Listening - names

This is a great listening site. I use it a lot. This is a basic listening for real beginners about American names.
Enjoy it!

***

verb to be exercises: http://www.eclecticenglish.com/grammar/PresentSimpleToBe1A.html

They´re, There or their

Usually students mix up these homophones. This is a great site to help them.
=)

First class

A new student has just started today and as usual I taught introductions and personal information.
I used these two videos from real english:


http://real-english.com/reo/1/unit1.html
http://real-english.com/reo/2/unit2.html

and next class I´ll give her this listening:

http://www.elllo.org/english/0001/043-Cat-England.htm

Simple present online activity

Nice activity to try with your students. Fill in the blanks.

PDF database

I don´t know if this is a famous site or not, but I´ve just found out about it and I really liked the site. There are many handouts, but you need to be patient, because it´s not very well organized and some of the pdfs aren´t good. So, take some time and look for the best ones.

Here are some good samples: (simple present and present continuous)

http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/gmader/englisch/tests/present_simple+present_continuous.pdf (make questions)
http://www.english-area.com/paginas/time%20and%20present%20simple.pdf (time table exercise)
http://www.sea.unisannio.it/didattica/appunti_dispense/paolucci/present_simple.pdf (tests)
http://www.visi.es/documents/expanding%20sentences%20present%20simple.pdf (drilling)

MY DAILY ROUTINE AND FREE TIME

Workig on simple present? Nice reading about daily routine activities.
I printed the text and asked my students to put the paragraphs into the correct order. After they finished it, I asked them to make questions to each other about the text.

Present Continuous and Present Simple

Great website with a song (Lemon´s tree by fool´s garden) and some exercise to improve Present Continuous and Present Simple

CDLP

California Distance Learning Project (CDLP) is a great website, which started as a project in 1995. It´s been a whle since the site was updated because it´s no longer an active project, however it´s still a great tool to use with your students.

This project´s goal included four major tasks

• Build and Promote a Distance Learning Knowledge Base
• Provide Technical Assistance in Implementing Distance Learning
• Test New Instructional Delivery Methods / Materials
• Help Create a Statewide Distance Learning Infrastructure

These tasks remained constant from the project's initiation in 1995; however, the activities continued to change over time.

Oprah is the queen!

As you may know, I do LOVE Oprah. I believe her website is a great tool for advanced classes and I use it quite often.

Some months ago, I decided to have a class about food and diets (and there are lots and lots of things online about this topic) but I found a vey interesting video on Oprah´s website that you can work on:

http://www.oprah.com/health/David-Murdocks-Diet-and-Fitness-Routine-Video

David Murdock's Diet and Fitness Routine Video

This billionaire has the stamina and health of a much younger man. See how he starts his day with cardio and weight training. Plus, what he eats for every meal. Watch as David and Oprah blend up a special, vitamin-packed smoothie. Then, a shopping trip to Costco...

There are some other intersting links on Oprah´s that you can use on this same topic:

http://www.oprah.com/media/20090305b_tows_calorie-restriction-video

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahradio/moz/moz_20070417

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahradio/moz/20080527_oaf_moz_lessonslivinglonger

http://www.oprah.com/media/20080601_expert_OZ806074001YOUNGER030107b

I used this idea for a month with my students and they really appreciated it. 

Enjoy it!

Teaching directions

A good listening site for elementary students who are learning directions:

http://www.esl-lab.com/dir1/dir1.htm

http://www.esl-lab.com/dir2.htm

Urban Legend

Class plan: What are you afraid of?

Level: upper intermediate

Start a class discussion about horror movies. Talk about the 1998 movie Urban Legend. Ask if they’ve seen it, if they remember the story…elicit as much information as you can.

Before showing the trailer ask them to make a list of all the legends they came up with and then compare to the ones on the trailer.

                                                                                    

There is a nice handout about this topic here: http://www.stickyball.net/adult/276.html

But I believe that you have to choose the questions before, because not all of them are great.

After finishing the handout, focus on grammar.

