grammar

Today you might meet a tall dark stranger – Horoscopes for Modals

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So as you know, we try, as much as possible, to use found authentic sources here, though sometimes we do write them ourselves.  This is in the former category, as I don’t fancy myself as a mystic meg.

Why horoscopes, well, basically, because one day as I was flicking through the paper I noticed they contained a lot of modals.  I’m not a big horoscope reader, but I’ve found that it is something that some, not all, students enjoy and can get into.

I would obviously recommend using the days horoscopes but have included two example ones taken from the independent to show what I mean.

I use this as a revision exercise of modals, so from Int upwards really.  I always try to get students noticing grammar in the real world.  The vocab is often very challenging but can be really good for working out meaning from context as hopefully I’ve shown in the worksheet.

For this you will either need copies of the days horoscopes or let them use their smartphones to access one, I used the Independent’s ones as they had quite a lot of good language in them and seemed to avoid lots of mentions of phases of the moon and other lexis that isn’t so high frequency.

Procedure:

Introduction

  1. Basic question to introduce topic
  2. Ask students to find their horoscope for the day, what does it predict? (if you have a really large class, you could start off altogether with one persons on the board and use that for the following exercises, before moving to students looking at other horoscopes.

Language analysis

  1. Ask Students to underline the modals in the text, there are normally a few. – see example worksheet
  2. Ask the students to match the modals to their function, are they talking about possibility / advice / prediction, etc.  Monitor and help sort out any problems / confusion.
  3. Synonym hunt, I have scaffolded it here, and as long you are all using the same paper, then you can do the same.  Otherwise, encourage students to write down the words they don’t know, and ask them to predict the meaning by substituting other words in their place.  Again, this will involve you monitoring and again, using one example with a large class may be more beneficial.

Possible extra:

You could, with higher levels, examine the other language that is contained in the examples.  Virgo contains lots of relative clauses, which could be good for Ints / Upp Ints.  Virgo also contains ‘Not only…, but also…’ good for higher levels.   Aries has some lovely ‘passives’ and ‘imperatives’.

Production:

  1. Ask the students to write / and/or record a horoscope, get them thinking about the style that is used and encourage them to use the appropriate modals and other language.
  2. If you have asked them to record it, then you can really work on pronunciation, getting them to think about the way it might be said, the added pauses to increase tension etc

Follow on:

  1. Ask the students to find a horoscope as homework and to underline the modals as they have done in class.  Also ask them to try to predict any unknown lexis.  Just to give them some extra noticing and vocab from context practice.

As I said at the beginning, I don’t see this as being a lesson for everyone, I predict some classes will like it while others won’t, which is ok.  You know your class, try it out on the classes it might work with.

I’m going back to my runes and crystal ball.

‘Used to’ and ‘Would’ for past habit dictogloss

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This is something I do whenever this language point comes up, it backs up another point that we have mentioned before; students won’t hear something unless they know it exists.

Why bother teaching ‘would’ for past habit?

I got asked this recently, and the best answer I can give is that when speaking native speakers may use ‘used to’ once but will rarely chain it together for a list of repeated actions for that we tend to use good old ‘would’, so if students want to progress and become more natural communicators then knowing this will be a step on the way.

This is a short lesson, hence its inclusion in the mini lessons section, it could be used to introduce the grammar point or to revise it, whatever you choose is fine and the script can obviously be altered to your own life.

Procedure:

Pre task: Ask your students which structures we can use to talk about past habits, if most of the students know would, there may be less call for doing this lesson!

  1. Tell students that you are going to read two sentences twice and that you want them to try to write down as much as they can.  Tell them not to worry about writing down every word but that they need to get the general meaning and then reconstruct the sentences from there.
  2. Read this text, or one you have altered

“When I was young I used to play football everyday, I’d get to school early everyday and me and my friends’d play for about half an hour. Then the bell’d ring and we’d all run to class.”

It is really important to only read it twice and to try to not emphasise ‘would’.

