How to Be Polite in English
Teaching Kids to Paraphrase, Step by Step
Paraphrasing is such a hard skill to master – and so very important! Paraphrasing is essential for many kinds of writing. Kids who don’t learn to paraphrase well will not only grow into poor writers but may also even resort to plagiarism, which is not at all a good thing. Here is a step by step plan for teaching paraphrasing to your students.
Start by Talking
At its essence, paraphrasing is putting something into your own words, so begin by having student do just that. A fun introductory activity is to split your students into pairs and ask a question such as, “What did you do after school yesterday?” or “Tell where you would like to go on vacation and why you would like to go there.” Student A answers the question in three or four sentences. Next, Student B paraphrases Student A’s answer. Then, the partners switch roles. You will want to model this for the class a time or two before you begin.
Another game you can play with your students is a variation on Quiz, Quiz, Trade. Give each student a card with sentence written on it. Have students find partners. Student A reads her sentence, and Student B paraphrases it. Then, the students switch roles. Finally, they trade cards before both moving on to find different partners.
Paraphrase Together
Try paraphrasing a short paragraph together as a class. Display the paragraph with your document camera or on the board. You may want to give your students their own copies. Make sure your students know the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing. Talk about different strategies that can be used. One approach is the Four R’s:
- Reword – Replace words and phrases with synonyms whenever you can.
- Rearrange – Rearrange words within sentences to make new sentences. You can even rearrange the ideas presented within the paragraph.
- Realize that some words and phrases cannot be changed – names, dates, titles, etc. cannot be replaced, but you can present them differently in your paraphrase.
- Recheck – Make sure that your paraphrase conveys the same meaning as the original text.
Here is an example:
Original Text:
At just 8.5 square miles, the Pacific island country of Nauru is one of the smallest countries in the world. The island was once rich in phosphate, but most of the resource has been mined, leaving damage to the environment behind. Nauru has a population of about 10,000 people.
Paraphrased Text:
Nauru is a Pacific island country that is only 8.5 square miles in area. It is one of the smallest countries on the planet and only about 10,000 people live there. Nauru has mined its once plentiful supply of phosphate. This has damaged the environment on the island.
Independent Practice
After you have done a few together, try having your students work in pairs to paraphrase a paragraph on the board. Be sure to allow a few pairs to share their paraphrases with the class. At this point, students can begin to work independently. You may want to stick with one paragraph at a time, as it will be less overwhelming than an entire article. This set of Paraphrasing Task Cards is perfect for independent practice (and the poster below is part of the free preview, as well as the first four task cards, which you could use for whole-class practice).
Pulling It All Together
Eventually, you will want to move on to paraphrasing entire articles. Encourage students to paraphrase in bite-sized pieces, one paragraph at a time. As your students become fluent paraphrasers, you can move into more advanced activities such as:
- paraphrasing from notes you have taken from the original text, rather than from the text itself.
- including quotes in your paraphrased writings.
- paraphrasing some parts and summarizing other parts.
- paraphrasing, summarizing, and including quotes all in one piece.
- using more than one source to paraphrase, summarize, and include quotes. (Throw in a bibliography, and what do you know? You’ve written an actual report!)
Paraphrasing and Summarizing – FREE Posters and Reminder Cards!
Paraphrasing and summarizing are both super challenging skills to master, and what makes them even more confusing is that students often get these two skills mixed up! That is why I created the PARA and SUM acronyms:
PARAphrase It!
- Put the text in your own words.
- Avoid copying the text.
- Rearrange similar text.
- Ask yourself if you included all the important points.
SUMmarize It!
- Shorter than the text.
- Use your own words.
- Main ideas only
The acronyms not only make the difference clear, but they also serve as reminders for each of the skills. I would suggest introducing paraphrasing before summarizing. Even though it requires more writing, it is an easier skill to master. Once they learn not to just copy the text, but rather to put it into their own words, they pretty much have it down. Using short paragraphs, like the ones in this set of paraphrasing task cards, is a great way to start.Summarizing is much more challenging. Students must identify the most important points and condense them into a much shorter form than the original. Using short passages can really help. Another suggestion is to limit the words that students are allowed to use. For example, when using these summarizing task cards, students are limited to just 12 words. This keeps them focused on the main points and makes it impossible to paraphrase.
