Oral Narrative Lesson

Level: Intermediate/upper intermediate/advanced

Language: Past narrative tenses/would/emergent language

Materials: Award Winning Short Film - The Shoe

Time: 90 mins

Extras: Digital Voice recorder (many students now have these on their smartphones)

Warmer:

Tell student to close their eyes and imagine the coldest day imaginable. Snow is falling gently in a large city. The roofs of the houses and a large cathedral are covered in white. It's bright and clear winter's day.

Speaking: Students talk to partner.

1. How would you feel if you were in the city?
2. What would you do on a day like this?
3. Do you think everyone is happy when the weather is so cold?
4. What problems might some people face living in such cold weather?

Group Feedback and focus on emergent language and lexical chunks.

Brainstorm the type of clothing needed to survive is such a climate. Write on WB.

In groups, using the brainstormed language on the WB, students decide on the three most important items of clothing and justify their answers.

Video/Oral narrative:

Show the video to 0.19 and ask students to speculate on the characters and where they live.

1. Are they rich or poor? How do you know?
2. What you you think the father of the girl does for a living?
3. Do you think they have a good relationship? Why/Why not?
4. Compare your house with the one in the video.

Now put the students into small groups and tell them they are going to create an oral narrative together using a digital voice recorder. (this might be a good point to review past narrative tenses - past simple; past continuous; past perfect)

Draw student attention to their senses (sight/hearing/smell/touch/taste)

Tell the student that they need to think about the senses when telling their narrative.

Play the video until 0.46 and pause.

Each group should brainstorm together and then one student from each group speaks the narrative into the voice recorder. Set a time limit. (2/3 mins depending on the level)

As a group speculate on what is going to happen next.

Play the video until 1.34 and pause.

Ask the following questions:

1. How do you feel towards the young girl? Why?
2. How do you think she feels about her life? Justify your answer.

Group brainstorm and record narrative.

Play the video until 2.21 and pause.

Ask the following questions:

1. Describe the relationship between the young girl and her father.
2. How does her father feel when she sees her drawing on the wall?
3. What emotions are the young girl and her father feeling while looking into the shop window?

Group brainstorm and record narrative.

Play the rest of the video and ask the following questions:

1. Is the man a good father? Why/why not?
2. Is the girl a good daughter? Why/why not?

Group brainstorm and record narrative.

Follow up questions:

1. Do you think you would have been satisfied if your father had given you a 'doll shoe' when you were a child? 
2. Does the movie tell us anything about fatherhood/childhood?
3. What adjectives describe the love the young girl and her father show to each other?

Now the groups have completed their oral narratives. Groups swap and listen to each other narratives noting useful language. Complete for all groups. Students will now have a large bank of emergent language in their notebook.

Group feedback.

Writing task: Students now use the new emergent language to write the narrative.

Homework: Student make an oral narrative telling the story of their relationship with their father on a typical day.

ESL Picture Story - A Lexical Approach

Picture from The British Council

In this lesson, I used  Eric the Engine picture cards from the British Council's Learn English Kids site in order to generate lexical chunks.

Find the pictures here:

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/short-stories/eric-the-engine

Simply log into the site, download the PDF picture story and cut up.

Of course, you can use any pictures for this activity. Even stick men drawings would suffice. 

Stage 1

Shuffle the cards and place them face down in front of the students - one set per group.

Stage 2

Divide the white board into 7 squares.

Stage 3

A student turns over the first card and then discusses the picture (encourage students to be as descriptive as possible) 

Stage 4

Feed back as a class and write emergent lexical chunks, single nouns, verbs, adverbs on the white board. Elicit to fill any holes in language. After card 1 has been discussed, note this language in box 1 on the board. Repeat for all seven pictures.

Stage 5

Once the eliciting and noting is complete, students discuss the story order. Then rub out and correct the box numbers on the board. Encourage students to justify the order. 

"Why do you think that picture comes next?"

Stage 6 

In pairs students tell the story to each other incorporating the lexical chucks and other language on the board. Set a 3 minute limit per student.

Stage 7

Students make a storyboard 

Enjoy

TM

Reverse Reading Revisited

Thanks to Jackie McAvoy supplier the main thrust of inspiration for this lesson.