3. Ask them to  try to rewrite in pairs or groups what you said, encourage them but do not mention ‘would’.  Instead, ask questions such as what time is being talked about, present or past?  What type of word has to go before an infinitive etc.

4.  When they have struggled for a while and maybe some of them have got it, reveal it to them either with a hand out or on the board.

5.  Get them to identify the function of ‘used to’ – past habit

6.  Ask them to think about the use of ‘would’ – does it describe future or past?

Ask them which structures we can use to talk about past habits, they should come up with

  1. past simple
  2. used to
  3. would

7. Ask them to correct the following passage.

“When I was young I wanted to be a doctor, I would want to work in a hospital”

then ask them to complete this rule.

We can use used to / past simple / would to talk about past habits when the verb is stative.

we cannot use past simple / would with stative verbs.

8. Production stage

Ask your students to tell their partners something they used to do when they were younger and ask them to decribe the details using “would”.  Ask them to record it so they can listen back and make any corrections that are needed.

9. Reflection

Ask them again which tenses can be used to talk about past habits.  The old test-teach-test.

From here you could move onto present habits, I’ve noticed that some students tend to struggle with present habits, we normally use present simple and will, but some students want to use ‘use to‘ – when we would use ‘usually’.

Sing a song of Grammar, a pocket full of…hammers?

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So, over a pint…or ten, a friend of mine and I came to the conclusion that if we were going to teach our teenage students grammar, we needed a way for it to stick in their head. We decided that if they had a catchy line / verse from a song for each grammar point they might actually learn it.

Whether or not we were right remains to be seen but what did happen was that we came up with a lot of quick and easy grammar lessons based on one verse / chorus of songs from a variety of genres. Over the next while, I’ll hopefully share some of these with you.

Here’s one that worked well with my Spanish teenagers. They really liked Coldplay…don’t judge me.

I used to Rule the world by Coldplay

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

Possible Quick Activities:

  1. Gapfill
  2. Focus on pron
  3. Changing the words but keeping the rhythm.
  4. “used to” / “would”  Guided discovery – see below

Possible Guided Discovery Questions:

  • Does the singer rule the world now? When did he rule it? Was it just one brief action?
  • Does he own the streets now?
  • Can you find another word that has the same use as “used to”?

Pronunciation:

  • How does the singer pronounce “I used to rule…”?
  • Which word is stressed?
  • How do they pronounced “would”? Is it stressed?

Benefits:

  1. These are short musical lessons that can break up a grammar lesson.
  2. With long term students, you can refer back to this if the language point arises again.
  3. The lyrics can be placed around the room to remind them.
  4. Students are encouraged to engage with the language and the culture. By fostering an interest in music inside the classroom, hopefully learners will go off and seek it out outside the classroom. The little taster of the song will hopefully whet their appetite.
  5. Songs are perfect for a bit of guided discovery as shown above.

Pinball Wizard – Listening and tenses

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This idea came to me in class during a CAE class when students didn’t identify the phrase “ever since”.  The song came to my head and as i ran through the lyrics I thought to myself, it might make a decent listening lesson, so let’s see if it does!

The advantages of doing songs are well catalogued, but in my experience some teachers don’t like them, and I think that is ok, you have to be comfortable with what you teach.  For students though I think songs can give them something a bit different, they break the routine of class and prove a memorable example of language points.

The procedure is below and the accompanying worksheet shouldn’t be too hard to follow.

Aim: To highlight different tenses used to talk about the past

Level: Int +

Procedure: 

Pre listening: A talk about talent and abilities, e.g. innate talents / being gifted etc.

Listening:

1.  I am sure you have lots of listening activities you do as standard, so feel free to go for one of them.  I would either:

  • chop up lines and get them to put them in order
  • do a gap fill
  • pick out words and ask them to say in which order they heard them

Language focus:

1. Recognition

ask students to underline examples of these different tenses:

  • Past simple
  • Present Perfect
  • Present simple
  • modal talking about the present
  • modal talking about the past

I’ve highlighted some examples for the students on the worksheet.  The students may get confused by ‘has got’ used informally instead of ‘has’.  Also, ‘aint’, which is here used to mean ‘has not’.

