SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

The ESOL Project Living and Working in Angus has introduced to the participants the topic "Scottish Parliament".

a)Warm up

Write on the board the name of the countries the participants are from:

e.g:

Brazil, Latvia, Hungary, Estonia, Poland, China, etc.

Ask to the participants:

1-Does your country have a government?

2-Where is it?

3-Have you ever visited it?

4-Who can vote in your country?

5-Is it a good system?

Give the opportunity to everyone to speak about their own country and their political system.

b) Introduction about the "Scottish Parliament"

e.g:

Bring a picture of the Building Parliament;

1-Where is this building?

2-Who works there?

3-What do they do?

4-When is there an election?

5-How many parliaments do we have in the UK?

6-What decisions do the Scottish Parliament make?

7-When was the Parliament started?

Use the Internet to look for information and allow the participants to ask questions about the subject.

The interaction among the learners bring up a very good atmosphere to develop an interest for the topic and also to exchange cultural knowledge about different countries.

c)Writing activity

Use the questions above to develop a paragraph writing about your country.

Objective: to give the participants an opportunity to develop speaking, listening, reading and writing skills while they acquire knowledge of the Scottish Political System and about their own country.

MANY CHILDREN CAN'T SPELL SHAKESPEARE

Dr ken Smith suggests:

"University teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell."
He added. "All I am suggesting is that we might well put 20 or so of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language on the same footing as those other words that have a widely accepted variant spelling."
He said the word "judgement" was already accepted as a variant of "judgment", adding: " So why can't "truly" be accepted as a variant spelling of "truly"?

He blamed failings in the school system declaring:

"There was little evidence of students having been taught the relevant rules at school, or of the students having been corrected for obvious and frequent errors."

Jack Bovill, chairman of the Spelling Society, said its national survey had shown up to 54 % of people couldn't spell words such as "embarrassed", "separate", "accommodation", "millennium" and "friend".

He said the society did not advocate changing the spellings.

By Laura Clark
Education Correspondent
Daily Mail, Thursday, August 7, 2008

THE WORDS THEY COULDN'T GET RIGHT

20 COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS THAT SHOULD BE ACCEPTED BY UNIVERSITIES

Arguement for argument

February for February

Wensday for Wednesday

Ignor for Ignore

Occured for occurred

Opertunity for opportunity

Que for queue

Cue for queue

Kew for queue

Speach for speech

Thier for their

There for their

Truely for truly

Twelth for twelfth

Wierd for weird

Sieze for seize

Liesure for leisure

Nieghbour for neighbour

Foriegn for foreign

Mispelt for misspelled


Daily Mail, Thursday, August 7, 2008

BAD SPELLING

Daily Mail, Thursday, August 7,2008

"BAD SPELLING? IGNOR IT"

"Faced with a flood of basic spelling mistakes, you might expect a university lecturer to demand his students pay more attention to the dictionary.
But one don is so fed up with having to correct his undergraduates' errors that he is calling for something rather more unorthodox - a spelling amnesty.
Dr Ken Smith is urging colleagues to turn a blind eye to the 20 most common slips - such as "Febuary", "ignor" and "speach" - and view them instead as variants of standard spellings.
Writing in the Times Higher education magazine, the senior lecturer in criminology at Buckinghamshire New University said? "Teaching a large first-year course at a British university, I am fed up with correcting my students' atrocious spelling. Aren't we all?"

LEASURE

This subject can be linked with favourite activity outdoors. So, bring some pictures of the touristic attractions in your city and their names.

E.g:

Coast, Beach, Cliff, Mountain, Village, Harbour, Park, Building, Museum, Statue, etc...

You start a quick recap with the question:

T:What is your favourite activity?
S1:My favourite activity is walking.
S2:My favourite activity is travelling.
S3:My favourite activity is visiting museums.

T:What can you see in a museum?
S1:I can see pictures.
S2:I can see old objects.
S3:I can learn about history.

T:Very good! So, now...in pairs, match the pictures and names and prepare 3 sentences about them.

Eg: The coast is beautiful.

The village is small.

