Sunday, January 31, 2010

274. If words: communication

One day teacher A said to teacher B,

“Words, as you know, are essential for any communication.

No words, no communication.

One student of mine told me, some days ago, about his tricks to learn new words.

He is learning Finnish. Finnish is not an Indo-European language.

He does a variety of things. Writes a list of new words.

Now he writes longer lists of words he picks here and there. He dares to write longer lists: he thought before he shouldn’t write too long lists.

He makes a mental photograph of the word or phrase.

Something that helps him is to unconsciously relate the new word with a cognate of his own language. A cognate or one similar word in some way: “pelliohjet”, which is Finnish word, resembles and sounds similar to Spanish “pelo”, and “jet” reminds of English “jet”, “yet”. That Finnish word means “guide of rules” (of a board game). He learned that word weeks ago.

He uses Wordreference, a nice dictionary-plus-forum on the Web.

He revises the words by making mental training, by doing the effort of recalling the word. He says his memory is like chewing-gum.

He uses the words into compositions his teacher sets them as homework.

He rereads lists written long ago.

He has kind of a hunger to learn new word, or like the necessity – and like – of learning new words.

He writes sentences with the new words.

He plays with the dictionary, looking at entries at random.

He says he has invented and improved some tricks that help him to analyze new words and compare his former ways of learning with more recent ones.

He is somehow bold in using words: he takes risks.

He makes up puns with sense of humor.

He has created a mentality more prone to capture new words.

His vocabulary has increased awesome. – Any learner, any authentic learner has his personal ways.”

Picture from postalhearitage org uk

Friday, January 29, 2010

273. Meeting native speakers

Below is a part of a chapter of the book I wrote on TEFL, some years ago. I copied and pasted something about courses and programs for learning English in countries where that language is the mother tongue. I've made some minor changes. This text keeps some positive and nice experiences I have with regard to those courses abroad, and it be also nice to provide with some useful tips. The Scottish piper picture was taken from a website of which I didn't save the name. Sorry for the format problems of this post: the book is in the Word program.

En el colegio en el que trabajaba en Jaén (sur de España) hasta 2002 los chicos pasaban el primer trimestre de curso en Irlanda, estudiando lo mismo que en España, más o menos. Tanto el centro de Irlanda como el nuestro de España son masculinos. Las mismas empresas tienen sedes femeninas.

Se escogen familias conocidas, y de buena reputación. Va un profesor con ellos, de España. Recuerdo con agrado por ejemplo el caso de José Ignacio, que por entonces estudiaba 1º de la ESO: a la vuelta, hablaba inglés con soltura, y un buen día, en ese idioma, nos contó al resto de la clase, fluidamente, con su carácter fuerte por cierto, anécdotas de Irlanda.

Lo mejor de pasar un trimestre, o mejor un año, e incluso varios, cara al idioma, es precisamente la inmersión. Todo en inglés.

El profesor español que les acompaña puede charlar con cada chico, de cuando en cuando, en tutoría, para ayudarles a adquirir la lengua extranjera. Mejor aún, el profesor le pregunta al chico qué y cómo está haciendo para aprender el idioma. Eso último le hace más consciente de la oportunidad, única, que está viviendo, y toma parte activa en su aprendizaje. El profesor puede orientarle, si está muy perdido en la clase del colegio irlandés, o incluso consolarle en sus dificultades. Ah, y que envíe un email a sus padres o les telefonee. Que les telefonee, pero no todos los días; esto suelen hacerlo algunos chicos, y algunos padres. Algún chaval me lo contaba, con naturalidad: hablo con mis padres y con mis hermanos todos los días más o menos una hora...