If you can use an IWB you can show this

2. Function:

For me without this, there is no point in looking at grammar, so here is a quick matching exercise.

2.1 Ask students to match these functions to the uses they have highlighted.

  1. an experience in the past with no time phrase
  2. present ability
  3. A prediction about the past
  4. an activity in the past that continues now
  5. a completed event in the past
  6. a fact

*Answers on page 2 of the worksheet.

2.2 Ask students if they can think of a synonym for ‘has to’

3. Ellipsis

Ask students if they can find examples of where language has been omitted and why they think this has happened?

e.g.

  1. “Never seen him fall” – I’ve never seen him fail.
  2. “Always playing clean.” – He is always playing clean

Ask students if the effect of this is to make it formal or informal?  Here it makes it more informal.

4.1 Vocab from context

Ask students to do the exercise on page 3 (answers below)

  1. A place where you can play pinball – amusement hall
  2. Trusts his feelings / instincts – intuition
  3. Numbers – digit
  4. Very good (slang) – mean
  5. Flexible – supple
  6. Things that take away your attention – distractions
  7. Sounds – buzzers / bells
  8. Followers – disciples

5.1 Follow up discussion

  • How do you think the singer of the song feels? Why?
  • Is there someone you know who is super talented at something?  Are you jealous of them?

Materials:

  • Song – easy to find online if you don’t own it
  • Worksheet: worksheet

Follow up

This is a bit of fun, but could work with some students.

Below is a link to an online pinball game, ask students to play and write a 100 word review of the game, saying what they thought of it in comparison to other games they have played, and if they would recommend it.  Focus them on the production of the tenses seen earlier, e.g. the most boring/best thing I’ve ever done / Yesterday I played ___ which was ____ etc.

http://www.y8.com/games/Magic_Pinball

English is everywhere…even in the toilet!

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As long as you don’t think about its origins too much, this is a nice idea for a lesson.

The overall aim is to get students into the frame of mind that English is everywhere (if your teaching in an English speaking country that is), it’s all around them and they can/should be noticing it…even if they’re in the bathroom.

This is a quick lesson based on a half-ripped sign on the cistern of the toilet in school. It could be done at the beginning or end of a lesson. These sorts of mini-lessons could be done regularly (here’s another one on using a text message) to keep students thinking and noticing the language around them. They take very little prep but over time you can train your students to analyse chunks of language and hopefully they will start bringing in their own signs, emails and text messages for you to exploit in class.

Level: Pre-int and up

Material: toilet sign

Procedure: You could do some or all of these.

  1. Identify the origin: get students to try to decide what kind of a text it is and where it came from. As a class discuss how they figured it out (language / register / how it looks).
  2. Gapfill: the sign is half-ripped. Get your students to fill in the blanks. The clues are all in the text. Encourage your learners to use them. (answers below).
  3. Grammar grab: Get your learners to identify the passive voice in the sign. Find a prefix (what is its meaning). Why is “must” used instead of “have to”
  4. Reformulation: Rewrite the sign as a conditional sentence. Rewrite it in the active voice. Rewrite it as spoken advice to a friend.

 

Opening lines – Making an impact

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So, any students of mine who have been in my Cambridge classes in the last few years will recognise this lesson, I usually do it right at the beginning of term.  I like it as it uses novels, and asks students to respond to them in a natural way, then examines the language that is used to attract the reader, and then features a bit of peer teaching of vocab.

Procedure

Right, to begin you need to pick 4-6 novels and photocopy the first page (it can be a good idea to blow them up a bit to make them easier to read), cutting off any paragraphs that continue onto the next page, or you can just use the first paragraph if you prefer.  Also have the extracts photocopied onto A4/A3 so that you can hand them to the students.

Books I have used include:

  • Girlfriend in a coma – Douglas Coupland
  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull – Richard Bach
  • The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
  • The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguru

Those ones have always worked pretty well and all have a different beginning, but any books that have a good opening that you think might interest your students will do the job.