Another strategy is to use the same paragraph for both skills. Students can first paraphrase, then summarize. If you are short on time, then consider paraphrasing verbally and then writing the summary. This could be a good activity to do in pairs.
Ready to get started? Then download the PARAphrase It! and SUMmarize It! posters and reminder cards free right here.
How do you teach summarizing and paraphrasing? Please tell us with a comment.
Methods for Correcting Students
If you do it in an insensitive manner, you can destroy their confidence.
And if you don't do it enough, they may become used to saying things incorrectly, and the mistakes will be harder to get rid of.
It isn't easy to get the balance right, but here are some tips to help you correct your students in a sensitive and appropriate way.
Top five tips
1. Do you need to correct them?
If the students are taking part in a fluency speaking exercise then don't stop them when they are speaking.
Likewise if they are performing a role play, it isn't usually appropriate to correct them during the exercise.
If you are doing spoken grammar exercises then yes, it is a good idea to stop the student and use some form of correction technique.
Also, remember you don't need to correct everything.
If a student is attempting language that is above their level, and that they haven’t studied, it isn't usually appropriate to correct every mistake they make while attempting it.
2. Try using a 'correction time'
Allocating time after an activity for correction generally works very well.
There are different ways you can do this.
Firstly, you can make a note of mistakes you hear and write them on the board after the exercise.
You don't have to say who made the mistakes (but usually the student who made the error will recognize their mistakes).
The group as a whole then correct the mistakes in the sentence. This way, the students are not directly embarrassed by being corrected in front of their classmates.
Secondly, you can write the mistakes and get students to correct them in pairs. This has the added advantage of creating more English speaking time for the students.
Thirdly, you can also use the 'correction time' to give praise for good language you heard during the exercise.
3. Accuracy vs fluency
If your students are working on activities related to accuracy rather than fluency then it is appropriate to stop and correct them.
One way to do this is to stop the student after a mistake with the target language and repeat back to them what they said.
Hopefully they will realize what the mistake was and correct it themselves.
If not, then it is OK to try and lead them to the correct version, or kindly tell them the answer if they still can't get it right.
4. Be aware of cultural issues
Many nationalities, particularly from the Far East, feel very ashamed when they are corrected, so be aware of this and try to be kind and sensitive when you are dealing with these students.
5. Give a 'praise sandwich'
This makes criticism seem less harsh but also focuses students on what they need to do to improve. A 'praise sandwich' is simply a criticism or correction, sandwiched between two pieces of praise.
For example:
"Max, your pronunciation was much better today, well done. Now, why do you think "Yesterday I go to the cinema" was wrong? (wait for student to reply). Yes, that's great. Well done, it's really good that you are starting to correct your own mistakes."
You can see that here, the teacher has actually made Max think about his mistake, he has corrected it, and he will probably leave feeling positive about his progress.
Correction is an important teaching tool, which can be most helpful to students when done properly. Implement these methods for correcting students to get the best results.
4 Handy Types of Assessment in Language Teaching That Stray from Tradition
Assessment is of vital importance to both students and teachers. It tells instructors how many students have already achieved learning goals, who are the students struggling with their learning, and which activities or methods are more helpful than others.
In teaching languages, teachers often have to measure students' language abilities, which they achieve by developing tests or quizzes or through more informal methods. In addition, they often select commercially-developed tests for use in their classrooms or language programs. In order to feel confident and comfortable with assessment, this module will present different methods of assessing language as well as strategies for practice in the classroom.
Test, assessment, exam…
Words so terrifying they send chills down the spines of even the most accomplished students.
That may be a bit dramatic, but here’s a fact: Practically no one likes tests.
The good news is that over the past thirty years, testing has seen a massive transformation and an even bigger rebranding.
We’ve moved beyond using exclusively standardized formats. Now there’s an array of more tailored and student-centric approaches to assessing an individual’s ability and progress.
Having diverse assessment options in your teaching toolkit will help you keep your curriculum strategic and your students motivated.
Let’s take a look at what the modern assessment landscape looks like so that you can tackle testing with confidence.
