A lesson of humanity - how to start the New Year with great stories?

        Start the New Year with a great story

The year 2016 is over, however, there were a lot of inspiring events happening all over the year that showed us great acts of humantiy. They were all gathered under one headline called The 12 Most Inspiring Good Deeds of 2016 That Made Us Proud of Humanity. 
(website address: https://brightside.me/wonder-people/the-12-most-inspiring-good-deeds-of-2016-that-made-us-proud-of-humanity-274060/

Today, I would like to recommend you one of the websites that I look through at times just to find a great selection of photos with amazing articles and stories.

                                    www.brightside.me

This is a perfect website if you want to stimulate your students imagination? Why? It simply has a lot of great headlines as well as pictures, which alone are  enough to run a thought-provoking conversation with your students. Haven't you tried it, yet? Just make a new year resolution and keep yourself updated by liking it on facebook. When I read it I always have a few ideas how to use them with my students - even those on lower levels.

Let's not forget that visual literacy doesn't only apply to moving images but it also refers to the photos, which tell the stories themselves. Sometimes it's enough to show them to your students. For each of them the pictures tell different stories. Headlines? Perfect for building stories in mind, It's like creating mental pictures. How to do it? Let me show you a few techniques I used to run a smooth and informal conversation as well as engage students in the conversation. It also helps to build a good relationship with your students, too.

So there have been collected 12 different stories of people from all over the world under the title:
The 12 Most Inspiring Good Deeds of 2016 That Made Us Proud of Humanity. 

Some of the photos you can see in this post but the rest is on the recommended website. Each of them is amazing. There is one of Manny Pacquiao a boxing champion who built 1000 houses in the Philipines but there is also a story of a teacher who had a lot of rebellious students brough up by single mothers so in order to help them he created a "Gentelman Club" where he teaches them good manners and behaviour. Each story is suitable for the classroom use. Just check yourself. And here is the lesson plan:

Topic: the problem of humanity, good deeds, new year resolutions, generosity, abandoned, war-torn country, shelter, single-parent family, tuxedo, struggle, starving, orphanage, donations, sacrifice, parcels, bump into, recreate, gratitude, moose, violate the rules,

Time: 45-60 minute lesson

Level: pre-intermediate +

Age group: teenagers, adults

Activity aim: 

• to practice speaking
• to use students imagination and creativity, guessing, stories in mind
• in resolutions: to use "going to" for already made decisions e.g. "This year I'm going to........"

Article address: https://brightside.me/wonder-people/the-12-most-inspiring-good-deeds-of-2016-that-made-us-proud-of-humanity-274060/

Warm up

Write on the board the words GOOD DEEDS. Ask the students what it means. Can you give me any examples of good deeds? Have you heard about any good deeds in the place where you live? (Maybe there was some story in the place where you live so you can use it as an example) Then ask your students if they did any good deeds last year. You may be surprised or disappointed with their answers. I experienced both types of feeelings:). then you move to the next stage. (3 min)

Stage one

Print out the stories and cut them into 3 seperate pieces : a headline, a picture, a story 

(If you have more than 12 students in the group prepare 2 sets)

Stage two

Using blu tack put the stories on the walls of your classroom, headlines to the board and give each of the students just the photos. Students have to use their imagination and think what could have happened. Then they tell their predictions to the rest of the class. ( 5min) Then students are given a chance to match the headline from the board with their photos and one by one come to the board and choose a suitable headline. Then students read them aloud and make a comment about it. By getting the headlines they have extra info and their stories may change. They use the language of predictions what could have happened in the stories. Help them with unknown words if necessary at this stage of the lesson. (I think the story is about...., Perhaps it's a story of a.......who...... etc.) (5min)

Stage three

Now each of the students has to find his story on the wall and match it with the headline. Then students read the stories silently. (5 min)

Stage four

Tell your students that there is a competition for the best deed of the year. Students have to rememeber as much info as posssible as they are going to choose the best story of the year and vote for it.