At the beginning of the class, stick the different beginnings up around the classroom spaced out.

1: Reading:  Ask students to read all of the 1st pages, give them between 5-10 mins depending on their reading speed.  Emphasise that here you are not worried about them understanding every single word, but just reading to get the general idea.

2: Reacting: Ask students to go and stand next to the extract they found most interesting and ask them to try to justify why.

3: Checking gist / memory: Ask the students to sit back down and brainstorm in pairs what they can remember about the different extracts.

4: Genre / dating: Hand out the photocopied extracts to students in pairs and ask which they think is the oldest and why.  Give them the answers, but accept that in some cases they will be written in a more archaic way.  For example in the books above, students always expect “the remains of the day” to be oldest due to the formal language used, when in fact it is the most modern.  Similarly, “Catcher” is normally believed to be the most recent, as long as they can say why, I am happy with any answers.

5: First line analysis: Ask students to look at the first line in each extract and to look at what grammar or lexis has been used to try to grab the readers attention. I monitor while they do this to help students and push them in the right direction.

For example

Girlfriend in a Coma – “I’m Jared, a ghost” – short sentence, abrupt, shocking, directly addressing the reader.

The Remains of the Day – “It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days” – Directly addressing the reader, use of language of prediction, being vague about the expedition

Jonathan Livingston Seagull – “It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea” – Very poetic, lots of adjectives, setting the scene, letting the reader picture it.

The Catcher in the Rye – “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” – Conditional makes it confrontational, use of slang, really long sentence that sounds as if the narrator is speaking to the reader directly.

Optional: You can ask for students to look for other specific bits of grammar, depending on their level, you could do it as a grammar hunt, or just ask them to find things of interest if you think they are strong enough, basically, scaffold the task as much as you think your class will need.  I do this on the first day so I tend to use it as a form of diagnostic to see how much grammar students know.

6: Vocab: Ask students in pairs to work on one of the texts each, they can use their dictionaries if you want. Or you can help each group.  If you have already worked on meaning from context, encourage them to do this.  Then, ask them to peer teach the other students the new vocab.

7: Reflection:  Ask students to think about where this could be used in their writing to improve it, give it more range.  This stage is especially useful for Cambridge Exam Students

Using Articles for Articles

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So here is another activity that can be used more as revision, or even to test knowledge of a grammar point, to see if it needs teaching.

It is something I tried out a couple of weeks ago and my class responded really well to it.  Since then, there has been a noticeable improvement in their work with articles. They don’t always get them right, but they are much better at self correction.  In my view, that is a big step in the right direction, plus it encourages learner autonomy, which is always a good thing.

I set this as homework, but you could ask students to do it in pairs too and I have added a couple of follow on activities that you could do to make it a whole lesson rather than just a practise activity.

Procedure

1. Give the students a set of rules for when to use articles (this one is adapted from one in the back of Gold Advanced).

The definite article (1)

1.1 when there is only one of something

1.2 to talk about previously mentioned things

1.3 to talk about a generic class of things

1.4 with national groups

1.5 with adjectives used as nouns

The indefinite article (2)

2.1 with singular countable nouns referring to something general / non-specific

2.2 to replace one with numbers e.g. a hundred

Zero article (3)

3.1 uncountable, plural and abstract nouns in general

3.2 countries, continents, cities

3.3 mountains and lakes

 

2. Ask students to find a short article from a newspaper, or online, paper is better though for this.

3. Tell them that they have to underline all of the examples of articles in the text and then match them to one of the numbers above.

4. Ask them to show a classmate and they can compare, while you monitor to assist as needed.

5. Group feedback and check in case of any difficulties.

Extension activities

a) To encourage critical thinking skills you could ask students to summarise the text within a set word limit, e.g. 50 words.  The could plan it by selecting the key points and focus on writing those.

They could also tell a partner about the article or peer teach any interesting vocab they have found.

b) Ask students to look back through their own work and to try to correct mistakes.

