ICPNA Cusco is taking a break for a few days, but here’s some interesting ESL / EFL reading to stay current on.
This week’s must read:Needless deaths in the Andes. From Barb at American in Lima, the story of mostly poor, indigenous children in the high Andes dying of respiratory illnesses, and the indifference of local governments.
My take on this: it’s not just the government who bears responsibility, but also the medical establishment, business leaders, the academic bureaucrats at UNSAAC who turn away the vast majority of applicants to med school, etc, etc.
This whole issue about the kids dying from simple flus in the Andes has me in an angry mood now, so here’s your ESL music exercise for this week
“I have to turn my head until my darkness goes…”
BTW – many people believe this song was about the Vietnam War, but I think it’s simpler than that, it’s about someone who died. “…a line of cars and they are painted black… with flowers and my love both never to come back…”
But that’s part of the beauty of using rock ‘n roll as classroom ESL exercises, the song can mean many different things to different people, I just ask my students “What do the lyrics mean to you?”
What kind of silly idea is this, aren’t all stories told one line at a time? Of course, but bear with me…
I assign this as an ESL/EFL writing exercise sometimes, a group exercise. Instead of giving each student a writing assignment, where they think about the story, the beginning, the ending, the storyline, I have them write a story in a group, each student adding one line at a time. This is also a good classroom warmup or icebreaker.
For example, as the teacher I write the first line on the board:
“Once I woke up on a deserted island…”
Then ask any of the students to add the next line to the story.
Student 1: “I don’t remember how I got there…”
Student 2: “I was hungry so I had a coconut for breakfast…”
Student 3: “Then I asked a chimp where I could check my email…”
…
…
If the students run out of ideas, just change the storyline:
Teacher: “Then I decided to take a plane to New York and visit my friends…”
Student …
Student …
After we do the example as a group, I divide the students into smaller groups (3-5) and have each group write a story. To make it easier, suggest some imaginative opening lines such as “Once I was lost in the jungle…” or “One time I went to Rio…”, etc.
I like this as a writing exercise, because just like in real life, you don’t always know the beginning and ending, the storyline isn’t always straightforward – well, at least not in my life
Sorry the ICPNA Cusco teacher’s blog got neglected for, oh six months or so. Promise it won’t happen again
Since the material in our books isn’t always current or appropriate for the ages and backgrounds of our students here in Cusco, I thought about creating a weekly post with suggested ESL/EFL reading material. Just as a diversion in class or for those motivated students who want extra credit!
Going forward look for links to interesting reading or music exercises each week. Of course, any additional suggestions are welcome in the comments section.
“News from investment grade Peru, part 1573″ The unfortunate but true story of a poor “empleadita” who got kicked out of her house after coming down with flu symptoms. Social equality in Peru still has a long way to go…
And a little rock ‘n roll, to turn all your students into rebels, so they stop accepting the status quo in Peru:
I have the (legal) song on my laptop, or buy the pirated version at Molino. Ruby Tuesday lyrics here. My favorite part:
“Dying all the time,
lose your dreams and you will lose your mind…”
I like getting the students to tell stories. Most job interviews I went through in the US had questions where you had to tell a story, such as “tell us your biggest accomplishment”, “talk about a situation where you dealt with discrimination”, etc.
For this game I write 3-4 interesting lines about my life on the board. I tell the students right away not all of them are true, some I just invented. Then I have them guess which ones are true or false, and I tell them the stories. Then ask students to do the same, write 3 or 4 interesting lines about themselves, have their neighbors guess true or false, and then have them tell each other the stories.
So guess which of these are true or false:
When I was in high school I was the goalkeeper for my school’s team.
A few ideas for icebreakers or games where students get to know each other. Like with the music exercises most of these ideas come from Corey’s workshop a while back, and I also got some ideas from teacher Patrick’s workshop last week.
“My cloud” game: write some interesting facts about yourself in a cloud on the board. Have the students ask questions to learn about each item you wrote down. Then have the students make their own “cloud” and walk around asking each other questions about the things they wrote down.
Teacher introduction. Write your name, the most important year of your life, the next place you want to go on vacation, the name of a person you’d like to hang out with for a day and a skill/talent you have or wish you had. Then have the students ask questions to learn more about each item. Then the students make their own list of those 4 items and walk around the class asking each other questions about the things they wrote down.
“Find someone who” game. This is a popular game, if you’re not sure how to play it, see an example here.
“What did you do this weekend?” On Mondays, have the students ask their neighbors how their weekend was. I like this activity because it’s a lot like the real world.
Please don’t hesitate to add your ideas or suggestions!
I got many ideas for music exercises from Corey’s workshop a few months ago. I usually use one of the following:
Give song lyrics to students with some missing words and have the students fill in the missing words while listening.
Chop the lyrics into small blocks (3-5 lines) and have the students place the lyrics in the correct order while listening. I print the lyrics in a large font for this exercise, so the students can lay them out on the floor and arrange them in the correct order in groups.
This often creates a good opportunity to discuss the vocabulary or phrases in the song, colloquial phrases etc. In addition songs make an excellent starting point for social or cultural discussions.
It’s great being the teacher, you get to pick out the songs! Being the old hippie that I am, in my class all the songs happen to be old rock songs. One of my favorites is “Going to California”.
Extra points if you figure out what part of this song could be about Peru!
No olvides, post a comment with your ideas or suggestions.
Needless to say top-10 lists aren’t my invention or unique to language teaching, but I find them a handy diversion in class. You can divide the students into groups and have them come up with their own top-10 list on any topic. Some of my favorites are:
Top-10 reasons why dogs are better than boyfriends/girlfriends.
Top-10 reasons for any tourist to visit Cusco.
Needless to say it’s always good to know what works for your specific groups, and often you can pick a topic related to your class discussions (I use “dogs are better than boyfriends/girlfriends” in I07 with unit 6 “animals”).
Teacher Lori actually gave me the idea to play “hangman” while biding time waiting for students to show up. If you’re not familiar with the game, you can play it online here.
Instead of me playing the game, I found it better to designate 2 students at a time to be the “host”, choosing a word or phrase and writing the letters their classmates choose. Extra points if they pick some flattering phrase like “the teacher is really cute” !!!
I got most of these ideas for vocabulary games from teacher Holger. I like how the games get the students to use words they know but that they may not use in conversation every day. Also, you can typically divide the students into groups and have them write on the board, which is a good way to allow them to move around a bit.
Examples of vocabulary games:
Write 4 categories on the board (e.g. “colors” “animals” “food” “verbs”) and have the students in 2-3 minutes come up with as many words as possible for each category. I usually divide the class in 2 or 3 groups and have them race to the board to write one word per student at a time.
Make a list of words where the next word always begins with the last letter of the one before it: e.g. DOG – GOOD – DAY – YEAR – …. The students can do this in groups, writing on the board, or in pairs (facing each other).
Have students make as many words as possible using only the letters that are in a word you give them, such as “international”, “interchange”, “submarine”, etc. For example, using the word “international” they can make I – in – into – intern – ran – rat – … I usually do this in groups and have the students write their words on the board after they write them on a piece of paper first.
If you have any other ideas for good vocabulary games, please add a comment!
As an example of information we can share on this blog I thought I’d post some ideas for classroom games and warmups. Most of these are not my ideas, and I’ll do my best to credit whomever I got the ideas from. In the next few posts I will list:
Posted by wwelvaert 
Posted by wwelvaert 
Posted by wwelvaert 