If you want to check out the original, you can here: 

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/activities/writing-through-reverse-reading

I have modified it slightly and added a visual element.

Level: Pre Intermediate and above

Time: 50 minutes

Vocabulary: Detective, blow up, bridge, gold bullion, criminal, enemy, thunder and lightning, picturesque, waterfall, nature reserve, evil, magician, poisonous snake, lethal, arrest, jail  

Materials: 

Students - Notebook and pen 

Teacher - Download the following images:

http://eagnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/spy.jpg

http://online.wsj.com/media/1228pod01.jpg

http://cdn-wac.emirates247.com/polopoly_fs/1.279083.1281837902!/image/3384850608.jpg

http://www.tustrucos.com/software/wallpapers/Maravillas-de-la-Naturaleza/paisajes/Stormy-Weather-Saguaro-Cactus.jpg

http://static.travelblog.org/Wallpaper/pix/waterfall_desktop_background-1600x1200.jpg

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/279/7/2/Evil_Magician_by_Ncio.png

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTTrBDmYRAitJa8eSQdadrQZoqBCfe1pxdgHcnrZENa9m6JMRICwUorIEORXRPCZcFnrmtS_pnrZiTUkc3v-KJr7AEvj3aF91p7HJYKnzUijx9BYFcKh9PJ3R-6aKAYCuUbVK7H6ReRnA/s1600/snake+mouth.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01383/police_arrest_1383846c.jpg

Stage 1: Explain to students that something terrible happened to you this morning. Student speculate on what this might be. Feed back and note any emergent language. 

Stage 2: Tell students that you had a story prepared to read to them, but sadly your dog ate it.

Stage 3: Tell students that that they are going to predict what the story was about. Dictate the past tense questions that relate to Mr Jones 'interesting' day.

1. What was Mr Jones's job?
2. What was he going to do?
3. Why?
4. What was the weather like?
5. What did he decide to do after that?
6. What didn't he want to do?
7. Why?
8. What was the surprising end?

Stage 4: Students predict the answers. Encourage students to be as imaginative as possible and use dictionaries. 

Stage 5: Monitor and check grammar and spelling

Stage 6: Students mingle and share their prediction with other students

Stage 7: Tell students that you have some clues that show what really happened (the pictures downloaded above directly relate to the 8 prediction questions) Show each picture in turn and elicit as much detail as possible. Push students to be as descriptive as possible and write emergent language on the board.

Stage 8: Student write the real story by using the picture prompts and the new language on the board.

Follow up: Students can make a story board for homework

Santa's Story - Videotelling Lesson (revisited)

I've made some adjustments to my Videotelling lesson from yesterday, as after refection I felt it needed a bit of a re-shape. Actually, if I am truthful, it wasn't wonderful.  

Read it here:

http://canyouwalkonthericepaper.blogspot.com/2012/12/santas-christmas-videotelling-lesson.html

In this spirit, I have modified Jamie Keddie's (http://lessonstream.org/) technique slightly in the story telling stage. 

Instead of students responding to the teacher eliciting orally in the story telling stage, they write down their answers and then check these while watching the video. (Teacher should have 10/15 questions prepared for this task. Questions should be open ended if possible pushing students to be as creative as possible) 

The reason for this change is that sometimes shy students lose out in the oral eliciting stage, overshadowed by the more confident members of the group. Thus, with this slight adjustment, the former can get creative without the fear of their spontaneous responses being wrong or inferior to their classmates. 

This is not to say that shy students are discouraged from speaking, far from it; all students are given the opportunity to share their creative ideas with the class in a group feedback session after the video has been watched. At this stage, the teacher can really take the students' ideas apart and fully expand the emergent language to its fullest potential. 


For those of you who are not familiar with Jamie Keddie and Videotelling, I suggest you do. Below is a great example of his technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wMVTcq7ZX8

Santa's Christmas - Videotelling Lesson

Santa’s Christmas

Language Level: Elementary - Pre-Intermediate
Learner Type: Young teens
Time: 45 minutes
Topic: Christmas; kindness; love
Language: Christmas vocabulary; past tense

Preparation, materials and equipment

For this activity you will need to ‘Santa's Christmas: Learn English with subtitles - Story for Children’ 

From YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwdM8mBUxjM)

Decide how you are going to show the video to the class.

