The fascinating effect of the Whiteboard

The Interactive Whiteboard technology was presented to us by Cultura Inglesa. When we realized the various activities we could plan using it, we really wished that every and each school had it. In fact, I was mesmerized by its power to interact the students, the teacher and, especially the subject. You can plan a WARM-UP to be a video, a song, an essay, a game, or anything else you might think of, and you’ll easily have all the possible means to amazingly do it! The Interactive Whiteboard is really a fantasy world in a classroom. It’s not a tool, it’s THE tool! Of course the teacher’s job doesn’t get easier because of this resource, since the teacher has many other possibilities to explore and, consequently, he/she will have to plan a lesson twice as many times of when he/she only has a book to work with.

If you want to know more about The Interactive Whiteboard, go to the link on the top of the right side of this page.

Ready. Steady. GO!!!

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE

Leila’s workshop will certainly be unforgettable for many interesting ideas and activities that she’s taught us. However, the activity involving the well-known tale of “The Hare and the Tortoise” was the one which inspired me the most.
First, because I could realize that it is possible to create an activity using this story to work with different groups of different ages and not only with children.
And second, because this story holds a wonderful message which reminds us all that we should never give up or get frustrated when we feel we’re not able to achieve success on something.
Now, in order to end up this comment, I’ll describe the activity, or did you think I’d drop the ball and leave you all curious?!

• You can start the activity by showing a picture like the one above and ask the students what they know about it (brainstorm);
• Then, you divide the class into three big groups and give each group a different task regarding the tale: one group must produce a “jogral”; another must create a play; and the last group must think of a way to present the tale as if it were TV news.

The development of the activity is hilarious and surprisingly creative. It’s worth giving it a shot!

Luciana's class

"A teacher can't teach anything, she can give students what to think about".

How do you teach grammar?

Teaching grammar has been proved to be a controversial issue, since it can and already is approached individually, that is, differing from teacher to teacher, from student to student, from method to method.
When we were asked about how to teach grammar, the first thing we thought of was the importance of contextualizing the grammar structures. In the article “Teaching Grammar”, written by Jeremy Harmer, we’ve come across the word “pragmatically”, that describes this idea of approaching grammar through a realistic way. But how could we do this? By encouraging the reading process and showing the students interesting stories, comics, poems, songs and games, which present the language being used by its native speakers.
Harmer came up with a question that certainly makes us, teachers, think: “Should grammar be taught by the teacher or discovered by the student?”
There’s no doubt that both are likely to happen. The student has the first contact with grammar when he/she begins to speak a foreign language. A child is (sub)conscious of the use of grammar even before being taught systematically and the same should happen to someone who is learning another language. The teacher’s role is to make sure that the student really understands what his/her choices, while using grammar, imply.
In order to develop these specific skills, we could work with different texts, but we should be careful not to be trapped by those false activities of asking the students to write down a number of adjectives, verbs, or adverbs they have found throughout the text and ending up the exercise just after that. It is advisable, though, that we show them what that same adjective, verb or adverb means in the sentence. How that structure changes or makes that sentence comprehensible for the others. So, what could be concluded after reading the article was that grammar will never be unimportant and we can never run away from it, because it is a fundamental part of a language, like vocabulary. We need to get ready to learn and deal with the difficulties of grammar and teach it using our own method, which must be based on our students’ needs.

*BASED ON THE ARTICLE "TEACHING GRAMMAR" BY JEREMY HARMER. PUBLISHED ON THE MAGAZINE "ENGLISH TEACHING PROFESSIONAL", OCTOBER 1997, PAGE 38.

Practicing the English grammar using a text

Green Valleys; fresh clean air; birds; wild animals; flowers; natural energy from the sun, sea, wind; clean beaches; fish... How wonderful the world can be!

Is that what we see today? Or...

...are the air, sea and land polluted?

...is most of the oil, gas and coal quickly finishing?

...are animals dying?

The situation of the planet is close to a serious ecological disaster. Some action has to be taken, because either we stop killing the Earth or we will kill ourselves.

Conferences like "Rio 92" try to gather world leaders, ecologists, "green" organizations and people who want to save the planet. The main issues discussed in this meetings are: wildlife, pollution, health, energy and land.

Pollution is one of the most serious problems. It causes, for exemple, the "greenhouse efect", which makes the Earth hotter. It also causes "acid rain", which contains lots of chemicals and kills fish and trees.

People do not pollute the atmosphere only. They also pollute themselves with alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, junk food, etc.

We have to do something to protect the Earth's life. The ecological responsibility is mine and yours!

EXERCISES

1. There's an interesting picture above the text. Ask the students to describe everething they can see. Here, they are going to use the present continuous and also the simple present most of the time. As well as improve their vocabulary when referring to the different features of the picture. Eg.: "There's a person thowing trash on the river" and "I can see some dead animals".
2. Still, in this same activity, you can ask questions, such as: A) Do you think this picture shows fictitional or real situations? B)Have you seen any of these situations happen near you? C)Have you ever done some anything that is shown in the picture? D) If saw someone doing any of these actions, what would you do?
3. In the text, we could see different verb tenses, relative pronouns (Who/which), some possessive pronouns, and also other structures of the English language. However, there are two sentences in the text that can summarize its idea: "(...) either we stop killing the Earth or we will kill ourselves." and "People do not pollute the atmosphere only. They also pollute themselves (...)". These sentences contain two reflexive pronouns: ourselves and themselves. As you know, we use the reflexive pronouns when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same. But we can also use it to emphasize that person and nobody else, or that thing and nothing else. Eg.: "He cleaned the room himself".

The reflexive pronoun is also used idiomatically. Eg.: "They left home to live by themselves". Here, by + reflexive pronoun = alone .

You'll see some sentences that contain the reflexive pronoun in its different usage. Mark:

(1) if it's being used when the subject and object are the same;

(2) if it's being used to emphasize the subject;

(3) if it's being used idiomatically mening alone.

a- ( ) He hid under the bed to protect himself.

b- ( ) Kafka wrote this letter himself.

c- ( ) I did the dishes myself.

d- ( ) I want to do the homework by myself.

e- ( ) Some people like to live by themselves.

f- ( ) She wants to see herself as others see her.

g- ( ) An animal hurt itself when it tried to get out of the zoo.