Write the sentence: What are you afraid of? on the board. Ask the students to think about other adjectives that are followed by prepositions.

There is an interesting list here: http://www.bedavaingilizce.com/prepositions/adj_pre.htm

Then try this exercise: http://wwwedu.ge.ch/cptic/prospective/projets/anglais/exercises/adjprep2.htm

If you used this class plan, please send me some feedback.

Thanks.

English for traveling

Many students look for classes when they're about to travel.

Unfortunately this is not always the best time to look for classes, because they usually have so many things going through their minds that they hardly ever learn something.

Anyway...I've been preparing some classes for desperate students that are traveling next month and I found some pretty good websites that I'd like to share with you.

Enjoy

http://www.audioenglish.net/english-learning/efl_travel.htm (there are some free samples that you can use)

http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/travelenglish/index.html (pretty good to teach vocabulary)

http://bogglesworldesl.com/survivalESL.htm (a survival guide - role plays)

http://www.talkenglish.com/Speaking/Travel/Airport.aspx (dialogues with listening)

http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/english/index.pl?read=1943 (10 sentences for basic students)

http://www.esl-galaxy.com/travel/Mr%20Bean%20in%20Room%20426.pdf (great lesson plan if you have time) 

http://www.teacherjoe.us/TravelTaxi.html (taking a taxi)

http://www.teacherjoe.us/TravelAirport.html (at the airport)


http://www.esl-galaxy.com/travel/At%20the%20hotel.pdf (checking in - hotel)


http://www.talkenglish.com/LessonDetails.aspx?ALID=389 (great! - listening - airport)

Class plan: Why is it so good to be a man?

Level: Basic

Ask your students to make a list about the positive aspects about being a man. Ask them to compare their answers. Do the same about being a woman.

Ask the girls if they would like to be boys and vice versa. Work on improving fluency by asking them to convince each other. Move on to the listening part: http://www.elllo.org/english/0851/T897-Paul-Men.htm

Ask them to compare their answers to the guy´s answers. Do they agree with his point of view? Work on the listening handout.

Pronunciation: Ask them to pronounce man x men. What´s the difference between them?

Work on this difference. To illustrate your class go to: http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/

After showing them the difference, try this exercise: http://www.manythings.org/b/e/4435

BTW: This woman is AMAZING! http://rachelsenglish.com/

To finish it in great style, try this Shania´s song. “Man I feel like a woman”. You can ask them to write the simple present verbs, or you can make a fill in the blanks handout.

Teaching kids? Colors

Hi guys,

This a very nice video if you´re teaching colors to kids.
You can also work on questions using what color is....?

Class Plan

Our class plan today is about pregnancy.

Level: upper intermediate

The idea is to discuss pregnancy during difficult times, such as adolescence. Play the following trailer to the students and ask them what they would do if they were her. (Juno)

You can review the second conditional clause, or introduce this grammar topic if they haven´t learned it yet.

It´s important for the teacher to know that in the end of the movie she gives her baby for adoption.

After this discussion you should go to: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0805/080527-baby.html

And use this class plan to work on reading or listening. (this a fantastic website.)

I also finished my class with a song from Juno´s soundtrack called: Tire Swing

Enjoy!

If you use this class plan, please send me some feedback.

Laugh Out Loud

ESL BLUES

Today's site is ESL BLUES
A great tool full of nice exercises and games. Divided by grammar topics, pretty easy to use and the students love it.
I always try to choose a topic (there are many dialogues there) and look for something related to it at ESLPOD so they can also have some listening exercises.
Worth a visit !

Pergunta feita por uma aluna no cursinho (que é uma dúvida constante dos alunos)
Question made by a student (common doubt among them)

Every day X Everyday

In short, “everyday” is an adjective which describes something ordinary or commonplace, while the phrase “every day” means “each day.” Confusing these two is a very common grammatical error, and learning to catch this error can improve the quality of your writing immensely.


http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-everyday-and-every-day.htm

Every day X Everyday X Daily

por Lígianlf » Sáb Ago 30, 2008 12:07 pm

Hello, muitos estudantes confundem o uso de Every day, Everyday, Daily.