Students tell their stories to the rest of the group or the class. They start with a phrase: "You won't believe what has happened in my story.........." (10-15 min)

Stage five

Now the voting begins and students have to choose their candidate and present arguments for it. Sometimes they argue really seriously:) (10 min)

Stage six

Class discussion. What about you? If you haven't done any good deeds maybe this year you could do something for others? Together with my students we discussed the topic and set a week for a good deed. They were suppose to find an opportunity to do sth for others. Some of them helped the neighbour with the shopping while others just talked to the girl nobody wanted to talk to. Everything matters. You can devote the rest of the lesson to a further discussion about New Year Resolutions with the use of   "to be going to.." (10 min)

Hope you and your students will enjoy it!

Trailers market - www.comingsoon.net

Trailers in the classroom

Who of us doesn't like waching films? We all probably do. However, the most important is that our students fancy movies more than anything else. Quite recently I have finished a summer camp with my teens and almost every day we had a film planned for the evening, of course the one corresponding the topic we were covering - CRIME, ENVIRONMENT, HOBBIES, ADVENTURES and so on. Unfortunately, we normally do not have 2 hours to watch a film with our students during one class. What's more, we have no time to do some activities before, while or after watching as time is pressing at school.  Luckily, I had a chance to do it as it was a summer camp and we had plenty of time to talk and have fun. However, if you really want to use films in the class, I would strongly suggest using trailers. A perfect website that offers a wide variety of trailers is www.comingsoon.net.

Benefits:

• short (usually about 2-3 minutes)
• totally engaging
• often with special effects
• a concise story
• a wide choice to suit all the levels, ages, gender etc
• highly enjoyable
• listening for gist
• practice vocabulary
• touch a wide variety of topics

Let me just show you one of the ways I use them as a warm up activity or sometimes as w whole lesson if you are bored of coursebook work (in the next posts there will be other ways of using trailers presented). Choose a trailer that your studetns will enjoy, for example I have a group of 11 year olds 6 boys and 6 girls and the trailer is: "Mirror, mirror" with Julia Roberts.

Topic: any, depending on the trailer, in this example romance and love & hate relationship

Time: about 20-30 minutes
Level: elementary +
Age group: 11 and above
Activity aim: 

• to present/revise and practice vocabulary (depending on the trailer)
• to practice speaking, class discussion
• story writing
• Writing alternative ending

Film address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCdMHUx59mQ

Stage One:

Before I use any trailer with my students I watch it twice or three times and check if there are any words that could be used in an activity. From the above film I selected the following words:

MIRROR/QUEEN/PRINCESS/MARRY/BALL/SNOW WHITE/ROMANCE. 

You have to be sure that the words appear more than once in the film.

Stage two:
Write the words on the board and divide your studetns into two groups and enourange to create a story. Then one person from a group reads out a story and you choose the winners. I usually give them some sweets or other gadgets that I have in my secret drawer such as a rubber band or a ruler with irregular verbs.

Stage three:
Ask you studetns to rememebr the words you gave them (time: 30 sec) and then wipe out the board and check if they remember the given words.

Stage four:
Play a trailer and tell your students to (here are two options and both are fun) either stand up every time they hear a word from the board or clap their hands. With younger students I used the option of standing up while with the older ones of clapping. They enjoyed it very much.

Stage five:
Then you play the second time to see whose version of the story  was closer to the original one.
Extra homework: write an alternative ending using your imagination. It's a great activity to rechange the most obvious bed time stories as we are used to one version only and students prove that it's not the only one. Fun guaranteed!!!


But if we are in the topic of movies I cannot resist the temptation to suggest you one more activitiy that I use with my students and it's connected with your visit to the cinema. While waiting in a line for the ticket I always collect the cards with the films that are coming out soon. Even my students bring me fresh cards whenever they are in the cinema and I always try to use them efficiently. So one of the things I do is to give out the cards and tell that they have 3-4 minutes to read (sometimes there is a long text, sometimes just a few words and they are of course in their mother tongue but it doesn't matter) and then they have to imagine it's  Friday evening (perfect if you have a topic of entertainment) and our group wants to go to the cinema but we have to decide on the film we want to watch and convince each other giving reasonable arguments. Now imagine a person who gets a card with Finding Dory or Bella and Sebastian 2 and the others American Sniper or X-man: Apocalypse. There is a lot of fun and usually, which is not a sursprise, the most childish or stupid films win as it's the easiest to find arguments for and it suits all the tastes. It's perfect for levels pre-intermediate and above and the more advanced the more you are going to enjoy it. Just try!

Do you have your own way to use cards with film description?  Just share with us.