Lessons On Movies

April 19th, 2013

Just uploaded my latest (ninth) English materials site -
LessonsOnMovies.com

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To start the site off, there are are lessons on the top 50 movies from the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) as well as 8 recent movies. I hope to create lessons on the IMDd’s top 250 movies and the latest blockbusters.

Each lesson comes with a 14-page handout, 8 online quizzes and an mp3. There are official movie trailers for the new movies.

All feedback, thoughts, criticism, ideas for improvement, suggestions, etc. greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Sean

Plagiarism

March 22nd, 2013

A long, long, long time ago…
when I was at school, aged 11, 23, 13… I didn’t really know what plagiarism was. It wasn’t until university I really found out about it. Thinking back on this now, I feel a little disappointed that the pitfalls of plagiarism were not drummed into us at school. I believe I have suffered because of this. Years of copying from books and not thinking about what I was writing deprived me of going through important creative, analytical, cognitive processes that would have made me a better writer today. I also think my general knowledge would be better today had I been told to research, think, create… It was only when I studied for my Master’s (in my 30’s) that I fully appreciated the importance of research and the original thought that follows. I remember constantly surprising myself at how original ideas seemed to flow freely once I had read around a subject, and that I was able to formulate them into cogent arguments.

Copy and Paste

Many years later, as a teacher…
I was more than a little surprised that university-level students I taught lacked an awareness of plagiarism similar to mine from decades before. It seems their schooling too did not verse them in the perils of copy and paste.

From now…
I will devote greater attention to highlighting the benefits of doing honest research and homework from now. Hopefully, my students will become better thinkers and writers as a result, and rely less on copy and paste. The Internet provides today’s students with an incredible resource of riches. Our job is to provide students with the tools to research and cite and resist temptation.

PS
Here are some resources and lessons I put together on plagiarism:

  1. links to resources on plagiarism -  http://www.freeeslmaterials.com/academic_dishonesty.html
  2. a 20-questions printable handout for students – http://www.esldiscussions.com/p/plagiarism.html
  3. a  one-minute listening with 9-page worksheet and 8 online activities – http://www.listenaminute.com/p/plagiarism.html
  4. a 13-page handout, listening and online quizzes  on World Intellectual Property Day  (April 26)
  5. a news lesson about the problem of  copy-and-paste essays in schools   http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0801/080122-plagiarism.html
  6. and a great resource from the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

Valentine’s Day

February 9th, 2013

 Five lessons I made: ♥

1. 100 questions for your Valentine (a giant role play) with additional activities.

Here are some sample questions:

  1. Will you tell me all about your previous partners?
  2. Can you make me breakfast in bed every Sunday morning?
  3. Is it OK if we have a joint bank account?
  4. Do you have any bad habits?
  5. What shall we do in our retirement?
  6. Would you have my name tattooed on your arm?
  7. I cry uncontrollably when I watch sad movies. Is that OK?
  8. Will you cut my toenails once a week?
  9. If your best friend makes me cry, what will you do?
  10. If you have to make a choice, say goodbye to your best friend, or me, who would you say goodbye to?
  11. Which colour do you think I look best in?
  12. Would you still love me if I had my nose, eyebrow and tongue pierced?

2. A 13-page handout with listening and online activities.
3. A 60-second listening with 9-page handout and online quizzes on someone who hates Valentine’s Day.
4. A 60-second listening with 9-page handout and online quizzes on someone who loves Valentine’s Day.
5. A 20-question discussion handout (questions below).

STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)
What do you know about Valentine’s Day?
Do you like Valentine’s Day?
What are the good things about Valentine’s Day?
What would be your perfect Valentine’s Day?
What Valentine’s Day message would you like someone to write to you?
Tell me about the perfect Valentine’s Day meal.
Is Valentine’s Day a bad day for people who are single?
Someone once said: “Why was Cupid was to represent Valentine’s Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.” Do you agree?
What are the most romantic Valentine’s Day words in your language?
Should Valentine’s Day be a national holiday?

STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)
Is Valentine’s Day really another way for companies to make money?
What are the best Valentine’s Day gifts?
What do you write in a Valentine’s Day card?
Who is your perfect Valentine, and why?
What’s the most romantic song you know?
Why are roses always associated with Valentine’s Day?
Is Valentine’s Day a bad day for people who aren’t so good-looking?
Is giving chocolates as a Valentine’s present a sign of uncreativeness?
Shouldn’t every day be Valentine’s Day?
How romantic are you?

