Entries from November 2007 ↓

Level 2 Reading teachers are due to give a minimum of five quizzes this semester. As well as the in-house quizzes that you can use with your classes, there are also a set of publisher tests. They are a little easier than the in-house ones, as vocabulary is not recycled from previous units.
unit-quizzes-for-totally-true-3.pdf
unit-quiz-answers-for-totally-true-3.pdf

Jim has made a great set of cards we use in the EAP course which suit this unit perfectly. They are of crazy inventions and there are six sets of A4 size cards. They can be found in an old green ‘Film Pouch’ box at the bottom of the folder shelf in the part time area.

Procedure:

• Put students into groups and have them answer two questions:

1. What is the invention for?

Example: I think it’s using when you have a cold.

2. Make up a product name.

Example: Tissue helmet.

• Collate answers on OHP or board.

I used this as an introduction to the unit and the students really enjoyed the humorous ideas presented.

These are two ideas that I shared in the November Writing Swap Shop facilitated by Chihiro. The first is practice at using connectors and encouraging more sophisticated sentences. The second, is a more creative approach to a similar problem; this time, using story ’skeletons’ or outlines of stories that students have to flesh out into a coherent narrative. Both are adaptable and are just suggestions.

connector-practice.pdf

writing-skeletons.pdf

These are two handouts I’ve used in my class. One is a model outline based on the sample essay on death penalty and the other is for students to fill out.

Sample Outline

Essay Outline form

This is a handout that I made for my class explaining how to write a reference for online resources and Japanese resources (I am allowing my students to use one or two resources in Japanese in addition to English resources). This is in the MLA style. Please feel free to modify and let me know if you spot any errors.

Reference Writing