 

So there it is, try it out and let us know what you think.

 

 

 

 

When is the future not the future? When it’s in the past of course!

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Apologies for the title…couldn’t resist. 

So, this is a lesson I taught recently and had a lot of fun doing it. The idea was to encourage students to use the future in the past to justify their actions but also to work on comprehension. So often our comprehension exercises are based largely on a student’s ability to skim and scan. I wanted to get them looking further, to read between the lines, to really identify the subtleties of language and to understand exactly what the speaker was saying.

Level: Intermediate and above

Time: 1 – 2 hours (depending on error correction and level of the group)

Materials: argument

Procedure (I think the worksheet is pretty self-explanatory but I’ve highlighted a few ideas you can try out when you’re teaching it)

1

Tell the students you’ve just had a fight with your boyfriend / girlfriend (you may need to change the text slightly depending on your situation). Ask them to think of some of the typical arguments couples might have. (It’s probably useful to start building “argument” language and vocab here, using what the students give you. I find that constructions such as, “he’s always leaving the toilet seat up” tend to come up at this point).

2

Students read the text quickly and discuss the problem in small groups.

3

At this point, tell the students you want them to imagine that they are no longer your students, they are your friends. You have just told them what they have read and they are free to ask you any clarification questions they want but no language questions. This encourages them to dig deeper without focusing on what each word/phrase means. You can make up the answers for yourself and feel free to alter the text to make it suit your needs.

       e.g.

– Did you intend to tell your girlfriend about the meeting?

– How did she find out you had met her?

4

Now that students have clarified what they wanted to, leave them to deal with the comprehension questions and then discuss as a class. These questions are open to interpretation.

5

Get students to underline any examples of future in the past (e.g. was going to / was about to). Pull them out and have a look at the structures together. I wouldn’t worry about pronunciation at this point as it will come up later. You might want to get them to write a few sample sentences to ensure they understand it. I use the example from earlier in the lesson.

– “Why did you leave the toilet seat up?” / “Well I was going to put it down….”

6

Let the students work away on the vocab questions, really digging deep into the text and then discuss as a class.

7

To practise all of the language from the lesson, tell the students they’re going to have the argument with their partners. Give each person a role and then give them a few minutes to prepare some sentences they will say to their boy/girlfriend in the argument. Encourage them to use any language that was on the handout or that has come up in the lesson.

8

Get them out of their seats and let them argue away. Note errors of the target language on the board. Once the arguments are finished, students return to their seats and correct the errors as a group.

Now it’s time for pronunciation. Have a look at the chunks of language below and drill them with your students.

“I was going to” = /əwəzgənə/

“I was about to” = /aɪwəzəbaʊtə/

Now get them up to have the same argument with another student and when they’re finished you can choose to give feedback on errors, vocab, pron or whatever your heart desires. Feel free to change the roles/situation and have them repeat similar arguments. This slight change will keep the activity from becoming tired and boring and will allow them to really focus on upgrading their language with the new language and the pronunciation, something that they won’t do if they haven’t had a chance to try the activity a few times.

Narrative tenses

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This lesson is a nice follow up after you’ve taught the narrative tenses. I dug it out the other day and taught it to a class and it went really well so I thought I’d share it here. It’s pretty straight forward procedure-wise but it does look at the difference between different text types and allows for student creativity as well…which is always nice.

You could change it around a little and make it easier for lower levels by removing the past perfects and also, there’s a cheeky little passive in there as well to push the higher levels. I like to do it a week or so after I’ve taught the narrative tenses as a nice little review and consolidation but you can do it immediately afterwards as practice as well.

Level: Pre-intermediate and above

Materials: Cinema Queue – Narrative Tenses

 Procedure:

(1)

Intro

It’s simple really, the idea is that you want them to have really thought about the story first before they tackle the grammar. You’ll really have to check your instructions here because in my experience students physically cannot ignore a gapfill exercise if you put it in front of them.

Tell them you’re going to give them part of a whole story and you want them to read through it, ignoring the gaps and then decide what happened to James. Encourage them to be as imaginative as possible as this will help later.

