Warm Up – In teams, write three animals you would find in the Amazon Rain Forest.
Giant ant-eater
Let’s delve deeper (let’s learn more).
Use comparatives and superlatives:
A jaguar is a big cat BUT not as big as a lion. A lion is not as big as a tiger.
A lion is bigger than a jaguar but a tiger is the biggest.
A capybara is a rodent (like a mouse or rat).
A Capybara
A rat is _______________ than a mouse but a capybara is the ____________ rodent.
What is wrong with this sentence ?
A caiman – a type of alligator.
A caiman is big but an alligator is more big and a crocodile is most big.
A caiman is a reptile – it is _______________ dangerous reptile in the Amazon. Reptiles have thick or scaly skin. They can live in hot weather and salt water.
A frog is amphibian – amphibians need water to live and only have soft delicate skin. They cannot live in salt water (like the sea). If you see frogs or toads, it can mean that the water is good.
Next put these animals in order of danger, first, second and third then write a sentence using a comparative and the superlative
poison dart frog
bullet ant
jaguar
The answers
Number 3: bullet ant
Number 2: jaguar
Number 1: poison dart frog
Did you know ?
A jaguar has ___ _____ powerful bite. A jaguar bite is _____ powerful than a lion.
A bullet ant has _____ _____ painful insect sting. The sting is 30 times ______ painful than a bee sting.
The poison dart frog has different colours. The golden poison dart from is ____ _____ poisonous.
The Santo Angel waterfall is the ___________________ in the world
Answers: South America // 9 // it produces 20% of the world’s oxygen // 3 000 // poison dart frogs, jaguars, snakes, spiders, piranhas // a tucan // largest at 979 metres.
Objectives: review recent vocabulary, encourage more student-to-student talking, develop sentence building skills, practice the third person form with ‘he’ & ‘she.’
It’s early Sunday morning, so time to wake with Mr James Brown. Younglings … how do you feel ?
Tell me about these people. He is or she is …
She is ……….He is ……
He is very …..
She is very ….
The top cats are able to form basic sentences such as:
I can run however I can’t fly
New vocabulary included the five sense
s _ _ // h – – – // s – – – – // t – – – – // t o – – – //
Warm Up: What can he or she do ?
Ask your partner what he or she can do
What can you do ? What can’t you do ?
Here, my wonderful TA will ask me, then tell the class, in order to model how to answer
Ask Thay Paul – what can you do ?
I can play guitar however I can’t play piano
Tell the class:
He can play guitar however he can’t play piano
Next – using the new vocabulary in a sentence form. What can he or she do and what can’t they do ?
Example:
She can see a butterfly however she can’t hear a butterfly.
She can touch a butterfly however she can’t taste a butterfly.
She can __________ a pizza however she can’t __________ a pizza
He can ________ a guitar __________________________
Encourage students to use at least two adjectives before the noun. (Vietnamese is similar to French in that the adjective follows the noun, so students have to think counter intuitively).
Practice using determiners (it is, they, those)
Practice sentence building (I can swimhowever I can’t fly)
Practice intonation and stress – avoid robot speaking 🙂
Warm up
Use appropriate hand gestures to drill the four new adjectives:
fast / slow / noisy / quiet
Thay Paul is from London. London is very big. London has many cars. Look:
Also London had many big red buses. Also, I can see many taxis. Some are black, some are blue and some are grey.
London has many big red buses. The buses are slow and noisy
(use the gestures so the students shout out the adjectives. Repeat with these pictures):
The new blue car is ______________ and ____________
The small new white car is __________________ and _____________
The old grey, yellow and red car is __________ and ____________
Here’s a quick blog for a class I’m covering tomorrow. As a warm up and review, I’ll play this music as the students enter the class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHWhebFt_r0
The video has a lot of new words, so I will pause the clip and board new words. Following the video, I’ll ask these questions. Being a large class, the students can work in teams, maybe each team having the name of an animal (that should be fun for Team Monkey).
Which big cat has spots, which has stripes ? Why do they have patterns ?
What is the name of the line that goes around the middle of the Earth ?
Rain forests has two things … what ?
What fruit can you find ?
What animals live at the top of trees ?
Is Vietnam in the tropics ?
BONUS POINTS:
Why are rain forests important ?
They absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen
They are home to lots of different wildlife
They produce water and rainfall for the planet
Moving on rapidly – Adverbs
Give me a sentence for these photos:
EXAMPLE:
The jaguar runs quickly // The jaguar with black spots, runs very quickly
KaraokeA slothReading in a library ssshhhhhhh …Buster Keaton doesn’t stand in a very safe place
How do I follow that !
The remainder of the lesson is given over to reading, the theme being a music recital, so I can lead in by asking who play an instrument (then explaining that my long nails on my left hand are for playing guitar, not for scaring students).
