Image challenge - Disabilities among us - a heart melting video

Image challenge - week eleven

It's all about being noticed!

Today, I would like to encourage you to have a closer look at the "invisible" problem of the disabled ones and a lesson that can be done around this topic. It started with a press article about the action that took place in one of the shopping centers in Poland. However, as it later turned out, it was part of a bigger project that have already been carried out in other countries, as well. A group of people decided to make people aware of the problem of parking spaces for the disabled ones. People keep parking their cars there, pretending not to see the "No parking sign". When asked, their most common explanations were:

"I'll be back in a moment", "I'm in a hurry", "I'm only for a second", "I've just given a lift to my grandpa", "Big deal, only this place was free".

"I'll be back"

  

"I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry"

People placed wheelchairs in the most "wanted places" in a car park situated in a big shopping center (Alfa Center) in Białystok, in form of a protest. Drivers kept coming and being irritated often left the car park with screeching brakes. But that is how the disabled people feel, don't they? Their disability is not the case of a choice but leaving a free parking space is.

LESSON PLAN

Level: pre-intermediate +

Topic: health, disabilities, equality, human rights

Vocabulary to pre-teach: disabled, wheelchair, parking space, tow away a car, overcome problems, lifts, to be ashamed of, the need of support and acceptance, easily accessible place, protest against

With more advanced students: attitude towards, physically handicapped, live with dignity, impairments, mentally retarded, overcome everyday hurdles, wheelchair access ramps, adjust trasport, pothold pavement/sidewalk, ill adjusted, obstacles

WARM UP

Put the two pictures of the wheelchairs in the car park on the board. Don't say anything for a while. Let the students think for a moment and then ask:

1. What do the pictures show? Why are there wheelchairs in the car park? Where is the car park?

2. Is it a problem in our country?

3. Have you seen any people parking in a "no parking" places?

4. How do you think the disabled people feel?

5. Do you think such actions make sense? etc

Explain the story behind the pictures. Make students interested in the topic.

STAGE ONE

Tell your students that they are going to watch a video of man who parked in a place for the disabled ones. After a while he came out and saw something shocking. What do you think it was? Students are predicting and guessing with the use of expressions like: perhaps, maybe, I think... etc. Now play the film to the end. Later ask your students:

1. What would you do in such a situation?

2. How would you feel?

3. Do you think the man will ever park in such a place again? Why? Why not?

4. What do you think about such actions? Do they make sense? Are they effective?

Film address:https://youtu.be/y7fWYxRq34g

STAGE TWO

Ask your students:

1. Are there any people in the school that are disabled? Have you ever talked to them?

2. Do you have any disabled children living in your neighbourhood? Have you ever talked to them?

3. What things can't you do when you are disabled? How do think they feel?

Play the film till 12 sec and pause. Ask your students:

1. What do you think the boy with a ball is thinking?

2. What do you think the boy on a wheelchair is thinking?

2. Can you imagine a typical day of a boy on a wheelchair? What things can't he do?

Play the film till 18 sec and pause. Do you think the boy will join the game? Why? Why not? 

Would you join? Why?

Play the film till the end. Ask your students:

Are you surprised by the ending of the story? How do you think the boy was feeling? (accepted, like an ordinary memeber of a society, memeber of a group)

Film address:https://youtu.be/xAJyG15wqik

STAGE THREE - Homework.

Find an example of a disabled person who despite his/her disability has achieved success. Prepare a short story of such a person. Bring picture/s in your mobile phone and just take notes as you can't read the story. Students find a lot of examples like Nick Vujcick or Bethany Hamilton.

Further film and lesson materials: "Butterfly Circus"  (only 22 min) or a new film called "The Fundamentals of Caring" (2016)

Hope you liked the lesson plan and you will enjoy it with your students

Image challenge - The tallest, the longest, the fattest

Image challenge - week ten

It's good  to come back to old books sometimes and read them over and over again. Every time I take a look in the book Images by Jamie Keddie I find something interesting. This time I spotted a great activity and decided to give it a try. Well, you won't believe it but it was a success in every age and level group - kids, teens and adults. That's why, I decided to share it with you and encourgae to try it in your classroom.

THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS

This week Image Challenge is connected with the Guinness Book of Records. Find three interesting stories of people who have broken some record. I have chosen the following ones:

LESSON PLAN

Age: 12+

Level: pre-intermediate+

Vocabulary and expressions to pre-teach:

With less advanced groups write down the words: I'm not sure but I think..., Perhaps...., It seems that........etc.

These are some of the words that my students needed while inventing questions: beautician, grow nails, paint the nails, nail polish, disgust, have in common, stand out from a crowd, fame, put on weight, pick your nose, scratch, bend, bump, bite your nails, brush/comb your hair, ceiling, peel banana, use toilet, point at somebody, sponge, addicted/addiction, set a record, break a record etc.

