Express Publishing ELT » Language Skills

How creative can you be?

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:27:08 +0000

A recent survey of employers found that when it comes to recruiting young people, they value creativity and adaptability above paper qualifications. The Common European Framework for education outlines competences, rather than the knowledge as the aim of education. It’s not so important what you know, but rather what you can do, so we have a duty to ensure our students practice the sorts of skills they’ll be needing in the future as well as teaching them a language.

One thing we can do is to ask them to think on their feet in short writing tasks such as those below. You could choose a title for them to write on in class perhaps once a week.

You have 10mins to write a CREATIVE, IMAGINATIVE and INTERESTING response to the following.

Invent a new season. Give it a name and describe it.

Invent a brand new mode of transport and describe how it works.

If flowers could talk, what would they say?

Design the perfect superhero.

How would a rainbow feel if you could touch it?

Invent a new food and describe how it tastes.

Invent a new sport and explain how to play it.

Invent a new fish and describe it.

You step off a bus in the year 2933. Describe what you see.

Describe where you feel safest.

Invent a new item of clothing and explain how to wear it.

Invent a new medicine, what does it cure and how?

How will the world end?

You have discovered a new country. What is it like?

When socks disappear, where do they go?

Invent a new job. What do you have to do and why?

If rain was a person, what sort of person would it be?

What does happiness feel like?

Choose any two items (not people) in the room and write a conversation between them.

Invent a new drink and describe how it tastes.

Pre-listening activities

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:24:00 +0000

Why do pre-listening tasks?
In real life it is unusual for people to listen to something without having some idea of what they are going to hear. When listening to a radio phone-in show, they will probably know which topic is being discussed. When listening to an interview with a famous person, they probably know something about that person already. A waiter knows the menu from which the diner is choosing their food.

In our first language we rarely have trouble understanding listening. But, in a second language, it is one of the hardest skills to develop – dealing at speed with unfamiliar sounds, words and structures. This is even more difficult if we do not know the topic under discussion, or who is speaking to whom.

So, simply asking the students to listen to something and answer some questions is a little unfair, and makes developing listening skills much harder.

Many students are fearful of listening, and can be disheartened when they listen to something but feel they understand very little. It is also harder to concentrate on listening if you have little interest in a topic or situation.

Pre-listening tasks aim to deal with all of these issues: to generate interest, build confidence and to facilitate comprehension.

Aims and types of pre-listening tasks

* Setting the context
This is perhaps the most important thing to do – even most exams give an idea about who is speaking, where and why. In normal life we normally have some idea of the context of something we are listening to.

* Generating interest
Motivating our students is a key task for us. If they are to do a listening about sports, looking at some dramatic pictures of sports players or events will raise their interest or remind them of why they (hopefully) like sports. Personalisation activities are very important here. A pair-work discussion about the sports they play or watch, and why, will bring them into the topic, and make them more willing to listen.

* Activating current knowledge – what do you know about…?
‘You are going to listen to an ecological campaigner talk about the destruction of the rainforest’. This sets the context, but if you go straight in to the listening, the students have had no time to transfer or activate their knowledge (which may have been learnt in their first language) in the second language. What do they know about rainforests? – Where are they? What are they? What problems do they face? Why are they important? What might an ecological campaigner do? What organisations campaign for ecological issues?

* Acquiring knowledge
Students may have limited general knowledge about a topic. Providing knowledge input will build their confidence for dealing with a listening. This could be done by giving a related text to read, or, a little more fun, a quiz.

* Activating vocabulary / language
Just as activating topic knowledge is important, so is activating the language that may be used in the listening. Knowledge-based activities can serve this purpose, but there are other things that can be done. If students are going to listen to a dialogue between a parent and a teenager who wants to stay overnight at a friend’s, why not get your students to role play the situation before listening. They can brainstorm language before hand, and then perform the scene. By having the time to think about the language needs of a situation, they will be excellently prepared to cope with the listening.

* Predicting content
Once we know the context for something, we are able to predict possible content. Try giving students a choice of things that they may or may not expect to hear, and ask them to choose those they think will be mentioned.

* Pre-learning vocabulary
When we listen in our first language we can usually concentrate on the overall meaning because we know the meaning of the vocabulary. For students, large numbers of unknown words will often hinder listening, and certainly lower confidence. Select some vocabulary for the students to study before listening, perhaps matching words to definitions, followed by a simple practice activity such as filling the gaps in sentences.

* Checking / understanding the listening tasks
By giving your students plenty of time to read and understand the main listening comprehension tasks, you allow them to get some idea of the content of the listening. They may even try to predict answers before listening.

