I-presentation idea to introduce USED TO!! - True or False activity about Steve Jobs!

Steve Jobs will long be remembered for his technological innovations that changed millions of lives. But here are some little-known facts about Apple's former CEO. So why  not using thus information as  an I-presentation idea to introduce USED TO! While teachers show the statements, students are just supposed to say whether they are true or false. This can also serve to show students the difference between a past habit, in which the use of USED TO is allowed and a past event, in which simple past must be used.

1. He used to be a vegetarian.

True.

2. He used to be Disney's largest shareholder.

True. He became Disney's largest shareholder when the company bought Pixar in 2006.

3. Steve Jobs and a partner originally used to sell "blue boxes"

True. The duo reportedly built so-called "blue boxes" that could trick phones into allowing users to make free calls to anywhere in the world. They reportedly raised a total of $6,000.

4. He used to be homeless some years ago

True“I didn’t have a dorm room,” he said in a commencement address given at Stanford in 2005, “so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple."

5. He used to be a law-abiding citizen.

False. He drove without a license plate for years: Jobs drove his 2007 Mercedes-Benz SL55 for years with no official license plate, just a barcode, according to USA Today.

Source: special thanks to Ricardo Murilo Dias for his link at FB  http://news.discovery.com/tech/steve-jobs-surprising-facts-111007.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1.

Expression of the week #10

 HIT BELOW THE BELT

Meaning: cruel and unfair. The expression comes from boxing, in which it is illegal to hit an opponent below the belt.

in Portuguese: golpe baixo

Example: “To remind reformed alcoholics of their drinking problem is to hit below the belt.”

The Learning Pyramid

To reduce the guesswork teachers need assessment that reveals how students learn—how they interpret and make sense of the subject, where they stumble, what they do when they do not understand the material, how they respond to different instructional practices, and so on. The learning pyramid below assesses the ways students learn best. Have you ever considered these figures when you are preparing your lesson plan? Understanding the basis of student performance can help us identify appropriate teaching practices or approaches and select the most appropriate tasks and activities to meet our students' needs.

Source:  National Training Laboratories, Bethel, Maine

Picture Dialogue! Cool Activity for Reported Speech.

Aims: Students will be able to practice transforming direct speech dialogues into reported speech in a creative way.

Time Alloted for the Activity: 25-30 minutes

Level: intermediate or above.

Procedures: 1) Teacher explains he/she will play a song and each student in turns should stand up and draw something simple on the board. Teacher may reinforce that the drawing must be simple and fast to perform. Students may came up with a drawing similar to the illustration above.

2) After the drawing is done, teacher will arrange students in pairs and say that they should write a short dialogue between two elements from the drawing e.g: cloud and sun, bird and tree. Tell them they have 5 minutes to write this short conversation and go around the class to help students with vocabulary, reported speech structures and encourage students to vary between reporting verbs say and tell. Below you find a sample dialogue my students wrote:

"Dialogue between the flower and the tree:

Flower: Hello, friendly tree. How are you today?

Tree: I'm great because it is sunny.

Flower: The day is really beautiful because it is Spring time.

Tree: Spring is great and I feel more lively because my leaves get greener."

3) When the 5 minutes are over, you tell students to exchange the dialogues sheets with the pairs sitting on their right. Now, you tell them they are supposed to write the reported speech version of the dialogue they got within 8-10 minutes. Below you find a sample of the reported speech dialogue:

" The flower said hello to the friendly tree and asked how the tree was. The tree said she was great because it was sunny. The flower told the tree that day was really beautiful because it was Spring Time. The tree said Spring was great and she felt more lively because her leaves got greener."

4) When students are done with the reported speech version of the conversations, they are invited to read aloud and students may vote for the funniest version!

Despite being interactive and communicative, this activity provides students with the chance of writing surprinsingly creative dialogues and practice reported speech in a way that is meaningful to them!

Augusto Cury - O Semeador de Idéias - My first impressions

I’ve been reading a book by Augusto Cury, O Semeador de Idéias and I would like to share my first impressions here. I’ve just read until page 56 and I can wait no longer to share. The book is thought-provoking and it leads the reader to reflect on life in general. The plot is engaging and the parts the main character reflects on education issues were the ones that called my attention the most and I will share a paragraph below:

“Educamos alunos numa estufa, num ambiente controlado, damos-lhes um diploma e os atiramos numa cova de leõs, saturada de desafios que nunca viram, cujo cardápio envolve perdas, frustrações, decepções, competição predadória, cooperação sinérgica. Desde que passassem nas provas, não me importava se eram mentes agitadas, inquietas, tímidas, inseguras, fóbicas, depressivas, obsessivas. Nunca abri espaço numa aula, em mais de quinze anos como professor universitário, para perguntar sobre os medos, angústias, projetos e pesadelos deles. Tratei-os como máquinas de aprender. E vocês?” (p.52/53)