Warm up – guessing game

Print out three pictures of people who have broken some record. Stick them to the whiteboard so that the students can't see what it is. Tell them that you have 3 pictures and they have to guess who or what it is. It can be a person, an animal or a place. 

Students keep guessing: I think these are the pictures of sportsmen./ Perhaps these are objects from the kitchen. Students often try to make some connection with the previous lesson(s) or the topic.

Of course, it’s quite difficult to guess but you should keep them in suspense. After a while, give them a hint and tell that all those pictures present people and that they have something in common. What kind of people can be in the pictures then? Further discussion. Finally, uncover one of the pictures and let your students guess. You show the picture with the tallest man, for example and ask: Who is in the picture? Who do you think is in the other photos? Keep them talking. At last, show all three pictures. Students may be surprised or disgusted, as in the case of a woman with the longest nails. My students wereJ (this part shouldn’t be longer than 5 min)

Stage one – 5 -10 min

Class discussion. Pictures should be chosen in such a way that they provoke a discussion, students want to make a comment and you should just control the use of a language.

Ask your students the following questions:

1.Why do you think people want to be in the Guinness Book of Records?

2.What kind of people decide to take part in such competitions? (personality adjectives)

3. Have you ever tried to set a record in something? /What was it?

4. Have you ever broken a record? / What was it?

5. Would you like to try it? Why? Why not?

6. Do you know anybody who did it? What was it? Etc.

Stage two - 10 min

Imagine that you are from all the most popular tabloids from all over the world: The Sun, the Daily Mirror etc. I’m sure, you have some in your country, too. You were given the chance to carry out an interview with those people. Write two questions to each of them (you can ask about anything you want). If the class is big, it’s enough to invent one question to each person. If it is smaller, more questions are needed. (in one group my students were convinced that we were really going to ask questions, by Skype or other communicator and it was really funny as they did they best inventing questions)

We all know that questions are one of the most difficult structures in English and it’s always problematic for our students. Monitor them, help with the structure as well as vocabulary. With less advanced students knowing only the basic structures, I would write down the patterns – the beginning of the sentences:

Can you….? Do you…? Are you….? How often do you…..? Did you…..? Have you ever….?

With more advanced groups, I told them that they can’t use general questions, only detailed one: When was the last time you…..? Is it true that you……..? Here are some questions invented by my students:

1.How long have you been growing your nails?

2.Have they ever broken?

3.When was the last time you were outside?

4.How big bed do you have?

5.Can you drive a car? Have you ever tried it?

6. Do you have a girlfriend?

7. How do you feel when people point at you on the street?

8. Do you wear a bra? J

9. Your nails look like Wolverine’s claws! Have you ever scratched or stabbed somebody with them?

10. What is your shoes size? Etc.

Stage three – 15-20 min

Now, choose one person and ask him/her to sit under the picture of a selected person. Give instructions: Imagine you are this fat man and decided to give an interview. Try to be creative and answer all the questions the journalists are going to ask you. For the first person, I always choose the most creative student from the class, with a sense of humour to show others how to do it. The other students ask questions one by one. There are, of course, extra questions that come up during the interview. As you can see both sides have to be very creative. And there is a lot of fun during this exercise. Then you choose another student and you repeat the task with another record breaker.

Stage four - 5-10 min

You can discuss with the class who was the most creative in answering questions. You can also ask them who they really would like to see live and why. Variation: Ask you students to check in their mobile phones the real stories of the interviewed people. For example, how long her nails were or how heavy the man was etc. I played a few short films from you tube about the people, as well.

For me, the most important in this activity is that students really get engaged and want to talk and find out the facts about these people. Just three pictures can help you run an exciting conversation class. Hope you enjoyed it and going to use it with your students.

Image challenge - MEMES IN THE CLASS!!!

Image Challenge - week nine

For those who have just joined our challenge, I would just like to remind the idea. There are 52 weeks this year and I have decided to present 52 ways of using images in the class. Because images are not only photos from the coursebook. Images simply surround us, we 'live and breathe' images nowadays. They are everywhere and our students also know it. So the challenge for you, the teacher, would be to try a new way of using images with your students and share this expercience.

 Memes - how to check your students creativity?

To stay for a moment in the topic of ART, as my last post was devoted to it fully. I would like to encourage you to use art and memes together. How? It's simple. There is a site devoted to it and it's called Classical Art Memes (you can find it easily on facebook). But don't worry, the Internet is full of such memes.

MEMES?