El primer objetivo de la estancia en Irlanda por ejemplo, es desarrollar la capacidad oral (speaking). Que los chicos y chicas queden con sus nuevos compañeros, que se relacionen con los nativos. Siempre encontrarán un chaval con el que sintonicen. Que jueguen al fútbol juntos, y que comenten al terminar, algún aspecto del partido. Muchas veces los nativos te escuchan con verdadero interés, queriendo ayudarte con la palabra que te falta. O que queden para una partida de la PS3 o de la Nintendo. Que las chicas queden para jugar al pádel, o pregunten a sus compañeras Aibreann[1], Bláthnaid y Clodagh, si les importa que les enseñen el centro de Dublín y las tiendas de ropa, y el Phoenix Park, el más extenso de Europa, o la Guinnes Brewery[2]. También pueden viajar con amigos en tren a visitar el castillo de Cashel[3]. Que se lo pasen bien, que disfruten. Y esto solo lo conseguirán si salen de su ensimismamiento, y están también pendientes de un compañero más solitario, más cohibido, que le cuesta relacionarse, y que sin embargo les puede acompañar. Viven situaciones inolvidables.

Ni que decir que el grupo de chicos españoles asiste a todas las clases del colegio irlandés, de acuerdo con su edad. Como ayuda para entender la clase del día siguiente, pueden leer y estudiar en el libro sobre lo que va a tratar al día siguiente Mrs. Fiona R. O’Flaherty.

Por último diré que ojo con determinadas ofertas publicitarias deslumbrantes, que resultan un fraude. Por favor, entérate de cómo funciona el curso, y cuantos más detalles, mejor. O bien por referencias de otros compañeros, otros centros, o empieza a tirar del hilo de la organización que hace la oferta. Ojo, que hay mucho timo. Los buenos cursos en tal país son convenientes. Pero muchas familias no pueden costearlo. Aquí en nuestro país también se organizan cursos maravillosos, con la ventaja del ahorro y de estar a un paso de los padres: los profesores suelen ser nativos, por ejemplo americanos, que enganchan muy bien con tu hijo, porque aquellos son muy abiertos y divertidos. Tengo más información sobre cursos de este tipo.

[1] Aibreann (como se pronuncia en inglés av-rawn), Bláthnaid (blaw-nid), Clodagh (klodah).

[2] Famosa fábrica de cervezas Guinnes: vale la pena visitarla. Y su museo histórico. Y te dan una degustación...

[3] Castillo en ruinas en el sur de Irlanda. Habrás notado que “Cashel” viene de “castle”, castillo. Once millas al norte de Cahir.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

272. How to reach the peak?

I copy from a document of mine. It’s a summary of the research I have carried out these years about success in learning a language. This text is like a tip for teachers, a tip to keep in mind.

A person who really wishes to learn a language, and he has the firm resolution to achieve that goal, he is on the right pathway toward success. This resolution is an effective will plus some like of learning that language. You love what you know. You know more and more, and this fact makes you love learning and carrying on learning. You ever learn, from this text, from that text, from a notice, etc. All the time. Every day. You pick up one word here, one other word there. That is the learner that achieves learning.

Picture from www mountainguideschool com - Thank you.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

271. Use things that grind their attention

One day teacher B said to teacher A, "I've realized that if you use your students' likes and favorite topics as stuff for the exercises and activities, they get more stuck and prone to participate. I've made one student to grind a prompt in order to make him speak out something. This student supports Barça soccer team, in the Spanish soccer league. I said the best player was Cristiano Ronaldo - a famous player of Real Madrid-, so he startled and showed his disagreement, you know, in a funny way, by replying something. We've practiced the verb be by saying things about Real Madrid and Barça. I mean, I wrote on the whiteboard am, are , is. Then I said out sentences with a blank, which they had to complete by using one of those verbal forms. In this game-activity I referred to the coaches, players, etc. Otherwise they would keep on not using properly the forms of the verb be. We repeat something similar in later classes, to learn those forms."
mathildaweirdworldweblog files wordpress com, thank you for the picture.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

270. Teachers are making something big

I just read a text that is round, in my opinion. It says big of us teachers. A nice homage to teachers.