1. Friendly Diagnostic
Staying aware of your students’ skill levels can be the difference between a well balanced semester or one that comes down to hectically cramming students with information a week before their final exam.
Diagnostic tests essentially help us evaluate a student’s proficiency level in order to optimally design or adjust a curriculum. The term diagnostictesting is used liberally throughout public school systems, particularly in language classes.
Diagnostic tests don’t need to be serious and scary.
In fact, by making them friendly and relaxed you’ll be able to incorporate them more often, keeping your course planning consistently well informed.
Remember the following tips to help you incorporate friendly diagnostic testing that can become routine:
- Go gradeless. These tests are used to benefit course planning. In order to get an accurate idea of students’ capabilities, we don’t want them to hold back. Taking away grades decreases their fear of failure and can lead to more accurate results. Soon the students won’t even dread them anymore and you can use them regularly.
- Be consistent. Have students take a diagnostic test at least once a month and get in the habit of regularly tweaking your curriculum based on the results.
- Test undercover. Whatever you do, don’t call it a proficiency test or a diagnostic test. Call it a grammar exercise, a comprehension activity or some other subtle name that leaves students feeling less judged.
A simple example would be to hand out a quiz at the end of every chapter or book unit that tests what has been covered and what’s coming up in the next unit. This lets you know what review is still required before moving on, as well as how you should prioritize the next unit.
Go over the answers as a class and give candy as a reward for everyone who received 80% or higher.
2. Learner-designed
If student participation is a central pillar to success, then why not let them help design their own tests?
Over the years, teaching has become progressively more student-centric and participatory. This next type of assessment is a product of that school of thought.
Here’s what it looks like: A week or two before testing is set to begin, do a review day with students. Go through every lesson together and determine what would qualify as mastering that lesson, what would qualify as passing/average and what would qualify as failing/unsatisfactory.
Let’s say the chapter you’re looking at covers irregular verb conjugation and vocabulary about weather. Students could determine that, in order to have mastered this chapter, they should be able to:
- Show that they can conjugate all of the main irregular verbs (written exercise)
- Be able to use them in a sentence (written & verbal exercises)
- Have a conversation using them without making mistakes (verbal exercise)
- Write a 300-word text that incorporates all of their weather vocabulary and each irregular verb, using a provided word bank (written exercise)
This is a time-consuming process, but by the end, not only have you developed a logical, end-of-course assessment that your students think is fair, you’ve also made them accountable and invested. They designed the test, after all.
The test-designing class activity doubles as a thorough review of everything learned in the course.
Here are few tips for this type of assessment:
- Have this conversation sitting in a circle so that you don’t become the focal point, although you’ll still be the facilitator.
- You can adapt this method and have students design their test requirements in groups. Afterwards, the groups will share their answers and you’ll choose the best.
3. Self Assessment
Let’s segue into the next obvious extension of student-centric teaching: self assessment.
If you’re teaching a well-rounded course that incorporates comprehension, speaking, tasks and grammar, then using self-assessment will be a breeze because your curriculum already has enough built-in assessment material. You won’t even need to come up with a special test or activity.
Here are some benefits of self-assessment:
- Showing vs. telling. Students fully understand what they need to improve upon and why because the assessment isn’t coming from a teacher.
- Motivation. Students will be more invested because, as the graders, they’ll know exactly the level they’re expected to achieve. There won’t be any surprises or ambiguity.
- Fairness. Students like having a say in their final score because they trust that it will be fair. This University of Alicante article elaborates on how this method prevents resentment by creating an atmosphere where grading disagreements are handled openly and directly.
It’s smart to pair student-designed tests with self-assessed grading because students know the criteria. If you design the test, though, then make sure the requirements are clear beforehand.
Just because they’re self-assessed doesn’t mean the test has to be anything fancy. It can be the typical format: a listening exercise with questions, a spoken presentation, an essay and a written portion, etc.
When grading the essay and spoken portion, ask the students to give themselves an overall grade using a rubric you provide them. The rubric will ask students to assess different aspects individually, for example: fluency, vocabulary, spelling and clarity. You can fill out the same rubric simultaneously. Their final grade would be the average of the two scores.