Have fun ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Spelling

February 4th, 2013

British English, American English, a mix of both?

I’m pretty good at spelling. Of course there are easy words I make mistakes with due to years of misspelling them and not noticing or being corrected. One that springs to mind is the word “congratulations”. I finally realized/realised I had been spelling it incorrectly for two decades at a teaching workshop I gave in Japan about 15 years ago. As part of a demo activity, I wrote “congragulations” on the white board in big letters. It took several teachers to convince me it was misspelled / misspelt. A few years ago. a student in Abu Dhabi was kind enough to point out it was “separate” and not “seperate”. I’m sure the best of us also have words that cause them problems.

Spelling became a bigger issue for me when I started my BreakingNewsEnglish site. I had two problems:

1. I had spent the previous 10 years working largely with U..S textbooks, American teachers and looking at websites full of American English. I suddenly became aware of the fact that I could not say with 100% conviction whether “realized” or “realised” was British or American English. I bet there’s even a Latin name for the confusion. I haven’t forgotten that “theatre”, “colour”, “catalogue”, “programme”, “spilt” and “encyclopaedia” are British while “theater”, “color”, “catalog”, “programme”, “spilled” and “encyclopedia” are American.

2. Which version should I include on my news website? Some visitors have told me they cannot use my materials because of the British spelling, and then the American spelling when I changed it… I have also tried giving both variants.

My thinking at the moment is that I don’t think it makes an awful lot of difference on my website. It’s used all over the world by students who are exposed to both British and American English. I’m sure many will not agree with this.

What do you think?

 

Textivate

January 6th, 2013

My favourite find of 2012

Every so often, but nowhere near often enough, a great tool comes along that enhances how you work – that you think is totally great.

I found such a tool in late 2012. I immediately fell in love with its simplicity and what it offered to teachers and students, both in the classroom and on my website.

That tool is Textivate, from the maker of Task Magic.

Textivate’s simplicity

You paste a text of up to 500 words into the text box.

You press this button.

 

 

You press this button.

 

 

You then instantly have these 26 exercises:

 

 

 

 

What are they?

Examples of all 26 activities are here.

  • The first 15 are text reconstruction drag ‘n’ drop activities.
  • The next four are multiple choice reconstruction activities.
  • The 20th is a cloze. The default gives you no choice of where the gaps fall, but Textivate provides you with the option to choose.
  • #21 removes all the spaces from the text and requires students to click where they think the spaces are.
  • The last five activities have had vowels or consonants removed (or a combination of both), the text with only the initial letter given, and a text that students have to put back all the letters.

Share or embed the activities

There are two “Share” buttons after you press “textivate now”:

1. Click on the one top-right of the 26-activity grid and you will get a link to that 26-grid page.

2. Click on any of the 26 activities and you fill find another top-right “Share” button. This will give you the url of that individual activity and the embed code. You can tweak the activity height/width – recommended for activities that have a lot of drag ‘n’ drop tiles.

If you know of any other sites like Textivate, please let me know and I’ll add more activities to my sites.

Thank you.

Speed Reading

December 4th, 2012

My latest addition to make Breaking News English better is the addition of a speed reading section. I have found my students get totally absorbed in the reading and follow-up activities. I can’t remember setting students off to do something and then they do it so attentively.

There are different “paths” to challenge students depending on the “Easier” or “Harder” lesson. Links follow each activity to take students to the next challenge. I’ll outline these below, and then ask some help questions.

These are the challenges for each path:

The “Easier”

  1. Read the news article at 100 words per minute.
  2. Read the article at 200 wpm.
  3. Do the multiple choice quiz under the 200-wpm scrolled reading.
  4. Read the text at 300 wpm.
  5. Answer the comprehension questions (on paper).
  6. Do an online text reconstruction activity.
  7. Choose one of the other 30+ online activities based on the article.

The “Harder”

  1. Read the news article at 200 wpm.
  2. Read the article at 300 wpm.
  3. Do the multiple choice quiz under the 300-wpm scrolled reading.
  4. Read the text at 400 wpm.
  5. Answer the comprehension questions (on paper).
  6. Read the text at 500 wpm.
  7. Do a drag and drop activity reconstructing the article.
  8. Do an online text reconstruction activity.
  9. Choose one of the other 30+ online activities based on the article.

