A treasure hunt activity to help students familiarize themselves with the book.

Treasure hunt (Word .doc)

Treasure hunt. Answer key (Word .doc)

If you plan to generate your own materials to augment Totally True 1, you may find these documents useful. They relate to units 1 - 9.

Texts: The main reading passage from each unit. (Word .doc)

Vocabulary: Vocabulary list (Text .txt)

If you do create any materials, it would be great if you could upload them to OEKS, or give a copy to someone in the Level 1 coordination team.

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

Speaking task 1 is an ‘interview’ in which two students talk to each other about a party they have planned. At some point in the ‘interview’ the students should invite each other to their parties.

It is up to you how you decide to set this up with your class, but there are probably two patterns to choose from:

PATTERN 1

An ‘interview’ pattern:

• invite partner to a party
• partner asks questions to get information about the party
• partner either accepts or declines the invitation

An example interview using this pattern (performed by Akihiro and Rena) is available on DVD. Here is a worksheet to help you set up the speaking task using this pattern:

Speaking Task 1. ‘Interview pattern’ worksheet (PDF)

Speaking Task 1. ‘Interview pattern’ worksheet (WORD .doc)

PATTERN 2

A hybrid prepared talk / interview pattern:

• tell partner about party plan
• partner asks some questions to get extra information
• invite partner to party, who then either accepts or declines the invitation

The DVD does not contain an example of this pattern, however, a worksheet to help set up the speaking task can be downloaded here:

Speaking Task 1. ‘Hybrid’ pattern worksheet (PDF)

Speaking Task 1. ‘Hybrid’ pattern worksheet (WORD .doc)

IMPORTANT POINT: The two patterns are quite different. If you plan to do the ‘hybrid’ pattern, you should not show the DVD to your students, as they will be very confused!

English Firsthand 1 unit 9: Future / Predictions

The pair work activity in the textbook is rather weak, so I made this as a possible substitute / supplementary activity.

1. Elicit / teach target language onto board, and have students copy it into the space provided on the worksheet.

2. Students work in pairs: Predict >> Ask why >> Give reason

3. Follow-up mingle: Walk around the room making predictions based on students’ own ideas.

Predictions pair work 

ZOHO

A company called zoho has a variety of online tools (mostly free), which could make your productive life much easier.

Ideal for teaching / general use / business applications.

http://zoho.com/ (If you are a Mac user you will need to use Firefox)

Zoho Show
Online presentation to create, edit, publish, and show presentations.

Zoho CRM
On-demand & On-premise customer relationship management solution.

Zoho Writer
Online word processor with collaboration features. No download, No install, just sign up to create documents.

Zoho Creator
Create personal and business web applications on your own and manage data collaboratively over the web.

Zoho Sheet Online alternative to traditional spreadsheet applications with powerful features like charting, collaboration & more.

Zoho Planner Online organizer to maintain your todo’s, reminders, notes, attachments etc.

Zoho Virtual Office Zoho Virtual Office is a web-based collaboration groupware
that includes Email Client, Documents, Calendar and more.

Zoho Chat Unique and intuitive way to make group decisions faster.

Here is a Word document containing the text of the main readings in chapters 10 ~ 18. It may help in the generation of other supplementary materials.

Totally True 1. Autumn. Text

Here is a zip file archive of the crossword puzzles for ch 10 ~ 18. The puzzles are in PDF format.

Totally True 1. Autumn. Crossword puzzles

On the elpweb Resources site (foundation/level 1/reading) you can find:

Crossword puzzles
For example…

Cloze quizzes
For example…

‘Learn more‘ More information about the people in the reading passages.
For example…

If you are not clear what will be covered in the Final Exam, please have a look at pages EV16 and EV17 (near the back!) of the English Firsthand 1 Teacher’s Manual. This is exactly the same test as the students will be doing.

The level 1 team will prepare copies of the exam for you, and you will also be given a cassette tape or CD (we are not sure which yet) for the listening section.

Time is very tight, and it will not be easy to squeeze in much review in the class. Therefore, students will need to do most of the review work in their own time.

This handout should point them in the right direction:

Getting ready for the Final Exam

If you feel that the current speaking task (Famous Person Interview) may be too difficult for your students, or that there may not be time to set it up properly, please consider this alternative topic for the task. It keeps the interview format, but instead focuses on a topic covered in unit 6.

Vacation Interview

More information about the task

Grading rubric

Student Worksheet

Of course it is entirely up to you how you prepare your students for this task - and this is especially true when it comes to deciding what they should talk about.