Providing a detailed rubric for self assessment helps keep grading more accurate. Comparing rubrics also creates the opportunity to connect with each student and make sure you’re on the same page.
4. Task-based
We mentioned the benefits of showing students what they need to improve upon versus telling them. Task-based assessments take this to a whole new level.
Use task-based assessments when you want to test a student’s speaking and comprehension. This is usually conducted in pairs or with the teacher participating, but try to avoid the latter so that all of your attention can be focused on assessing.
Diagnostic tests, for example, are often presented in straightforward, brief formats that include sections like fill-in-the-blank, correctly conjugate underlined words in a text, etc. Task-based assessments, on the other hand, can be broader.
Instead of having a student answer questions that use new political vocabulary, have them give a 15-minute presentation as if they were speaking to a UN delegation and had to argue for or against euthanasia or some other important topic.
The student’s ability to achieve this task determines the grade.
Another assignment could be the following hypothetical task:
You have a friend visiting you in your city. Your friend is thinking about moving there too. Give a 5-minute argument that tries to convince your friend that moving to your city is a great idea.
Task-based learning is perfect for testing a student’s overall speaking level and ability to use the language.
You’re probably naturally leaning towards one of the assessment methods we’ve just discussed, but the best part is that you don’t need to choose just one to take back to the classroom with you. You can use all of them or a combination.
Your students will thank you, and you’ll find yourself easily bridging the gaps in the infamous teaching-testing-learning divide.
Educational Philosophies in the Classroom
There are many different educational philosophies that have developed over the years. Some of these
philosophies are teacher-centered and some are student-centered, but they all have the same goal,
and the goal is to provide students with the best education possible. The following is a list of
educational philosophies and their basic ideas.
Perennialism is a teacher centered philosophy that focuses on the values associated with reason. It
considers knowledge as enduring, seeks everlasting truths, and views principles of existence as
constant or unchanging.
Progressivism is a student centered philosophy that believes that ideas should be tested by
experimentation, and learning comes from finding answers from questions. This philosophy values
the scientific method of teaching, allows individuals to have their own beliefs, and promotes the
interaction of students as valuable to the learning process.
Reconstructionism is another student centered philosophy that promotes world social progress,
focuses on world events, controversial issues, and developing a vision for a new better world. This
philosophy is associated with pragmatism and essentialism.
Positivism is a teacher centered philosophy that rejects intuition, matters of mind, essences, and
inner causes. This philosophy relies on laws of matter and motion as valid, and bases truth on
provable fact. It is also known as logical positivism.
Constructivism is a student centered philosophy that emphasizes hands on learning and students
actively participating in lessons. Constructivists believe that students should be able to discover
lessons on their own through hands on activity because it is the most effect way of learning and is
considered true learning.
Behaviorism is a teacher centered philosophy that is closely related to realism. This philosophy
focuses on human behavior as a reaction to external stimuli, and believes that changing the
environment can change misbehavior.
Humanism is a student centered philosophy that focuses on enhancing ones innate goodness, rejects
the idea of group-oriented education, and upholds the idea of enhancing individual development.
This philosophy also believes that students should be actively involved with their education on all
levels, and students should be able to make choices about what they will be learning.
Essentialism is a teacher centered philosophy that believes there is a common set of skills and
knowledge that educated people should have. It focuses on respect for authority, developing sound
habits of the mind, and training in fundamentals.
Essentialism is similar to perrenialism
Although all of these philosophies differ in many ways they all focus on teaching students effectively.
These philosophies are beneficial to all students and should be applied in school environments.
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
Winter School 2017 (Lviv)
Engage me!
The Magic Automatic Lesson Planner with Google Forms
Take the hassle out of lesson planning. Go digital. Make your plans searchable and shareable. Use Google Forms!
Traditional lesson plan books have their limitations. Being paper-based, they’re not searchable and they’re not easily shareable.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able tosearch quickly for a specific lesson plan instead of flipping back page by page?
How about being able to share lesson plans with others without making photocopies?
You can use Google Forms to create a lesson planner that creates documents — automatically! — with all your plans in a format nicely designed by you!
Invest a bit of time now (I’m guessing +/- 30 minutes … just my best guess) and you’ll have a system that saves your lesson plans to your Drive that you can find easily later.
