MÍRIAM GARCÍA

 Year: 1º Bachillerato

Subject: English Skills: listening, speaking, writing In the last sessions of a unit dealing with the business world, I would do the following activities:

PRE - ACTIVITY I would ask the students to do small activities in order to activate prior knowledge: 1st tell me anything this image suggests you 2nd write a six-word sentence related to the image 3rd share your sentences with the rest of the class

Foto de Pakata Goh en Unsplash   

ACTIVITY

Speaking In pairs, talk about the following questions: - What do you usually use your computer for? - In which fields is the computer normally used? - What can you do with a computer in a job? Listening & Speaking Listen to the following clip and answer these questions. Then share your answers with your partner:

- Who are the people involved in the scene? - Where are they? - What is happening? - How do they feel? Writing Write in pairs one paragraph narrating how you think the story unfolds. Once you have finished, swap your writing with another pair so that everyone carries out peer correction. POST-ACTIVITY

Review the mistakes on your writing and write a short text using the mistakes you have made. *I would cater for diversity by mixing abilities in each pair group.

ÓSCAR FUENTE

 In the following lines I am going to explain one of the activities that I use in lower levels of ESO, specifically the first and second course. It consists in the designing of a healthy and balanced diet – and a posterior presentation to the rest of classmates – using authentic leaflets and pamphlets that can be found in supermarkets and mailboxes.

Every year I practice this activity coinciding with those units that deal with topics related with grocery, sport, healthy and balanced diet, etcetera. Moreover, in the design of the activity, I give to the students a copy of an original and authentic leaflet of a foreign and British supermarket and students love it. They are excited when they have a real foreign leaflet in their hands.

Let’s move to the development and timing of the activity. First of all, it is an activity (preparation + presentation) that has a duration of three sessions. In the first two sessions students have to analyze the leaflet and choose those products that they want to include in a menu for a whole day including the following meals: breakfast + lunch + afternoon snack + dinner. Students have to take into account calories, properties, and price of every product because they have a total budget of 30£. As it is obvious, they have to design a balanced diet adjusting the price without exceeding.

In the third and final session, students present to the rest of the classmates their menus. They can prepare a Power Point presentation with photos, nutrients data, price breakdown, and everything related to their grocery list.

In a nutshell, I totally agree with Shawn Redwood when saying that authentic material motivate and promote creativity of students. I claim that students get more involved in the design of the activity and, from my personal point of view, it is really encouraging. Moreover, it is an activity that adjust very well to every student considering the different levels that we have at class. Every student feel involved in the dynamic and as I said before, they enjoy working with this materials.

CRISTINA DE VEGA

 This activity is comparing American reality shows which based their principles on health or “so-called health”.

BRAINSTORM

Spend some time with students presenting their ideas about reality shows they have or have not seen. In addition, I want to know their opinion about them. Also, it is good for them to come up with types of reality shows according to their previous knowledge.

BIG GROUP TASK

As a teacher, I will explain the history of the reality shows from the first MTV shows to all the ones we can see on TV right now like Survivor, Big Brother and all the ones about home renovations.

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

In their mixed- ability groups students will have to answer these questions by giving reasons not a simple answer:

“Do you think health is important? (why?)”; “how do you take care of health?”; “would you go to a reality show to do it?” “do you think food helps health?” “how much money can you spend on food?”

BIG GROUP

Watch the videos of “Biggest Loser” and “Extreme Couponing”

SMALL GROUP WORK

In their groups, students will fill in a table with different items for each video. They will have to fill in information about what they have seen on the videos (number of people, what they eat, what they do, who they talk to etc.). And most importantly, their opinion about it. We can distribute tasks among students if needed depending on their abilities.

BIG GROUP DEBATE

The class will be divided in two according to their opinions about these shows. We will have a debate about health, taking care of ourselves and the advantages and disadvantages of going to show to do that.

There will be another debate about the couponing and the addiction that that can create and if they see any benefits about it.

FINAL TASK

In the same groups, students will draw the final conclusions about these reality shows, also they will fill in a rubric in which they will reflect what they have learnt about and how to apply to their own lives.

This task is beneficial not only to learn about health and food; to learn English but also understand American culture and see it with their own eyes due to all the cultural references from them using pounds to having to add taxes to what they pay and them not being included.

