Mon Mar 23

Objectives:

- Exchange information about myths and urban legends, and listen for specific information

- Induce the use of past modals through listening to a mystery; then choose correct modals in a dialogue

- Follow a spoken song

The journal writing today was on "the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen. Where did you see it?" This was inspired by the amazing sunset I saw on the way to class. But interestingly enough, the song we listened to "Alice's Restaurant" also mentioned sunsets.

I gave back half of the oral production feedback sheets. Hopefully the rest will be ready by Wednesday. We went to p. 99 and in threes the sts discussed the beliefs and myths ("urban legends") and tried to identify which were true. We then listened to the answers. Like the earlier listening text, some sts doubted the veracity of some of the answers.

We then went to p. 100, discussed the vocabulary in the box and the sts tried to predict the story following the pictures. There were a few mistakes but some made good efforts at working it out. However, while listening to the story it became clear that there were elements no-one had actually thought about at all. They tried to produce possible explanations for the mystery, and then we listened to one that the "experts" consider the most probable. After doing the activity we looked at the language summary on p. 154. However as a number of sts hadn't come last Friday they didn't understand so well, not having done the groundwork with modals. Still, doing the "Spy Talk" handout of Oskar and Andrei, most of them seemed to work it out. This exercise also helped them to see that there are a number of possible answers and it often depends on the level of certainly one has for the situation as to which modal one will use.

We then went to the final activity of listening to Alice's Restaurant. It's a long song and I wanted the sts to listen and enjoy and understand the story without worrying about filling in the gaps; so they simply read along. Many of them laughed as well (especially Elvia!). We did some important vocabulary first (important because it helps them understand the story and the humour more).

The exercises (and homework for Friday) are to work out the meaning of words in bold according to the context; underline all the past and present modals they can find; and work out the meaning of various collocations which were in italics.

Fri Mar 20

Objectives:

- conceptualize and use modals of deduction and their level of probability

Rather than getting the sts to write today, I asked them to share some interesting but little-known facts. I started them off with "no-one can kiss their elbow" and "Mexico is the second most linguistically diverse country in the world, after India". A number of sts volunteered facts but some couldn't think of anything. I agree that at this time of night it's not so easy to think about things like this off the top of your head.

We discussed the movie trailers activity. They all enjoyed it and talked about what they relied on in order to understand: gestures, camera angles, facial expressions, repetition of words, sound effects etc.

I then wrote on the board the simple sentences: 

I am sick.

I might be sick.

I must be sick.

And asked them to infer the different meaning of each one. They had trouble defining "must be", considering it to be an obligation, so I explained the idea of deduction based on the evidence.

We turned to pages 98-99 and went through the exercises and the language summary, skipping the analysis. We practiced with exercises 1 and 2. The picture in ex. 1 appears to be from Mexico City. In the future I should exploit this more and consciously ask the sts to use "must", "could" etc. to talk about where they think this is.

Then I handed out some close-up pictures of everyday objects. The idea was that sts use modals of possibility to work out what they could be. Finally I showed them the complete picture. Unfortunately, again, I didn't make it so clear that the idea was to use modals, and I'm not sure I paid as much attention to it while monitoring as I could have. Still, I think the activity was a worthwhile one.

"Guess the picture" is from http://floorsix.blogspot.com

Wed Mar 18 - LAB

Objectives:

- Recognize and correct common Level 6 errors and identify which are the most problematic, in order to keep working on them and to avoid fossilization.

- Rely on either visual or auditive clues to make meaning of a text

- Relay this information to another

We didn't have journal writing today in order to have enough time to do all the activities.

First we went through the answers to the Stardust homework briefly. If I had had more time I would have asked them what they did in order to work out the answers to the vocabulary questions.

Then I gave them the handout of common errors and explained the concept of fossilization. I think the notion of this shocked them into doing their best on the error sheet! First they tried to answer the questions individually, then checked with a partner. There were some disagreements about spelling and the use of gerunds and infinitives, which allowed them to pay closer attention to the correct answer and discover that, perhaps, they didn't know that particular structure. I think it was very useful for them. Finally they put an asterisk next to the ones they got wrong, in order to work on them more.