You’ll create a Google Form like this one (click here) where you’ll type up your lesson plans.
With the steps in this post, you’ll automatically create documents with all of your data like this (click here)!`
I published a post called “20 practical ways to use Google Forms in class, school”. My readers — by far! — clicked most often on the “lesson plans” option. This made me think, “Why not create specific instructions so everyone knows EXACTLY how to do this?”
Here it is … step-by-step instructions to add automation to your Googlized lesson plans:
1. Create a new Google Form (on a computer/Chromebook, go to Google Drive and use the “NEW” button … hover over “More” and choose Google Forms). Change the title/filename to whatever you’d like. (Something like “Lesson plan template”.)
2. Add questions using the circle “+” button to create places to add information to your form. This is how you’ll build your lesson planner. Some suggestions (and the type of question to use):
- Date (date)
- Class/period (dropdown)
- Topic of lesson (short answer)
- Lesson objectives (short answer or paragraph)
- Standards addressed (checkboxes to select multiple, dropdown to select one) (You might include number and VERY short summaries of what each standard is for each one.)
- Activities for the day (paragraph)
- Assessment (short answer or paragraph)
3. Click the preview button (looks like an eye on computer/Chromebook) to make sure everything looks good. If so, fill your lesson plan template out once with some practice text (so you’ll have some data to work with) and submit it.
4. Go back to your Google Form. Click the “Responses” tab (it’s next to the “Questions” tab at the top). Click the green spreadsheet button to create a spreadsheet. In the window that pops up, choose to create a new spreadsheet. (If it doesn’t have a file name yet, you might want to create one so you can find it later!)
5. It will open the new spreadsheet for you, where you’ll see any lesson plan responses you’ve created. (Whenever you type up new lesson plans and click “submit,” they’ll come to this spreadsheet automatically too.)
6. Now that our lesson plan spreadsheet is set, let’s set up what the document will look like with all of your lesson plan information! Go back to Google Drive and create a new document. Design that document just like you’d like it to be. (Here’s an example … click here to see it … and don’t worry about all the <<>> stuff in the document yet.)
- NOTE: If you’d like to be able to edit that document, please, please, PLEASE don’t click “Share” and ask for access to it. Instead, make your own copy of that document. Click File > Make a copy … and make changes to your own. To make life easier for everyone, I don’t grant access to these example files. (And you wouldn’t want to make changes to my copies of them anyway, right?
)
7. Now, let’s set the document up to have information inserted into it. In the example document above, you’ll see data tags that have << and >> around them. (If the term “data tags” scares you a little bit, don’t worry … be brave and keep going. They aren’t as scary as they sound. I promise! )
)
For us to be able to bring in all of your lesson plan data, we have to know where to put all of that data. These data tags do it for us. The nice thing about them — you can make them whatever you want (I’d stick to regular alphabet letters to be safe, though). They just need to have << and >> around them.
8. Once your data tags are in place, it’s time to set this whole thing up so it will generate those awesome lesson plan documents for you! Go back to your results spreadsheet and click the “Add-ons” menu. Then click “Get add-ons …”. Search for “autoCrat” and click the blue “+ FREE” button next to it. You’ll need to grant it permissions to do its thing. (Don’t worry … it’s safe.)
9. When the autoCrat add-on is installed, do one of two things (they both do the same thing):
- Click the red “New job” button on the window that pops up.
- Click Add-ons > autoCrat > Open. Then click “New job”.
Go through the step-by-step directions for autoCrat:
- Step 1: Give it a name … something poetic like “lesson plan template”. Then click “Next.”
- Step 2: Choose that document we created earlier as your template. Click the blue “From Drive” button and go find it. (Search for the file name if you have to.) Then click “Next.”
- Step 3: autoCrat will identify all of your data tags from before. (Isn’t it smart???) Click all of the little drop-down menus next to “maps to column” to choose where it should get its data. (See image.) Then click “Next.”
- Step 4: This is how autoCrat will name all of those lesson plan documents you want it to create. Two options here (see below). When done, click “Next”.
- Make it the same every time (something like “My lesson plans”). BUT … you’ll have to go back and change them every time or you’ll end up with a million documents called “My lesson plans”. Not good.
