Entries from September 2005 ↓

Here’s a handout to review modals for prediction and guide Ss in guessing what will happen to the main characters in Looking for Alibrandi.

Story Predictions (Alibrandi)

Cloze activities for Holes, in the autumn EAP course, including master Hot Potato files as well as html files. To view the exercise in your web browser click on “index.html”.

These cloze exercises are based on chapter summaries available at the following website:
Holes lesson plans

Vocabulary lists to go with the EAP cloze activities. There are 10-12 vocabulary items for each chapter in the novel.

Holes vocabulary lists

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

This is a summary for Chapters Five ~ Fifteen

Another person's summer

A welcome back from summer vacation activity. Students interview and then write a narrative paragraph about another person’s summer. Includes a list of descriptive adjectives for describing a summer. Includes a subjunctive phrase “She wished she had . . but couldn’t because . . . A good review of paragraph structure for PI or E level.

Summaries for Chapters Two ~ Four.

This is a summary for Chapter One.

Simon Cookson put some very handy course schedules for Holes on the Shared Files. The only problem is that Tuesday has one more class than Friday. In the Reading schedule, I’ve added a review day, made a few small changes to the description, and amended the Vocabulary part of the Assessment slightly.

Download the pdf version to use as-is.

Or, get the rtf version for easy editing to make it your own.

I’ve just added one more day for writing instruction and revision bewtween Assignments 1 and 2 for the Writing.

Get the pdf version

Or, download the rtf version to change for your own use.

Thanks for the originals Simon.

Just testing a little application called ecto.

Ecto lets you write a message without having to log in to the materials site. It seems to work well, but it costs about ¥2000.

Photo:

I am just going to try a video file in quicktime .mov format…

It’s a ‘poster movie’. That means you have to click on the picture to make it play. (hmm, autoplay not working)

Testing file upload: Test file.doc

FlashPaper to open in new window: virtualmomo-3.swf

FlashPaper in the page: oh… Firefox doesn’t like the embeded swf file.

Large thumbnail used to preview pdf file. Clicking on image should download the pdf.

I just noticed it doesn’t support the keyword system being used here, but this might explain how to make it work: http://www.splyb.com/madfox/?p=48

Here is a variant on a perennial favorite from Talk A Lot, the “Why were you…?”. Rather than simply recount their own summer vacations, students use the prompts on this worksheet to ask and answer about some bizarre holidays.

Click to download the Weird Summer conversation starter, print it out, and see if your students can lie convincingly. Appropriate for active pre-intermediate classes and up.

You may need a picture of Vin Diesel to complete this class activity. And, for your own amusement, try the Random Vin Diesel Fact Generator

Here’s a file I uploaded:

Autumn semester EAP presentation on writing assignment 2

A short description of the novel Holes and biographical info about the author. This gives students instructions to buy the book. Usually given out last class of spring semester. Can be used again to launch the novel.