MÓNICA CENTENO

 LEVEL: 2ND YEAR OF ESO

Students will start the lesson by doing a "See, Think, Wonder" routine. For this, I will show them the following picture:

Foto de Benjamin Rascoe en Unsplash

And they will answer orally the following questions:

- What do you see? - What do you think it happened? - What do you wonder? Three of the stronger students will write down the answers on the blackboard. After this warm-up activity, we will work with the following Mini Page (click on the image below):

They will read it in groups of four (mixed ability groups) and they will try to understand the information and the most important words. I will explain them all the information about "St. Patrick´s Day", its cultural background, Ireland as a country, the tradition and the vocabulary related to the topic. For the stronger students, they can check the following links provided on the Mini page in order to get more information about the topic as an open ended activity:

Finally, they will find the words on the puzzle in order to revise the vocabulary and they will write a short essay giving the important facts of the tradition.

CAMINO MARTÍNEZ

 

LEVEL: Year 2 (Primary)

Foto de Michael Starkie en Unsplash

Surprisingly, special days and celebretions can be a good source to use authentic material with our students. A few days ago we celebrated WORLD BOOK DAY. This day is an important day for literature and for recalling traditional tales, so why don´t we use this special celebration for our purpose?

With the message for all children: 'YOU ARE A READER' ! , we started our activity. This is the title of the activity too.

Children choose a book from a basket and start reading it in silence (we select the books previously according to the age and level of English). In this case easy books for seven year olds as they are in Year 2 of Primary.

After the reading they choose SIX WORDS they find interesting from the book and write them on a chart. With these words the high level students try to write the story and a new one. The low level students try to write a sentence with each word. In both levels, students make a drawing of their story(high level) or group of words as a picture dictionary(low level)

This is an adaptation of the activity shown in the course SIX WORDS.

After that , we can create an art corner with all the stories and picture dictionaries!!

and we can make some bookmarks for future readings!!

This activity can be adapted to any level . Hope you like it!!

JUAN ENRIQUE LABAJOS

 TITLE OF THE ACTIVITY: SENSUOUS GIFTS

DESCRIPTION:

Each student imagines they are giving five presents to a person they love and five to a person they hate. The five presents to a person they love will be pleasant experiences – not things but experiences like for example the sound of a string quartet or the taste of chocolate, they’re giving them an experience for each of their senses.

The main objective is to use sensual imagery for lively and personal description.

The final output task will be to write a love or hatred poem.

The students will work in small groups of four participants. The distribution of the groups will be done mixing students with different levels, so collaborative work will be a must.

With regard to the material, some pieces of paper and sellotape or post-it stickers are needed.

PROCEDURE:

*First session:

As a warming-up activity, students are handed-in photos showing people giving and receiving gifts. They have to look at them and speculate about different aspects of gift giving such as people's emotions and feelings. Adjectives ending in - ING/-ED will be elicited.

Next, they read some statements with expressions or collocations including the word gift like:

-"A gift horse does not look at the tooth". -"The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious". -"Take this gift as a pledge of our friendship"- - "Shall I take my host family a gift?" -"Love is always my love to you. Happy Birthday!" - "Your gift will make room for you". They have to try to guess their meaning and match it with some of the photos if possible. Once they have read them, they have to decide whether they agree or disagree with them, providing examples. After that, they will also practice their listening skills by watching a video clip from “Friends”. After watching, they need to share their experience of giving and receiving gifts. The class is divided into groups of four students and they brainstorm experiences they really dislike. *Second session: They try to connect their considered experiences to the five senses. It is important that at the end of this stage there is at least one experience related to each one of the five senses.

Then they do the same with experiences they like very much or love. Again it is important that all five senses are represented.

The whole class brainstorm collective terms, which can be fairly everyday (e.g. a handful of, a lorry load of, tons of, etc.) or rather imaginative (e.g. a nostril full of, a breath of, a morning full of, etc). These are written on small pieces of paper and hung up all over the classroom. *Third Session:

Using the collective terms they find appealing and the nice experiences, they will write a love poem, and with the nasty experiences, a hatred poem. The speaker of each group will read out the poems and let the other groups know for follow-up discussion.

IRENE LÓPEZ

Skills: Listening and Writing 

Level: 1 st Grade Bachillerato 

Skill 1: Listening. The students will be given different sheets of paper and they have to follow the instructions individually as required in the table.

Skill 2: Writing. After the listening, they must write a description about Héctor Bellarín according to the information previously listened to. Once again, each student will have deliberated instructions that they have to follow. Both groups can use the dictionary when they need. The writing must include, at least, those items: