army.
The bombing of Kosovo by NATO.

I threw in the bonus my namesake of Harry Houdini being born on the illustrious qday of March 24th.



I found my students got really involved and I could now tell you the birthdays of all of those students in my B2 class. If you wanted to send them a card or something.


I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine did feel their true value as people rather than just students.

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

Why are you so petrified of silence?

Why is it as language teachers we sometimes feel grossly uncomfortable when the class is sitting in silence. We sometimes think, these guys are learning a language why on Earth aren't they speaking it, ALL THE TIME?

Last year I had the good fortune of working with some great teachers and here I picked up a number of great activities. One of which was centred almost entirely around the notion of a silent classroom. I used this wonderful warmer and have since adapted it for my teenage PET class and will do so with my pre-advanced class later in the term.

So the big question. How can we make students speak without making a sound?

It's pretty simple really, they write to each other. The first time I did this in class, I did it with every single level I had.

I made sure they entered the class in absolute silence. There was a slide on the board (which you can find here) which told them they weren't to speak to each other but they could communicate through scraps of paper and a pencil.
The slide also contained a couple of starter questions to help them on their way.
For the kiddies it was stuff like: "What did you do at school today?"
For the adults something similar but a little more complex like: What did you get up to at work today?


It worked really well.

For that very reason I decided to do it again, this time with my PET students. I told them to make sure they brought their mobile phones to class.

When they entered the room in silence they could see the activity outline up on the board . I sat them in a circle facing away from each other and gave each of them a piece of paper to write their number on.

I then gave the numbers out to different students.  I then let them chat to each other, freely. In English, in silence. I put a few ideas up on the board to help them out. I gestured questioningly towards my students to see if anyone wanted to make a suggestion at a conversation starter. If so they had the chance to write it up on the board (without using words of course)

The next step was to see if they could deal with multitasking.  I ushered them to change numbers and add the new person to their group. There were then three people in each group and everyone was speaking to in two groups each.

At first this caused a bit of an issue, but soon enough their amazing teenage brains adapted to it and their multiwhatsapping brain came to the fore. After a good ten minutes I stopped everyone and asked them to read aloud what had come up in their conversations.

Some of it was surprisingly deep, two of the students had got themselves into a discussion as to how the Spanish education system was in desperate need for reform. Other students were talking about how good Cristiano's goal was the night before. Best of all though they had been writing in English and correcting each other's work and having fun at the same time. Never in my life have I seen a group of 12 teenagers so happy to sit in silence and speak English to each other. It was utterly glorious.

Give it a go. If your students don't have phones, just give them some scraps of paper and get them to pass them around.

'til the next time

Potatoes and Their True Potential

I've got root vegetables on the mind. Root vegetables? What are you on about Harry?!

I recently sparked a great deal of interest in one of my classes by walking simply placing a potato on my desk as the class walked in.

"Teacher, A potato?" questioned a rather befuddled Alfredo.

"Yes, Alfredo, it's a potato. Very good but what else could it be?" I asked the teenager usually nattering away in Spanish as he walks in.

He stopped in his tracks and respond it could be a Spanish omelette if we just added a few eggs and some onions.

After getting a few of the more obvious answers I got students to sit down in groups and try and write 10 unique uses of a potato.  We got a few good ones. A door stop. a pencil holder, a paper weight and one particularly strange students felt it would work well as an instrument of death as you could destroy the evidence in a delicious fashion. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Or run to my car.

It's a great way to upgrade lower level students' language. I had my kids 4 (10 year old) saying things like:

"Well, it's a potato but it could be used as a toy."

For my B1 adults I created a quick conversation template that I put up on the board to get them to use language slightly above their level.

A: "Well, It's obviously a potato, but it could be used as a............ or even a........... not to mention a............."

B: "I see you're point. They're all great ideas. However, I'm pretty sure it would be best used as a............ . What do you reckon?"

My favourite idea from this class came from a lady in her early fifties who suggested the best use of a potato would be as a fake breast.

I've also found with my higher level students, teens in particular, it's a great way to get them using their mobile phones in class. Words like doorstop and bookend don't tend to pop up in everyday language, so after they've described what it could be used as:

"It could be used as the thing that keeps doors open."

I get them to take out their phones and ask Google exactly what it is. They type in, "What's the name of the thing that is used to keep doors open, in English."

As a warmer I found this really worked and got the students thinking straight away. I went on to try it with other vegetables and then on to other household items. By the end of the month students were disappointed if they walked in and there wasn't a foreign object sitting on my desk waiting to be analyzed.

Another fantastic item is the eternally useful paper clip. Which can be used as practical things such as opening your iPhone or other more surreal ideas like the zip on a zipline for small beasties. I was particularly fond of that idea.

Yesterday I ended the activity by telling my students that potatoes could be anything, which meant they were potatoes. I then went rouind and each students stated loud and proud. I AM A POTATO.

Give it a try. Get your students thinking outside the box as soon as they walk into the room. It'll go down as a class that lives long in the memory. That's for sure.

Til next time

PET writing Part 3. The Fun Bit. Part 2

After the not quite borefest but let's be honest not exactly enthralling, yet incredibly useful, opening to this class I provided you with on Tuesday. Today's blog is going to get your students to practice what they've learnt and get it to stick in their memory.

So after you've made Frankenstein's letter and the students have the options available to them to create their own master piece I present the students a chance to really play with it.

Step 1:   Do a secret Santa style phone number swap.

Step 2: Students to find out who their partner is by sending a hello message on whatsapp. From now on the class must remain silent. Only speaking through whatsapp.

Step 3: Get students to decide who will be person a and who will be person b.

Step 4: Person A sends the greeting to person B.

Step 5: Student B sends the first line of the informal letter to student B. In doing so they should use as much of the text talk vocabulary and as many emojis as they can. eg:

  S'up? Thnx 4 the letter,             I was over the  when it arrived.

Step 6: Partner B must then complete the first paragraph with the reason for not writing sooner.

I'm sry I didn't  b4, I've been really busy with work.


Step 7: Students to work their way through the letter until they've finished their correspondence. When they're done I get them to sit together and decode their messages onto the PET writing part 3 template. 

Step 8:  Finally, ask your students to take their completed templates and write their final, perfect, informal letter.

NB for the final step I like to get my students to write up their final letter on a piece of paper wrapped in tin foil. It is that extra bit of writing outside the box which will really stick what they have done in class in their memories. It will also have them writing the final letter once more and not even complaining about it because it's going to look shiny and lovely. They can then be put up around the classroom of a constant reminder of what a great teacher you are and how much fun they have in your classes.

Well, I really hope your students enjoy this class. I've found it's really worked well with mine and it makes them really happy to leave the books aside for a day and focus on developing their writing in a slightly different way.


FULL LESSON PRINTABLE LESSON PLAN HERE

'til next time

Boldly Taking Movie Quotes Where They Have Never Been Before

Happy Friday one and all. Just a few more hours 'til the weekend and for many of us the promise of a nice or two off.

Reported Speech is something well covered from about B1 level. After getting to grips with the grammar I have a two stage activity. Partly to get used to reported speech and then partly just for the fun of it and to see if my students have managed to remember some of the world’s most famous movie quotes.

There are a myriad of games to allow your students to practice their new found skill. One I was introduced to a couple of days ago tests your student’s movie knowledge, their ability to translate from the language they first saw the movie and then how to convert some of the most famous quotes in movie history into reported speech.

Your student´s level will, obviously, dictate the difficulty of the task, the reporting verbs they use and whether they chuck a few adverbs in there as well.

The first step is to get onto the fantastic  Movie Quotes then run through each of the images to identify which movies the quotes come from.

Step two, hit the timer and get the students to take turns in giving you a quote to one of the movies on the screen. 

Seven minutes later the time will have run out and all the missing quotes will be revealed and the students will have a chance to take the famous quotes and report them to their classmates.  

This works as a wonderful cooler after going through the "rules" of reported speech or as a warmer in the next class to make sure they still have it down.. My students really enjoyed it.

 This was a big first step for a lot of my classes. A huge number of them had absolutely no clue as to the original quotes due to the fact Spain has a reputation for dubbing films. Even to this day 90% of cinemas don't have original versions of films.

After the students have got their heads around the fact these quotes exist outside their own language give it a weekend or so to digest. 

When they come back what I have done, taking the lead from my good friend Neil, is taken these quotes and misquoted them from a film with a similar name. Students have to then match films to quotes and correct them for their original. 

You can find the worksheet with misquoted lyrics here Or just copy and paste these below.

1.       “This Boat is too small.”

2.       “Luke, you are my son.”

3.       “Say hello to my small friend.”

4.       “Are you speaking to me.”

5.       “Johnny is here.”

6.       “Houston, we appear to be having some technical issues.”

7.       “I can see Ghosts”

8.       “You deal much better with lies.”

9.       “Hi I’m James, James Bond.”

10 “I’m going to make him an offer to which he can’t say no.”

11.   “My favourite.”

12.   “Can I call my house.”

13.   “Home is the best place.”

14.   “To infinity and past it.”

15.   “Don’t walk Forrest, Don’t Walk.”

16.   “You’re good at Magic, Harry.”

17.   “I’m a monarch of the Earth.”

18.   “Why are you being so serious?”

19.   “Until the next time, darling.”

20.   O’ boss, my boss

And here are the wrong movie names.

a.       War of the Stars

b.      Bus Guy

c.       Henry Porter

d.      The Ring Man

e.      Apollo 15

f.        Royal Casino

g.       Another Sense

h.      A Story about Toys

i.         Woodsy Gumble

j.        The Father of God

k.       Boat vs Iceberg

l.         The Alien Chap

m.    Terminationer

n.      A Society of Dead Writiers

o.      Some ok Blokes

p.      The Magician from Australia

q.      Cutface

r.        Batbloke: A gloomy evening

s.       Shark

t.        The Brightness

Right that's all for today.  Have a great holiday where ever you may be. If you don't have a holiday just go ahead and have a great weekend.

For regular updates why not follow me on twitter @thefluencyfella

ANSWERS

1.s 2. 2.a 3.q 4.b 5.t 6.e 7.g 8.o 9.f 10.j 11.d 12.l 13.p 14.h 15.i 16.c 17.k 18.r 19.m 20.n