Logic puzzles

Just a quick post about logic puzzles. If you’re teaching the language of deduction (must / may / might / can’t ) or if you’re teaching quantifiers (all / every / none / any / both / either / neither / or / nor) as I will be later today than a logic puzzle is a good way to get students using the language. A very simple and popular one is Mastermind. Here is an online version of the game which you could fire up on the old E-board…

http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/guesscolors/

song for second conditionals

Working with second conditionals? Check this song out!

the lyrics: http://www.google.com.br/search?hl=pt-BR&num=50&ei=O08QSvCVD6CW8wTQ07yiBg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=if+i+had+a+million+dollars+lyrics&spell=1

Have fun!

Internet roundup

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here, but I’ve found a few useful things which you might like.

1) Wikipedia - the free online encyclopaedia (<spelling?) has launched a Simple English version of its website. They only have 60,000 articles (compared to the many million in the normal version) but for students who feel inspired to read the internet, or for teachers to find a lower level reading this could be the place. Why not create a scavenger hunt on the web. Brilliant!

2) Ted.com – a while ago I mentioned this extraordinary site. Famous and well-known experts talk for about 10 minutes about their ideas. Great listening practice for students! The best thing is – I only noticed this week, most of the videos have an English subtitles option! You can turn it on and off – so see how much students can get for gist first then put the video on again with subtitles. They have 100s of videos so use the search option to find something related to your subject area. Amazing!

3) From time to time I see some fun videos on YouTube that people send me. All of these are to do with sport. The first is an amazing slo-motion video of surfing – it shows what happens to the water when a wave breaks, beautiful.

Another amazing video of a guy riding his bike in the most unusual places in Edinburgh (up trees, along fences etc.)

And finally this one – probably my favourite YouTube video of recent times: Ronaldo (and Lula, Pele and many others!) singing “I will follow him” from Sister Act. It’s a Brazilian video and so helpfully includes subtitles back into Portuguese. Hilarious!

Efl geeks and vintage ads

Today I have 3 websites to share with you:

- EFL GEEKS is a good website for the ones connected to this new era of 30-megabyte-speed-internet full of gadgets for learning and teaching. It is full of good links to browse and the recent ideas on efl.

http://eflgeek.com/index.php

This post is for people like Fernando, like Dave, like Steve, like Ercília, like myself: GEEKS.

- Vintage/ old ads!

Old ads are good resource of many topics for efl. You can, for example, ask sts to talk about life in the past; or you can take sts to the lab and they will find car ads and compare these cars; etc.

http://www.old-ads.com/

http://www.adclassix.com/ 

Why we chose Sponge Bob as your mascot

Hi!

As I was working on our blog’s new header layout, my wife came into the room and saw Sponge Bob on the screen. Quick came the inevitable question,

“What an earth is Sponge Bob doing there?”

- “Uh… he’s our blog’s mascot.”

“Why him?”, she asked.

-”Well, uh, er… we took a vote. Yes, Sponge Bob was democratically elected by some Cultura teachers as the ideal representative of hard work, joy and fun inherent to English Language Teaching. . .”

Of course she didn’t buy it:

- “Really!? How many teachers took part in this so-called election? And WHO were they?”

She had my back up against the wall. I had to come clean:

“Madam, for your information, Mr. Sponge Bob was UNANIMOUSLY elected by BOTH voters, Dyêgo Simpson and Fernando Flanders. Also, after the counting of votes, we both agreed that Sir Dave Mac Dilbert, another important member of the electoral body, would have entirely agreed with the result!”

She left the room.

So, now you know how Sponge Bob ended up on our blog header.

fernandoguarany

Roleplaying in class

Hi everyone, it´s me again (I update this site more then my own ).

I´ve been seaching for some time a website where we can find roleplaying activities, you know, a PORTAL?  And I DID IT!

http://www.eslflow.com/roleplaysdramatheatregames.html

RolePlaying can be used in many ways, specially to activate that weird topic you found in your book and you don´t know what to do with that.  

‘Esl flow’ is favorited here and I challenge you to do the same.

Dy.

Story strips

I´ve been searching for some activities to do with strips, and a good one I found deals with semi-controlled story trips to fill in:

http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/games/story_strips_flash.html

It´s a good idea for passing on to your Sts do at home / in-class activity or lab.

Dy.

Using movies to Teach Grammar

Hi again!

I’ve told a few of you about this site which has movie clips and corresponding worksheets to teach grammar points. One thing I really like is that he tells you how to create your own as well.

Check it out!

http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com/

Gartic – for vocab practice

Hey, folks!

the website “Gartic” has improved its servers in order to gather more people playing. It is “Imagem e ação” online, which means, fun, because you must guess what your mates are drawing and chat at the same time. Now there is the newest ENGLISH-ONLY room, so, why not taking your Sts to the Lab and play a little? Try it yourself, here goes the link:

http://www.gartic.com.br/index.php

have fun!

Lions and Toilet Paper

Another two random things from the world wide web.

This made me laugh – a very detailed (with diagrams), well-written blog entry on the best way to have toilet paper hanging in the bathroom. I’m not sure what the English use of this would be, but I’m going to try and encorporate it into my lessons: Click here.

But, this is definitely useful for lessons. A YouTube video with subtitles already on there. If you’re doing vocab of animals, the wild, friendship etc. this video is bound to draw a laugh or a tear. The true story of Christian the friendly lion:

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_the_lion