Dancing Teens

1. Ask the students to think of any films from the 1980s featuring teenagers dancing. Elicit a few titles.

2. Tell them that they are going to watch a video which explains why dancing in films was popular in the 1980s. The video is available on the BBC website and on BBC’s Facebook page (it’s a public post, so you don’t have to log in.) You can also find it on Twitter here.

3. Explain that for each time period (early 80s, mid 80s and late 80s) they will first have to answer one or two questions, they will look for a series of synonyms, and finally they will be writing the film titles mentioned in the video.

Dancing_Teens.pdfDownload

4. Play till 2:39, corresponding to the early 80s. Allow some time to answer the different sections. Play again.

5. Repeat the same procedure for the mid 80s (from 2:40 to 3:54) and late 80s (from 3:55 to 5:08).

6. Check the answers with the whole group.
VOCABULARY: Early 80s: 1. polished, 2. supported, 3. fad, 4. tanked, 5. mirrored, 6. blend or mash-up; Mid 80s: 1. ruled, 2. archetypal, 3. grown-up, 4. taking over, 5. defiance, 6. deemed; Late 80s: 1. diluted, 2. standstill, 3. heralding.

7. Have the students complete a summary using words from the vocabulary section (the synonyms they had found in the video) in the correct form.

Dancing_Teens.pdfDownload

KEY: 1. archetypal, 2. defiance, 3. backed, 4. ruled, 5. heralded, 6. blended, 7. fad, 8. had tanked, 9. were diluted, 10. standstill

8. Go over the film title sections and discuss any movies the students may have watched. Assign each film to pairs of students, and ask them to do some research about them. Provide the following as a guide:

– Film title:

– Genre:

– Release year:

– Director:

– Lead actors/actresses:

– Dance styles featured:

– Soundtrack:

– Plot summary:

– Notable Quotes (if any):

– Fun facts:

– Sample clips:

– Sources Used:

9. Have the students share their findings!

“‘Twas the Night before Christmas”

Using “’Twas The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore, this explosion book features a series of activities related to different language areas and reading comprehension skills that the students complete as they walk through the poem.

‘Twas_The_Night_Before_Christmas.pdfDownload

KEY:

2. 1. c 2. f 3. e 4. b 5. a 6. d The children were nestled… / And mamma in her kerchief… / …for a long winter’s nap / …there arose such a clatter / I sprang from the bed… / Tore open the shutters…

4. 1 – With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
2 – I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
3 – More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
4 – And he whistled, and he shouted, and he called them by name;
5 – “On, DASHER! on, DANCER! on, PRANCER and VIXEN!
6 – On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONNER and BLITZEN!
7 – To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
8 – Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

5. leaves / hurricane / sky / roof / sleigh / toys

6. in a twinkling / turn around / bound / prancing / hoof

7. 1 – He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
2 – And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
3 – A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
4 – And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
5 – His eyes – how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
6 – His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
7 – His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
8 – And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
9 – The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
10 – And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
11 – He had a broad face and a little round belly,
12 – That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

8. a right jolly old elf / I laughed / when I saw him / A wink of his eye / Soon gave me to know / I had nothing to dread

9. He spoke not a word / straight to his work / filled all the stockings / and laying his finger

To assemble the book, follow these instructions:

1. Print the three pages on cardboard paper if possible (although regular paper will do, too!) Cut the three squares.

2. Fold Square 1 (1-4) and Square 3 (7-10) forward, both vertically and horizontally. Then fold the square diagonally outwards, following the line provided.

3. For Square 2 (5-6), the vertical and horizontal lines are folded outwards, and the diagonal line is folded inwards.

4. Place the three squares in the right order. Glue the squares as shown on the worksheet.

Now the students can draw their own book cover with the title!

To correct the activities, you may want to use this version of the poem sung by Noel Paul Stookey from Peter, Paul and Mary:

Enjoy!

________________________________

I’m Going Back

“I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”

A fashionable Halloween

Using Gemma Correll’s Ghost Fashions poster as inspiration, within a few days we will be exploring different fashion styles and using them to define unique Halloween characters which will hopefully result in some interesting (and not necessarily spooky!) narrative texts.

2. Explain to the students they are going to design a similar poster based on other Halloween characters. Create six teams and give one character to each of them: mummy, monster, witch, warlock, jack-o’-lantern and zombie.

1. Share the “Ghost Fashions” poster with the students. Clarify any unknown words or any questions the students may have. Have them choose their favourite fashions and discuss their choices as a whole group.

A_Fashionable_Halloween_1.pdfDownload

3. The students go over vocabulary related to different fashion styles using this site and this site, together with some picture dictionaries. The idea is for them to revise vocabulary related to fashion and learn new words as they look for inspiration for their own poster. The students choose 16 different fashion styles that they think will help to make their character the most unique.