The final activity of the night was Listeners and Watchers. Half the group were Listeners. They were sent out of the room with a list of vocabulary which was in the movie trailers. While they waited, they had to work out between them the meaning of these words. Meanwhile, the Watchers watched the four movie trailers without any sound. As they watched, they commented on what they saw and tried to deduce what the story was about. Then they went out and worked out between them the four storylines, while the Listeners came in and heard the trailers without seeing any images. Then when the Watchers came back in, they paired up, a listener and a watcher together, and they told each other what they had understood from the movie. Finally they watched and listened to the trailers and worked out the parts they had not understood. They agreed that it was more difficult to listen than to watch.

I liked this activity because it caused them to rely on visual or auditive clues to understand meaning, and the element of information-gap while discussing in pairs was very useful. Of course the trailers were in themselves attractive. The only thing I find disheartening is that I don't think I can use the same trailers each time, because if a st has seen the movie they won't be relying on what they see, rather on what they remember of the movie. So this activity will require researching new trailers each time I give this activity. Or, at the very most, finding little-heard-of movies and hoping that no movie buff in the class has already seen them.

Fri Mar 13

Interestingly enough, today was the second Friday the 13th of the year. And the topic of class ended up being quite macabre, although I hadn't actually planned it that way!!

Objectives:

- Correctly use vocabulary related to mysteries, problems and oddities

- Identify types of strange events with a related situation

- Explain different phenomena and listen for the correct explanation

We began with journal writing of "Have you ever experienced anything supernatural or mysterious? Or do you know of someone who has?" It seemed that almost everyone had no problem writing about this, and a number shared their experiences of ghost-like entities or visitations. I suspect it surprises people to know that they're not the only ones to have experienced something like this. I shared about the miracle of my friend Naomi who broke her neck and walked out of hospital two weeks later. I think next time I give this class, I'll share about Heidi as well!

We then listened to some remaining news articles by sts who hadn't come to the previous class. One st, I suspect, had taken her news article from a Spanish source. I'm not sure, but she had a lot of difficulty with vocabulary which, had it been in English, wouldn't have been a problem.

Then we turned to p. 96 of the book. Sts matched the words and phrases and as we went through the exercise I elicited examples of other similar experiences they may have had. It turns out that one st is an identical twin, and another can do card tricks!

Then we discussed the q's on p. 97 (ticklish, hiccups and sleepwalking were all explained by sts) and in pairs they came up with explanations about natural phenomena. We went through the box of vocabulary and then listened to the explanations. It seems that some of the "official" explanations may be slightly wrong, or at least only half-right. A number of sts, particularly medical sts, were keen to set the records straight.

We then finished with a song - Sympathy for the Devil, filling in gaps and making predictions about each era or period of time the Rolling stones were referring to. It's a very long song and there needs to be sufficient time set aside to listen to this, in future classes.

Wed Mar 11

Objectives:

- To verbally summarize a news article and give their opinion on it.

- To create humorous captions for comic pictures

- To identify captions correctly for each picture

The journal writing today was based on a semi-guided activity I've shown my Formación teacher trainees: to write the inner part of a paragraph with these sentences as the first and last:

- Last week my sister bought a lottery ticket.

- If only she still had her coat, she'd be a wealthy woman today.

Some sts read their "stories" out loud and two were very coherent but different in content; one was difficult to understand and didn't seem coherent. I wasn't sure what to do with that one, but thanked the st for sharing anyway (the sharing was voluntary).

Then the sts began sharing their articles. The "rules" were 2 minutes each; one minute to share the content of the article, and one to give your opinion about it. I had written on the board what criteria I would be using: Use language fluently and accurately; communicate with good grammatical control; express opinions with precision; and summarize an article. These were taken from the Oral grading sheet for level 6. But I let the sts know that I wasn't going to give them a grade as such; rather give them feedback on which areas they need to work on more. This settled them down a little!

