Imagine Learning

Hi Guys,
How are you all doing?
I have some pretty good new information to share, but not right yet.
Please stay tuned to know about it.
:)

"For me this is my life now and I wouldn´t trade it for anything."

Hi guys, sorry for taking so long to update my website, but life has been pretty frantic lately.

The class today is a motivational class for advanced students based on Michael J. Fox´s life. It´s a very interesting and touching story, about how he dealt with Parkinson´s and how he´d transformed this difficult experience into a great book.

I would start the class by putting this quote on the blackboard: "For me now this is my life and I wouldn´t trade it for anything." (this is a sentence he uses during the interview)

Then I´d ask the students if they have been through any difficult moments lately (this is a very tricky question, because it can lead to tears and stuff like this, so please mind the students you´re teaching and feel if this is an appropriate topic to approach).

I´d do the reading part after this conversation to help the students to understand the topic better, then I´d move on to the listening activities

These are the sites:

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/an-interview-with-michael-j-fox/article177195.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/parkinsons/view/fox.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGeMX_h67mI

Enjoy!

Claudio Azevedo has done it again!

And Thank God he´s done it! He created a new blog full of topics based on movies. Great warm-up site.

Keep up the great work Claudio

HOWDINI

Wonderful site full of great videos that you can use as listening activities with your advanced students!

Past perfect

Here´s a class plan for intermediate students who need to review the past perfect. 

Start by asking them to list some reason that would make them kill another person.

Compare the answers and ask them to rank the following crimes:

1-     A person who was DUI kills a passerby.

2-     A thief breaks into a house and kills the person who lives there.

3-     A woman who was going to be raped ends up killing the aggressor.

All of these crimes involve killing, but are they the same?

What would be the sentence for each one? (if you have a big class you can try to role play a trial)

After the discussion is over move on to this wonderful class plan developed by Claudio Azevedo:

http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com/2009/10/unbreakable-present-perfect-with-just.html

As homework ask the students to read the following text on Oprah´s website:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Accused-of-Killing-Her-Husband

Enjoy it!

PS: If your students enjoy literature you can use a summary of Crime and Punishment to enrich the topic: http://members.tripod.com/~JBond_007_4/index-3.html

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.