A juzgar por los titulares de prensa, la enseñanza atraviesa horas bajas. Sin embargo, ni los episodios de violencia, ni las supuestas crisis de autoridad, ni las bajas laborales, ni los preocupantes resultados del informe PISA hacen justicia a los miles y miles de maestros que todos los días acuden al encuentro de sus alumnos con la convicción de que deben prepararles bien para que después sean capaces de construir un mundo mejor.

It’s the beginning of an article on teachers. Published in Nuestro Tiempo, a magazine/journal of Universidad de Navarra (Spain), about current events, mainly. This magazine/journal also contains reports on books, movies; thought columns; analysis of current events. The article or report has been written by undergraduates and graduates of this university. The writers are Isabel Cañas, Leyre Hualde, María Jiménez, María Malo, Isabel Olloqui, Sonsoles Gutiérrez, Javier Marrodán. This latter one is the director of the magazine. The issue is # 660, January-February 2010. (The report refers to Spain).

Picture from www indulgencecharters com. It's The London's Eye, the largest or one of the largest big-wheels in the world.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

269. O, here is the treasure!

I'd like to add that the story told on post 267 deals with learning strategies. I guess this is a point worthy to note. The better strategies a learner utilizes, the more he will learn/acquire the language. www toothmingle com, thank you.

268. She's one of my best students!

One day teacher A said to teacher B,
"One day teacher C told me that she was helping a student of 2º Bachillerato to pass Selectividad examination.
Moreover, during the academic year these students had to work out texts set by their teacher (D), for Wednesdays.
This latter teacher set as homework to read and work on one given text.
In the class-period the students had to translate from Spanish into English, taking stuff of information from the text.
Teacher C advised this student to read and reread the texts in order to fully understand them;
also advised her to learn as many words as possible from the text, because this learner would have to use those words to translate the sentences;
and to learn and grasp grammar patterns and expressions from the texts, which would be useful for the translations.
The text level of difficulty is similar to First Certificate."
Bachillerato is the academic year before entering university, in Spain. And Selectividad is an examination the students have to pass and get the possible higher grades at, right after that year of Bachillerato. Translating is a very good activity, which comprises practicing several different strategies, but in Spain a few teachers overuse it. Translating from L1 to L2 is obviously more difficult than the other way round. Next academic year 2010-11 an oral conversation shall be one more part of this exam. So far, the students in Selectividad, have got to do varied activities about this text, plus some other exercises.
Picture from www attendis com.

267. I hit it!

One day teacher B said to teacher A, "Yesterday! I realized the way how to force my students to make an oral sentence! Or more or less the same: force them to say, to try to say, a message, try to communicate with me utilizing the words they know, some rough grammar, some invented words..., a lot of errors; anyway, I congratulated the student who said this message, these two or four sentences together, because of his hard try to tell me something. Basically the thing was: I had eliminated one other kid-player in a game, but I was wrong: he was not so. His friend tried to tell me in English that I was wrong, because of this, because of that... He had a real and realistic necessity to use English! Like you know, I have a treatment with them: at the time of the class-period I understand and speak English (it's a game, I pretend I don't understand them: both them and I are Spanish)."
Roland Joffé directed this movie, released in 1986. Thanks to robertdeniroweb iespana es, for the picture.

Friday, January 22, 2010

266. Starting a long way

One day teacher A said to teacher B, "Yesterday one of the kids I teach came and told me she had passed a test she had done a few days ago. She has some flaws at studying from her coursebook, and in general. Like you know, I work in a center similar to an academy, but as well our center offers more activities: excursions, study hall, of course (ever-present in Spain) little soccer (futbito), talks for their parents, computering, extra classes, courses in the summer... I told this girl she had done fine; that's a big step forward; she failed the first term in English; and because she has passed this test consequently she had passed the first term. I expect she will keep on making better off." Picture from www destination360 com, thank you.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