Part 1: Introduction

Tell the class that you watched a visually interesting video about Christmas on Youtube. Get the students to speculate on what they think the video might be about.

Part 2: Visualisation

Tell the class that you want them to use their imagination to visualize what you tell them.

Say the following: 

“I want you to imagine that you are in the middle of a traditional Christmas scene”

What sights, sounds and smells do you imagine?

After feedback, tell the students the following:

There are snow covered trees, and the sky is a brilliant blue like a tropical ocean. In the background of the video there is small wooden building. Is has a chimney on the roof

“Why are chimneys important in cold countries?” (To provide warmth)

“What comes out of a chimney?” (Smoke)

“Where does the smoke come from?” (A roaring fire in a fireplace)

Outside the house two animals are playing.

“What animals are playful?”

Inside the building there is a large bed and a fire burns in the corner of the room

“Does that mean the house is going to burn down? No? Why not?” (It’s in a fireplace)

A bird sits on a set of drawers beside the large bed, and a bird sits glumly on it (Concept check ‘glumly’)

“What kind of bird do you think it is?” (Owl)

“Why do you think the owl is so glum?”

Give the students a clue: beside the owl on the drawer is a thermometer and there is a man in the bed. Beside the bed is a large sack which is overflowing with unread letters

“Who do you think the man is?” (Santa)

“Why is the owl glum? (Because Santa is too sick to deliver presents)

Ask the students how Santa feels and how children around the world will react when they find out this terrible news

At this point tell the students to orally summarise the story so far with their friend (1 minute on the stopwatch)

Tell the student that Santa hears a noise outside

“What has caused this noise?”

“Something is out of breath (concept check) outside the window; something that is of vital importance to Santa every year.” (Reindeer)

“What’s wrong with the reindeer? Why are they out of breath?”

Tell the students that there is something behind the reindeers

“What are they pulling?” (Sledge)

Tell the students that inside the sledge is something surprising (Kids)

“Why are the kids in the sledges?”

Explain that Santa hears all of these strange noises outside his bedroom window

“How does Santa feel?” (Curious)

Tell the students that Santa opens the door and in front of him stands a little girl

“What do you think she wants?” (To give Santa a gift)

“She gives him something soft and cuddly. What could it be?” (Teddy bear)

Tell student sthat the children come one by one (concept check) to give Santa a present

“What other presents do you think they give to Santa?” (Tree, cookies, socks, jigsaw etc.)

“How do you think Santa feels?” (Over the moon – concept check and explain what an idiom is)

Santa gets all the kids to stand in a big circle, and one little girl asks him a question

“What do you think the question is?” (What present do you like best?)

“What is Santa’s reply?” (Santa says the kid’s love and kindness is the finest gift of all)

“What do you think Santa does next?” (Gives all the children an big hug)

7. Now show the video to the class.

Follow up 1
Students are given a list of key words from the story and have to recreate the story in the past tense

Follow up 2
Higher level students could write an opinion paragraph on which is more important: love and kindness or gifts?

Follow up 3
Students can write a diary entry for Santa on the events of that day

Collaborative Writing and Peer Correction

(William Turner: Landscape with a River Bay in the Backgraound.)

This activity is great for reviewing vocabulary as well as improving writing fluency and accuracy.

Language Level: Pre-Intermediate and above
Learner Type: teens and adults
Time: 30 minutes
Topic: Vocabulary Review; writing fluency; peer correction
Language: Vocabulary; general grammar review

Preparation, materials and equipment

1. For this activity you will need a blank piece of paper for each student. Alternatively, students can use their notebooks.

Part 1: Introduction

2. Spider diagram target previously taught vocabulary on the whiteboard; review and drill.

Part 2: Instruction

3. Tell students that they have to work as a team to make a story; this is done in 10 stages: in the first stage they have to write for 30 seconds and then pass the paper to their left; in the second stage they write for 1 minute and then pass; in the third stage one minute thirty seconds etc. Continue until ten stages have been completed.

4. Write a sentence starter on the whiteboard for each student in the class: eg. “Suddenly” or “And then something wonderful happened”. The teacher should be creative at this stage.


Part 3: Productive Skills

5. Students continue the sentence and then pass their piece of paper or notebook to their left.


Note

Point out that students need to read and correct the work passed to them before adding their own work.