12th December for 14th December 2019 E Up 3, pp. 80 – 81
I’m covering this class for just one lesson (hopefully). There are 21 students and I think I’ve had this class before at a lower level. The first part of the lesson can be activities to go over the language learnt in previous lessons. This can take the form of a game, with students being placed in five groups and allowed to choose their team name.
1 Tell me about the men (basic adjectives) then use the comparative.
EXAMPLE: One man is short, one man is tall. The man with glasses is taller.
2 Who is stronger ?
3 Give me three adjectives for these clothes.
Which one is thicker ? Which one is prettier ?
4 Write three heavy objects (things) then three light objects.
5 How can your help your mum and dad in your house ? Three ways to help out.
6 What does the young girl do before work ?
7 Now what is this boy doing after school ?
7 Always / usually / sometimes / never
In the morning, Teacher Paul ……….. drinks coffee
The students in this school are ……………. quiet.
Tell me something you usually do and something you do sometimes.
8 What three chores can you do on a farm ?
I need three things: a haircut, a book and some coffee … where can I go ?
Class put into groups of three or four. Each team given a name of a European city, such as London, Venice, Barcelona and Paris.
First question – in which countries are your cities ?
Next ‘Screen Test’: The students watch the opening song then have to answer multiple choice questions.
1) What was the road sign at the beginning of the clip ?
London // Berlin // Paris ?
2) What was the number of the bus ?
9 // 19 // 28 ?
3) What colour was the first car behind the bus ?
red // white // blue ?
4) How many children wore a hat ?
1 // 2 // no children
5) How many men were riding bicycles ?
3 // 4 // 6 ?
6) How many women were in the car ?
3 // 4 // 5 ?
BONUS POINTS – Can anyone sing the song – just two lines
“We’re all going on a summer holiday // we’re all going for a week or two.”
Last lesson the subject was future tense and activities. Therefore, I shall board some times – this afternoon / tomorrow / next Monday / next Thursday / next weekend / next month
Under these, I shall write some scrambled nonsense, e.g. ‘who as ees’. The students, placed in teams, have to elect one person to find the corresponding flash card somewhere in the room (‘see a show’) and then say a third-person sentence e.g. “He’s going to see a show this afternoon.’
Information gathering: Class into three or four groups. One member will be going away and the others in the team have to get information from him or her, then present to the class.
Team 1: Going to Phu Quoc island / is going next month / will be staying in a hotel near the beach / will be going swimming / is going with family
Team 2: Going to London / is going next week / is going to see a show / is staying with family / is going with older sister.
Team 3 : Going to Ha Noi / is going next Tuesday / is going on a bus tour / is going to stay in a big hotel / is going with school
Team 4: Going to Dak Lak Province / is going tomorrow / is going to ride an elephant / will stay in a tent / is going with VUS TAs
The selected member will stand at the front of the class with the information sheet. One teammate must run up, ask one question then tell the rest of the team, who will write the information down. Then a different teammate will run up and ask.
Planning a day out
I have a niece and nephew coming to Saigon. The teams have to plan a day for them including what to see and do, how to travel and what to eat. Of course, they need to but some souvenirs, so where are the best places ?
My ‘niece & nephew’.
We shall probably have to board many ideas first. Where do tourists go in HCM ? What is traditional food ? How can they travel ? Do the girls want to take the niece and the boys take the nephew only ?
Hopefully, this will encourage a lot of speaking and ideas and I can show a map of HCM to help.
And if the students are still drawing a blank (or being too lazy to think), this could inspire them: It’s spoken in English, with text, but with Viet accent (can start at 0:20 seconds)
As with all ‘real-world’ videos, the film should be stopped and new words or expressions boarded. The students are later made to write the words down (the majority will simply NOT do any kind of writing unless pressured), and then encouraged to use them where appropriate.
That should easily cover the first hour. After the break, we hit the books, do the workbooks and fast-finishers get an activity sheet, while I can spend at least some time checking the pronunciation and grammar.
11th July for Saturday 13th July 2019. Everybody Up, U 2 L 1
Warm Up: Musical statues
Board write: to review recent lessons. Put class into small teams and give a mini board and marker. Have one of the top students read out the following:
To make an omelet we need ….
To make a smoothie we need …
To make a fruit salad we need …
To make a milkshake we need …
What can you see ? to review ‘be healthy’ show some typical breakfasts. Elicit as much information about the photos as possible:
English breakfastUSA breakfast cerealsSwedish breakfastKorean breakfast
Student talking time: Students must select which breakfast they like best then interview each other, and say why. What is your favourite breakfast ? Which one do you like ?
New vocabulary:
healthy
delicious
unhealthy
colourful
high sugar
hig fat
Class Vote: Who would like which breakfast ?