4. The students take turns drawing their character according to the 16 chosen styles. As they do this, have them discuss briefly what they think each of the characters might be like.

5. Tell the students each team will get one character from each grid and that they will be planning a story with these six characters. Display the posters, have the teams explain the different fashion styles, and use a die to select the characters for each team.

6. Ask the teams to plan a story with the six main characters in mind. Encourage them to use the forest worksheet to plan six scenes and write down or sketch their plan.

A_Fashionable_Halloween_2.pdfDownload

7. The students write the story individually or in groups. Simultaneous or roundtable writing could be a good option here, too!

8. Have the students share and compare their stories. If time allows, I may use some of them with my younger students and have them sketch the stories on the forest worksheet as they listen to demonstrate comprehension.

I was thinking of sharing this activity once we’d finished, but then I thought I’d share it now in case some of you want to try it. If you do, it’d be great if you could share some of the posters created by your students!

Endless stories

The following lesson idea is based on an ‘infinite’ story by Vaskange. The mesmerising way in which he recounts his holidays, through art and feelings, and how these build on one another, seemed too appealing not to use in a lesson.

1. Set the scene by playing the video till 0:02 and asking: “What is this person doing?” Then play it till 0:06: “What is he drawing?”

2. Give out the jumbled sentences in the set of cameras. Tell the students these sentences belong to the rest of the video. The students first complete each sentence with the words provided, changing the form of the words when needed.

Endless_Stories.pdfDownload

3. The students watch the video and put the sentences from each camera in the right order by writing the number. (You may also ask them to guess the order before watching!)

Endless_Stories_ANSWER_KEY.pdfDownload

4. Check the students’ immediate personal reactions by discussing the video briefly: “How does the artist feel?”, “What can you tell about this person?” Write down any key words related to feelings and personality that may come up.

5. As a follow-up activity, have the students create a plan for a story that starts “I drew a new story to tell you about my holidays…” This could be an actual holiday they enjoyed, but it could also be imaginary or one they are planning to enjoy in the future (even a walk around Mars will do!) In all cases, encourage the students to plan their filmstrip by thinking of a number of relevant scenes each of which must be closely related to, at least, one feeling. Use the vocabulary shared and/or introduced in 4 to help you brainstorm vocabulary related to feelings, especially those related to happiness and surprise.

Endless_Stories_Follow_Up.pdfDownload

6. The students write the different scenes.

7. Can the students create an infinite story similar to Vaskange’s in digital form? (probably not the same technique – a digital storyboard will do, for instance.) Perhaps on paper, and then create a display with the different filmstrips? A brief oral presentation or a gallery walk? QR codes of the digital products with general comprehension questions or a whole-group plenary discussion? How about…?

Roller coasters

Lead-in

1. “Have you ever ridden a roller coaster?” “What was it like?” “What do you think makes a roller coaster exciting?” Write down a few ideas.

Listening

2. Explain that you are going to watch a video about how roller coasters are designed. The students first watch the video till 2:04 and decide whether the sentences in 1 (bottom right corner, the start of the roller coaster on the worksheet) are true or false. Ask the students to provide the right information if the sentence is false. Listen to that part of the video again if needed.

roller_coasters.pdfDownload

KEY: a. FALSE (He wasn’t the first one, but he popularised them.); b. TRUE; c. FALSE (It was 18 miles long.); d. FALSE (It opened in 1884.)

3. Listen to the four main components engineers take into account when designing roller coasters by watching the video till 2:46.

4. Ask the students to follow the track of the roller coaster on their worksheet to complete a number of activities:
– Component 1: Train cars. In their own words, the students explain how train cars are kept attached to the tracks.

– Component 2: Track design. Here four key words are provided. The students listen and write down why they are mentioned in the video.
KEY: a. steel (Most roller coasters are made of steel nowadays.); b. 4 minutes (“Steel Dragon 2000” takes 4 minutes to complete.); c. sick (The way people might feel if the roller coaster is too fast.); d. boring (People will find roller coasters boring if the ride is too slow.)

– Component 3: System to raise the cars. The students complete the sentences with six words as they listen.
KEY: a. gravity; b. pulley; c. crest / is released; d. beneath / conveyor

– Component 4: Braking system. The students join several sentence halves in the best way possible.
KEY: 1. b; 2. d; 3. a; 4. c

Follow-up

5. How about having the students try and design their own roller coaster? At its very simplest, you may want to stick to the more creative part of it and have teams design a roller coaster they would enjoy using some of the information in the video (and at least make it as safe as possible!):

1. What do you want to achieve with your design? What kind of audience will it target?
2. Where will you build your roller coaster?
3. What kind of theme will it have?
4. Try to use as much information from the video as you can when designing your roller coaster!