We listened to ten articles and on occasions I invited comments and questions from the rest of the group so that it wouldn't seem so boring for them. After the tenth article we took a break and read a silly poem (How to prepare a hippopotamus sandwich), just to get their minds thinking about something completely different. After the next ten articles we again did something completely different and fun in order to break the tension. It's my experience that even though sts are willing to share and talk in class, as soon as they have to do something remotely "formal" they become very tense and nervous. One st was visibly trembling throughout, and others forgot the words they had rehearsed saying. But to their credit, a number spoke very well and made few errors. I encouraged them with this as I had previously substitute taught a level 5 group which had numerous pronunciation and grammatical errors when speaking. All of them gave their opinion as well, which demonstrated good understanding of the task set before them.

So we looked at some Gary Larson pictures afterwards - actually got photos from a website that people had created to imitate the cartoons. First the sts had to guess punchlines for them. Of course some sts had difficulty due to the time of day and low level of creativity. But many came up with good punchlines. Then I gave them the punchlines on strips of paper and they had to match the punchline with the cartoon. Most successfully did this although there was some debate on a few concerning bears.

Mon Mar 9

Objectives:

- Writing: use of connectors in written texts

- Speaking: preparing a talk

The journal writing today was answering the questions "What's good about mobile phones? What's bad about mobile phones?" A number of good and bad things arose in a later discussion about them. The sts are quite happy to talk and share in class, even though many of them have had their first class at 7am in the morning and have been at the uni for the whole day.

I wrote some sentences on the board which were related but separate sentences, and asked the sts how they could make them into one sentence. Immediately they suggested by using connectors. So they gave a number of examples of connectors that could be used. We examined a little more closely the ones that were applied wrongly. Then I gave them a handout that has a lot of information about linking words taken from the website . I put gaps in the handout so they sts had to listen and volunteer possible answers and examples of linking words throughout. It was a lot of information, but more complete and easier to understand than the textbook. When they got to the exercise in the textbook (p. 92), they had very little problems with it, much less than previous classes have had. It paid off to do the extra work beforehand.

The rest of the class was devoted to preparing their talk for Wednesday's class. Most sts had brought their article and went through it. I answered vocab questions and checked understanding of the articles. Some who hadn't come on Friday had to use one from the textbook. One st, Jorge, seemed very unsettled and distracted and didn't work very well by himself. Mariela also was not willing to use any article from the textbook and so didn't have a lot to do. But before leaving I got sts to get into pairs and to practice their presentations, and their partner had to give them feedback and recommendations about their talk. This also gave the sts a chance to speak out loud and try to put their ideas into words. It's sometimes one thing to think "yes I'm going to talk about that article, it's about that lady" but actually getting the exact words out coherently is something quite different.

This exercise went well, even though it was close to finishing the class. Those sts who had not been distracted were able to get through both their presentation and their partner's as well, and make notes about how to improve their talk.

Fri Mar 6

Objectives:

- Review gerund and infinitives.

- Complete viewing of movie.

After last Wednesday's fiasco I feel a bit traumatised about having to show videos. Thankfully today the Play Station worked and the subtitles worked and the rest of the movie was shown without mishap.

The journal writing topic today was taken from Roberto's contribution to the blog: the quote "Remember that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."

I asked the sts to write their thoughts and opinions about this quote. I asked a few to share what they had written afterwards, and a number didn't precisely agree with the quote, which made for interesting discussion.

We then checked the homework from the workbook and listened to the answers. I am happy to see that the majority do their homework and are eager to check their answers. Those who don't end up sitting uncomfortably during that period of time without much clue of what is going on, but I think it also makes them try harder to do their homework next time.

After completing the movie watching I gave the sts the details about the following task (a speaking one, based on p. 91). They had to choose either one of the articles from the textbook or else look for one on the internet (or The News), read the article carefully and take notes on it, create an oral summary of it and give their opinion about the information. This homework is due for next Wednesday's class. The sts seemed happy to do this. I let them go early (being Friday) but they'll have time in next Monday's class to prepare some more for this. Their homework was to bring in an article to Monday's class if they were going to use an external one.