The museum is big.

The building is high.

The cliff is dangerous.

The beach is peaceful.

Introduce a variety of adjectives to describe a place:- busy, gorgeous, nice, quiet, lovely, modern, old, ancient, cold, hot, etc...

Ask questions:

T:Is the village noisy?

Is the beach dirty?

Is the city calm?

S: Yes, it is.
No, it isn't.

To conclude, ask the participants to describe their home place.

E.g: I live in Colliston. Colliston is a small and noisy village.

I live at the beach. It is calm and beautiful.

I live in the mountain. It is high, quiet and gorgeous.

FAVOURITES

Write the word FAVOURITES on the board and ask the participants what they understand about "favourites".

E.g: CAR, colour, CITY, sport, COUNTRY, clothes, ACTOR, writer, FILM,...

Bring a picture of someone very famous and his/her favourites and complete a chart with the words from a box.

E.g: Ronaldinho's favourite things. (Brazilian Football Player)

Sport : football
______ : Ferrari
______ : Brazil, Spain
______ : green, blue
______ : Friday
______ : February
______ : Orange juice
______ : Feijoada
______ : Paulo Coelho
______ : Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona

With a friend separate the items below in categories:

E.g : Colour, Months, Car, Drink, Cities, Countries, Days, Sport, Writer, Food.

December, Blue, BMW, Coke, Potato, Baseball, Friday, USA, Washington, Shakespeare, etc....
(you have to complete the chart with about 10 items of each category).

The participants report the lists and check the answers.

Ask them to prepare their own "FAVOURITES".

Play the game "FIND SOMEONE WHO" using the question yes/no answers. E.g: Is red your favourite colour? Is fish and chips your favourite food? etc... The participants use their own favourites to find someone who has the same favourites.

To conclude, make a general review.

The objective is to introduce Months, Days of the Week, Sports, and talk about Favourites.

PLAY RIDDLES

People love riddles. Here it is one to illustrate your driving lesson.

Ask to the participants:

How do you come to school?

Probably you are going to listen: by car, by bus, by bike, on foot....so ask again:

I'm not a cap or coat, but you must put me on before you hit the road! What am I?

The answer: SEAT BELT

RULES AND LAWS

Everybody should know the main important rules and laws about driving. It is part of knowledge to live and work better in any country.
I am studying the theory to get my driver's licence in UK. The process is very hard, because I need to learn the specific jargon around the subject, as well to know the rules, the laws, and all the road traffic signs. It is a challenge!

Play and learn it!

*Print some flash cards with the road traffic signs and their respective meanings to play match the pairs;

* Prepare an exercise with pictures and meanings to link;

* Do the theory test and learn through mistakes;

The objective of this lesson is based on new vocabulary, and grammar is MUST, MUSTN'T, SHOULD, SHOULDN'T, HAVE TO, DON'T HAVE TO.

Have fun!!!

POST OFFICE VOCABULARY

Type all the important vocabulary about POST OFFICE;

Letter, envelope, stamp, sheet of stamp, stamp book, greeting cards, postcard, postman, postbag, letterbox, counter, scale, counter assistant, posts, delivery-rider, delivery-courier, airmail, express mail, first class mail, postcode, label, address, return address, address sender,

money order,

Bring pictures to match the vocabulary;

Give the students some time to recognize and number them;

Check the answers;

Repeat the vocabulary building the scenery of a Post Office;

Try to check all the new words the students have acquired in the end of the activity.

Enjoy...it can take about 2 hours

COMPUTER VOCABULARY

If you want to introduce IT classes in your English ones, prepare your students to work with new vocabulary.

Make some slip of papers with names of computer parts and ask them to stick in the right place:

Ex: Monitor, Screen, Buttons, Power on/off, Power Cable, Leads, Mouse, Right and Left Click, Keyboard, Computer Base ( stand/low), Headphone.

Start an instruction how to use it:

Ex: Press the Power button (switch it on), open Microsoft Word, File, Type, Save as, etc....

Teach them how to shut down, switch it on an repeat the instructions.

Review the vocabulary in the end of your class.