But what are memes in the first place? If this term in unfamiliar for you, here is a brief definition:

'An Internet meme is a cultural phenomenon that spreads from one person to another online. In general, a meme is an idea that is passed from one person and possibly one generation to another throughout a culture. Online, a meme is a prime example of viral content.

A meme spread online could be just about anything that is voluntarily shared, including phrases, images, rumors and audio or video files. In most cases, meme content is brief. In the case of an image, it's usually just a picture with a line or two of text. An Internet meme might originate and stay online. However, frequently memes cross over and may spread from the offline world to online or vice-versa.' (source: whatis.com)

HOW TO USE THEM?

All you do now, is to show one or two examples and give them the idea what the memes are and how we can use them with famous paintings. I would start with what Socrates once said:))

SPEECH BUBBLES

Now when your students know what the memes are just google in 'google images' the word speech bubbles and you will quickly find all kinds, shapes and sizes. Cut out various speech bubbles and give away to your students. Here are examples:

Now print out some classical paintings. You can use the website Google Arts & Culture I recommended in my previous post to find great paintings. Try to choose the ones with two or more people in it and then your students will be able to create funny dialogues. You will be surprised how creative they can be.  It is also some kind of a challenge since students need to choose suitable words and expressions that are funny and witty at the same time. They also have to be concise, sticking to the picture!

But memes are not only dialogues. Sometimes it's just a sentence or a phrase that points out something. So you can choose some painting or any other kind of photo showing emotions (animals can often come in handy) and ask them to write what the people or animals are thinking about at the moment. Here is the example:

I've tried it a number of times and it always worked. Hope you enjoyed it and you will try it in your class soon. Fun is guaranteed!!!

Let's visit museum! Google Arts & Culture in the class

Image challenge - week eight

Virtual tour? Why not?

Recently, I have seen a great picture showing a typical students' visit in the museum. Unfortunately, it reminded me of my last school trip to Paris. One day was devoted to art and culture so went to the museums. After visiting the first floor of The Orsay Museum my students decided to do this.....

Oh, I was absolutely furious. But then I thought I shouldn't be, as most kinds of Art seem to be neglected at school (Maths will always have a priority) and sometimes it's not presented in an attractive way. Moreover, still a lot of students have no regular access to museums, they hardly ever go to big cities or even if they do, they simply can't afford it. So what can we, language teachers, do about it? Take them on a virtual tour!!! Saves time and money and still can be beneficial.

There is a great website that my new friend from Greece Dimitris Tzouris recently presented, which I'm sure you will find interesting.

Website address: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/  (Google Arts & Culture)

How can we use it in general?

- you can simply take your students on a virtual tour, especially the young ones if they have never been to one
- you can asked them to find particular works of art - they learn art movements
- you can compare and describe various paintings, especially if they are by the same artist and hang next to each other
- thanks to zoom option you can notice and describe the colours, techniques and styles
- finally you can also create your own collection and become a curator
- you can practise art vocabulary: canvas, oil, still life, abstract art, sculpture, water colours etc.


So let's go to the website:

In the backgroud there is always some piece of art, not necessarily painting. When you press it, it enlarges and contains all important information about the painting, the author, technique used and the story behind the photo, which can be used perfectly in the class. You can also zoom the photo and see the details.

ARTISTS

There are lots of sections to choose from. You can look for the paintings searching by an artist. Let's say, we are fans of Van Gogh, then we simply press his icon and learn about him and all his works of art. You can ask your students which painting of their favourite artist they would like to have in their bedoom and why.

TECHNIQUES

Or maybe you want to introduce your students to various painting techniques and search accordingly: oil paintings, water colours, paper metal, wood, pen, sculpture to name but a few. Which technique appeals to your students the most? Have a discussion!

ART MOVEMENTS

Sometimes we can introduce art through investigating some art movements such as street art, modern art, pop art, surrealism art etc. We can ask our students to look through various movements and choose the one the like the best giving reasons.

There are also other categories like historical figures and events or places. All suitable for the class use. You just have to try:)

VIRTUAL TOURS

There are over 2600 virtual tours available. You can visit most museums from the inside. I divide my students into groups and each group gets a different museum to discover. I always choose some of my favourite ones and give certain tasks such as:

What is the admission fee? (introducing vocabulary at the same time)
What are the opening hours?
How many floors are there?
Is there a souvenir shop?
Is there a cafe?
When can you visit the museum for free? (we all know that there are some days or hours when you can visit a certain museum for free, it's good to make students aware of that) etc.

Then, of course, detailed questioned follow. for example, find a certain painting and tell me who painted it. then you can ask them to go to the artist section and read facts about the author and finally ask what art movement it belongs to. There are plenty of combinations to use art in the class.

This is just an introduction to the topic of art. Soon a ready to use lesson plan. Hope you will find it as enjoyable as I did.