Communication in the Classroom

Taking photographs

1) Divide the pupils into groups according to the number of people in the portrait. Plus, each group needs two photographers. 2) The photographers have to get their group into the same position as the family in the portrait. They can only give instructions; they cannot touch the group members. 3) Say cheese, pretend to take a photo. 1) Show 1st picture e.g. fish. Elicit fish from group. Model I like fish and stick the picture on one side of the board. Repeat with all pictures, modelling the language of I like. Or I dont like. and building up 2 sets of pictures on the board. 2) Remove all the pictures from the board. Show the pizza picture and elicit pizza from the children. Then go through the pictures again modelling I like onions on my pizza or I dont like fish on my pizza. Again, you can make two groups on the board or physically stick the pictures of the things you like on a blank pizza circle. 3) Drill the target language. Positive / negative statements. 4) Elicit the question form and answer. 5) Drill whole class then do half class drills with 1 half of the class asking the question and the other half answering. 6) Give out blank pizzas. Pupils choose 3-4 toppings from the board and draw them on their pizza. 7) Pupils do a mill drill around the room practising their questions and answers. The aim of the activity is to find people with the same pizza. 8) Follow-up, Top Toppings (a class survey and bar chart). 1) Divide the pupils into groups of about 6-8. Give each person in the group a different picture. (You can use the same set of 6-8 pictures for each group). 2) Explain that everyone in the group has a new friend (as seen in the picture) and they are going to write down some information about these people. 3) Ask the pupils to write down the name of their new friend on the paper. You Model. Then they pass their paper to the person on their left. This time they must add the age of the friend to the paper. This continues around the circle until it reaches the beginning. Information to include: name, age, nationality, brothers or sisters, pet, favourite colour, something theyre good at, favourite pop star, favourite food, worst food, secret, ambition etc. 4) The pupils should each have a profile of their new friend who they introduce to their partner/group. 5) Feedback. This profile of a friend could be used as a spring board for writing activities. A movie could be made about the new friend. Elicit further ideas.

Pizza

My new friend

Which dinosaur?

1) Divide the pupils into pairs. They need one piece of paper and a pen between them. 2) This is a paired dictation activity. One person is going to be the writer and the other the reader, then half way through the activity they will change over. 3) Check everyone knows full stop, capital letter and comma. 4) Each pair chooses a dictation card but doesnt look at it yet. 5) When everyone is ready the dictation can begin. Shout change when they are half way through. This comes quite quickly as the texts are short. 6) When they have finished they check their writing against the original for any errors. Every time there is a mistake they deduct a point from their starting score of 100. This way, even if they do badly they still have a high score (psychologically this is motivating). 7) Collect the dictation cards. Pairs then take their text around the room to find the picture of the dinosaur that it matches. 8) Check. Which words tell you that is your dinosaur? 9) Follow-up. Give children a new picture from a set e.g. 1) Tell the story. 2) Tell the story again, this time the pupils fill in a diary with the monkeys activities. They can draw or write the activity. 3) Check. What is Mr Monkey doing on Wednesday? Who is he visiting 4) Pupils then fill in their own blank diary with 5 activities. Then they choose one day to have a party and put that in their diary too. 5) Pupils then mill around room trying to find people who are free to come to their party. Are you free on Thursday? No, on Thursday Im playing tennis. When they find someone who is free they write their name in their diary. 1) Tell the story. 2) Use it to practise prepositions and play a preposition game hide and seek game. 1) Draw 3 battleships of three squares long. They can go horizontally/vertically. 2) Pairs have to find their partners ships by asking questions according to the grid lines. E.g. Did Prince William star in Harry Potter? If it is a hit they answer yes, if it is a miss they answer no. 1) Divide the participants into 5 groups. Elicit the five senses and write each one on a piece of A4 paper. Give a sense to each of the 5 groups. 2) Set a topic e.g. at the beach, at school, at the park. 3) Groups then brainstorm words for things they can see, hear, smell, touch and taste. 4) Feedback answers the board. 5) Pupils then draw a picture of the set topic. They have to choose e.g. 8 things from the board to draw in their pictures. They must not show their partner. 6) Then, they take it in turns to dictate their pictures. 7) Each pair chooses the best picture to enter into a class competition. They have to choose the two most similar pictures. 8) Display the pictures around the room and give each person a gold star. They have to stick their star on the best pair of pictures.

The monkey & the crocodile

Wheres Spot?

Battleships

Sense dictation pictures

Instructions machine

1) Cut and colour the machine. 2) Write the instructions whole class. Put one open question in each corner. E.g. How old are you? Whats your favourite colour? Whats your name? 3) Write an instruction in each of the 8 triangles next to the colours. Brainstorm a few on the board e.g. Sing a song, jump 5 times, move like a monkey, say 5 weather words. Encourage them to write at least 4 instructions that produce an oral response. 4) Now do the folding bit. 5) Once made they have to test their instruction machines on their partners, limit the task to say 3 turns each. 1) Chant I saw the Queen the other day She said, how many English words can you say? I saw superman the other day He said, how many colour words can you say? The children chant with the teacher then they call out as many words as possible. The teacher keeps count. Repeat the activity in a few weeks and see if the class can beat their previous score.