- Use your fancy data tags from your document to personalize each file name. My suggestion: use the data tags for the date and the class. Find the data tags by clicking the tall light-blue arrow bar on the left. It might look something like this: Lesson plans for <<Date>> for <<Class/period>> (Much better idea, right?)
- Step 5: Choose a folder where your sparkly new lesson plan documents will go. Click “+ Choose Folder” and create a folder with a memorable name. “Lesson plans” will work! When you find it, just click it once and click the blue “Select” button. Then click “Next”.
- Step 6 (OPTIONAL): This step is for dropping new lesson plan documents into different folders depending on the condition. If you really want to do this, check out this part of the autoCrat help document. Just click “Next.”
- Step 7 (OPTIONAL): This step is also geekier than I’ll cover in this post. If you want to try it, check out this part of the autoCrat help document. Just click “Next.”
- Step 8 (OPTIONAL): This step lets you share docs automatically as soon as they’re created. If you’d like to do that, click “Yes” and work through the next steps. You’ll determine who to share with by including their email addresses in the email template at the bottom. Whether you choose to do this or not, click “Next” at the bottom to move on.
- Step 9: You’ll want to use this to create a new document every time you submit data through your lesson plan form. Click “Yes” for “Run on form trigger”. It will ask you to enable triggers … just say “Yes.” When you’re done, click “Save.”
- Once you’re done, you can hover over your new job you just created and click the “play” button (triangle) to create documents for any data you’ve already submittedthrough the Google Form.
If you clicked that “play” button in autoCrat … Quick! Run to Google Drive and check your lesson plan folder. There will be a new lesson plan document in it!
Pretty snazzy, huh?
Now, every time you enter lesson plan data into your Google Form, autoCrat will create a document with all that information, sorted and presented neatly in that document you created.
(Note: autoCrat will automatically create those documents about every three hours or so by itself. If you want them immediately, you can go click that “play” button at the end of the autoCrat instructions above.)
Want to share specific lesson plans with colleagues or supervisors? Use the blue “Share” button in the top right of the document and share it with them … or share the whole folder with them!
Want to find lesson plans for a specific date or with a specific activity in them? Just search Google Drive for the document!
All lesson plans in one document
Autocrat creates separate documents for each lesson plan you create with the Google Form. I’ve had questions about putting all of those lesson plans together in one document.
After doing some digging, here’s what I’ve got …
- There’s no easy way to merge multiple Google Docs into one single Google Doc (as of publication of this post). I found this article that says it can do it through Google Apps Script, but I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to make it work.
- autoCrat has two choices for creating documents — multiple documents and single document. The single document option doesn’t do what we’re trying to do. (At least as far as I could tell.)
- There’s a really good tool called PDF Mergy that could help. It will take your PDFs and other files from Google Drive (or your computer) and merge them all together in a PDF file. It’s really easy to use and quick. The downside — merged PDF files can’t be edited. This could be good if you needed to turn your lesson plans in or if you wanted a permanent, finished file. (But what lesson plan is ever really permanent and finished?!?)
- Another option is to reconsider whether you really need them all in one document. If your lesson plans are all in one folder, they’re grouped together that way. If you want others to be able to view or edit them, share the folder with them. Finding them in the folder is easy with the search box … just search for the lesson plan you’re looking for. (Which is faster than waiting for a big document to load and then scrolling through it.)
- If you have multiple classes and want to keep them separate, create a different Google Form/Sheet/Doc for each class and dump the docs into different folders, keeping them separated.
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http://mediaplayer.pearsoncmg.com/assets/MN99V8GDwWzeSOshztIXYBb_g5kOE84E
Christmas in the United Kingdom
Christmas is a happy holiday. Families come
together to share their happiness, attend church and exchange gifts. In the
days before Christmas, people decorate their homes
and gardens. These decorations may include:
- Christmas trees.
- Small colored fairy lights.- Leaves and berries from holly trees and mistletoe bushes.
- Various other decorations with
rich colours.
In
many towns and cities, the shopping streets are also decorated with lights and
large pine trees, often specially imported from Norway. The Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square is also a gift from Norway.