6. This process continues with the teacher timing the students on a stopwatch. The teacher should also encourage slower students to speed up.

7. The process continues until students have gone through ten stages.


By the end of the productive stage, students will be energized and attentive.

Part 4: Peer Correction

8. Tell students they have 30 seconds to correct the work in front of them using a red pen.


9. After 30 seconds, students pass the corrected work to their left and peer correct again.


10. This process is continued until students have their original starter word in front of them.

Part 5: Oration

11. Individually, students read each collaborative story and teacher records them.

Part 6: Vote

12. Students vote on which story they liked best and why.

Part 7: Teacher Correction

13. Teacher explains any common errors on the white board.

Follow up:

14. Email the most popular story to the students; students can use the video for intensive listening practice at home, writing the story as they hear it.

15. Students can translate the story voted best in to L1 and translate it back into L2 at home.

16. Students can continue the story at home and present it at the beginning of the next lesson.

IELTS Writing Task 1 Lesson on Addictions

Introducing IELTS Speaking Task 1

Language Level: Intermediate +
Learner Type: High teens to adults
Time: 60 minutes
Topic: IELTS Speaking Task 1; Addictions; Deductive reading
Language: Questions forms; language of addiction; modals of deduction

Preparation, materials and equipment

1. For this activity you will need to copy a paragraph about internet addiction onto an A4 piece of paper. Tear a column 4cms wide down the left and right side of the page. Photocopy the remaining middle section of the page. Copy and paste the article from here:

http://mashable.com/2012/02/22/internet-addiction-numbers/

Part 1: Introduction

2. Show the class the picture and ask students to discuss the person’s story with their partner. Students then write one sentence explaining who the person is and what has happened to him. (the man is addicted to the internet)

Link to photo:

(http://www.channelstv.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/internet-addiction.jpg)

Part 2: Feedback

3. Groups write their sentences on the whiteboard; teacher focuses on emergent language, and corrects sentences if necessary; drill; elicit when necessary.

Part 3: Deductive Reading

4. Hand out the prepared middle section of the paragraph. Students work together in groups to deduce the whole of the paragraph from the section they have. Highlight the need to use modals of deduction when conversing: might, could, must, may, etc.

5. After 10 minutes, the groups mingle and compare information.

6. Hand out original, read and make corrections.

Part 4: Useful vocabulary


7. Draw students attention to the language of addiction

Words and Expressions

addiction
to be addicted to
addict
addictive
to be (get)hooked on
to kick a habit
to overcome an addiction

Examples:

Internet addiction is a problem.
He is addicted to computer games.
He is a real television addict.
Gambling can become addictive.
She is hooked on gambling.
He smokes, but he wants to kick the habit.
It is difficult to overcome an addiction.


Part 5: Introduce IELTS Writing Task 1

8. Outline task 1 and model a question and answer on the whiteboard.
9. Outline answer structure: (Direct answer + extra piece of information explaining your answer + example)

Eg: “Please describe your apartment"

“My apartment is tiny but functional. Presently, being a student, all I need is my computer desk and somewhere to put my head down at night.”


Part 6: Question forming

10. Write 5 question words on the white board and tell student to form some simple questions about internet addiction; draw their attention to useful vocabulary from part 4.

“How many…?”
“Where…?”
“Which…?”
“Why…?”
“How often…?”

11. Monitor and correct when necessary.

12. In pairs, one student plays the examiner and the other the student. Tell student to pay particular attention to their partner’s answers as they will need the information later. Ask and answer questions in full.

Follow up:

13. Students write a summary of their partner’s answers
14. Student research and internet story about addiction and prepare a 2 minute presentation at home for the next lesson.

Videotelling Lesson Plan

Guinness Record

Language Level: Pre-Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate (A2-B1)
Learner Type: Young teens to adults
Time: 45 minutes
Topic: Guinness Record Breakers; unusual people; social exclusion; empathy
Language: Superlatives; present narrative tenses; various vocabularies

Preparation, materials and equipment

1. For this activity you will need to stream “Smallest man meets woman with longest legs.” From YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dJCfzyxTEY)
2. Decide how you are going to show the video to the class.

Part 1: Introduction

1. Tell the class that you watched a visually interesting video on Youtube. Get the students to speculate on what they think the video might be about.

