Archive for the ‘Second conditional’ Category

I’ve been very busy deep in the dark chaotic depths of the TEFLtastic Worksheets pages, and have also found time for a few of the usual articles. If useful stuff that makes your life easier is not your thing, will be back to the usual trivia here on the main page soon…

Articles

15 ways to start an adult lesson

15 ways to finish a preschool English lesson

15 more ways to boost your teaching confidence (as promised- not often I actually write something I planned to…)

Worksheets and lesson plans

A much expanded Market Leader worksheets and lesson plans page

Business Past Continuous and Personality Accusations game (THE classic Past Continuous game- not my original idea, but don’t know any other online or Business English versions)

Business English Needs Analysis ranking task

Crime Vocabulary storytelling game

Complaints roleplays

Pingu Will for predictions video worksheet 1 (3 more available on the Video Worksheets page, but can’t be bothered giving each link)

Passives guess the country game

Active/ Passive True/ False quiz

Trends and conditionals discussion and grammar presentation

Rules and regulations pictionary (mainly passive forms)

Second conditional chain writing (consequences) game

Passives disasters storytelling

Second conditional supernatural error correction and discussion

Supernatural modals of possibility discussion

Special occasions reported speech cultural differences guessing game and discussion

As a blogger and writer of articles on the internet whose technical knowledge stops at Word, as usual I feel half chuffed at churning out so many articles, including a good one here and there, and half guilty at creating so much work for those who can name a programming language more recent than BASIC. So, with many thanks to the tech sorts who made this possible and without further ado, here are the new bits and pieces on the web that I’ve been associated with:

The TEFL.net review pages I edit now allow comments on any of the titles reviewed there, which is a fabulous idea which I wish had been mine.

On TEFL.net too, there is a new Idea Thinktank of practical teaching games etc, on which I have about 12 (!) articles including 15 Fun Things to do with a Whiteboard (yes, that’s a whiteboard rather than an interactive whiteboard- showing my age??) and the 15 Most Fun Pronunciation Games.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also got some slightly more weighty ones up on the rejigged TEFL.net TEFL Articles Page, including Easy Ways to Improve Your TEFL Career.

And on Usingenglish.com in March:

Election- Second Conditionals speaking practice

101 IELTS Speaking Part Two Tasks about sports and hobbies

Why your students speak L1 in class

Why your students don’t do their homework

101 IELTS Speaking Part Two tasks about people, places, actions, things and times

Setting up workshops for teachers

Business English tense review

Business English silent letters and syllables

The language of trends spot the difference

I also had a review of a couple of BULATS books out in MET magazine this month, should you have a copy handy and fancy a look.

Have got plenty of new worksheets up at Usingenglish.com  , have added a whole bunch of TEFLtasticly multimedia song worksheets for teaching and practising grammar to my video worksheets (more to come of both of these), and have been rearranging the mini reviews on the reviews page so that they are a little easier to find. Have also somehow found time to teach my classes, in fact sometimes it’s a nice break to get away from the computer screen and into class! That is, until I think of another nice worksheet I could type up for the next class…

Mondays are not a day for pontificating, and anyway Im a bit ponficated out at the moment, so here are some fun and games instead-

This is one that fits into my ultimate TEFL desert island survival game kit. It is personalised, it produces lots of language, it is controlled practice of the focus point but free in other ways, it is loads of fun, it practices a range of skills and it is adaptable for a whole lot of other grammar and vocab points. And here it is-

 Guess me!

Before the lesson, write a whole bunch of sentence stems or sentences with gaps including the target language (see below for examples). After a warmer that links in with the grammar, topic or exercise type (e.g. tell each other things about your weekend but with gaps and give hints until they guess the missing information- I ate _____ for breakfast on Sunday etc.), give out one photocopy per student and get them to fill in at least half of the sentences to make true sentences about themselves. When the first one or two students have finished all the sentences, stop everyone and get them to take turns reading out only the parts they have written and guessing which sentences it has been written in.

Example- Verb Pattern Guess Me!

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Just in case anyone thinks I am overdoing it on slagging off native speaker English teachers in Japan, here’s another reminder how being a TEFL teacher (even a shite one) isn’t the worst thing in the world. At least we don’t work for pharmaceutical companies:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/09/america/NA-GEN-US-Red-Cross-Lawsuit.php

Although, having said that, I actually have taught in two pharmaceutical companies in Japan. And it was exactly articles like this about dodgy business practices, dangerous drugs, marketing that doubles as bribery etc. that made my job so difficult. I simply could not find an interesting neutral article or book on the pharmaceutical industry, and nothing in Japan is more likely to produce blank stares than slagging off someone’s industry.

If anyone else is having the same problems, here are some links to my Medical and Pharmaceutical English materials here and elsewhere:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-medical-english-mimes/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-and-game-medical-breakthoughs-dominoes-passives/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-medical-english-difficult-sounds-pairwork/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-medical-moral-dilemmas-2nd-conditionals/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-medical-problems-and-symptoms-guessing/

Onestopenglish ESP Medical English section:

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?sectionType=listsummary&catid=58034&docid=144627

After making voting easier and even finally bringing peace to Japanese/ Chinese relations, our resident Agony Aunt is back to use the tools that we learn on our CELTAs to solve problems personal and universal, big and small. Today it’s a bit of a biggie from one of our readers:

Dear Auntie Alex

Since I started teaching abroad and found out that most people in the world are not C of E, I have begun to doubt all most previous beliefs and it has left me a bit confused. My biggest question is: how can I decide if God exists?

Thanks

Worried, TEFL teacher from Warrington

Dear Worried

First of all, you can stop worrying because you have come to the right place. Many people have tried religion and philosophy to solve these problems to no avail, but TEFL actually has several simple techniques that can solve this dilemma for you once and for all without even leaving the classroom.

The first one is simplicity itself, a class survey. Get pairs of students to write sentences together of things they think are true for all, almost all, most, many, some, a few and hardly any of the people in the class. Great language for generalising in IELTS Speaking Part Three! They then check with the class by making their sentences into questions and finding out with a show of hands, e.g. “We think most people are wearing socks their mother bought for them. Are you wearing socks your mother bought for you?” (Hands up for yes).

For the next stage, you introduce your weightier ideas and students predict what percentage of the class it is true for, then show of hands to check. Slip in your God question, and let classroom democracy do your work for you!

The second idea is a little more complex, but also gives you more data to go on. Hand out one piece of blank paper to each student and get them to write the sentence stem “If God didn’t exist…” on the top line. They then pass this to the person on their right. They complete the sentence on the line below with their own ideas, e.g. “…my father would be out of a job”. They then fold the paper so only the bottom half of the sentence can be seen and pass again. The next person writes a whole sentence linked to the one they receive on two lines, e.g. “If your father was out of a job…” (new line) “…you would have to live in a cardboard box in the middle of a lake”, folds halfway down, passes etc. After the sentences come back to their original writers and they read them, do the same with “If God existed…”. Take all the sheets of paper home and decide which theory is more convincing and/ or pleasing. And there you have it- peace of mind and 2nd conditionals practice in one!

All the best

Auntie Alex

Does anyone else have some world issues or personal problems that are embarassing them. Just leave an anonymous message below and she will deal with it as soon as she can.