265. Improving ways

One day teacher B said to teacher A,
"Some years ago I read something in Ian Meyer that may be of any interest for our class-periods.
One teacher used to make worksheets as aids for the stuff the class-group was learning. Those sheets were kept in simple plastic transparent bags, size, say, the corresponding American format to A4.
Each bag contained several sheets, as reinforcement for the learners.
And those bags were kept in a nice ring-binder folder.
She usually called one student when this one had nothing else to do in the classroom.
She kept this folder in a nice tidied up way.
The learner came to the teacher desk and this one turned over the bags for the student to take one not done yet.
But one day... she handed out the folder to one kid, and told her to find one worksheet by her own.
This way the teacher achieved the learners become more responsible and autonomous when choosing one sheet.
Turned out fine."
www ecran-de-veille fr, thank you for the picture.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

264. Good job: you are perservering!

One day teacher A said to teacher B,
"You can only love what you know.
Many learners fail to learn a language because they don't persevere in their process.
They don't carry on, for example, because they lose the 'affection' to learning. Learning demands a continous work, and they refuse to keep on learning.
On the contrary, many learners persevere, also, one of the motives, because they like this learning/acquiring process.
And they learn more and more, and they like communicating and practicing in, say, English.
They like learning, more and more.
One new word for them is one step forward.
You as a teacher can do a lot regards this like.
With your positive good mood, every day, overcoming the likey problems you will encounter.
You transmit your effort and affection and eagerness to help them in this process."
A construction worker in The Empire States building; picture thanks to www imagecache5 art com.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

263. Be audacious: You'll beat it!

One day teacher B said to teacher A,
"Rebecca Oxford, on her book about learning strategies, she refers to intelligently understanding a message.
I'm worried some of my learners might not understand what I say in the class-period.
I think it's more simple to understand things they can see written on the whiteboard.
This lady talks about using clues to intelligently understand a message.
The clues are precisely the similarities between L1 and L2.
I told you the reference of her book some posts before this one.
She gives this example.
The students see association sans but lucratif, in French.
And they can understand it from the similarities with some English words. Sans can sound or can be figured out as sin in Spanish, without in English, maybe because the learners already know these words.
Furtherly we have lucrative in English.
Summing up, the point is that they can kind of figure out the meaning."
www ubercoolgifts com, thank you for the picture.

Monday, January 18, 2010

262. Encounter a classic

One day teacher A said to teacher B,
"Reading helps constructing ways of how to express ideas in English, also helps acquire grammar models and idioms.
My learners read classics.
Other teachers the same department propose other kinds of books.
The director is open to any proposal; this is the first premise.
Every year I plan a short set of abridged and simplified novels. Even I set only one reading for a year.
Besides, reading classics gives values to the kids, universal and positive and virtuous values to the learners who have been entrusted to me, and to the whole staff of teachers.
What values?
Think of love, faithfulness, asking God for things, perseverance, courage, forgiveness, comradeship, being audacious, friendship, obedience to someone above in the ranking in the army for example, loyalty, spiritual values, virtues or positive habits, hope, the family, and the like values.
It's worthy to implement. Do try.
Oh, by doing this way we read authors of the history of universal literature too.
That implies encountering, many times, the best stuff of the people who have done or have been something great, or have written great in history."
Fred Zinemann directed this movie, released in 1952, starring Gary Cooper. In Spain we know this film by Solo ante el peligro. (something like Alone facing a peril).

Sunday, January 17, 2010

261. Every person is unique

One day teacher A said to teacher B,
"In a school, someplace, some time, one student, within one class-group, high school age approximately, was treated bad by some of her teachers.
Truly she was very troublesome, disruptive, got bad grades.
She grew a big low self-esteem: she thought of herself as the worst among her sisters.
The black sheep.
She would not reach any high in studies, and perhaps in life.
I assume she was mistreated, some of her teachers did things wrong.
Bad thing, definitely.
She wasn't offered any..., say, any, any praise, any backup, or any positive help to get out of the hole.
The point: she did need one hand to get the best stuff out of her, to take small steps upward.
She thought of herself just like a silly person.
I precisely exaggerated the story, I went over the top.
But think how she could have improved herself - beside the study thing - if applied the treatment you have been formed on as a teacher."

