An activity for Unit 8

Activity Time
35 ~ 50 minutes depending on how much reinforcement / explicit teaching / grammatical accuracy
you fancy.

Activity Goals
Encourage understanding of descriptions and comparisons.
Allow practice with comparatives and superlatives.
Motivate basic inferencing skills.
Passive review of the past tense.
Active review of adjectives.

comparatives.superlatives.practice

A Quicktime movie with worksheet and activity explanation.

The movie talks about my Summer Vacation and has about 10 photos with a narrative. There is a worksheet for listening comprehension and a script for the teacher to expand upon. Please feel free to use the movie and alter or adapt the activity. There may be hitches with the Quicktime movie file depending on the platform you use. Please check it before you use it in class. If the sound file and slides do not synch. turn the volume off and read the narrative provided instead (you can use the arrow keys to click through the pictures on the Quicktime file).

The whole activity should take between 30~70 minutes depending on how you decide to expand it.

Summer vacation / Past tense activity

These worksheets are intended as a trial. If you use them in your class, please remember that they are not in addition to the vocabulary requirement as stated in the Student Notes (30 words and sentences). They are to be used instead of this requirement or to replace part of it (Eg. 15 words and five worksheets). The workload on the students should remain the same, so as not to skew the grading process.

They are in ‘Beta’ form. Please give me any comments for improvement that you have if you use them on the class.

This batch consists of 6 worksheets and a brief overview. They cover vocabulary from Unites 1, 4 and 5 in Firsthand Success.

Different Approaches to Vocabulary

These are some short listening activities that can be used to introduce each unit or to provide extra practice. There are three types: gap-fill, correction, and re-ordering. There are also a variety of shorter, follow-up tasks, such as scrambled words, choose a summary, and complete the sentence.

Download the zip file below.

NOTE: this is a new zip file. The previous one contained a mistake in the Unit 2 supp file (there were 11 mistakes, not 10!)

ttunit1_8pdfs

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

The second speaking task is a presentation.

Task
Students have to prepare a short presentation of around 3 minutes, in which they teach the class the dos and don’ts of a particular topic using the target structures from UNit 11 (modals of advice). Students will often choose a topic that others already know about, but the emphasis should be on how to do it better, or tips that people may not know.

The zip file below contains a folder with an overview of the task, five worksheets, a listening activity for the DVD exemplar, and a vocabulary list.

The worksheets can be used individually or as a set.
Speaking Task 2 - Overview and Worksheets

This is a listening activity using a slide show on the internet. The slide show has a narration by my six year old daughter. Students have a worksheet with some basic comprehension questions to work on while / after listening.

As the Level 1 students have to do their first speaking task on their summer news this activity introduces the topic and also practices the past tense. It is, however, mainly a warmer or a ‘fun’ introduction activity for the first or second class.

Use the link below to go to the slideshow.
http://voicethread.com/view.php?b=7390

And download the Worksheet.
Slide Show Worksheet

This can be used with the supplentary activities 10~18 to give students a record of their scores and an opportunity to practice more outside class with the textbook CD.

Download the zip file below.

Totally True Supplementary Activities: Units 10~18

These are some short listening activities that can be used to introduce each unit or to provide extra practice. There are three types: gap-fill, correction, and re-ordering. There are also a variety of shorter, follow-up tasks, such as scrambled words, choose a summary, and complete the sentence.

There is also a Student Record Sheet. This can be used if you intend to use most or all of the supplementary activities. Students can keep a record of their score and are encouraged to try again at home using the CD in the textbook.

Thank you to Deborah for TT16 and 17

Download the zip file below.

Totally True Supplementary Activities: Units 10~18

Purpose

Primarily, this song can be used through the semester at any level (although level 1 will need plenty of support) as a 15~20 minute activity to add variety to the class: three or four stanzas every week or two. It could also be used in the last class after feedback as a ‘fun’ activity.

• It can be used as a simple listening activity. Primarily, ~ing forms, unstressed syllables, prepositions are the focus of the listening.

• It can be used for pronunciation practice (the song has a powerful and simple rhythm).

• It can be used for performance. The song is full of actions and the people in it (four) can be played by students as the music plays (especially if you have Sobun students!).