The teams then present their designs and the group discusses whether they would work or not, taking physics and safety but also fun into account!

If you want to provide some further reading, the students may benefit from this user-friendly website that allows them to build their own roller coaster. They first decide on the height of the first hill, the shape of the first hill, the exit path, the height of the second hill, and the loop. The website will then check whether the ride is possible or not!

Enjoy the ride!

“Down” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Several seconds

Chicago’s best ice cream

I lived in Oak Park, Illinois, for 5 years, so I know what shovelling loads of snow and rushing to Petersen on the following day for some ice cream in hot humid weather feels like. In the following activity, elementary students write down Petersen’s Turtle Pie recipe after being introduced to several words related to food and cooking.

Feels like summer’s here!

1. Write the following letters on the board:

  e      r       c       i       a      m       e        c    

In pairs, the students come up with as many words as they can (e.g. “car”, “am”, “ice”, “care”, “are”, “Marc”, “rice”, “mic”.) Set a time limit. Write down the words they have found. Have any of them used all the letters to write the word “ice cream”?

2. Explain to the students they are going to watch a short report about an ice-cream shop called Petersen. Watch until 0:56 and have the students answer the questions in 1 (a. Oak Park, in Chicago, USA; b. since 1919.)

Chicago’s_Best_Ice_Cream.pdfDownload

3. Tell the students one of Petersen’s best-known desserts is called Turtle Pie. Have them read its ingredients in 2 and explain any unknown words. The students then match 5 words that will be used in the recipe with the corresponding pictures.

4. Watch the video until 2:18, where the different steps to make a Turtle Pie are explained.

5. Go over the cooking verbs in 3 and elicit their meaning. Ask the students to write down the recipe using the ingredients, the words in 2, and some of the cooking verbs in 3. Write the first step as a model and watch this part of the video again.

6. Watch the rest of the video and discuss: “What do you think of Petersen’s Turtle Pie?” “Would you like to try it?” “Why/Why not?”

7. Are the students now ready to write and share one of their favourite summer recipes?

“Dream A Little Dream Of Me”

1. Write the word “dreams” and have the students answer the following questions:
– Do you like having dreams?
– Do you remember your dreams?
– Do you think dreams have special meanings?
– Have you ever had the same dreams?
– Have you ever had a dream which seemed to come true? What happened?
– Do you ever daydream?
– What is the best type of dream?

2. Give out the worksheet with the gapped lyrics.

dream_a_little_dream_of_me_worksheet.pdfDownload

3. In order to find the words for the 24 gaps, the students first solve a puzzle in which they need to match the cut-out squares to make a 4×4 grid by joining word halves. The words are arranged both vertically and horizontally.

4. Depending on the level of the students, you can use different versions of the puzzle:
– The first one is the most challenging by far, including a few distractors around it.

dream_a_little_dream_of_me_puzzle.pdfDownload

– The second version has shaded squares in a chessboard manner, which should help in the matching process.

dream_a_little_dream_of_me_puzzle.pdfDownload

– Finally, a third version has both shaded squares and no distractors around it.

dream_a_little_dream_of_me_puzzle.pdfDownload

5. Once they solve the puzzle, have the students read the lyrics and fill in the blanks with the 24 words. You may want to provide extra scaffolding by having them classify the words into verbs, nouns and adjectives first. There are a few other word categories, but most of them belong to one of these.

6. Do the first two or three lines with the students, showing the kind of reasoning behind each choice, such as the word category that may be needed in each gap or context clues.

7. The students listen to the song and check their answers.

The climber

In this reading comprehension and vocabulary lesson, the students are first exposed to a few words from the text and asked to establish relationships between them as they read.

1. Explain to the students they are going to read a four-paragraph text, but they are first going to read only a few words, one at a time. The goal is for them to be able to answer the following questions:

What?
Who?
When?
Where?
Why?
How?

Tell them there might be some information and details they won’t know for sure until they read the whole text.

2. The first words (Kevin Schmidt) and the second ones (Rapid City) are simple and straightforward, and they provide a good starting point.

From the third word onwards, hold a conversation with the students to identify possible connections between the words and phrases: e.g. 3. light bulb (“How is this connected to Kevin Schmidt?”); 4. job (“Does Kevin sell light bulbs in Rapid City? Is he an electrician?”); 5. during the past eight years (“Is this the time he’s been doing this job?”); etc. The students will be confirming, modifying or discarding their guesses as more words are revealed.

The_Climber.pdfDownload

Google Slides: https://bit.ly/35XEOX1

3. Have the students complete the questions with the information they have and their own ideas and share a few of them. Then ask them to read the text to check the answers. Was there any basic information missing?

(POSSIBLE ANSWERS: Who? Kevin Schmidt; What? He climbs high towers to change the light bulbs on top; Where? Rapid City; When? For the past 8 years; Why? To warn aircraft; How? He climbs for 2 hours.)

The_Climber.pdfDownload

4. Focus on vocabulary: the students look for words in the text for the definitions provided.

(KEY: a. odd; b. stunningly; c. crisp; d. ascending; e. aging; f. expect; g. flashing; h. obstacles; i. willing; j. beat; k. by yourself)

5. Play the video mentioned in the text. What does Kevin Schmidt do at the end?

6. Hold a short discussion: “What does Kevin like about this job?”, “What do you think of it?”, “What are some of the pros and cons of having a job like this?”, “What other unusual jobs can you think of?”

Come rain or shine

1. Write the word “rain” on the board and ask students to come up with words related to it. Write them down. Are they positive or negative? Can they sometimes be both? Why?

2. Introduce a few idioms with the word “rain” in them. The students read the definitions and write the corresponding idiom next to each of them. Then they decide whether the idiom is positive, negative, or whether the meaning can depend on the context.

KEY: 1. come rain or shine; 2. save up for a rainy day; 3. be rained in; 4. when it rains it pours; 5. right as rain; 6. rain down on (someone or something); 7. come in out of the rain

Come_Rain_Or_Shine.pdfDownload

3. The students read a few lines from “Singin’ in the Rain” and complete the lyrics with them. Encourage the students to use the rhyme and the context to look for possible combinations, and tell them there might be more than one option. Have the students listen and check their answers:

Elicit what the song is about. The students circle any weather words in the lyrics and decide if they are used in a positive or negative way. Can they use any of the idioms in activity 1 to describe the song?

Come_Rain_Or_Shine.pdfDownload

4. Read the information about “Singin’ in the Rain” with the students, and how it became popular with time. What if Rihanna’s “Umbrella” had appeared in the 1952 musical? The students read the lyrics of the song first and then make any necessary changes: all the words in each stanza are correct, but some of them are in the wrong order; the students look for pairs of words in each cloud and change their order so that the lines make sense.

KEY: Cloud 1: star – heart, dark – car, always – never; Cloud 2: shine-shines; together – forever; my – your; stand – stick; now – more; still – that; Cloud 3: world – fancy; together – between; cards – part; mend – hand; Cloud 4: rain – arms; be – don’t; distance – love; I’ll – all

5. Ask the students what the song is about and tell them to compare both “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Umbrella”, paying special attention to how rain is used in each of them. Introduce a few more weather idioms and have the students use these and the ones in activity 1 to write down a few comparisons.

KEY: 1g, 2i, 3c, 4e, 5h, 6f, 7b, 8a, 9j, 10d

Come_Rain_Or_Shine.pdfDownload

The rotating house

A couple of seasons of George Clarke’s “Amazing Spaces” were broadcast this summer on national public TV here in Spain. I had seen clips on the internet and knew about the show, but I didn’t know it’d be so addictive! Anyway, the main project in one of the seasons was the building of a space-saving, four-room house in which every floor is also a wall and it rotates on command! I thought I might well need a pencil and some paper to watch the last programme, and the following listening comprehension lesson for B1-B2 students was designed based on this.

1. Students watch the video till 1:07. Using the information in the video, ask the students to make a quick sketch of the project with whatever they think it might look like at this point. What potential problems can they see?

2. Now watch the video till 2:14. Pause the video and have the students compare the actual project with what they sketched in step 1. Discuss the differences.

3. Tell the students they are now going to watch the rest of the video and get to see how the rotating house works and what each room looks like. To check comprehension, the students use the worksheet below with four cubes for each room: 1. hallway; 2. kitchen, 3. bedroom and 4. living room. First, have the students read the box in the middle with a series of household objects and parts of the house. Then, tell them they will be drawing the ones they can see in the video in the right place within each cube. There are four words they won’t need!

The_Rotating_House_1.pdfDownload

4. Pause the video every now and then to allow time for students to draw inside the cubes and label the rooms, pieces of furniture or any other items. After each room, have a few students describe what the room looks like using prepositions of place. Which words in the box are not needed?

5. Ask the students to match the words to make compound nouns and adjectives used in the video. In pairs, the students decide how and why these compound nouns and adjectives were used in the video and write a short explanation: e.g. “vac-packed” was used in the bedroom to describe the wardrobe.

The_Rotating_House_2.pdfDownload

6. Discuss the following:

• Would you live in this house? Why/Why not?
• What do you like about the whole project?
• Is there something in the rotating house you wouldn’t mind having at home?
• Even if it doesn’t become a reality soon, do you think it could be used in the future in some way?