Pic from www geekologie com.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

260. My students are persons, who need love, and who need to love

One day teacher B said to teacher A,
"Some days ago teacher C told me she had reminded of her students, at the Christmas vacation. She missed them.
She prayed for them those days.
She recalled one by one her students: she loves them.
She does not have any obligation this kind.
Or does she, in some way?
She is committed with a deep labor by educating her students.
It's more likely, in this way, she can actually help them.
She said she notices some correspondence: she sees affection, response to that love, an effort to improve as persons, an effort to learn English (more or less).
One of those schoolgirls said to this teacher that she got upset because another different teacher scolded and screamed at her for any small trifle."
www abandorman com - Thank you for the pic.

Friday, January 15, 2010

259. Just for our everyday struggle

(picture from www oldskoolanthemz com)

Ok, you win. Here you are. I hope this long list of games be any helpful. I'm convinced we teachers have to help out one another.

This is the work result of quite a nice number of years teaching.

Excuse me for the formatting errors: I copied from a Word document.

Updated April 9, 2010

Apéndice 6

Games for classes

Aunque hay un apartado de este libro dedicado a la explicación de cada juego, en castellano, me ha parecido conveniente componer este guión de juegos. Ahora los coloco por orden de dificultad, o prefiero decir de desafío, para los alumnos. Se puede aprender una lengua jugando. El juego es una imitación de la vida, y más en el caso en que los chicos tienen que utilizar inglés para comunicarse en clase.

They are really fun, both for the teacher and the students. Besides, they practice real communication in English. Give them points for the scoring. They are just set on a list ---further developments and variations might be applied. They cover from basic English up to proficient learners. The protagonists and actors of the following games and challenges ought to be the students themselves. They practice from simply words or spelling, up to long presentations or speeches. A strong point: most of them do not need extra preparation before the class!

Explain the game in English. Have fun!

