Level: Pre- Intermediate, Intermediate Time:20-30min Skills:Speaking, Listening, Vocabulary Topic: Travel, Croatia, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Game of Thrones PDF version for easy printing:ESL Conversation Lesson Game Of Thrones And Traveling
ESL VIDEO LESSON PLAN: GAME OF THRONES AND TRAVELING
This is a list of my 10 favorite fun ESL/EFL websites which I regularly use when I want to spice things up a bit in the classroom, reward my students or give them some relax time.
These are all great for learning vocabulary, revising, they can be used in various projects, to promote reading, cooperation, creativity. There are soooo many things you can do with these sites, just use your creativity or get inspired by my tips.
With Kahoot, you can create various quizzes and games and if you’re in a bit of a hurry you can use its extensive library of quizzes. It has a number of quizzes on various vocabulary topics, grammar and many interesting topics such as history, geography, pop culture, trivia. My tip:Have your students sign up at Kahoot and create their own quiz. You can assign them a topic based on what you’re currently studying in the class or let them choose their own topic. They love creating their own quizzes, especially those with insider jokes.
2. Baamboozle
I use this site mostly with my younger learners as it doesn’t have many higher level grammar or vocabulary quizzes. My tip:put your students in teams (max number of teams is 4), choose a quiz and let them play the Classic mode with the power up, it’s much more fun!
Everybody knows Jeopardy. So far, I was able to find any grammar or vocabulary revision quiz I needed. Lots of quizzes on many topics, but beware as the quality varies. You can create your own Jeopardy quiz and you can also assign your students a topic and let them create their own quiz to test their classmates’ knowledge.
This is a similar site to now nonexistent Locate street (which I liked better). It uses Google Street View to drop you anywhere on the planet and you must guess your location based on vegetation, signs, people. It’s a funny way to teach the students about interesting and remote places. I sometimes use it as a reward, the kids love it. Tell them to sign up, it’s free and they will avoid the annoying pop up.
I didn’t expect a dictionary website to be this entertaining. There are games, quizzes, videos. They are educational and fun and I love them. My top picks:Name That Thing, there is also the Animal Edition of the game. You have 10 seconds to answer each question, 12 pictures and a lot of fun! How Strong Is Your Vocabularyis also fun and you can repeat after a couple of months to see if your students’s vocabulary has improved. Another game is a challenging puzzle which is described as “anagram puzzles meet wordsearch.” This one can also be downloaded to mobile phone.
How often do you explain the etymology of the vocabulary you are teaching? I do it quite often as many English words come from Latin, Greek, French and it’s easier for the students to remember the words when they see how similar the words can be to words in their own language(this applies to European languages).
As the name suggests, this site offers short, five-minute mysteries. Students have to sign up, it’s free and quick and then they can start sleuthing. Great activity for painless reading practice.
Here you can find plenty of simple, family-friendly games. I mostly use theWord Generatorfor charades, pictionary and other games. The great thing is I only need my laptop and I project the words on the whiteboard, so the students don’t need computers.
Sandrine Thuret: YOU CAN GROW NEW BRAIN CELLS. HERE’S HOW.
STUDENT’S WORKSHEET
WARM-UP QUESTIONS
What part of your body would you like to improve?
If it was possible, would you rather enhance your body or mind?
How can we improve our mental and physical abilities?
VOCABULARY
Read the sentences and try to work out the meaning of the underlined words/phrases.
And this is especially new and true for spatial recognition –so like, how you navigate your way in the city.
And they will have been helpful to add time to our memory and they will help differentiate very similar memories.
But moreover, if you just block neurogenesis, then you block the efficacy of the antidepressant.
“Sandrine, this is puzzling. Some of my patients that have been told they are cured of their cancer still develop symptoms of depression.”
………………..too much sex leading to sleep deprivation.
Intermittent fasting — spacing the time between your meals –will increase neurogenesis.
So Japanese groups are fascinated with food textures, and they have shown that actually, soft diet impairs neurogenesis, as opposed to food that requires mastication.
Calorie restriction will improve memory capacity, whereas a high-fat diet will exacerbate symptoms of depression –as opposed to omega-3 fatty acids, which increase neurogenesis, and also help to decrease the symptoms of depression.
Match the words/phrases (1-8) to their explanations.
spatial recognition
differentiate
efficacy
puzzling
deprivation
intermittent fasting
mastication
exacerbate
difficult to explain or understand
chewing
period of eating and not eating over a defined period
to show or find the difference between things that are compared
the lack or denial of something considered to be a necessity
make something that is bad even worse
understanding where things are in relation to other things
the ability to produce the desired result
TED TALK VIDEO
Watch the video and answer the questions.
How do we call the phenomenon when adults grow new nerve cells?
How many neurons does an average person produce per day?
Why did patients who were cured of their cancer still develop symptoms of depression?
Does learning increase or decrease the growth of new neurons?
What type of food and drinks should we consume if we want to increase the growth of our neurons?
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This is an old, old joke, but I remember reading it when I was still at university and I remember I didn’t get it. It wasn’t funny at that time. I was even offended.
‘How can someone say something like this?! The kids are so sweet. Teaching is a dream job!’