In some places a Nativity scene is arranged. This illustrates the story of
Jesus' birth using statues or actors and live animals. Many churches hold
special services in the night before Christmas Day, on Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day.
Many people spend Christmas Day with family members, with whom they
exchange gifts and cards. Family
members wrap up their gifts and leave them at the bottom of the Christmas tree
where they are found on Christmas morning. Children leave a long sock or stocking
at the end of their bed on Christmas Eve, 24th December, hoping that Father
Christmas (who lives for most of the year at the North Pole) will come down the chimney during the night and bring
them small presents, fruit and nuts. They are usually not disappointed! Father Christmas travels in
a sleigh pulled by reindeer so fast that he can deliver presents to all
children in one night, although in some stories elves help him with his work.
Later in the day, people may attend
special church services, even if they do not usually go to church. Nearly
everyone prepares and eats a special meal. This often includes roast turkey,
potatoes and vegetables. After the main course, Christmas pudding is often
eaten. Mince pies are also popular on Christmas Day. The British usually pull a cracker with another member of the family. It breaks
with a loud crack and a coloured hat, small toy and joke fall out!
Later in the afternoon they may watch the Queen on television as she
delivers her traditional Christmas message to the United Kingdom.
Nearly all organizations, except hospitals and shelters for the homeless,
are closed on Christmas Day. Some also organize shelter, company and food for
the homeless or those who need help.
26th December is also a public holiday,
Boxing Day, and this is the time to visit friends and relatives.
religious [rɪ’lɪdʒəs]
Jesus Christ [ˈdʒiːzəs] |kraɪst| pudding |ˈpʊdɪŋ| - пудинг
birth –
народження
mince pie - солодкий пиріжок
Bible |ˈbaɪbl|
cracker – хлопавка
shepherd |ˈʃepəd- пастух
except |ɪkˈsept| - крім
angel |ˈeɪndʒ(ə)l| - ангел
shelter – притулок
appear |əˈpɪə|- з'являтися homeless - бездомний
Saviour |ˈseɪvjə| - Спаситель
stable |ˈsteɪbl| – конюшня, стайня
Bethlehem [ˈbeθlɪhem] – Віфлеєм
virgin |ˈvəːdʒɪn| - діва
Joseph |ˈdʒəʊzɪf|
lead (led, led) – вести
gift|ɡɪft| -подарунок
frankincense [ ˈfræŋkɪnsens ] – ладан
myrrh |məː| - мирра
attend – відвідувати
exchange |ɪksˈtʃeɪndʒ| - обмінюватися
include |ɪnˈkluːd| - включати
fairy lights [ˈfɛərɪ] – гірлянди
berry –ягода
holly |ˈhɒli| - падуб
mistletoe |ˈmɪs(ə)ltəʊ| - омела біла
bush |bʊʃ| - кущ
various [’veərɪəs] – різний
pine [paɪn] – сосна
import [ɪm’pɔ:rt] – імпортувати
Norway [ˈnɔːweɪ] – Норвегія
Trafalgar Square -
Трафальгарська площа
Nativity |nəˈtɪvɪti| - Різдво
arrange |əˈreɪn(d)ʒ –
організувати, розташовувати
illustrate |ˈɪləstreɪt| - ілюструвати
use [juːz| - використовувати
|
statue |ˈstætʃuː|- статуя
live |laɪv| - живий
hold – проводити
service |ˈsəːvɪs|- служба
wrap
up |ræp ʌp| - обгортати
sock - шкарпетка
stocking – панчоха
bottom – низ
the North Pole - північний полюс
chimney |ˈtʃɪmni| -
димохід
disappointed |dɪsəˈpɔɪntɪd| - розчарований
sleigh |sleɪ| - сани
pull - тягнути
reindeer |ˈreɪndɪə|- північний олень
deliver |dɪˈlɪvə| - доставити
although |ɔːlˈðəʊ| - хоча
elf – ельф
roast turkey |rəʊst| |ˈtəːki| -
смажена індичатина
main
course - головна страва
Inspiring Teaching
Shopping listening activityHow to Write a Lesson Plan: 5 Secrets of Writing Great Lesson Plans
Writing a lesson plan will ensure that you are prepared for your class and will make it run more smoothly. It is important to break the material up into several sections and choose activities suitable for each. Knowing approximately how much time an activity will take is important, but after the first lesson you may need to adjust things accordingly. It is best to be flexible seeing as different classes will respond to material differently. If at any point students struggle, you will have to dedicate more time to instruction or drilling before moving on to practice activities. For the purposes of this example let’s assume that an English class is forty-five minutes long.