Every day:significa todos os dias, cada dia separadamente.
Ex.: He works every day. (Ele trabalha todos os dias.)

Everyday:significa diário, cotidiano, comum, habitual.
Ex.: Accidents are an everyday occurrence on this road. (Acidentes são uma ocorrência comum nesta estrada.)

Daily:significa diariamente, diário, dia a dia.
Ex.: The daily newspaper is here. (O jornal diário está aqui.)

see you

(retirado de: http://www.englishexperts.com.br/forum/every-day-x-everyday-x-daily-t1251.html)

reading:

Weird but true
http://www.n6hb.org/s-a/c_weird.htm

(All the stories were taken from the website above and it is the author’s responsibility only)

1. a deadly vision
in January 2000, Kamal Huq of Dhaka, Bangladesh, while still perfectly healthy, told his brother that he was having visions. He said that he could see his own corpse. Two weeks later he had the first of his seizures and died of brain cancer in march. (nov 2000)

2. indigo children
more and more of these weird children are being born. they share the following common features: extraordinary organization of dna, immunity to aids and other emerging diseases, extreme intelligence and self confidence, extra sensory perception, and paranormal abilities. somehow we are communicating to the next generation through our semen and ova that there is trouble ahead and the kids are making the appropriate adjustments. they are the next evolutionary generation of our race. the phenomenon has been documented in china and the united states. (link) (btw: these kids are hard to parent and are often "diagnosed" with a.d.d. or other invented disorders and "treated" with ridalin.) (sept 2000)

3. it's all in the mind
if you are right handed and your left-handed penmanship is gibberish it will also be gibberish if you close your eyes and simply imagine yourself writing with your left hand. Practice in your head until you get it right with your left, then write. Voila! You can. But why? (Misty Hyman, the gold medalist in the 100-meter breaststroke at Sidney, practiced for the event by lying in bed with a stop watch and swimming the race in her mind stroke for stroke until she got her time down to where wanted it. the next day she repeated her performance in water - exactly.) (october 2000).

4. fufu the cat
right after the family dog died, fufu returned to her home in sicily with a new mate and three kittens eight years after she had disappeared when the dog had first arrived.(latimes, oct 2000)

5. sleep on it
when you sleep, the electrical activity of your brain does not decrease, it increases. according to robert stickgold, we don't sleep to rest but to figure out stuff that our conscious awake-mind could not. to work smarter, take more naps. (link, october 2000)

6. neuron regeneration
did your science textbook teach you that after a certain age the brain can no longer regenerate? they've changed their minds about that. the brain not only manufactures new neurons all the time but these neurons are able to migrate to different parts of the brain and assume the needed functional form. (elizabeth gould, princeton university) (1999)

7. doggie science
in rohnert park, california, around 3:30pm on wed 9/22/99 the caller's german shepherd ran full speed from the yard into the glass panel of his sliding door - something he had never done before. when allowed in, he hid under the bed. about 2 minutes later, the earth shook, buildings shuddered and groaned, and their surprised and terrified occupants ran out to safety. scientific earthquake prediction has been a complete failure. doggie science is better than ours in that respect. (ksro radio talk show caller, 1999).

8. patient pam
in july 1991, a female aneurysm patient code-named "pam reynolds" underwent an 8-hour surgery in phoenix arizona during which she was clinically dead for an hour. during the dead hour an electric saw was brought into the operating room in a case and this saw was used to cut open her skull. after the operation she said that she saw the procedure from "above" and she accurately described the saw which she had never seen in life. she also accurately related the conversation that took place in the room at that time although her ear canals were packed with test equipment which showed no response from the brain stem to repeated audible clicks. (michael sabom, 1999)

9. faith heals
reproducible scientific experiments carried out by harold koenig of duke university show that people who have a religion, any religion, are healthier, are more disease resistant, and live longer than those who don't. (see also the book by dale matthews, 1998)

