Entries from November 2006 ↓

This is a boardgame that I use to get the students to talk about their summer vacation and what they did.

I have found that even though it may give certain students less talk time than simple pair work it seems to work better at getting students to talk with each other than find someone who tends to.

Uni Vacation Boardgame9-26-06.pdf

The Summer Vacation Game.doc

This is a crossword to review past-tense forms.

It is a good review (warm-up) excercise to do before asking students to talk about their vacations with each other.

Winter Vacation Crossword

Winter Vacation Crossword Answers

This is an activity that I use with my students to get them to talk about movies.

It is also a good vocabulary recycling activity for Let’s Talk 1 Unit 8A

Movies Board Game Instructions
Movies Board Game

The final examination for Level 2 Listening and Speaking is now ready for your perusal. If you would like to know what is on the exam, please take a look in the L2 binders in PFC or Machida for Version A. The same content, re-ordered into Versions B and C will be available at test time. Sorry, just to be on the safe side, I chose not to upload the actual test. In any event, all the tests will be printed for you.

In the binder, you will find:

• A student test paper
• An answer sheet
• A transcript of the listening passages
• A CD: Each listening passage is recorded once

All of the content is drawn from the publisher’s exam book. If students have attended class and tried the self-study passages, they should have encountered everything on the exam. The Listening and Speaking Final Exam is to be held in the second Listening & Speaking class in January. For those students missing the Final Exam, there will be a make up examination proctored by full time teachers 17 January 2007.

Procedure

1. Pick up the printed exams.
2. Hand out the papers and remind students to mark their names in romaji.
3. Begin with the listening section by playing the CD once through (approximately 10 minutes).
4. Allow students plenty of time to finish.
5. Collect all exams and return them to the box provided in the PFC office.

Grading
The test is scored on 50 points: 2 points each for listening, 1 point each for other questions. Each section of the test is marked clearly for the value of the questions and there is a handy subtotal box for marking each segment of the test.

49-50 A+
47-48 A
45-46 A-
43-44 B+
41-42 B
39-40 B-
37-38 C+
35-36 C
33-34 C-
31-32 D+
29-30 D
27-28 D-
26 and below F

This does mean that students must get all of the listening questions correct in order to score an exceptional A+. An A may be quite difficult, but many students should be able to score an A- if they have prepared regularly. It is hoped that many of the students should fall in the B range. Some students may receive an F according to this scale, but that mark still earns them points towards their final EIgo II grade.

Please return all of these sample test materials to the binders as soon as you have looked them over.

This is a simple task sheet for launching and brainstorming ideas for the January Multimedia Presentation task. I have launched it early to give students something to do while we are doing the speaking test. This task gets students to brainstorm ideas, and assigns further information gathering for homework.

Multimedia Presentation - Tourist regions in Japan

This handout presents some basic information about quoting source material for the persusive essay, including the placement of quotes within sentences and verbs used to introduce quotations. Following that, on the second page, there are some quotations which students can practice on. Although the handout does not mention any particular style, the examples on the first page follow APA format.

Discussing the differences between quotation and paraphrase might be a good way to lead into this activity and it would be helpful if students brought their sources to the class to practice with. It could also be a lot of fun to talk about the quotes and invite students to agree or disagree with them, providing their own backing for or against the claims contained within. We had a great time analyzing the Sugimoto quote in my class.

Quoting.doc

This is a supplementary activity for the reading in Unit 8: “It’s not so bad to be middle-aged.” It is intended to help students process some target words in the unit deeply by finding substitutes for selected words in the article.

Passage Unit 8 Vocab&Reading activity.doc

This is a reading and discussion activity to prepare students to discuss Topic 3 in the Level 3 speaking test. It includes an adapted news story about the future financial burden faced by current univeristy students as a result of the increasing number of retired workers. Following the reading, students write answers to comprehension and reaction questions and discuss their answers in a group.

Special Report: Japan’s Aging Population

Speaking task 2 is a mini-presentation: a short speech explaining ‘how to do’ something. There are 2 different example speeches on the Level 1 DVD (and on the elpweb Resources web site):

Richard - How to make English tea

Simon C - How to pass a rugby ball

VIDEO WORKSHEETS

These worksheets can also be found in shared files, and in the level binder.

How to make English tea

Version 1 of the worksheet

Version 2 of the worksheet

Teacher notes

How to pass a rugby ball

Worksheet includes Teacher notes

Many members of the ELP are interested in publishing articles based on original research or based upon work from MA programs. There are far more opportunities out there than people may be aware of. Download this 45 page PDF listing dozens of journals. Get contact addresses, policies, style requirements, and basic submission guidelines. This list might also be useful if you need help finding relevant journals to help with completing MA modules.

How to Get Published in ESOL and Applied Linguistics Serials

If would like to submit a paper to The Language Teacher, guidelines for TLT may be found at the TLT website, or just ask me if you have any questions.