• It can be used for comprehension practice.

• It can be a source of vocabulary (see Damian Fitzpatrick’s vocabulary self-assessment sheet) and to encourage out-of-class listening/practice.

• It can be used for anything!

filler activity pdf
Tom’s diner - mp3

An activity - spot the mistakes - to use at the start of class based on the main reading.

Start with a general question about the benefits/drawbacks of car journeys, followed by a specific question: How could car travel be improved?

Then, give out copies of the activity which has the following elements: pre-listening, listening, post-listening.

TT_1_Unit 3_Activity.pdf

These are short dictation activities that you may want to use to change the pace of a class, support lower level students or to introduce variety.

There are four activities:
1. A basic dictation activity taken from the back of Totally True 1
2. Fill in the gaps - key vocabulary
3. Fill in the gaps - articles, prepositions, connectors, unstressed syllables etc
4. Find the mistakes

These are based on the dictation activities, but the same principle can be applied to the main reading section at the start of each unit.

You may want to ask your students, individually or in pairs, to attempt to fill in spaces or guess the mistakes before the listening.

Richard Hawkins & Damon Brewster
TT1 Dictation Activities Spring.doc

I saw Richard H’s transcriptions of the Totally True Units and thought I’d do the same for the dictations in the back of the book. I’ve noticed that even these shorter versions are quite challenging, and I have a number of low level students. I have included three types of gap-fill focusing on key vocabulary, unstressed words, and identifying errors. If you make any other materials with these pass them over ;)

So far I have only done units 10~13

TT1 Dictations

Cheers,

Damon

This is the same format as the previous review lesson I posted.

The aim of this lesson is to review most of the key vocabulary presented in lessons five to eight. It is also meant to be a way of getting students mentally and physically active (pair work, followed by group work as teams), and a ‘fun’ way of reviewing language.

There are three activities and I have suggested approximate times that each should take based on experience using similar activities in previous classes.

• Review 1 – Pair work - Jigsaw reading (35 minutes)
• Review 2 – Group work (combine pairs from Review 1) Crossword (15 minutes)
• Review 3 – Quiz (Snatch) (35 minutes)

Reading Review Lesson (5~8)

Review Lesson (lessons 1~4) - Reading 1

The aim of this lesson is to review most of the key vocabulary presented in lessons one to four. It is also meant to be a way of getting students mentally and physically active (pair work, followed by group work as teams), and a ‘fun’ way of reviewing language.

There are three activities and I have suggested approximate times that each should take based on experience using similar activities in previous classes.

• Review 1 – Jigsaw reading - Pair work (35 minutes)
• Review 2 – Crossword - Group work (combine pairs from Review 1) (15 minutes)
• Review 3 – Quiz (Snatch) - Group work (35 minutes)

Review Lesson - Reading 1 (1~4), 3 activities

Jigsaw activity – Meet Your Teacher

These activities introduce the teacher and lead up to a paragraph writing exercise (connected to Task 1 - Describing a Person) while practicing all four skills. Should be good for Lesson 1.

NOTE: You will have to alter the information with your own personal information (or it can be left like this, perhaps changing the name). Shouldn’t take long to knock out similar length paragraphs.

Process
• Put the students into pairs. Hand out Meet Your Teacher I to half the class and Meet Your Teacher II to the other half.
• Students work through the three steps (reading and comprehension questions, reading aloud and listening, writing a paragraph). The instructions are on the students’ handouts.
• During the reading aloud and listening task, I usually pre-teach a few interaction phrases to help students negotiate meaning (I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that, What does ~ mean? Etc).
• To complete all the activities could take between 50~90 minutes, depending on how you want to run it (A lot of oral feedback from the students, correction of language on the board, vocabulary highlighting etc).
• I have also tried to include some of the vocabulary from the Reading thread of Level 2.
• The paragraphs can be used as models for the students as they work towards the first assessed task in week four/five.
Level 2_writing_jigsaw activity

I modified a checklist from another college that I wrote to help me follow assessed discussions and grade at the same time. I’ve changed it to fit the criteria for level three. It could be useful.

Also, it is an excuse to see if I can use the OEKS resources.
Level 3 DiscussionChecklist.doc