This is an extra activity for Unit 2 in the text.
You will need some eye masks for this activity (from all those flights back home?!) or else have the students make some.
Students get together in groups. 1 member puts on an eye mask and the others choose a card for him/her, then give directions in English to complete the action on the card.
It seems a bit glib but actually a very good way to appreciate how someone with impaired vision copes with everyday life. Companies in Japan sometimes have employees do a similar activity to better improve their services for visually impaired customers.
PDF file:
L2 Reading Unit 2 Extra Activity (pdf)
Word file:
L2 Reading Unit 2 Extra Activity (Word file)

Class sets of laminated picture cards matching Totally True, Exercise 5 are now available for Units 1, 2 and 3. Each set has 15 packs of 8 picture cards so teachers can choose to use them for pair work or, if there is demand, divide them up between classes on at the same time and use them in small groups.

How to Use the Cards

The level 1 team are generating supplementary materials to augment English Firsthand Success. The aim of the materials is to:

• extend textbook activities
• covers language related to a unit, but not in the textbook
• help with speaking task prep

Use them all. Use some of them. Use none of them. - It’s up to you! Look in the header of each document for an explanation of why each activity was created.

Copies of these materials can also be found in the Level 1 binder. Materials that include listening activities are indicated with an “*“. (All files are PDF.)

• Clothes crossword
• Fashion and me *
• Getting it right
• Who is that man
• Why do people

Audio files
Audio files (in MP3 format) for the above activities can be downloaded here:
Unit 2 Supp Mats audio files (.zip archive) 9.2 MB

Another way to access the audio files is to open iTunes on the ‘Level 1′ Macintosh computer in the Part Time teachers’ area, and burn your own audio CD. Additional audio files will be added during the semester, so it will be a good idea to check iTunes on a regular basis.

The posted materials support Unit 2 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on describing personal appearance. The material first involves a listening activity. The students hear two people talking about the people in the line-up (which is printed on the materials). The recorded conversation involves one first person asking yes/no questions to the second person to work out who the second person is thinking about. The students simply have to work out who is being thought about. The accompanying CD is available on the Level 2 shelf. After the listening, there is a speaking activity in which the students have to do the same thing with a partner. Hope that description wasn’t too confusing. Feedback welcome.

Guess Who?

The posted materials support Unit 2 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on describing personal appearance. The materials involve the learners describing their perfect mate, while their class partner draw this perfect specimen. Since the drawing rarely looks like anything like how the first person intended, the activity can be a lot of fun. However, it’s important that the “artist” does not show the “describer” the drawing until the end of the activity. Before getting the students to do the activity, I model what should be done by describing my perfect partner and getting them to do the drawing. Feedback welcome.

The posted materials support Unit 2 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on describing personal appearance. Before class, the teacher has to cut the handout into 2 pieces. Before giving the paper to the students, the learners should be given one minute to try to remember their partner’s clothes and appearance. Then, they should sit “Back to Back”. At this point, give one half of the handout to Person A, and the other half to Person B. The rest is self-explanatory. Feedback welcome.

“Back to Back”

This activity contains a map of the major lines found on a person’s palm as well as as a page of explanations. Much of the vocabulary used comes from the text unit.
Palmistry, or “teiso” is popular in Japan, and most students are familiar with the concept. The hand that is read is found by having the students put their hands together and interlocking their fingers. The hand that has the thumb over top of the other is the correct one to be read.
This activity can be used in a variety of ways. Students can examine their own hands and make written predictions about their future, or can do so with a partner’s hand. Another option is to have students trace the shape of their hand and draw in the lines that they find. Using names or student numbers, these papers can be passed around and other students can write their predictions based on the handouts. As this can be an anonymous reading, some of the predictions are often rather candid.
These are just a few suggestions of what can be done with this resource. Feel free to adapt and experiment with the explanation page provided. For now, the palm map is only available in the red binder. However, both pages are necessary for this activity.

Lets Talk Unit 2 Palmistry1.doc

Here are some handouts I made to help Level 3 students who are finding the textbook passages difficult to understand.

Unit 2: Home Schooling
1) Students read the first and the last sentence of each paragraph to get the main idea of each paragraph and get a big picture of the whole passage.
Home Schooling.doc

2) Comprehension questions for each paragraph
Home Schooling Qs.doc

Unit 3: Get yourself Lost
3) Students read only the first and last paragraph to get the main idea of the passage before reading the entire text.
Get yourself lost.doc

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

Level 2 Reading teachers are asked to give four or more quizzes each term. That may seem like a lot, but quiz is a highly elastic term. The publisher quizzes are quite good, but you may not wish to devote so much class time to them. So, I am working up some much shorter quizzes that you can do in 5 minutes at the start of class to review from the week before.

These quizzes are easy. Use them to balance out a round of low quiz scores or to give students a small achievable task. The main purposes of the reading quizzes are: to encourage all students to study more than twice a term, to recycle and review, and to prepare students for the questions on the mid-term and final tests.

Download all formats in a .zip file and use however you like. The .zip archive includes MS Word, PDF, and Apple Pages file formats. There are quiz versions A, B, C, and D for each unit.

More to come shortly, I hope!

This material is a set of activities which could be used to supplement units 1, units 2, units 3 and for an Intro to Speaking Task 1 and/or a class get to know each other type activity in the first few weeks of the Spring semester.

You need a DVD labelled Level 2 Listening and Speaking, Interview from the Level 2 shelf
Download and print the 3 attached documents, sheets 1,2 and 3.

The material is self explanatory follow instructions a)-i) on the handouts. Saying that, adapt as you feel suits your students. There is no rigid, First, Second and Third listening implied. Repeat in full or after each segment as needed. You could use the pics to develop WH questions and/or add vocab/structures at a push.

You may feel a better way to go is to ignore the listening, get the stds to interview you and then themselves using sheet 3 or your own q’s on the white board.

This activity is not graded

SHEET 1 Listening Questions

SHEET 2 Gap Fill

SHEET 3 Interview Std Worksheet