Wed Mar 4 - LAB

Objectives:

- Identify which listening strategies would be useful for watching the movie

- Take notes / answer questions while watching the movie

Well it was all a bit of a farce this day - the lab computer wasn't equipped with the movie-watching programme, as i'd been informed it would be. So in between putting it on the two smaller TV screens and then deciding to watch it via a different computer, it took a lot more time than we had - the movie is LONG!!

I felt flustered and out of control, and more so when we discovered that the speakers were only playing one half of the sound - the music and sound effects, but hardly any dialogue! MORE fixing and struggling. So in the end we had about an hour of movie to watch when there was about 1 1/2 hours left of it. I was very disappointed, and it meant the students had to do more reading comprehension than listening comp, which had been the aim of the exercise. It was not very enjoyable and also as a result the sts missed a number of the questions on the handout. Still, we decided to finish watching the movie on Friday's class "con calma".

Mon Mar 2

Objectives:

- Conceptualize different infinitive and gerund forms by creating a top 5 list.

- Identify listening strategies used and attempt new strategies when listening to a text.

The journal writing today went a bit longer than expected, but was interesting for the sts. They were given a series of eight songs/pieces of music, and were asked to write down whatever came into their head - descriptions of the music, memories, thoughts, feelings. The music was quite different and one was positively scary, so there were many different entries. People were walking in late, though; so as we went through the music at the end they had to sit and wait. Perhaps in the future we could discuss each one, one by one. I had thought of doing this but decided it would be better to have them write more continuously.

We went to p. 89 and looked at slightly more difficult infinitive and gerund forms (passive, perfect and continuous). This time we just went through the language summary at the end of the book. I guess we did the exercises fairly quickly as I didn't want to spend too much time on this again. However, being more difficult to grasp for Spanish-speakers, they needed practice so we did practice 1 and half of 2. Then the sts, in small groups, made lists. Half did "5 things to worry about if you're a CELE student". The other half did "5 things to be happy about because you're a CELE student." I made the error last time I taught this level to only do the "worry" list which made everyone feel bad at the end. So having half look at the negative things and half look at positive things was much more positive overall.

I handed out some reference material on verbs that are used before gerunds and infinitives. Some sts were concerned that they had to memorize all the verbs, but I assured them it was just for reference!

The next activity was very worthwhile. I got the sts to listen to a text and "make notes" on what they thought it was about. I deliberately didn't give them any more instructions than that. After finishing listening to the first part (an interview about love and romance) the sts stated the listening strategies they had used to understand the text. I wrote these on the board. Then I gave the handout on listening strategy use, and the sts filled it out with their own information as we went through it slowly. I encouraged the sts to use different strategies while listening to the second half of the text - particularly key words, not translating, making predictions, and listening to specific details.

After finishing listening and discussing the main points, the sts noted that they had understood a lot more the second time. This was very encouraging for me.

Fri Feb 27

Objectives for today:

- Identify gerunds and infinitives in a written text

- Create a dialogue in a written text, including gerunds and infinitives

- Identify basic movie conventions, and begin watching Stardust (without subtitles)

Although the journal writing for today was to listen to African music and write their thoughts as they listened, it took a while to set up the Play Station equipment in order to watch the DVD, so I skipped the writing task today.

We went straight to looking at the homework (final exercise on infinitives), and then in groups of three I gave out one page each of the comic strip to each group. They had to read the strips and identify the gerunds and infinitives in them. It seemed like simple and hopefully fun exercise, and in the end they identified a good number of the grammar points; but they got more stuck on the unknown vocabulary of the strips, which I hadn't counted on -  words like preposterous, web-slinging wacko, whining, in cahoots, criminal underbelly, luring - and which distracted them. So by the time they finished the exercise (which took longer than expected) I wasn't prepared to get them to do the "invent the dialogue" exercise as well.

