Blended learning - to use or not to use?

http://deakinprime.com/services/design/blended-learning-programs

Along with the development of technology and common use of internet and technological devices by almost all students, the traditional way of teachning and learning has been supported by e-learning and other internet-related means of teaching. Whereas the use of e-learning isn't approved by all teachers and methodologists, the subject of present post, namely BLENDED LEARNIG, enjoys much better opinion.

But what is BLENDED LEARNING?

Travel with BuildUpYourEnglishSuperpower blog!

Hi there everyone! It's been quite a busy week again. I hope you enjoyed some of our posts and that some proved useful during your own teachings. Here you have the summary of this week's posts:

1. What is the real cost of travel?

Have you ever wondered what the travelling really costs? If not, then, we come with an answer. Let the numbers speak for themselves: 4 great exercises ready to be used!




2. What is Cymraeg?

A few clever ideas about how to make a lesson about the UK's culture with the wide range of lingustic skills being developed at the very same time.

How do languages change and evolve?

We use language every day, but probably very few people give a second thought to why our mother tongue and the foreign languages we learn look and sound this way and not the other. Why do some languages sound similar? Are they related in any way? The following video aims at answering such questions, revolving around the topic of language change and evolution. Watch it and discover some fascinating facts about languages!

Travelling - listening

Everybody has his own favourite travelling type depending on his character features. Some of tourists prefer to travel alone, others in groups, some want to have everything planned, others are spontaneous, some want to explore everything while others prefer to follow a tour guide. If you want to know how other people travel, listen to our recording and find out the details of one interesting tour of London...:)

1. First think of your perfect type of travelling and tell your partner about it. Consider:

Travelling - vocab - lots of new words :)

Below you will find a few exercises with lots of vocabulary. Some words might be difficult, hence, your students might need some revision before they manage to learn these ;)

1. Match the pictures with the words given: 

seagull   deck chair   motorway   flight attendant   platform   driving licence   seat belt

"Hit the road Jack!"

Today you'll learn some new idioms connected with travelling.

Don't miss the boat and try to remember as many as you can. Good luck and have fun!

idiom	meaning and example
backseat driver	A person who offers unsolicited or unwelcome advice. My brother is such a backseat driver. I hate traveling with him.
hit the road	To begin traveling; to leave a place; to go away. It's time for me to hit the road; it is getting late.
fifth wheel	Anything superfluous or unnecessary. I felt like a fifth wheel when they started looking at each other affectionately.
in the same boat	In the same situation; having the same problems. A: Can you lend me 100 dollars? B: Sorry, I am broke. I am in the same boat.
paddle one's own canoe	To act independently and decide your own fate; to do something by oneself. He's been left to paddle his own canoe when he started his business.

What is Cymraeg?

This week we are learning through travel! Is there a better way of learning a language than
actually living for a while in a foreign country? Nothing more enjoyable than learning words in their communicative contexts. However, before we hit the road we have to learn as much as possible about the places we want to visit. Let's take our learners to the four beautiful nations that make up together the United Kingdom!

By the way, do you know what Cymraeg is and where it is used? 

If not, you might like to read yourself about the customs and traditions of the four nations which include England, Scotland, Wales and the Northern Ireland. We all know at least something about the United Kingdom but it is always a good habit to learn some new facts that you can share with your students. Many interesting facts can be found here:

What is the real cost of travel?

Everybody likes travelling. The excitement it brings about, the unforgettable moments of exploring the unexplored, a spellbinding sense of novelty. There are myriad of other nice expressions to describe how wonderful it is to travel ;) Yet, many of us tend to forget that the ideal tourist destinations we visit are home not only to other people, but also many unique animal and plant species. Probably you never ask yourself the question – what is the real cost of travel? Some people did, hence a short text under the very same title. Let’s help our students perceive travelling from a slightly different perspective, making them aware of the dangers to the environment our journeys may pose. 

 

Travel time!

Hello there everyone! The following week is going to be devoted to a very pleasant and engaging topic of TRAVELLING. As the May weather has been surprising us positively so far, lots of us certainly start planning some trips. Moreover, the holidays are coming. Thus, this is a perfect moment to introduce our students to this topic and let them practise vocabulary and phrases that may be inevitably necessary during their foreign trips! 