Part 2: Visualisation

1. Tell the class that you want them to use their imagination to visualize what you tell them.

Say the following:

“I want you to imagine that you are in central London, in a famous place called Trafalgar Square.

What sights, sounds and smells do you imagine?

There are many people going about their business (concept check “going about their business”) although it is a grey, dull day. The sky is full of clouds and it is threatening to rain. (concept check “threatening to rain”) In the background of the video there is an old, traditional building (concept check “traditional”) with Roman pillars at its front entrance. Inside the building there are many famous paintings. (What do you call a place where art is displayed?-art gallery)

What do you think the atmosphere is like in an art gallery?

On the roof of the art gallery there is a flag pole with a British Union Jack fluttering in the breeze (concept check “fluttering in the breeze”) In the foreground of the picture there are some very steep steps (concept check “steep”) and there are two people standing on the steps. The first person is an extremely peculiar woman.

What do you think is peculiar about her?

Then tell students that a part of the ladies body is too long; students speculate again. Once they have guessed that it’s the woman’s legs, move on) She’s a very fashionable (concept check “fashionable”) lady.

What clothes do you think this fashionable lady is wearing?

She’s wearing a fashionable blue party dress and gold high heel shoes. (Concept check “high heel shoes”) She is standing with her hands on her hips. (Concept check “hands on hips”)

Why do people sometimes stand with their hands on their hips? (elicit “to pose”)

Her hair is fashionable. In fact, it looks like she has been to the hairdressers that afternoon.

What hair style do you think she has? Describe it.


She has short, blonde hair and she must use lots of hairspray. (Concept check “hairspray”)

2. At this point ask students to summarise orally what they know about the video already in pairs. (speaking for 1 minute without stopping)

3. Continue the story: I told you at the beginning that there were two people standing on the steps. Let me tell you about the second peculiar person. He is standing between the ladies legs.

What do you think he looks like?

He is tiny. (ask students if they know what name is given to abnormally small people – dwarf) He’s wearing unusual (concept check “unusual”) green boots. The kind of boots with a pointed toe that one Santa’s helpers would wear. (Get a student to draw what they think the boots might look like on the board.) He’s also wearing a blue and gold traditional Chinese male suit and he has spiky (concept check “spiky”) hair like a punk. (concept check “punk”) An audience (concept check “audience”) has formed around the foot of the steps and people are taking photographs. Even a policeman has stopped for a nosey (concept check “nosey”)

4. At this point, tell the students that the dwarf is holding a large book, and many people are taking photos of him and the lady.

Write the question on the board:

What book do you think the dwarf is holding and why?

5. Feedback and write any emergent language on the board.

6. The dwarf is holding the Guinness Book of records as he is the world’s smallest man and the lady has the world’s longest legs.

7. Now show the video to the class.


Follow up 1

Students can write a first person narrative account of a day in the life or either the woman or the man.

Follow up 2
For higher level students introduce the concepts of isolation and loneliness and get them to write a pessimistic diary entry in 10 minutes. For homework they could write a diary entry from an optimistic point of view.

Follow up 3
The lady and the dwarf go for a drink after the photo shoot. Students write a role-play of their conversation.

Using a Novel for Uncovering Emergent Language and Retaining it.

A technique I have been using a lot this semester.

•Read a chapter of a graded reader to your students while they close their eyes and listen.

•Hand out a copy of the chapter and allow children to read silently and underline unknown vocabulary.

•Students go into groups and talk about unknown vocabulary and phrases.

•Groups swap and students share information about unknown vocabulary.

•Once group have circulated, have class feedback on the board around a spider diagram.

•The teacher then elicits each new word’s part of speech and how the word is used in the chapter.

•Teacher then uses information given by students to write a coherent sentence beside the word on the spider diagram.

•Repeat this for all words.

•Drill the sentences concentrating on word stress.

•In pairs students translate sentences into L1.

•When completed, rub the board and allow groups to chat in L1 to modify their answers.

•Back in pairs, students recreate the sentences from L1 to L2.

•When completed, students see the original sentences again and self-correct.

•Drill sentences and vocabulary for the final time

•Follow up homework: students have to write a present tense summary of the chapter using all of the emergent vocabulary from the lesson.