A full list of the speed readings is here – http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/speed_reading.html

My Questions:

  1. Does anyone know how I can make the text scroll at 150, 250, 350, 450… wpm?  The scroll speed in the javascript only seems to accept whole numbers. It would be great to have the in-between speeds too.
  2. What do you think of the sequence of activities in each of the paths?
  3. Can you think of any activities I could add that would enhance comprehension etc? I’m thinking about a reading for specific information activity in which students have to type in the exact word / number.
  4. In the past month, I have added a “dictation challenge” and this “speed reading challenge”. Can you think of any more “challenges”?

Many thanks in advance for all / any feedback,

Sean

More new-BreakingNewsEnglish.com Highlights

November 4th, 2012

BreakingNewsEnglish news:

My last post announced some highlights of the new format BreakingNewsEnglish.com.

Two more highlights:

* Lessons will now be at a pre-intermediate level (as well as
the intermediate+ level of old).
* There will be a new lesson every two days (instead of every 3 days).

The first pre-intermediate lesson is on the elephant that speaks Korean.

There are a few other highlights, but I’ll post about these later.

Thank you (again) to everyone who provided me with feedback and keeps doing so – Very, very appreciated – Most of it was/is invaluable and has been incorporated into this revamp.

I look forward to hearing more – about what has been done and what still needs doing.

Best wishes,
Sean

PS I hope to upload a totally new site this month.

The new BreakingNewsEnglish.com – Part 1

November 1st, 2012

BreakingNewsEnglish news:

Not five minutes ago I uploaded the new, updated, beefed-up, revamped, bigger and better version of Breaking News English.com.

Some highlights:

  • The PDF classroom handout has doubled in size from 13 to 26 pages (see contents image below)
  • There is a new 2-page mini lesson for those who want something… 2-page and mini.
  • The number of online / interactive activities has jumped from 8 (on the “old” version) to 32 in the latest version.
  • There are 11 dictation activities.
  • There is a recording of 20 discussion questions for students to listen to and answer.
  • There is at last a different accent on the site (as well as mine) reading the news. I hope this will continue :-)

The first lesson (Hurricane Sandy & climate change) is here.

There are a few other highlights, but I’ll post about these later.

Thank you to everyone who provided me with feedback – Most of it was invaluable and has been incorporated into this revamp. I look forward to hearing more – about what has been done and what still needs doing.

Please give me feedback :-)

Best wishes,
Sean

A Little Advice And Feedback Needed Please

September 26th, 2012

So the 8-year anniversary / birthday of my Breaking News English site is coming up soon (Nov 1). I have been making a few changes recently, which I hope will be ready in time for the site to enter its ninth year.

I would like to gauge your opinion on the following (which I will try to do if time and my technical ability allow):

  • What would you like to see on the site?
  • Any ideas on how to make the site more interactive (URLs of sites that provide exercise generators would be great).
  • I removed the Word version of my lesson a few years back due to copyright infringements. I’m thinking of putting it back. What do you think?
  • Pretty much the only request I have had from people over the years is for a North American accent to read the news. I was in contact with a school in Japan to provide them for me, in exchange for a link back to their school website for each recording they did. Is there anyone who would be interested in doing the same?

Thank you all,

Sean

London 2012 Olympics Lessons

July 31st, 2012

So the Olympics are here. I love the Games. Also love the fact that David Bowie and the Sex Pistols got TWO songs each featured in the quirky Opening Ceremony.

Anyway, here are ten lessons on the Olympics from my archives. Seven of them have 9 to 13-page printable handouts, an MP3 and online quizzes.

London to host 2012 Olympics
When the news first broke in 2005.

Egypt’s Olympic Athletes Given Fake Equipment
A news story on some unhappy athletes having to buy their own equipment after being fakes by their national Olympics committee.

Olympic Security CEO Admits “Shambles”
News on the failure of G4S (the company paid to provide the security) to find enough security guards – 7,000 fewer than promised!

Olympic Officials Probe Ticket Scandal
Shock, horror – a problem with ticketing and corruption.

London 2012 Olympics Opened
An easier news lesson on the fantastic Opening Ceremony.

2012 Olympics to Be Greenest Ever
Another easier story on London’s Games and sustainability.

20 Questions on the Olympics
Classroom handouts for Students A and B.

60-second listening
On your marks, get set…… listen.
And then do all the vocab, reading, speaking and writing activities.

Blade Runner in Olympics 400m semi-final
Free 13-page printable ESL lesson, listening & online quizzes on the amazing athlete Oscar Pistorius.

First Saudi woman takes part in Olympics
Free 11-page printable ESL lesson, listening & online quizzes on the first Saudi woman to compete in an Olympics.

Hope you like these lessons. Please write and tell me how they went in your class.