What do they have in common?

This is a lesson plan which has usually worked pretty well with my groups and that I first heard of from one of my teachers, Bruce McGowen, a long time ago during a course abroad. It has, however, been adapted, changing celebrities and extending it over the years to meet the reality within my classroom. I had originally planned to 'launch' this Internet lesson coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into outer space and the proximity of World Book Day on the 23rd April, but several setbacks made it impossible. Anyway, you may either choose to leave it for next year's World Book Day celebration or implement it whenever you feel it's the right time for it.

This lesson consists of several phases: a pre- browsing task where the language is presented and SS are encouraged to predict the contents, a while- browsing stage going from controlled to less controlled tasks and finally a response which involves a change of skill and further language work.

STAGE 1: LANGUAGE IMPUT

STAGE 2: DIRECTED BROWSING TASKS

-          task one: getting into the internet

-          task two: the game

STAGE 3: SKILL- FOCUSSED TASKS

-          task one: completing the chart

-          task two: speaking

-          task three: writing

______________________________________________________

STAGE 1: LEAD- IN

1.      The teacher writes the following two names on the board:

       SYLVESTER STALLONE                    MUHAMMED ALI

And elicit that these two people have one thing in common: boxing- but that their interest in boxing is different: Sylvester Stallone acted as a boxer in the Rocky movies whereas Muhammed Ali was a real boxer.

2.      With the help of a projector the teacher builds up this model to introduce LINKERS.

STAGE 2: DIRECTED BROWSING TASKS

1.      The teacher divides the class into teams of four making sure each team has access to at least two computers and get the SS to name their teams if appropriate.

2.      The teacher writes the following three names on the board:

  YURI GAGARIN           BUDDY HOLLY        CARLOS GARDEL

And finds out what the students know about them or tells that Yuri Gagarin was a famous astronaut, Russian...etc and that Buddy Holly was a famous American singer in the 1950s whereas Carlos Gardel was an actor and tango singer. Then the teacher tells the SS that these three have something in common. They are going to find this out on the web.

TASK ONE

Yuri Gagarin, Buddy Holly and Carlos Gardel. What do they have in common? Follow the instructions below and find the answer as quickly as possible:

1.      Get into the Internet

2.      Type: http: //www.biography.com in the address box

3.      Press enter (return)

4.      Type the name you need in Find

5.      Click on Find

6.      Click on the name you need

After a while, students may have found the answer and the teacher should conduct feedback (see teacher's notes) and make students reflect on the skills they have used to find the information:

-   They do not need to read every word

-   They only have to focus on content words

-   The words at the beginning of the sentence give a clue about the  whole sentence so they can accept or reject sentences quickly and move on to the next one.

-   They should not use their fingers to point to the text word by word.

-  They do not need to read the text aloud.

TASK TWO: THE GAME

The class will now play a game in their teams. The teacher puts on the board the first pair of names. Each team must find their biographies and what they have in common. The first team to produce the correct answer will get two points. Then, with a second pair of names ...etc. Check out the teacher's notes for the answers.

The pair		Answers
Marlon Brando	Carlos Marcello
George Harrison	Ravi Shankar
Mahatma Gandhi	John Lennon
Janis Joplin	Marilyn Monroe

STAGE 3: SKILLS- FOCUSED TASK (more detailed reading in pairs)

The teacher tells the class to go to Wikipedia. They will now in pairs research two other people, find out what they have in common and fill in the biography grid below. Person A of the pair is given the name William Shakespeare. Person B, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

TASK ONE: Fill in the biography grid below

	Person 1	Person 2
Name
When born?
Where born?
Occupation
Achievement/s?
Date of death?
Other interesting information?
Common fact

POST- BROWSING (change of skill)

TASK TWO

After completing their own chart individually, SS should talk to their partner and describe the life of their famous person and see if they find out what both have in common.

TASK THREE: PARAGRAPH COMPOSITION

SS are asked to write a comparison account of their two characters following the model provided in the lead-in by means of past tenses and contrasting linkers.

NB: I suggest using biography.com but you may as well decide to use Wikipedia. Yuri Gagarin's picture was taken from Wikipedia Commons.

