Vocab Review on Transport

My latest resources were meant to be review work with vocational classes... yep, that's right! They can surely be used to introduce vocab on means of transport but my classes are so weak that they didn't find them as easy as one might think.
Right now I'm teaching the topic "Communication in the Professional World" and one of the coursebook texts is about business travellers. Before introducing the text, I planned some review work focusing my attention on vocabulary. To boost their interest, I chose a short excerpt of the movie "Up in the air" in which Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a corporate downsizing expert who travels around the country not only firing people but also giving motivational speeches on relieving one's life of excess physical and emotional baggage. Having said this, you might want now to have a look at the excerpt I used in class:


This would also be a good movie to talk about jobs / unemployment / technologies / priorities in life...
If you wish, please have a look at my worksheets available in the ISSUU shelf above (disclaimer: last page contains two adapted exercises).

Readers

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Readers may be divided into four classes:
1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I would like to believe I belong to the last class... what about you?

Summer Courses for all

This is not the first time that I write a blogpost about International House and surely won't be last! In the past, Dave Tucker and all the staff at IH Coimbra welcomed me and my students for interactive sessions and last year there was even a most generous offer of a summer course to an adult learner of mine as posted here.
Soon I'm planning to take there my vocational students (among them are some lucky ones who met Dave and Jenny 4/5 years ago and just can't wait to see them again) but, in time, I'll write about it; right now, let me call your attention for some mail/info I got from them.

(Please click on it to enlarge)

The end of the school year is approaching and, as you can see, there are many different courses suiting all ages and needs: English for kiddies, teens, adults, intensive courses, exam preparation, business english...  IH also offers online teacher training - check ihlondon.com/online-training but why don't you go to R. Antero de Quental, 135, 3000-032 Coimbra, see for yourself and ask all the questions you want to ask???

Need Motivation????

Mother's Day 2012

On Mother's Day, a poem by one of my favourite centemporary dub poets, Levi Tafari:

Levi Tafari

THE FIRST WOMAN IN MY LIFE

A woman’s work is never done
If you don’t believe me ask my mum
She worked her fingers to the bone
To provide us with a decent home
If she lived in Ancient Rome
She could of built that city on her own
She cooks, she cleans
She does everything
She irons decorates and does the shopping
She chastised us when we were rude
But never sent us to bed with out food
Everyday she would change our clothes
If we had colds she would wipe our nose
Or if we went to mum with a problem
Mum would always help us solve them
We didn’t want for anything
We got the greatest gift mum’s loving
You can have ten aunties and scores of lovers
But remember you only have one mother
I remember when someone pointed the finger
Mum said I was Black, beautiful and I had a culture
She always made sure we went to school
Because in this life you can’t be a fool
You see people will ride you like a mule
It was mum who taught me to be cool
So mother there’s something I want you to know
I love you mum, I love you so
You taught me to survive in the ghetto
You can have my last ROLO
If it was not for you then I would not exist
So here it comes for you a kiss
Yes you was the first woman in my life
But one day I will take a wife
Then hopefully she’ll become a mum
A woman’s work is never done.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/liverpool_poems.pdf

Happy Mother's Day, Mom(s)!

Class activity

I'm sure it has already happened to all of you: not having the whole class and therefore not being able to introduce a new subject.
As my vocational students are from three different classes and this past week a substantial part was absent in a school visit, I decided to use a text from the course book but in a different way.
1st step: google a bit and choose four pictures that are somehow related to the text and prepare your 1st slide for a PPt presentation. In class, show it to your sts and, in pairs or groups of three, ask them to create a story around those pictures. Allocate some time for their creative process to take place and then ask them to read their versions to the class.
2nd step: a slide with the original story (the text from their course book). Show it to your sts and ask them to read it carefully and to check the similarities and differences between the texts they had just created and the real one.
3rd step: one last slide in which sts are simply given prompts and asked to rewrite the text they had just read.

The advantages of this? Well, it didn't take much time to prepare; they worked together, cooperated and had to take decisions to build their story; in class I kept correcting their texts as I was moving from one group to the other and so I didn't have to bring much homework either; as it was a text from their own course book, the absent sts can always catch up with the rest of the class by reading it afterwards and doing the exercises; fast finishers can be asked to do the tasks from the book and... I can always (re)use this (or any other text) as a replacement teacher.
Below, you will find the texts produced before and after reading the text though one of the groups didn't manage to deliver it on time; In my Issuu bar there is also the PPt presentation.
Feel free to comment on this activity and suggest some more.

Open publication - Free publishing - More ebay