Unfortunately knowing that you're going to watch a DVD at some point in the class (please, please, no more exercises, we want to watch the movie!!!) is a distraction. I had planned to show at least 40 minutes of the movie in order to ensure that we would finish watching it in one more session. So as we went through some common movie conventions, I could see the sts' minds ticking away and my own watch-hands moving forward, the need becoming greater and greater.

So we watched the movie. I stopped it a few times. Mental note: putting the DVD through the VCR and into the TV brings down the volume quite notably. Also, not putting on subtitles for the first part ensures that your sts don't understand what is going on quite as much because they're not used to the accents and are still trying to establish characters and plot.

Wed Feb 25

Objectives for today -

- Reading comprehension: Extracting information from the text, working out vocabulary from the context

- Conceptualize gerunds and infinitives

The journal writing for today was about the question: "What do you think it would be like to be rich and famous?" I asked some students for their input after they finished. They had some thoughtful statements.

We went straight to p. 84 with the reading "How to be a celebrity". I had sts discuss in small groups the questions about famous people and the ways people become famous. We wrote these ideas on the board later. Then they read the text individually. No-one had heard of Charles Blondin, so I explained the story of the wheelbarrow and whether people believed he could do it or not. We also discussed different diseases with the names of the discoverer, and people who had created their own formula for success. Working through the phrases according to the context was a little difficult for them. We looked at the phrase "fond of", which came up again in the next class.

Then we went to p. 88. I skipped the song for obvious reasons, and also p. 86's road to fame story as it seems to be a bit redundant. Unfortunately the grammar section for gerunds and infinitives seems to be more confusing than helpful, so I created a worksheet for both gerunds and infinitives that I hope was more helpful for the sts. It gave them a list of commonly used verbs, some explanations and clear examples and a few exceptions; and then one or two exercises to practise. I'm a little worried though that I didn't give the sts much practice in making up their own sentences. I'm not sure exactly how to get sts to produce them themselves - only how to work through them in other, already-given sentences. Gerunds and infinitives seem to me to be so entrenched in the English language that it's difficult for me to work through how to isolate them and get the sts to consciously use them.

I did photocopy some Spiderman comic strips in order to get the sts to identify them in an authentic text; and I whited-out another strip for them to create their own dialogues there. But the grammar section took a long time; and I still wanted to give the sts opportunity to look at some novels I'd brought for them to read. So I left the comic strips for the next class.

Mon Feb 23

Objectives:

Intercultural awareness - making suggestions and responding to polite forms of handling awkward social situations

Speaking - asking "yes/no" questions to guess someone's identity, introduction to the topic

The journal writing topic today was to write about an awkward social situation that they had once had. I think I didn't give a good enough example for them, but still when a number of them shared their situation, it was clear they had understood what I had expected of them. I think in the future a good example would be a mobile phone going off at the wrong possible moment, or asking for the wrong dish in an expensive restaurant.

I then reiterated the need to find a book for the English class (gave them the opportunity to borrow some of mine) and we talked a little more about the website.

Finally we went to p. 81 and did the exercise on awkward social situations, discussing each one and hearing suggestions (both voluntarily and asked for) for what Bella should say. We had a good discussion about the difference between Mexican ways of answering and British ways. Quite a few sts said they were much more upfront and honest with their answers, rather than beating around the bush or saying a "white lie", while others said they preferred to look for a peaceful way out which may not necessarily be truthful. The sts then acted out their own situations, including a few I suggested for them - a bad haircut, forgetting someone's birthday, or discovering that your friend really supported George W. Bush! Some of these situations were acted out in front of the class.

We then played a game where each person had to think of a famous person, alive or dead, and their partner had to guess who it was, asking only questions which could be answered with "yes" or "no". Before beginning, I elicited the correct forms of questions of this type, such as "Does he" or "Is she" or "Was he" or "has she been". This worked quite well and only a very few couldn't guess the person.