Selection criteria
When planning your lesson you should take the following factors into account when preparing the pre-listening tasks.

* The time available

* The material available

* The ability of the class

* The interests of the class

* The nature and content of the listening text

The choice of pre-listening task also gives you a chance to grade the listening lesson for different abilities. If you have a class who are generally struggling with listening work, then the more extensive that the pre-listening work is the better. If, however, you wish to make the work very demanding, you could simply do work on the context of the listening. Thus, the same listening text can provide work for different abilities.

Personally, I feel it is important to devote a fair proportion of a lesson to the pre-listening task, should the listening warrant it. For example, the listening about an ecological campaigner lends itself well to extended knowledge and vocabulary activation. However, a listening involving airport announcements may only need a shorter lead-in, as the topic is somewhat narrower.

Overall, training your students to bring their own knowledge and their skills of prediction to their listening work can only help them when listening to the language outside the classroom. These skills are as much a part of listening as understanding pronunciation or listening for details.

Learning by Heart

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:27:23 +0000

Learning by heart – a plea for poetry.
A strange expression that. What it usually means is memorization – sticking things in your head and keeping them there, ready to reproduce when required. Download, save, open.
Amo, amas, amat, amatis, amantis, amant.
Two twos are four, three twos are six, four twos are eight.

We might be asked to learn a passage from a textbook for a dictation or a list of words to spell. And how else do you remember irregular verbs other than by committing them to memory?

What I’m interested in here though is the heart part – the seat of the emotions.
While we can all to a greater or lesser extent remember information, if there is an affective as well as a cognitive element –if what you are reading touches your feelings together with your understanding, if the meaning is more important than the mechanics, then you may interact with the material and make it yours (possibly for life).

When mentally or orally reciting the Latin and Maths examples above, do you notice that you tend to give them a rhythm – the Greek word for flow, by the way? (The syllables in bold are the stressed ones).

Amo, amas, amat
Amatis, amantis, amant.

This, like the maths chant, has three beats to the line so is known in poetry as a trimeter.

Here’s a tetrameter:
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills         – Wordsworth

And a pentameter:
To be or not to be: That is the question.       -Shakespeare (Not from a poem, but all his plays as well as his sonnets were written in iambic pentameter.)

Here’s a ballad with alternating four and three line stresses:
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.                            – Wilde

We are exposed to rhyme and rhythm at an early age through nursery rhymes:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

It’s strange that poetry is often thought of as “difficult”. In pre-literate societies, balladeers and bards would travel around communities; folk tales, myths, legends and songs were passed down orally.
Rhythm and rhyme helped in both the telling and the remembrance of news and ideas. Rock and rap are just poetry put to music. Nothing particularly highbrow about these forms of cultural expression.
In many cultures poets have had their work put to popular music and everybody knows them.

My point is this:
If we want our students to remember language which is compact, rhythmic, varied, engaging, personally meaningful and memorable, we could do worse than encourage them to learn poems or just lines or verses by heart.

A number of our students probably do this already with contemporary popular music lyrics.

What you can advise them to do is to print out or write out the poem / verse and keep it with them in a bag or pocket. During the day at solitary moments while walking, using public transport, in the bathroom or before going to sleep they can look at and say the poem to themselves, trying each time to commit more lines to memory. It helps to say the words out loud or at least mouth them (at the risk of being thought slightly mad by anyone overhearing). Poems are meant to be read aloud as a song is meant to be sung.

Poems can be found all over the net – www.poemhunter.com is useful as it also provides a glossary. Students can choose their own poems, but will probably need guidance from you, in which case choose poems that are your favourites.
Here’s the beginning of what has been voted the most popular poem in English; If by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

Learning lines or full verses by heart gives students the power of having authentic material at hand; writing that can touch them and provide models of grammar and introduce new lexis.

– that you can be enthusiastic about. If you’re not familiar with much poetry in English, why not start with what has been voted the most popular poem in the English language: If, by Rudyard Kipling, which begins thus:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

We’re not in the business of literary criticism, but we do need something to talk about with our students and one of the powers of poetry lies in its ability to connect to the consciousness of individuals in different ways. Responses to a poem will always vary.
Learning a poem by heart means it is always with you. You may like the sounds of the words, the idea behind it, the way it deals with a subject, but you cannot be unaffected by it. It might even change your life.

So, go through the above and highlight what advantages I mention to do with learning a poem by heart.
Can you think of any disadvantages?

For more Nursery Rhymes check out Express Publishing’s Happy Rhymes series!