Let them discuss it in groups and then feedback as a whole class. Feel free to put their ideas on the board and feed them some language they’re struggling with as it will all help them later on.

(2) 

Narrative Tenses

At this point, I now let them tackle the gaps. I encourage them to do this in pairs or small groups and be very emphatic about the fact that if they disagree, they’re to explain why and discuss it as a group. You could also let them know that in some situations two answers might be possible. (e.g. “Was being shown” could be “was showing” in the cinema).

Now I like to switch the groups around a bit and get them to reconsider their answers as very often students tend to do things they “know” are wrong. e.g. using the present simple when they clearly know it’s the past. Mixing up the groups gives fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. Again, highlight that if the answers are different they should discuss them.

finally, allow them to turn over the page so that they can check their answers. Get them to highlight the ones they got wrong and discuss why they got them wrong. Then deal with these issues as a whole class.

(3) 

The Text Message

This section can be done before the previous one if you like but I usually do it in this order.

Going back to their ideas of what happened to James, get your students to write the text message from James to Ben in the box provided. At this point I wouldn’t give them any pointers just let them at it, using any language you fed them earlier.

You’ll notice they probably use overly formal language or write overly long texts but it also gives them a chance to practise their narrative tense should they choose to.

Correct the texts as a class, focusing on formality and highlighting the differences between a text and a story.

(4) 

Follow-up / Homework

Finally, send them off for homework to write the story from James’ point of view. I’d recommend a little bit of peer correction at the beginning of the next class to really nail down these tenses as we tend to find it very difficult to find our own mistakes in a second language.

(5)

Optional Extra Activities

So, if you find they’re not too bored with the story by now. Here’s a few extra things you could look at:

  1. Turning direct speech into reported speech.
  2. Examining punctuation in stories, direct speech.
  3. Look at the features of connected speech in the direct speech. I suggest the weak forms e.g. “Are you talking to me?” becomes /əjuːtɔːkɪntəmiː/.

 

Vox Pop

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I was teaching this week and was wondering what I could do as a warmer for a coming class on clothes and fashion.  As I walked from my classroom to the teacher’s room, it hit me.  Mini interviews with other teachers on what my clothes said about me.  So I pulled out my phone and started interviewing colleagues.

30 minutes later, I played them in class and they were a great mine of vocab and also grammar, used naturally, with lots of lovely aspects of pron there too.  Sometimes, it is easy to forget how easy it is to make our own listening exercises.  All you need is a phone with a record function, preferably some speakers to play it through,  and someone to speak.  Happy days.

Procedure:

1. Choose a question: mine was just “what do my clothes say about me?” Then record as many answers as you want / need, for the record, I chose 4 people and the total time for the recording came to just over 1 minute.

2. Play the recording: I played the recording three times and asked them to one of these each time:

  • listen for the opinions of each speaker and then summarise them.
  • Write down any interesting vocab that they heard, with a focus on adjectives.
  • Write down any grammar they heard

the language that came up was great – teachers tend to have quite large ranges.

These were all in the 1st speakers answer, which was 15 seconds long.

“Maybe you choose things which suit you, which is good”

“if it’s work attire, then, it’s probably not what you would wear normally outside of work”

“you might have a slightly geeky looks sometimes”

There is so much you could do with any of those, but conditionals, modals and relative clauses came up regularly in the answers. Good to provide a model for students and proof that what we teach them does get used by people every day, not just in course materials.

Fillers could also be worth looking at, I chose not to as I was only looking for a 20minute activity

However, my favourite answer was “it makes you look like a pretentious knob”.  you can’t say fairer than that!

3. (optional) Focus on any elements of connected speech that come up, or stressed / unstressed words

4. Students can either: ask each other the same question, or if you are feeling brave, send them out to interview other people about their clothes, it’s up to you and go with whatever will work best with your class.  But, do record it and ask students to listen back for the same things as above.

That’s all folks, let us know if there were any great questions you used.