10. the human's perspective
according to human beings only they are capable of intelligence, design, choice, mirth, anger, anguish, love, compassion, and kindness and the other critters just carry out nature's programming. but what was the program that drove a hippopotamus to rescue an impala from the jaws of a crocodile and then try to resuscitate her? and what would you have made of it had it been a human instead of a hippo? (stephanie leland in "peaceful kingdom", 1998)

11. don't worry, be happy
the single strongest predicter of heart disease has nothing to do with diet, exercise, obesity, or smoking and everything to do with your attitude. when it comes to healthy hearts the don't-worry-be-happy crowd has the edge over the angry or the depressed. (hillel cohen, albert einstein college of medicine)

12. the magic of garlic
to avoid illness eat lots of garlic. it contains a chemical called allicin that kills bugs even if they are resistant to antibiotics. garlic is our last hope against the tough new resistant strains of bacteria.

Comparatives

Tá ensinando comparatives? Quer deixar sua aula mais animada?
Desafie seus alunos: quem fizer igualzinho ao daft hands ganha um ponto extra!



Quer mexer com o corpo todo? Daft Bodies:



curisoidades sobre a banda daft punk:

daft = stupid

Daft Punk is an electronic music duo consisting of French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (born February 8, 1974) and Thomas Bangalter (born January 3, 1975).^[1] Daft Punk reached significant popularity in the late 1990s house movement in France and were met with continued success in the years following.^[2]

Daft Punk is also credited with producing songs that were considered essential in the French house scene. They were managed from 1996 to 2008 by Pedro Winter (Busy P), the head of Ed Banger Records.^[3]

^{continue lendo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_Punk}

SONG: That´s not my name

Semana passada trabalhei com a música: That´s not my name, da banda The Tings Tings com meus alunos.
Principalmente os mais novos curtiram bastante.
Então fikdik para os professores.

______ letter word just to get me along
It's a ___________ and I'm biting on my tongue and I
I keep stalling, keeping me ___________
People around gotta find something to say _________
Holding back, __________ the same
Don't wanna be a loner
______________ to me, oh no
I never say anything at all
But with nothing to consider __________ forget my ___________
(ame, ame, ame)
They call me ___________
They call me ____________
They call me __________
They call me ___________
______________ (4x)

They call me 'quiet'
But I'm a riot
Mary-Jo-Lisa
Always the same
That's not my name
That's not my name
That's not my name
That's not my name
_____ miss the catch if _______ through me the ________
I________ the last kid standing up ________ the wall
Keep up, falling, these heels they keep me boring
Getting glammed up and __________ on the fence now
So ____________ all the time at night
Lock myself away
Listen to me, I'm not
Although I'm dressed up, out and all with
Everything considered they _______ ________ _________
(ame, ame, ame)
They call me ___________
They call me ____________
They call me __________
They call me ___________
______________ (4x)
They call me 'quiet'
But I'm a riot
Mary-Jo-Lisa
Always the same
That's not my name
That's not my name
That's not my name
That's not my name
___________ darling?
__________ me bird?
________ me darling?
____________ me bird?

Para professores:

Blog fantástico de filmes

Esse blog é um salvador de aulas! Claudio Azevedo é meu ídolo!
Digo isso pq ele seleciona  partes de filmes e prepara uma aula inteirinha em cima desses trechos. Além de ser muito organizado e dividido por grammar topics.
Super aconselho.

2 thumbs up!

Parece que tenho 15 anos novamente. Penei para deixar esse blog com uma carinha mais aceitável, e acho que fiz um bom trabalho. Parece que os meus html skills não se foram todos com a idade!
Espero que vcs aproveitem o blog.
Beijos,


I feel like I´m 15 again. It was pretty hard to make this blog look nice but I think I´ve done a good job. It seems that my
html skills weren´t all gone with age!
I hope you all enjoy the blog.
Love,

E então eu descobri o youtube...
And then I´ve discovered the youtube...

Gentchi! O youtube tem canais maravilhosos sobre ESL. O primeiro que vou compartilhar com vcs é o da Jennifer ELS que é fantástico!