Philosophical Latin Phrases

admin — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:08:03 +0000

Here’s something you might try with higher level / age groups. Give them some of the phrases in groups (don’t do them all in one session) and ask them to come up with ways in which these sayings might or might not be true and whether they agree with them. This can lead to a whole class discussion. The activity helps develop the six elements of critical thinking that will help improve reading comprehension:

* Interpretation
* Analysis
* Inference
* Explanation
* Self-regulation

Amor vincit omnia
Love conquers all.

bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem
It is not goodness to be better than the worst.

exitus acta probat
The result validates the deeds.

errare humanum est
To err is human.

fabas indulcet fames
Hunger sweetens the beans.

facta non verba
Deeds, not words (Actions speak louder than words).

fallaces sunt rerum species
The appearances of things are deceptive.

flat justitia ruat coelum
Let justice be done through the heavens fall.

in vino veritas
There is truth in wine (truth is told by him who has drunk wine).

lex non distinguitur nos non distinguere debemus
The law does not distinguish and so we ought not distinguish.

legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus
We are slaves of the law in order that we may be able to be free.

multum in parvo
Much in little.

memento mori
Remember that you will die.

mendacem memorem esse oportet
It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory (liars should have good memories).

mens sana in corpore sano
A sound mind in a sound body.

minima maxima sunt
The smallest things are most important.

nemo liber est qui corpori servit
No one is free who is a slave to his body.

non est vivere sed valere vita est
Life is not being alive but being well (life is more than just being alive).

non semper erit aestas
It will not always be summer (be prepared for hard times).

non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum
Do not take as gold everything that shines like gold.

ne quid nimis
Nothing in excess.

nemo dat quod non habet
No one gives what he does not have.

non est ad astra mollis e terris via
There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.

nosce te ipsum
Know thyself .

omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis
All things change, and we change with them.

omnia causa fiunt
Everything happens for a reason.

parva leves capiunt animas
Small things occupy light minds (small things amuse small minds).

pessimum genus inimicorum laudantes
Flatterers are the worst type of enemies.

possunt quia posse videntur
They can because they seem to be able to (they can do it because they think they can do it – the power of positive thinking).

proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris
It is human nature to hate a person whom you have injured.

perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim
Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.

quod me nutrit me destruit.
What nourishes me also destroys me.

qui tacet consentire
Who is silent gives consent.

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchers themselves?

radix omnium malorum est cupiditas
The love of money is the root of all evil.
Avarice is the problem, money itself is not evil.

respice, adspice, prospice
Examine the past, examine the present, examine the future (look to the past, the present, the future).

sic transit gloria mundi
So passes away earthly glory.

sedit qui timuit ne non succederet.
He who feared he would not succeed sat still.

struit insidias lacrimis cum femina plorat.
When a woman weeps, she is setting traps with her tears.

timendi causa est nescire
Ignorance is the cause of fear.

tempus fugit
Time flies.

una salus victis nullam sperare salutem
The one safety for the vanquished is to abandon hope of safety (knowing that there is no hope can give one the courage to fight and win).

ut sementem feceris ita metes
As you sow so will you reap.

veritas vos liberabit
The truth shall make you free.

vincit qui se vincit
He conquers who conquers himself.

vir sapit qui pauca loquitur
That man is wise who talks little (know when to hold your tongue).

verbum sat sapienti
A word is enough for a wise man.

vox populi vox dei
The voice of the people is the voice of god.

Rock ‘n’ roll best sung in American accents

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:22:25 +0000

The article below suggests that people naturally sing pop songs in an American accent, so how about trying this out in class? Getting the students to both sing recorded songs and their own compositions could help them with their pronunciation.

Singing with an American accent comes naturally and it not just a way to break into the US charts, a new study suggests.

Ever since the Sixties, some of the biggest names in British music have been accused of faking their style to become stars in the US. But a study has found that people lapse naturally into a stateside twang because it is actually easier to sing that way – and feels more natural. That is why it is difficult to detect Robert Plant’s West Bromwich roots in the hits of Led Zeppelin, or a London accent in the Rolling Stones or hear any trace of South Wales when husky-voiced Bonnie Tyler belts out a ballad.

According to researcher Andy Gibson, the American voice is easier to sing with and is so commonplace that it should be called the “pop music accent” instead. Mr Gibson, of the Auckland University of Technology, made the claim after tests on New Zealand singers. He found that despite speaking with distinct Kiwi accents, they would automatically sing the same words just like true Americans. This is because singing in a local accent would sound funny and because American rounding off of words makes it easier to sing them.

