Hollywood is dead or is it?

This is my contribution to the 33rd ELT Blog Carnival titled Songs in ELT Classroom.

I made this worksheet quite a while ago and had forgotten about it until I read the theme of the current blog carnival. I thought it would be a good opportunity for my worksheet to have a second life.

This is one of my favourite Michael Bublé's songs Hollywood. The great Canadian singer himself has described the song as "being about his "tongue-in-cheek statement on the culture of celebrity". Notice his impersonation of Justin Bieber, it is amazing!




You may download the worksheet below with the traditional task - while listening, students have to write the missing words which they hear or insert the given verbs or nouns. The pictures serve as prompts.
The song lyrics are included in the worksheet, as well as the link to the video on YouTube. The second page need not be given to the students.

After listening, you may discuss with your students the idea of the song and ask the students if / how they understood the phrases "Hollywood is dead", "you sold yourself for this...", "love what is true...". Discuss the notion of celebrity culture, its illusions and false values. Ask why Hollywood represents a magic place where all dreams come true and if they always become reality.

Web resources for Easter activities

Traditional Easter activities are usually intended for younger kids because they include colouring of pictures, drawing rabbits and eggs, doing egg hunt. However, baking egg nests, weaving egg baskets or carving wooden eggs will be more suitable for older students, so there is something to do for everyone.

Below I have listed various resources that I found on the web which may come in handy to the teachers who wish to mark this festival in the classroom.

Teaching Ideas - Easter poems, stories and slideshows, different worksheets and card templates. The site also offers classroom display pictures and an assortment of Easter videos.

Activity Village has an interesting set of Easter coordinate puzzles for kids where they have to colour the squares according to the code.

TES Connect has a huge range of Easter activities for young kids, some of them are for the interactive whiteboard. Just remember, you will need a TES Connect account to download the worksheets and resources but it is free.
Get inspired by the ideas published on TES Pinterest board Easter Teaching Resources and Ideas. Little kids will love to watch Chick and egg lifecycle Powerpoint presentation.

The Guardian have published a great article with lots of suggestions for the teachers and links to resources. You will have to create a free account to get access to the resources.

Easter webquest on Onestopenglish website is great for older students with higher language level. Worksheets are free to download.

There is a great article on Mental Floss for senior students 6 Easter Traditions You Might Not Know. The text can be used for reading and discussion activities.

What does Easter Island have in common with Easter? Ask your students to find the answer by reading the post on the fabulous Wonderopolis website.

Finally, older students may enjoy watching this video about the stunning Faberge eggs which were made for the Russian Imperial family about a century ago, and also learn a bit of history.

Webquest: Festivals and Holidays

Image by OLD SKOOL Cora

A few days ago I did an activity with my students which has been a little disregarded lately - the webquest.

I remember at the dawn of using computers for learning, webquests were rather popular possibly because other web activities had not been "invented" yet. Webquests meant students could get access to the computers and have a jolly time online, especially because computers were rare in their homes.

A webquest is a creative and dynamic activity requiring some web search skills. Students usually like webquests because they get a chance to spend a lesson in the computer room (if it is not homework) and do what most of them like - browse the web.

My 16 year old students had just studied the topic of festivals and traditions and what seemed to me a logical follow-up was their independent work on summing up the basic info about the most popular holidays. We did the activity in the computer lab and the hardest part was that the students did not have any links provided but had to find the information relying only on their own search skills.
The chart they had to fill in asked for the date and place of the original holiday, traditional food, drinks and activities.

Take a look at one of the charts completed by the student.
 

Here is the handout. You may print or download it. If you feel like removing some of the festivals I have included in the chart or add your own, go ahead.

All in all, it was a productive and win-win classroom activity.

Word search creator on Busy Teacher

There are various word search makers on the net but the Busy Teacher site offers a tool that instantly attracted my attention because of the cool look of the puzzles and the simplicity of the tool.

Busy Teacher is a site which has a vast collection of teaching ideas, worksheets and lesson plans, and now - a word search generator.
Mind you, I have not been paid to advertise the site, nor the new tool. I just happen to like it.

Word Search Creator lets you choose the size of the grid and the level of difficulty from easy to moderate to difficult. The best thing is that you can print your word search or save it and play online.

Here is the link to the puzzle SPORTS which I made for my younger students.
Feel free to download it. It comes with the solution to make the teacher's life easier!

Summarizing skill

Since students have been asked to make a summary of a short text at the state exam, the teaching of summarizing skill has come to the fore.
It has turned out to be a tedious job because summarizing skill is not easy to teach. It actually involves many skills - reading for the gist and detail, concentrating on the main points, seeing the key words and getting the central message of the paragraph, being able to join many ideas in one.

Why is it for a student sometimes easier to write a passage of 200 words instead of 100 as required by the task? What if they just do not know how to curb their imagination and control their flow of thoughts? That is where summarizing skill becomes essential. I believe, it can be developed through practice but it takes time. And it is a very creative process, I'd like to add.

Here are some links to useful web pages about writing summaries.

• Summary writing by Drew University
• Summarizing by Reading Quest
• Summarizing skill by Googol Learning

I have prepared a worksheet for practicing summary writing.
 


Here you can access it on Google Docs and download it for the use in the classroom. It consists of five paragraphs taken from the internet and a space for writing a summary. I have also added sample summaries for each paragraph but they are not absolute. The teacher can accept many different variants.

Reading stories differently

I like to play with Wordle and admire the awesome word combinations this tool can generate. On one of such occasions I created a worksheet using Wordle clouds to mix together two stories about animals.
The students' task is to separate the stories and reconstruct them both. Of course, in the creative process of "sorting and combining words" new incredible stories may appear. That is what makes this method really exciting.
There are instructions for the students and some writing space. Finally there are both original stories which should be kept secret until the very end of the activity.

Mini-books for everyone

Mini-books are popular not only among younger schoolchildren but they are also fun for older kids. Even adults make scrapbooks or family albums. Various kinds of mini-books include pocket books, envelope books, accordion books, flip books, origami books, pop-up books and many others.

Until recently I had not paid particular attention to this kind of activity but having read several great articles and tutorials, I realised that the process of making a mini-book may result in a busy and active lesson.

Here is a mini-book I made for 12-13 year old students which has to be written, coloured and then folded into a booklet.

Download this printable from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45227129/Christmas-Mini-book







If you are not familiar with the technique, watch this video which will show you how to prepare and fold the mini-book. You can use any paper to make it but for kids it would be better to use thinner paper which will fold more easily and the booklet will look neater. You can use coloured paper too but then the pictures won't look so good. This Christmas mini-book looks best on white paper coloured green, red, blue and gold.

Here is a fantastic collection of resources on all kinds of mini-books with tutorials, links and samples. You can download instructions how to fold the mini-books.
http://stamphenge.wordpress.com/minibooks/

Teaching topic - Banksy

When the curriculum says "next topic - contemporary British art", you certainly cannot bypass Banksy, a notorious figure in British and world art.
Here is a video that will help you to present this artist to your students.



There is a nice online exercise based on this video at
http://www.esolcourses.com/content/lifeintheuk/britart/banksy-videoquiz.html

I have prepared a worksheet about Banksy with 3 reading tasks which you can see in the preview.
You can download it here.

Worksheet - Englishman in Japan

Reading task about an Englishman in Japan. Students have to put the events in order. It is good for teaching cultural differences and the topic of culture shock.
There is KEY at the bottom of the page, so if you give this task to your students, don't forget to remove the answers.