Then I changed the rules and gave each person a famous person, whose name they had to hold to their forehead so that everyone could see the name except for them. They had to ask questions about themselves, going around the room. Here they had to use "Am I" or "Do I" or "Was I". Again, this worked well and provoked people's curiosity. Some were easier than others but there were a lot of laughs, and the language was used well.

Fri Feb 20

Objectives for today:

Language awareness: Revision of quantifiers

Reading comprehension - strategies the sts use for reading faster, making summaries, guessing meaning from context

The topic for today's journal writing was on the book they are reading for English (or going to read). If they are reading one - what's it about? Are you enjoying it? If you don't have one, what book would you like to read?

(In hindsight, I could have altered this a little, as most of them still don't have a book, and were a little at a loss as to what to write.)

At the end of the class I gave them some ideas about where to look for English novels, and what type to look for.

We did some work in p. 56 of the Workbook, in order to revise quantifiers. The activity was a little hard, particularly the second column, which says "this ice cream is full of flavour and should satisfy any of the chocolate lovers among our readers." It seemed a little strange, but nothing else fit.

I then went around the room and asked each person, "how fast can you read in Spanish?" most said that they considered themselves quite fast readers. But the next question, "how fast can you read in English?" made them admit that (except for Elvia), they were much slower readers in English. They discussed in groups what things they personally read in English, what strategies they use to read better, and what the difficulties are of reading in English. They reported back and I wrote their answers on the board. Some said they hardly read in English at all. Others said they read a lot while playing Play Station. Most said that their difficulty was in vocabulary and in understanding "lexical chunks". I showed them a sentence which, if translated directly to Spanish, makes no sense whatsoever, but that dividing the sentence up into lexical chunks, makes more sense.

Sts read p. 82, "improving your reading speed". Then they practiced reading a text on p. 139 in 60 seconds, following the advice of the tips, and writing down the main points of the text. Everyone was able to finish within 60 seconds and give an accurate summary of what the text was about. We then turned back to p. 78. I called on specific people to participate as I felt I wasn't getting enough participation out of certain sts. The sts read the article, section by section, having one minute to read each one, and summarize the main points. They were all able to read the text in the given time. They then worked with vocabulary and chose the correct meaning from the context. Other vocab not mentioned in the exercise that they had trouble with was stall, port wine, wasabi.

By the end of this activity many sts commented that they were reading faster, and were proud of that.

We still haven't managed to do awkward social situations, although this has been on the lesson plan for about three classes now!

I gave the sts information about the blog (erroneously called 612cele) and asked them to write and share in it, use it as a class diary, and give feedback on the classes given. It's an opportunity for them to not only practice writing, but also for me to improve my teaching. The sts present gave me their emails for me to invite them. They seemed enthusiastic about the idea of a blog.

Wed Feb 18 - LAB

Objectives for today:

Language awareness - classification of vocabulary (types of food), conceptualization of quantifiers

Listening comprehension - making inferences based on the title and beginning of song, listening for specific information

Being in the lab but not being able to use the electronic blackboard, I had to seat everyone on one side of the lab, closest to the whiteboard. Three students didn't fit so they sat on the closest seats on the other side. The lab doesn't work well for speaking except possibly in pairs or max. 3 people.

The topic for journal writing was to write a simple recipe for one of their favourite types of food. This took a little longer than expected. A number need a lot of vocabulary to do with cooking. No-one wanted to share their recipe, but they did tell me which type of food they were writing a recipe for. Some were not very simple!

Feeling a little unorganized today - leaving too many things to the last minute, which made me feel flustered. I brought in a lot of plastic food for the sts to classify into countable and uncountable nouns. The food stayed down the front on the table and I picked each one up and they said where it should go - with "a few, too many, a number of" or "very little, too much, a great deal of". This was very teacher-centred and lacked interaction from more people. Often the same people answered. In hindsight, it would have been better to break the class into groups and get them to categorize a number of food items, then report back to the whole class. My boardwork was also a little lopsided.