Mr Gibson said there were huge differences between the sung and the spoken pronunciation of the same words. Consider the difference between ‘I’ (spoken) and ‘ah’ (sung), ‘girl’, pronounced without the ‘r’ in speech and with the ‘r’ in singing, and ‘thought’ with rounded lips in speech versus ‘thart’ with unrounded lips in singing.

“Studies in the past have suggested that non-American singers wilfully put on American accents but my research suggests the opposite – that an American-influenced accent is the default when singing pop.”

Mr Gibson believed his findings also explain why so many of us end up sounding like cheesy rock stars when we sing our favourite songs in private. “We do it automatically; it doesn’t require any effort to sing with an American-influenced accent,” he said. “The American-influenced accent is automatic in the context of singing pop music, and it is used by people from all around the world. It actually requires effort to do something different. The American accent doesn’t stick out in singing because we are so used to hearing it. To sing in a New Zealand accent takes awareness and effort, and it is usually quite noticeable because it is so uncommon.

The American accent doesn’t stick out in singing because we are so used to hearing it.”

The accent people use in their singing is more about the style of music than about where they come from. “For example when we sing reggae we are more likely to use a Jamaican accent but even someone from Jamaica might use a southern American accent when they are singing country and western type songs,” Mr Gibson said.

To sum up… with American accent or not, let us all enjoy good music!

Shedule or skedule?

admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 08:52:56 +0000

How should we pronounce “schedule”? How do you pronounce it – with a hard “k” or a soft “sh” sound? Well, in a study by the British Library, interim results suggest a third of Britons taking part now adopt the American-style “skedule” over the traditional British “sh” pronunciation. Other US pronunciations taking root, according to researchers, are “pay-triotic”, in place of “pat-riotic”, and “advertISEment”, instead of “adVERTisement”.

The research, which is ongoing, is part of a series of projects connected to the British Library’s Evolving English exhibition. It involves volunteers using the library’s website to submit a recording of themselves saying six prescribed words and stating where they are from.

Britons are also creating a new way of saying controversy which hasn’t traditionally been used in Britain or the US. Three quarters of Britons taking part say “conTROversy”, with the emphasis on the middle syllable, rather than the previously conventional “CONtroversy”.

Other words being studied are:

- “garage”, which Britons are more likely to pronounce as “garridge”, over the more French sounding “garaarge”, which is universal in the US.

- “attitude”, where there is no sign of the British adopting the US “attitood” over “atti-chewed”.

– “neither” – despite the impression given in the George Gershwin song “Let’s call the whole thing off”, there is no clear divide between Britons and Americans, with “nee-ther” and “ny-ther” used on both sides of the Atlantic.

– “scone” – which Americans all rhyme with “bone”, but which many British rhyme with “gone”.

Similes & Feelings

admin — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:30:36 +0000

Lesson in brief: Students will explore anger using similes.

Introduction: Explain that this activity will foster creative thinking by asking students to make connections between things they don’t usually think of as connected. Review or explain the meaning of simile: a figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared.

1. Ask the students to name the following:
three machines or appliances (e.g., television, car, computer)
two things found in nature (e.g., birds, rock)
one activity people like to do that ends in ing (e.g., swimming)
2. Record their responses on chart paper.
3. Beginning with the first machine, ask “Anger is like a _____________ because ______________.”
4. After receiving several responses from students for the first machine, go on to the second, and so on.

Discuss
What are we saying about anger?
Have you ever had an experience when your anger was like… (select an appliance, something in nature, etc.)?
Were you satisfied or dissatisfied with your response? Why?
What are some suggestions for reducing anger?

Pair Poems
In pairs, have students create a one-stanza short poem that incorporates similes from the previous activity. For example, using the simile “Anger is like a washing machine”, the poem should build on why anger is like a washing machine.

Have pairs share their poems.

Business jargon

admin — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:25:28 +0000

“Thinking outside the box” has been voted Britain’s most despised business jargon by researchers in a new poll. Nearly half of the Britons (49 per cent) surveyed by YouGov believe that the use of such terms is on the increase as employees seek to impress their bosses.

Although most of the phrases do not say anything important or useful, 20 per cent of people still believe that “buffling” – as the pollsters call it – has had or would have a positive impact on their career.

“Buffling outside of the office could be due in part to the explosion in business reality TV shows, such as Dragons Den, The Apprentice and more recently, Natural Born Sellers, where buffling is commonplace and often positively encouraged among those fighting it out for fame and the best job.”