The suggested structure is:

• General information about the area where you live
• Detailed information about the area where you live
• Interesting things in the area around your home
• Question time

The presentations will only be 2 or 3 minutes in length, so students need to be quite selective about what they talk about.

These worksheets will help your students prepare something to talk about for each section.

General information about the area where you live

Detailed information about the area where you live

Interesting things in the area around your home

I would like to stress again that students should choose what they talk about. It would be impossible to cover everything on these worksheets in 2 or 3 minutes. OK … not impossible, but certainly inadvisable! 

Depending on the level of your students, and on how much prep time you have, you may wish your students to work on some basic presentation skills.

The Resources web site (Speaking skills section) has some very short video clips about posture, eye contact and gestures. The videos were actually made to supplement an extensions course - but they have been extensively used with elementary (level 1) students in the past, so they should (might!) work for you. :-)

Presentation skills videos

Thanks again to Peter B for being my model…
and yes … that is my bedroom

This worksheet consists of 2 parts:

Page 1 explains the task.

Page 2 is a listening activity based on the example mini presentation - which is on the Level 1 DVD and on the elpweb Resources web site. This could be done in the classroom, or in the computer room.

Note: the video on the web site has subtitles, which can be shown or hidden, which would make the task easier for lower level students.

There is no answer sheet - so you will have to try it yourself first!

Here is the worksheet: Launching the Mini Presentation

Some teachers are asking their students to generate mind maps based on the readings we are covering in the Spring semester.

I made this mind map based on the reading ‘Reconsider the purpose of study’. Though not a wonderful example, it does get the idea across!

Reading Mind Map

Letter: ‘Reconsider the purpose of study”

Mini Talk

The same ‘demo’ movie that is included on the DVD can also be seen here, on the Resources site.

It will soon be time to introduce the first speaking task to your level 1 classes. Showing the ‘demo’ movie on the DVD is probably the best way to get started, and the first part of this worksheet consists of a series of sentences about the format of the Mini Talk. This is a cloze activity: students fill the gaps by reading the on-screen text explanations on the DVD. (Obviously a good idea to freeze the DVD on each ’slide’ of on-screen text.)

The second part of the worksheet contains 2 blank mind-maps for students to start writing down some ideas.

Mini Talk. ‘Getting started’ worksheet.

Once your students understand the task, and after they have brainstormed some ideas, they will probably want to know how they will be graded. This worksheet explains how the grade will be decided, along with some useful tips.

Mini Talk. How to get a good grade

Just for a change, here is a bingo version of that old favourite.

2006GW.pdf

Suitable for all levels.

Students complete both bingo grids at the same time.

This is not rocket science, but it may help you with page 20 of Unit 2.

A worksheet to help your students sort out, and use, the vocabulary on page 20.

unit 2 appearance

This is a very bare bones way of explaining the structure of an essay. There are many ways to use these materials, but a suggested plan is:

1 Hand out this worksheet and quickly go over it. (This is the corrected version!)
structure of an essay v2.pdf
2 Hand out this model ‘New Product’ essay, and get the students to identify the various ‘parts’ of the essay.

New Product Model Essay.pdf

3 Hand out these worksheets to help the students plan their own new product essay.

Planning your essay.pdf

These web resources may vanish by this time next year, but in the meantime it might be fun to link to them from your Moodle course.

history of useless inventions
http://www.designboom.com/history/useless.html

Video
Chindogu Celebrating Weird Inventions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-0Xgx7GiYs

2 Within each group, each student chooses one invention.

3 Quickly read about the invention, and remember as much as they can.

4 Mixed-groups: exchanging information about the inventions they just read about.

Early days with Moodle, but this shows how I how wrote a lesson plan above the web page link. Click on this image to see how I included this resource into my Moodle course.

A worksheet to help your students to familiarize themselves with Totally True 1.

Word .doc version (you can edit it if you like) - Worksheet and Answer sheet
Totally True 1. Scavenger Hunt. doc

PDF version - Worksheet and Answer sheet
Totally True 1. Scavenger Hunt. PDF

This worksheet contains 9 questions about English Firsthand. To answer the questions students need to quickly scan the book.

After you have checked the answers you can get the students to work in pairs and write a few extra questions about the book. >> Followed by mixed pairs or a mingle for students to ask each other their new questions.

The worksheet:
get to know Firsthand.pdf

The answers:
get to know Firsthand Answer.pdf