Students' Worksheet

Teacher's Notes

She's not just a pretty face

This lesson contains a warm-up activity to build vocabulary around the world of work, jobs and professions and a listening activity which would lead to extensive reading about the role of women in history. As a follow-up activity, it suggests working with a song and asking your students to discuss further questions.

Step One: Warm-up

• Show your SS the following pictures to see if they can name the job. Ask them what they think the job involves. Do a bit of open-class chatting about the positive and negative aspects of the jobs.

(This collection of pictures belongs to #eltpics gallery. If you want to know more about it, check out this blog entry)

Step Two: Nobel Prize Winners Quiz

• Tell them they should watch carefully the set of photographs of famous Nobel Prize Winners for 5 seconds. (Credit for this idea goes to Mark Hancock who mentioned this activity during his workshop on "Motivation: the inside story" at VII Congreso EOI in Madrid)
• Explain that they are going to listen to a lovely Voki talking about one of the people they've seen. Tell them to raise their hand as soon as they know who she is talking about.
  
  Nobel Prizes by Eva Gutiérrez
  
  
  • Ask them if they know other women who won the Nobel Prize and if they know their specialty. Make sure this leads to a discussion about women's roles in history.
  • Put your SS in groups and ask them to find out more about at least two women in each category here. Get them to report back to the class.
  
  Step Three: Song "She's not just a pretty face"
  
  • Before listening ask your SS to predict the content of the song from the title
  • While listening to the song, SS fill in the blanks in the lyrics with names of jobs
  • After listening, SS must supply a job name for some lines from the song
  • Either in pairs or as a whole group, open the debate on gender discrimination in the world of work

Song by Eva Gutiérrez

Hope you enjoy the activity.

There's been a grave misunderstanding

Here are some activities you may like to use before, during and after watching Tim Burton's Corpse Bride around Halloween time or at any time you like. Click to access the PDF document.

Hope you enjoy the activity!

Edinburgh

The city is well-known for the annual Edinburgh Festival, a collection of official and independent festivals held annually over about four weeks from early August. The most famous of these events are the Edinburgh Fringe (the largest performing arts festival in the world), the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Edinburgh attracts 1 million overseas visitors a year, making it the second most visited tourist destination in the United Kingdom, after London. So, if you are visiting Edinburgh this summer, make sure you don't miss any of these events!

Wikipedia contributors, "Edinburgh," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edinburgh&oldid=423017563 (accessed April 10, 2011).

ELT Pictures

Eltpics is a wonderful ever-expanding and continually updated collection of photographs, based on a weekly theme, collected by teachers, trainers and writers from around the world. These are, in turn, available free to others in the field of ELT under a CC license. Created in October 2010, it includes so far more than 2,000 pictures classified in a couple of dozen categories ranging from 'shopping/ shops' to 'beverages', 'means of transport', 'art and craft' or 'close ups', to mention only a few of the most recent additions. Anyone interested in joining in can tweet an image with the hashtag #eltpics.

icicles close up

International Women's Day

Soviet 8th of March posters and postcards

International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day is marked on March 8 every year. Nowadays this is a major day of global celebration of women. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements. Started as a Socialist political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries, primarily Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet bloc. In many regions, the day lost its political flavour, in others, however, the original political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

For further reference [PDF on IWD]

Joining the edusphere...

The use of blogs has become popular in educational contexts.

There are many teacher related blogs on the internet where teachers can share information with one another. This can include specific content that they are working on in their classroom or lessons that they wish to share with other teachers. It is a tool for educators to share ideas with one another on what has worked with students and what has not. In this way the blog often acts as a support system for teachers where they can access ideas, tools, and gain support from other professionals in their field.

Teachers also use blogs as a way to communicate and enhance study outside the classroom environment, posting important information such as homework, important dates, missed lessons, projects, discussion boards, and other useful classroom information that is accessible by all. (retrieved from Wikipedia, Edublog (last visited Mar. 5, 2011). "For further information..."

This new blog is born with this double purpose: on one hand, as the place to share materials, lessons and experiences in the classroom with other English language teachers and on the other hand, as the virtual extension to the classroom itself for my students. Hope you all find it useful.