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

Unfill and Fill it yourself

Something all teachers understand is how much work goes into the preperation of classes. With a little bit of experience planning time is reduced massively but when it comes to prep we`re all accutley aware of how much time it takes. That's why we all love the internet so much. Ideas can be shared, used, reused abused adapeted and so on. For those quick ideas I love the internet.

One thing I love even more, however, is learner autonomy. Students taking charge of their own learning. I, like a great number of you out there, also like to take this one step further. Rather than the students simply being in charge of their own learning why not let them take charge of their fellow students learning. The best source of information, support and materials is obviously the students themselves.

A week or so ago I posted a blog with a questionnaire about my students so I could tailor the class to their needs, likes and desires. I've used this in my classes to get my students more involved in class.

Added to this I've always been keen on students taking control of the class and teachers sitting back and shutting up. The esl classroom is a place for students to learn and use the language they're learnt. Not a place for teachers to fulfil their unacheived ambitions of becoming an actor and hogging the entire class.

The first small step towards this, as I've found, is asking students to create their own gap fill exercises. First for a song they like (as you can see here.) Then for a part of the Use of English exam from an article they have read.

Here is a very basic lesson plan for this kind of actvity.

1. After using the questionnaire here to find out some of the things your students are interested in, suggest a few different websites or blogs they could read to improve their English. A number of my students love football, I tell them to read BBC sport or I trawl back through the archives of the joy of six from The Guardian news paper. Here's a great one about Hipsters' favourite football clubs.

2. Next I ask students to read their text.
If they're making a part 1 reading activity I then ask them to write 5 or six multiple choice activities for the text.

3. For reading part two simply take out a few seperate sentences and invent a few new ones.

4. If they're making a Use of English part one I ask them to select two paragraphs and remove words they can then find synonyms for. Particularly those which are parts of phrasal verbs or have a strong collocation or a dependent preposition.

5. If they are making a Use of English Part 2, again just two paragraphs this time removing the function words like prepositions, pronouns, relative pronouns and so on.

6. The final exam part I usually ask students to do is the UOE part three where they remove words from the text and place a root word as a hint. The word formation activity. I try and make sure they find at least one negative within their text.

You can do this next part in a couple of different ways.

7. I tend to use these examparts as a quick review in class and i get the students who has prepared it to correct the work and then explain to the group why each answer is what it is.

An alternative option here is to get all of your students to do one part then in the class do each others work, then mark them together. I find this good as a fun way to do it but far less productive than the other option. With option one there is real ownership of the work and you're provided with a wider variety of exam practice.

This activity can take a little while to get into production but once it gets going you'll see some remarkable results and the constant search for past exam papers can slowly come to an end.

It also takes the fear away from the exams as they see just how easy it can be when you know what you're doing.

Americanisms and Harry Potter.

Following on from yesterday's blog where I spoke about David Crystal's book "The Story of English in 100 Words." I've posted the first part of my three classes. It's not exactly in the order I said yesterday but it is part 1.
As you may or may not have guessed it is about the difference between British and American English and how it can change meaning, cause confusion or simply enhance your language.

The worksheet here in Materials  called Harry Potter goes with the PDF here:Words 

As an intro to the class I like to ask which of my students watch TV in English. It is usually quite a high percentage of the class. I then ask if they have problems when it comes to deciphering  between some vocab they come across in there televisual travels and those presented to them in class.
The invariable answer is no.

This isn't because they haven't come across the subtle differences between British English and her transatlantic counterpart. They simply haven't noticed them on.

The next step is to elicit any Americanisms (or Britishisms depending on where you're teaching.)

My students usually come up with five or six. Pants being the most obvious and, of course, amusing to a group of boys.


Then I simply allow my more advanced students 10 minutes to read over the text.

I then repose the question as to whether they have in the past encountered any of the Americanisms in the text and if they feel changes in spelling from across the pond have enhanced understanding or made it harder. In this case the resounding response is in favour or should I say favor of the simpler American spelling.

Next I get my students to do some research into the differences between some of the words to find if there is room for confusion within these two very different dialects.  If they come across the word Fanny they do invariably fall about laughing.

When the vocab has been covered and the understanding has been verified I give the students the worksheet attached.

Then they return to class the following day we debate our answers to task 3 and see how many Americanisms we can compile.

Until the next time when I'll be repping some clippings.

H

The Mind Boggles as does the game

Have you ever played boggle? It's a wonderful game to use in the classroom. you have a set of 16 dice each with 6 different letters on them. you shake them up and have to find as many words as you can. In the traditional games the letters have to be conected. In the classroom version I just get students to find as many words as they can. Or for the longest word they can conjure up with the letters on show in the time limit.  You can buy your own game then you can use it at home on those long cold rainy winter's nights or you can simply use an online generator.  I find the real game
engages my students more as they can be the ones in control of what letters come out and if there are 6 e's then they can blame Pablo and not just say it's impossible.
After the students have made a list or two I then ask them to use those words as the basis to a story or a dialogue between their teams. 
I tried this with my elementary adult class at the start of the year and saw they were porducing short sentences which often made very little sense. By the end of the year the students were trotting out bizarre and unique and often fairly racey stories. This game can really add to the studentes spontinaaity and helps them think on their feet about what to write. You can get students to keep a boggle folder and play the game a few times throughout the year. Your students will be able to see how much they've improved by the end of the year. Not only at writing but also at spotting hidden words within the game.

I trust you'll have as much fun with it as I have. Probably the best investment in a board game since buying Trivial Pursuit.