How To Proceed
- 1Warm up
A warm up activity can be used in a number of ways. It can get your students thinking about material that will be used later on in the class, review material from a previous class, or simply get your students thinking in English, moving around, or awake. This activity should only take up a small portion of your lesson, perhaps five minutes. - 2Introduction
A good introduction will create a need for students to learn the material you are going to present and get them interested in the day’s topic. This is the part of the lesson where the teacher does the most talking so try to get students involved and use choral repetition to keep students talking about half the time. Depending on how complex the topic is or how much new vocabulary there is, the introduction could take some time but in most cases, about ten minutes should be sufficient. - 3Practice
The practice activity would normally be about ten minutes and have students working individually or in pairs. Practicing model dialogues, completing worksheets, and doing short activities would be appropriate. This may take about ten minutes including going over the answers or having some demonstrations. - 4ProductionIn the production activity students should have to produce material on their own. Rather than reading sentences, perhaps they have to answer questions or make their own sentences. Longer activities such as board games, which can be played in groups, or activities for the whole class, where students work in teams, would be best. The remaining class time can be devoted to this activity.
- 5ReviewIt is a good idea to plan another five minute activity that can be done at the end of class as a review or used as the warm up in the following lesson. If the production activity does not take up the remaining portion of the class period, you have a backup plan.
Important
When writing lesson plans, be sure to include what part of the textbook you are covering in the lesson, the target structure, new vocabulary, directions for all the activities you intend to use, and the approximate time each section of your lesson will take. The idea behind a lesson plan is that another teacher could pick it up and successfully teach your class without further instructions. If there is an activity where you plan to ask the students questions so that they use the past tensein their responses, write down the questions you plan to ask. It is more difficult to think of appropriate questions on the spot and you are more likely to ask them a question using vocabulary they are unfamiliar with as well. If there is a group activity in the lesson, write down about how many students should be in each group because two to four students is a lot different than five to ten. Writing out your lesson plan can also help you figure out what material you must prepare for a lesson because if your production activity will only take about ten minutes, then you are obviously going to need an additional activity to end the class with.
Not all lessons will be conducted the same. In some instances, the introduction of new material may take an entire lesson or the production activity may be an entire lesson. It is always good to have familiar activities to fall back on in case something doesn’t work quite the way you had planned. If students are playing the board game without actually speaking, in other words just moving their pieces around the board, they are not getting the necessary practice so you may have to either join the group having difficulties or change activities altogether.
When writing lesson plans, be sure to include what part of the textbook you are covering in the lesson, the target structure, new vocabulary, directions for all the activities you intend to use, and the approximate time each section of your lesson will take. The idea behind a lesson plan is that another teacher could pick it up and successfully teach your class without further instructions. If there is an activity where you plan to ask the students questions so that they use the past tensein their responses, write down the questions you plan to ask. It is more difficult to think of appropriate questions on the spot and you are more likely to ask them a question using vocabulary they are unfamiliar with as well. If there is a group activity in the lesson, write down about how many students should be in each group because two to four students is a lot different than five to ten. Writing out your lesson plan can also help you figure out what material you must prepare for a lesson because if your production activity will only take about ten minutes, then you are obviously going to need an additional activity to end the class with.
Not all lessons will be conducted the same. In some instances, the introduction of new material may take an entire lesson or the production activity may be an entire lesson. It is always good to have familiar activities to fall back on in case something doesn’t work quite the way you had planned. If students are playing the board game without actually speaking, in other words just moving their pieces around the board, they are not getting the necessary practice so you may have to either join the group having difficulties or change activities altogether.
At any rate, lesson plans are enormously helpful and if the following year you find yourself teaching the same material, preparation will be a breeze.
Do you have any advice on how to write lesson plans? Please share your best practices in the comments below!
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