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.