This paragraph which ends in such a question made me think of my role as an educator and the importance I play in my students’ lives. I felt very glad when I closed my eyes to think of that question and I remembered the many nights I have been sleeping on my students’ problems in order to find out a way to advise or help them but I am striving for way more. It’s high time educators became open-minded and prepared to educate for the society we have nowadays. We need to educate students to become critical thinkers and not merely knowledge keepers, who can simply recite information. Moreover, we need to educate them to handle their fears and frustations and explain it is part of life. It’s essential we be prepared to deal with the alarming pieces of information the book presented and I also share with you below:

-      50% of the population have or will have some kind of psychological disorder.

-      Depression will be the most current disease in 2020.

-      30% of American teenagers cannot become professionally-efficient because they don’t feel fine about themselves. In Brazil, this number is even higher.

Are you prepared for this scenario? I admit I need to strive a lot more…

A special thanks for the person who lent me this book and for the opportunity to improve!

A quick checklist for your lesson planning

Lesson planning is almost always a trial and error based process. This implies that students might cause discipline problems if they are simply expected to do a worksheet without any prior introduction to the subject or topic. They might also loose attention when a teacher tends to lean towards the lecturing side by spilling out all of the lesson plan objectives all at once without any contextualization. In short, a new teacher should try and aim for less teacher dominated talk and be open to using varied teaching techniques that would allow for a variety of student interaction. You might be thinking now, how can I bear in mind all these elements for a single lesson plan? Well, I can assure that not every lesson will go according to plan but you as a new teacher, can ensure your lessons will go as smoothly as you can using this simple checklist. Does your lesson plan include these items?

1. Objectives for the lesson plan are written. The objectives plain and simple, are your goals or where you want to take your students - let's say from point X to point Y. Objectives can [and should] be broken down. An example illustrating this point is: Teaching a Reading Comprehension on Endangered Animals with the specifics being skimming, scanning and making inferences.
2. Topic of the lesson. Does your main objective refer to the main topic and language items?
3. Classroom materials: Will you be needing to xerox or order pre-planned classroom materials?
4. Warm-up activity and wrap-up. Does your warm-up stage activity “engage” learners  in a student-centered manner? Does your wrap-up stage contain an activity which makes students have a positive perception of learning and make them feel motivated to come to next class?
5. Timing for each activity: Timing should be thought out beforehand but flexibility should be exercised for time extensions. In time this will become much more natural but for now, keep to writing it down.
6. Strategies and ways for dealing with weak or strong students: Did you consider a backup plan for fast finishers?
7.  Is your presentation stage student-centered, does it reference the language and vocabulary they will need for the rest of the lesson, and does it account for “elicitation”?
8. Does your practice stage contain an exercise or activity that is controlled or semi-controlled, focus on the language and vocabulary students will need for the next stage, and emphasize accuracy?
9. Does your production stage contain an activity that is ‘semi-controlled’ or ‘free’, focus on the language and vocabulary students have learned, and emphasize fluency in a vivid real-life situation

Other Elements for Consideration

• Different group arrangements (groups, pairs, frontal)
• feedback for students' work
• Sequencing and transitions between different activities.
• Homework: What and how to check?
• Backup plan or extra activity - this is very important; otherwise known as a SOS kit!

.Read more at Suite101: Checklist for a Lesson Plan: Tips for Planning an Entire Unit or Groups of Lessons | Suite101.com http://doritsasson.suite101.com/checklist-for-a-lesson-plan-a23249#ixzz1YuZME7sn

The Shopping Game

This is an oral communication activity appropriate for EFL learners in elementary levels. This game is designed for practicing "shopping" dialogues and vocabulary.

Materials: "play" money and realia for shopping products (clothes, plastic fruit, vegetables, school objects). If the school you work for does not have enough realia, it is possible to write down on paper strips the product names.

Objectives: To accumulate as many products as possible while practicing "shopping" dialogues and vocabulary.

Procedures: 1) Students are divided into clerks and shoppers. 2) The clerks set up "stands" to allow easy access for all shoppers (e.g. around the corners of the room with their backs to the wall). 3) The shoppers are given a set amount of "play money" (e.g. dollars, euros, pounds, etc.) and begin at a stand where there is an open space. 4) Students shop, trying to accumulate as many items as possible (each item is 1 unit of currency). 5) Periodically, the teacher will say "stop" (a bell or other device may be needed to attract attention) and call out a name of one of the products. 6) Students with that product must then put ALL their products in a basket at the front of the room. The remaining students continue shopping. Students who had to dump their products must begin again from scratch (with fewer units of currency). 7) The student with the most products at the end wins. 8) Students then switch roles.