Whisper run ‘n’ write: class form into three or four lines. I whisper a word or phrase to the last person, that person whispers it to the nest and so on until we come to the first person who must run and write it on the board. This practices listening, speaking and basic writing.
Lesson lead -in: Our new topic is ‘Around Town’. Let’s elicit some buildings that one would find in a town. In teams, we can do Pictionary – I’ll tell one student per team of a building, they have one minute to draw it and for their team to guess.
(hospital, school, cinema or movie theatre, park, library etc)
Book work: teaching new vocabulary, and practising.
Walk the line: Arrange six new flashcards on the floor in a line. Have two students at opposite ends. They must walk the line, saying the cards. First to finish is the winner.
Group activity: to encourage group work and to review new vocabulary, the students in small teams are given a large sheet of paper. they can design and colour their own town. Special points for the most interesting town. To inspire them I can show Google images of:
Barcelona City, Gaudi architect, Sagrada Familia Temple, spain, sunset Hong KongTel Aviv, IsrealBeijing, China
14th June for Saturday 15th June. Everybody Up 4, Unit 8 Lessons 1 & 2
My manager is very supportive, and concerned over my welfare; she tells me not to expend too much energy in class, especially on a Saturday when I can have three young learner classes. Imagine 50 – 60 children committed to screaming their heads off for as long and as loudly as possible …. Welcome, as the saying goes, to my life.
Last week I prepared quite a bit of work for this class, including general knowledge based on but not in the text book. Unfortunately, it was a minor holiday in Vietnam, and a lot of the top cat students were away and … it became apparent that my multi-media presentation of classical music and classic film, and using the students to represent the movement of the heavenly bodies was … yeah … a waste of time and energy. Not entirely true … three girls were interested, the rest stared at the floor or the ceiling or the clock, while the boys had a contest, who could be the biggest ignoramus. It was a tight contest; they all won.
So, this week, after a debilitating fever, painfully sore throat and constant sneezing, I’m sticking to the book, and devising activities that will make the students use the target language and the target language only (OK, maybe a few new words for the top cats).
It’s a gross generalisation, but in my experience, so many Vietnamese want to do the work as quickly as possible and then do nothing. This covers students from all my centres, TAs, office staff, public servants, contractors, builders … This may explain why my new apartment has cracks inside and out and why so many tenants have had to retile their floor as the original tiles simply broke leaving inches of dust and debris … but, I digress … and so, without further ado, the lesson plan:
Warm Up: Last lesson the subject was future tense and activities. Therefore, I shall board some times – this afternoon / tomorrow / next Monday / next Thursday / next weekend / next month
Under these, I shall write some scrambled nonsense, e.g. ‘who as ees’. The students, placed in teams, have to elect one person to find the corresponding flash card somewhere in the room (‘see a show’) and then say a third-person sentence e.g. “He’s going to see a show this afternoon.’
Information gathering: Class into four groups. One member will be going away and the others in the team have to get information from him or her, then present to the class.
Team 1: Going to Phu Quoc island / is going next month / will be staying in a hotel near the beach / will be going swimming / is going with family
Team 2: Going to London / is going next week / is going to see a show / is staying with family / is going with older sister.
Team 3 : Going to Ha Noi / is going next Tuesday / is going on a bus tour / is going to stay in a big hotel / is going with school
Team 4: Going to Dak Lak Province / is going tomorrow / is going to ride an elephant / will stay in a tent / is going with VUS TAs
The selected member will stand at the front of the class with the information sheet. One teammate must run up, ask one question then tell the rest of the team, who will write the information down. Then a different teammate will run up and ask.
Planning a day out
I have a niece and nephew coming to Saigon. The teams have to plan a day for them including what to see and do, how to travel and what to eat. Of course, they need to but some souvenirs, so where are the best places ?
My ‘niece & nephew’.
We shall probably have to board many ideas first. Where do tourists go in HCM ? What is traditional food ? How can they travel ? Do the girls want to take the niece and the boys take the nephew only ?
Hopefully, this will encourage a lot of speaking and ideas and I can show a map of HCM to help.
And if the students are still drawing a blank (or being too lazy to think), this could inspire them: It’s spoken in English, with text, but with Viet accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0tncoIxT1s
As with all ‘real-world’ videos, the film should be stopped and new words or expressions boarded. The students are later made to write the words down (the majority will simply NOT do any kind of writing unless pressured), and then encouraged to use them where appropriate.
That should easily cover the first hour. After the break, we hit the books, do the workbooks and fast-finishers get an activity sheet, while I can spend at least some time checking the pronunciation and grammar.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/148307334-58b5f5025f9b5860462d8064.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/capybaraWC-58b5f50f5f9b5860462d9ab7.JPG)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/blackcaimanGE-58b5f4f95f9b5860462d6d6f.jpg)