  1. TPR (Total Physical Response): fulfilling instructions said by the teacher or by a student.
  2. Soccer-players position on the field (or “pitch”): In Spain most kids support either of these two teams: Real Madrid or Barça. Ask them: who is the goalkeeper? The defenders? The midfields? The offensives (or “forwards”).
  3. At any level: a warmer (or warm-up): a starting quick fun game or just questions to plunge the students into the class-period of English, after the math class-period for example.
  4. Dictionary. The teacher writes a new word on the blackboard. The student who finds the meaning first, one point. Very helpful to practice looking up words in a dictionary. Every activity can be done individually or in pairs or in groups of three. In different levels or different ages.
  5. The teacher writes words beginning with the same letter. The students have to order those words as they are in the dictionary: belong, believe, beneath, be, beep, bend, bachelor, believer.
  6. Who knows an object of the classroom? Who knows a means of transportation…? Who knows a color in English? Who knows... ?
  7. Simon says… They really enjoy this one!
  8. Hangman. With words and also to construct sentences.
  9. Spelling words written on the blackboard.
  10. Writing words on BB from someone's spelling.
  11. Reading numbers and years.
  12. Many possible games with the alphabet. One example: once the alphabet is on BB the teacher taps on one letter, with his chalk, and they say out the pronunciation of that letter. Can be a lot of fun.
  13. Similar; they usually confuse the pronunciation of the vowels a e i.
  14. You write the consonants of some words and they have to give the vowels.
  15. Making up as many words as possible with some given letters.
  16. Questions addressed to one single student (identity items, his family, his soccer team, his favorite color…).
  17. Words guessed from a picture drawn on the blackboard by the students. Everyone wants to go to the BB to draw!
  18. Competitions of words between two players, about a given topic. Fantastic.
  19. Matching words with meanings, on BB.
  20. The same but orally. Can be difficult.
  21. The teacher writes one sentence on the BB. You all repeat it as a chorus... And then you erase the sentence, and they have to recall it. Pair-work, or individually, or the class as a single team versus the teacher.
  22. Competition of vocab: all the class-group vs the teacher.
  23. Guessing a word from its meaning, explained by someone.
  24. Unscrambling words.
  25. Mental calculation with several math operations. Start with plus and minus.
  26. Word-nets by eliciting words of the semantic field of “the street”, “the airport”.
  27. The students say names of colors or whatever topic. The teacher writes them on the BB. The students have to memorize the words, for one minute. One student turns around and says as many words as he can remember.
  28. Chained words, either orally or on the BB.
  29. Filling out blanks of a text. Many varied possibilities: one missing word, missing some substantives, a blank every 8 words…
  30. Brainstorming of words of a topic. One student has to make a full sentence with one word the teacher says.
  31. The teacher asks someone or a volunteer to give a letter. The teacher writes the letter on the BB. The students have to say 20 words beginning with that letter. Or 5 words, according to their level.
  32. Guessing a word from a student’s miming and acting out.
  33. Memory dictation. The teacher says a word. One student says another word. One student says the word the teacher said, and so on.
  34. Broken telephone: one student says one sentence to a classmate, both out of the classroom. (You told the sentence to the first student, also outside). The second student says the same sentence to a third one. This one to a fourth one..., always the two students outside.
  35. Guessing the celeb I’m talking about.
  36. Telling about your family. First the teacher tells and they listen. After that the teacher asks the students questions about the teacher’s family, using the relatives’ names also.
  37. One student speaks about his or her family, etc.
  38. Figuring out or recalling classroom language.
  39. Unscrambling sentences.
  40. Making sentences with stripes of paper.
  41. Competition of letters of the alphabet. When one student makes a mistake by pronouncing a letter wrong, he gets eliminated.
  42. Writing the possible longest word on the BB.
  43. Or the longest sentence!
  44. The teacher writes three sentences on BB, with errors. They have to say these errors. The grammar or vocab they are learning those days.
  45. The teacher writes a secret word on his notebook. The students ask him or her, questions so as to guess the word. For example yes/no questions.
  46. The students have to guess one word of the semantic field they are learning lately; the teacher says clues about that word.
  47. Defining a word. First, the teacher gives examples or molds how to explain the meaning of a word: use for, description, examples, opposites, material, shape, mimicry, color… Then the students have to explain the meaning of one given word.
  48. Guessing the meaning of a word from the context, in one quite-long sentence.
  49. Playing with a new word. The teacher writes a new word. He or she teaches how they can learn it: putting it into a sentence, spelling, grouping, comparison with a Spanish cognate. The point is to use it, also revising it on following days.
  50. Sentence exploitation: questions with wh- words to be answered with phrases (sintagmas, partes de la oración). In other words: the teacher asks wh-questions referring to each part of the sentence: where, when, who, why, what, which, how, how long, how far... Useful for practice of present simple and past simple.