The top 20 “buffling” business terms:

1. Thinking outside of the box
2. Touch base
3. At the end of the day
4. Going forward
5. All of it
6. Blue sky thinking
7. Out of the box
8. Credit crunch
9. Heads up
10. Singing from the same hymn sheet
11. Pro-active
12. Downsizing
13. Ducks in a row
14. Brainstorming
15. Thought shower
16. 360º thinking
17. Flag it up
18. Pushing the envelope
19. At this moment in time
20. In the loop

Which phrases most get on your nerves?

3 Ways to Organise Business emails

admin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:39:36 +0000

Organize your material in a way that helps readers to grasp the important information quickly and to navigate through the document easily. Your document will be an interruption to your reader’s busy day. They’ll read in haste, picking out the information relevant to themselves. They’ll be asking two questions with every sentence they read:

So what?
How does this affect me?

Plain words and short sentences will go a long way to helping them find the answers. But you will also need to organize the material so that the reader can extract what they want in the shortest possible time.

Several models are useful:

1. Top-heavy triangle
Put your most important point first, follow it with the next most important, and so on, until your last paragraph includes relatively minor points.

Example:

	Request for leave
Scene-setting	Thanks for your email yesterday
Big News	The managing director has agreed to your request to take special unpaid leave immediately after your visit to Rome. It is vital, though, that we have a brief written report of your key findings as soon as the business part of the trip is completed. Will you please fax this to us on 24 March?
Less important	As your flight was booked some time ago, please liaise with Michael South about rearranging the return leg.
Minor points	Hope this helps. We’ll speak again after Tuesday’s meeting

2. Problem – Cause – Solution

Example:
State the problem – You asked me to find out how a batch of chocolate came to be contaminated during the night shift on 25 April.

State the cause – What seems to have happened is that some inadequately treated reclaimed chocolate was added to the mix. This occurred because the reclaimed chocolate was mis-labelled and stored in the wrong part of the factory.

Then say what should happen in the future – The contaminated batch will have to be destroyed; the cost of the loss is about £2,800, taking everything into account. I have told supervisors to tighten their procedures for labelling and storage. They’ll be reporting back to me next week.

3. S-C-R-A-P (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Action, Politeness) – A corny mnemonic, but useful.

Example:

	Order for 5 Sky-Fly hang gliders, £2,250 each
Situation	Thank you for your order dated 17 December; my apologies for the delay in responding.
Complication	The manufacturers have recently withdrawn the Sky-Fly and now offer a much improved model, the Sky Jet. I enclose a leaflet which gives details of all its features.
Resolution	Although the price of the Sky Jet is £255 more than the old model, I can offer it to you at a special introductory price of £2,385 until 10 January next. We could let you have immediate delivery.
Action	If you would like to order the new model at the discount price, do please give me or my assistants a call.
Politeness	I look forward to hearing from you.

Top 20 Shakespeare quotes

admin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:14:11 +0000

Match the halves and feel cultured (you can then attempt to slip them into casual conversations you have in English. Extra points if your interlocutor can name the play). Use these in advanced classes and ask them if they agree with the sentiments.

1. There is nothing either good or bad…
2. When sorrows come, they come not single spies…
3. What’s gone and what’s past help…
4. Tell me where is fancy bred…
5. Life is as tedious…
6. I am a man…
7. I have very poor and unhappy brains…
8. The first thing we do…
9. The worst is not…
10. Parting is such sweet sorrow…
11. Condemn the fault…
12. To be wise and love…
13. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools…
14. Away with him…
15. One that loved not wisely…
16. Few love to hear…
17. Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more…
18. The prince of darkness…
19. O brave new world…
20. To be or not to be…

a) … should be past grief.
b) … for drinking.
c) … Let’s kill all the lawyers.
d) … but in battalions.
e) … the sins they act.
f) … but thinking makes it so.
g) … as a twice told tale.
h) … men were deceivers ever.
i) … more sinned against than sinning.
j) … In the heart or in the head?
k) … is a gentleman.
l) … but not the actor for it?
m) … so long as we can say “This is the worst.”
n) … He speaks Latin!
o) … that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
p) … but too well.
q) … that has such people in it.
r) … exceeds man’s might.
s) … that is the question.
t) … the way to dusty death.

Answers: 1-f, 2-d, 3-a, 4-j, 5-g, 6-i, 7-b, 8-c, 9-m, 10-o, 11-l, 12-r, 13-t, 14-n, 15-p, 16-e, 17-h, 18-k, 19-q, 20-s.

We have converted the exercise above into a pdf in-class exercise ready for you to use with your students which you will find HERE!

Adobe by clicking here

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