We turned to p. 80 and read the "food facts" together. The sts made guesses as to where the quantifiers should go in the text. They then listened for the correct information. They categorized the quantifiers on the board into "countable", "uncountable" and "both". We went through the analysis and read the language summary on p. 151. I emphasised the difference between "too much" and "demasiado", which in Spanish is also used to refer to something great - "demasiado bueno". One st asked about the phrase "too good to be true".

They then made twelve sentences out of the the list provided, eg. I don't eat much chocolate and then discussed them with a partner. Some made mistakes with the quantifiers, but were corrected during monitoring.

We didn't do the next activity "The lazy cook's guide" but went straight to the song in order to break up the grammar, which seemed to have gone on for too long, especially for a lab.

The song was "How to make gravy". The sts made inferences based on the title, some having given the meaning of "gravy". We looked at the first line and they made guesses about who the song was about, what it was; the second line established what time of year it was; and the third line established from where the letter was being written.

The sts listened to the song and filled in the gaps of the words. Some vocabulary we worked on later was roast, Queensland, dollop, cologne, stab me in the back, tang, my mind it plays up.I had to give them most of the vocabulary as it was quite Australia-specific. We listened to it again for them to confirm the word gaps and to enjoy it.

Mon Feb 16

Objectives for today:

Language awareness - conceptualizing defining and non-defining relative clauses

For journal writing, sts wrote describing their favourite place.

We then went to p. 76 and discussed the special days listed there (Children's Day, Mother's Day and Day of the Dead). I also gave them information, on their request, about these days in Australia. They attempted to complete the three texts using the relative clauses. The sts got the majority of the clauses correct. We took time to look at the analysis and I wrote on the board the various types of nouns which go before a relative clause (people, places, things, times and dates). The sts identified which relative pronouns refer to each one.

We also read through the language summaries. I didn't find this information so helpful for the sts, in fact it seems to confuse them more. In the future I'll try to find better reference information.

Sts then practiced with relative clauses, first just filling in relative pronouns, then discussing in pairs answers to questions such as "the name of a country you'd really like to visit". They did well discussing these and using the relative clauses correctly.

Finally we played a game. I gave each st a card with some information on it - the name of a famous person, place or film, or information about each one. They had to find the person with the card that matched the information, then together create sentences with the information using relative clauses. eg. "'The Dark Knight', which stars Christian Bale, is a 2008 movie which is set in Gotham City." The game was very successful and all sts participated to create effective sentences. Many of them wrote down the sentences they had made. This also was interesting as they learned about the people, places and movies.

Fri Feb 13

Objectives for today:

Listening comprehension - extracting the main information, recognition

Speaking - interviewing and describing an event

Listening comprehension - listening for main information, inferring attitudes

Today I remembered to bring music for the journal writing, which made things feel a little more relaxed. Their topic for today was "What will you do tomorrow for Valentine's Day / the Day of Love and Friendship / Saturday?" (It depended on whether they celebrate Valentine's Day or not!)

We went straight to p. 74 and they began the initial discussion with a partner a memorable event that they had both been to. They then listened to four people speaking about a memorable event. We listened to them one at a time and discussed the questions as we went, which basically looked for the main information from the texts. They then identified which phrases came from which listening text. I put special emphasis on the way "just" was used and also the use of "absolutely" in a number of sentences.

On p. 75 the sts then began the speaking task. We worked through the useful language. They worked with a different partner this time, and interviewed each other on a memorable event from their lives. Some of them later shared their partner's experience, and there were some very interesting ones - a concert in Italy, a carnival in Veracruz, and even working with Habitat for Humanity in Tabasco. This impressed me. The sts did well interviewing and using the language presented.

We had to skip "Awkward Social Situations" as there was not time to do both that and also listen to the song. So then we listened to the song "Knockbacks in Halifax", explaining the vocabulary knockbacks, Halifax, Northern Lights, Sydney, Geelong, bluenose, bitter. One of the students explained the Northern Lights. I got the students just to listen to the song with the words, and then they discussed what was going on in the song, how the singer felt about being in a disco in Halifax, and what happened between him and the girl. They enjoyed the song.