  51. Now... one student asks wh-questions to exploit a sentence. A good grammar game. And challenging.
  52. The teacher him/herself learns new words s/he: keeps on learning words. He or she can keep writing a list of the words, on a notebook. S/he can share this process of learning words: s/he sets an example to the students. Also s/he utilizes one new word in the classroom, with the students. And this makes the teacher familiarize and interiorize the new words s/he is learning. The teacher shares the process of learning with his/her students. And these ones become aware that they are learning new words also, and they may reckon they are actually learning words in the classes of English.
  53. They try to figure out how to say names of countries in English. Or cities, or capitals.
  54. Five columns of words on the BB/WB: smell, see, hear, taste, touch.
  55. A small guessing game: “How would you say perforar? (piercing)”. Just for the kids to be aware of the origin of this so common word.
  56. Practical questions to the student, to be answered with the new grammar point.
  57. Passive sentences from active sentences. Or active sentences from passives.
  58. One story among all the students. The teacher says an intrigue and suspense beginning…
  59. Setting scrambled sentences of a story into the right order. For example with stripes of paper.
  60. Setting scrambled steps to correctly use a device, a machine…
  61. Orally completing sentences: “Chuck started to swim into a very dark cave and...”
  62. Three objects you’d take to an island, after a shipwreck, and why.
  63. Giving opposites.
  64. Giving synonyms.
  65. Defining, for example “car” by using “vehicle”, “4 wheels”, “transportation”. His/her classmates have got to try and guess the word.
  66. Translating from L1 into L2, from sentences to whole texts.
  67. Two sentences joined by conjunction linkers, like however.
  68. The teacher says one obvious statement: “A table has four legs.” The student makes a question for that statement: "How many legs does a table have?"
  69. Describing a photograph, either by the teacher or by the student.
  70. Network with words, as explained in one game above, but with a follow-up exposition or speech about the topic.
  71. Detective investigation. So useful to practice questions in past simple. Some police detectives ask questions to a suspecious guy, who might have committed the robbery in a bank, last night.
  72. Competition: speaking for the longest time, about for example “knife”.
  73. The teacher writes two imaginary titles, for two novels. The students have to say or write the beginning of the stories.
  74. The teacher says the meaning of a new word. The winner: the student who will say the corresponding actual word next day.
  75. The students plus the teacher fire questions to a student that has thought of a word or a celeb. The questions are of the yes/no type. But the student can’t say “yes” or “no”. This student can say things like “I don’t think so”, “That’s true”, “That’s not quite right”, “Hmm”, “I do”, “She does”, etc. From
  76. Movies exploitation. They understand more than you may expect.
  77. They invent a story from visualizing a picture with a person on it.
  78. Learning and retrieving the states of the USA, in different levels of difficulty.
  79. Two bad experiences by the same student, or by two students. From
  80. The last seven things you did before leaving your apartment this morning. From
  81. Places you’d visit if you won three plane tickets. From
  82. Collocations: “hard-working”, “good-looking”, “dire straits”, “weather forecast”.
  83. All kinds of listening exploitation, from a text in their coursebooks to extracts of talk-shows taken from radio stations from the Internet. Trying to understand just words, or the topic those people are talking about.
  84. Debates between two parties or groups of any kind.
  85. Texts exploitation.
  86. Read the beginning of an unabridged novel. You can discuss varied points about the comprehension of that passage with your class.
  87. Interpret the publishing and copyright stuff at the beginning of a novel.
  88. Role-plays. Acting out with previously learned vocabulary.
  89. Defining for example “vast”, but without the words “big”, “huge”, “enormous”, “large”. Or “car”, without “vehicle”, “4 wheels”, “transportation”.
  90. Phrasal verbs: joining two parts of a sentence to make a single one. The splitting gap is between the verb and the preposition or adverb.
  91. Trying to sell an old junky second-hand car.
  92. A candidate-for-primary-elections speech and his or her proposals. Even bizarre promises.
  93. Making up a list of words and expressions for surviving situations, like in the airport, or if lost in Manhattan.
  94. Orally continuing a tale or story. By a single student or by the class plus the teacher.
  95. Orally translating one sentence from L1 to L2.
  96. Composing emails to complain or to apply for a post, or just one kid to his/her parents.
  97. Questions about general culture. Orally or by writing.
  98. Composing essays. Option: introduction + development + conclusion.
  99. Eliciting Christian vocabulary, from “Dios” to parts of a church, or architectural items. As well: virtues, pieces of the Christian faith.
  100. Repeating long sentences, said by the teacher, from backward to the beginning, chunk by chunk. Very challenging.
  101. Recognizing words from phonetic transcriptions.
  102. Songs exploitation.
  103. A presentation of a topic their choice.
  104. Composing and defending a résumé (CV).
  105. A job interview.
  106. Teaching a class of English.
  107. Designing and labeling a website, or a blog.