Superhero brainstorm

Information gaps

Biographies Choose a famous person or popular fictional character. Write a short information rich text about them. Make 2 copies of the text then carefully remove different key pieces of information from the A and B texts. Or, get pupils to create their own texts which they can then make into a gap fill for another person/pair in the class. Crosswords Find a word puzzle or crossword in your coursebook and turn it into an information gap. Copy the original twice then make your A and B puzzles by removing clues/pictures etc. from each one. Now you have a more motivating and communicative task. Pictures You can also do the same with pictures. We commonly call this Spot the Difference!

Communication in the Classroom - Battleships

You
fly aeroplanes bananas work in schools grow on trees grow
underground

live in nests

live in water

birds

teachers

potatoes

pilots

fish

Your partner

Miss!
bananas

fly aeroplanes

work in schools

grow on trees

grow underground

live in nests

live in water

Hit!

birds

teachers

potatoes

Sunk! !

pilots

fish

Daniel Radcliffe His Life Story

Daniel (1) _____ Radcliffe was born on 23 July 1989, in (2) ____________ , England. He is an only child. Radcliffe's father is from Northern Ireland and his mother was born in South Africa but raised in England. Daniel's parents were both actors as children and now work in (3) __________________ , but they tried to keep Daniel out of acting to have a normal childhood for as long as possible. Radcliffe, however, wanted to act at the age of five, and in December 1999, aged ten, he made his acting debut in the BBC television adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. Radcliffe was educated at independent schools for boys in London, but following the release of the first Harry Potter movie, attending school became difficult. At age(4) ____________ he was cast as the title character in the first Harry Potter film, and starred in the series for ten years until the release of the eighth and final film in July 2011. In 2007 he also began starring in London and (5) ____________ theatre productions. In 2008, Radcliffe revealed that he suffers from a mild form of dyspraxia. The motor skill disorder sometimes gets so bad that he has trouble doing simple activities, such as (6) ____________ ___________________ . Radcliffe works for many charities, including Demelza House Children's Hospice and The Trevor Project and in 2011, he was awarded the Trevor Project's "Hero Award".

1. What _____________ Daniel's middle name? 2. Where _________________________________________ ?

3. do/what/his/do/parents/his ? ______________________________ 4. How old______________________________________________________ ? 5. Where ______________________________________________________ ? 6. _______________________________________________________________ ?

Daniel Radcliffe His Life Story

Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on (1) ____________ , in West London, England. He (2) ________________________ . Radcliffe's father is from Northern Ireland and his mother was born in (3) ____________ but raised in England. Daniel's parents were both actors as children and work in the film industry, but they tried to keep Daniel out of acting to have a normal childhood for as long as possible. Radcliffe, however, wanted to act at the age of five, and in December 1999, aged (4) ____________ , he made his acting debut in the BBC television adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. Radcliffe was educated at independent schools for boys in London, but following the release of the first Harry Potter movie, attending school became difficult. At age 11 he was cast as the title character in the first Harry Potter film, and starred in the series for (5) ____________ years until the release of the eighth and final film in July 2011. In 2007 he also began starring in London and New York theatre productions. In 2008, Radcliffe revealed that he suffers from a mild form of (6) ____________ . The motor skill disorder sometimes gets so bad that he has trouble doing simple activities, such as writing or tying his own shoelaces. Radcliffe works for many charities, including Demelza House Children's Hospice and The Trevor Project and in 2011, he was awarded the Trevor Project's "Hero Award".

1. __________________________________________ ? 2. many/how/sisters/got/and/he/brothers/has ? ______________________________ 3. Where ____________________________________ ? 4. How old______________________________________________________ ? 5. How long ______________________________________________________ ? 6. What ____________ ____________ suffer from?

Daniel Radcliffe His Life Story

Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on 23 July 1989, in West London, England. He is an only child. Radcliffe's father is from Northern Ireland and his mother was born in South Africa but raised in England. Daniel's parents were both actors as children and work in the film industry, but they tried to keep Daniel out of acting to have a normal childhood for as long as possible. Radcliffe, however, wanted to act at the age of five,[9] and in December 1999, aged ten, he made his acting debut in the BBC television adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. Radcliffe was educated at independent schools for boys in London, but following the release of the first Harry Potter movie, attending school became difficult. At age 11 he was cast as the title character in the first Harry Potter film, and starred in the series for ten years until the release of the eighth and final film in July 2011. In 2007 he also began starring in London and New York theatre productions. In 2008, Radcliffe revealed that he suffers from a mild form of dyspraxia. The motor skill disorder sometimes gets so bad that he has trouble doing simple activities, such as writing or tying his own shoelaces. Radcliffe works for many charities, including Demelza House Children's Hospice and The Trevor Project and in 2011, he was awarded the Trevor Project's "Hero Award".

Communication in the Classroom Using a story to present grammar

Possible story outline for The Monkey & The Crocodile
M: I wish I could swim like you Mr Crocodile. C: Ill teach you to swim Mr Monkey! M: Oh, will you Mr Crocodile? C: Lets start next week. Shall we go swimming on Monday? M: No, sorry. On Monday Im going to school. C: Shall we go swimming on Tuesday? M: No, sorry. On Tuesday Im playing football. C: Shall we go swimming on Wednesday? M: No, sorry. On Wednesday Im visiting my grandmother. C: Shall we go swimming on Thursday? M: No, sorry. On Thursday Im having lunch with my friend. C: Shall we go swimming on Friday? M: Yes, Im free on Friday. C: Oh good! Ill see you on Friday for our first swimming lesson.

Adapted from: Very Young Learners, Reilly & Ward. OUP.