Third week's sum up

Good evening everybody! We have just ended the third week of our blog that was on the subject of FOOD. Here you have the collection of what has been posted during the whole week:


1. A recipe for good writing :)

Here you will find tips on how to teach writing ... by writing something as ordinary as a recipe!;)





2. Learning vocabulary - a tough nut to crack?

Vocab? Tough to crack? Nah..! Not with us!

Food-related speaking games and activities

As an extremely talkative person, I am also a teacher who provides a great deal of space for speaking activities. And don't worry - it doesn't mean that I talk all the time :) I just make sure that every learner has plenty of possibilities to develop speaking skills. 

What is more, as I mentioned in one of the posts - any opportunity to practice speaking cannot be wasted! Thus, every subject introduced to the class can serve as a base for further speaking tasks. 

One may ask: how is it possible? How long can you talk about food?? Basing on my own teaching experience, I can guarantee that it is possible to create various questions using only a few words. Working with the use of direct method has taught me that every word can be a basis for both easy and complicated questions for learners of all levels. For instance a simple word 'apple' can generate the following questions:

http://thaom.blogspot.com/2012/11/apple-znowu-pozywa.htm

What is this? [pointing at the apple or at its picture] 

What colour is the apple?

Is the apple red or green?

What colour can the apple have?

Do you like apples?

Does your mum/dad/etc. like apples?

What can you make from apples?

Is an apple a fruit or a vegetable?

Can you imagine not eating apples?

Do you remember what happened with the apple in the Bible?

How can you interpret the picture on the right?

What does an apple symbolize?

Do you have Adam's apple? Can you show it?

What does it mean to be the apple of sb's eye?

Organic or non-organic food? Reading comprehension

Do you like eating? I think that everybody does:)

Our eating habits may differ and I don't mean only the fact that some of us are vegetarians or vegans but rather the products we choose. Some people try to buy mainly things that are grown in a country they live, the others prefer those with low prices but there are also people who would do completely the oppoosite - they choose very expensive, organic food because they hope that the more they pay, the better their meal is.

What kind of consumer are you?

Organic food is my choice for today's reading comprehension:)

The text for reading comprehension you can find here:

Organic food - text

Listening exercises

You are going to listen to 3 recordings. One is about making a pie, one about ordering meals at a restaurant and the last one about deciding what to have for breakfast. Enjoy!

Listening 1 Making a pie

I. Fill in the gaps and answer the questions.

1. The first thing to do is to .................. onion and .......................
2. How should it be chopped? ..........................................................
3. Put the onion and the garlic into .................................................
4. What should be added to it?
5. What kind of meat do we need?
6. What should we do with it while cooking?
7. How much water should we add?
8. What should we do with it for 15-20 minute?
9. 20 minute should be enough for the meat to be nice and soft and ...............................
10. What should we do with potato?
11. We should ....................... the potato with a ..................... of milk

Food idioms - a piece of cake!

Idioms, idioms, idioms… Most of the time they are so weird looking and sounding that it’s almost impossible to remember what they mean. Take for instance the titular ‘a piece of cake’. I mean, really? How to combine the meaning with the form in a reasonable way? It’s challenging indeed, but you have to agree here that it sounds extremely sophisticated when an idiomatic expression is popped up every now and then in a conversation. Let’s show our students then that amusing visual aids may help a bit in memorizing idioms!

Following is the table with idiomatic expressions as well as three exercises practising their usage in context!

Learning vocabulary - a tough nut to crack?

How to learn a long meaningless vocabulary list? By writing words and their translations in two columns? No way! Is learning of vocabulary easy, boring or challenging? If it is so, let's make it exciting! Have a look at some ideas for a lesson that may appeal to different types of learners.

First let them involve in small competition to motivate them and make the lesson more enjoyable. Then create opportunities to learn for kinaesthetic students (let them show the meaning with gestures or "bring" the objects they bought), visual learners (ask them to draw pictures and visualize objects in the room), auditory learners (ask them to follow oral instructions) and analytical learners (ask them to put the words in different categories).

Warm-up

Task 1 (analytical learners, group work activity)

Divide students in 4 groups and give them 5 minutes to write down as many food items as they know (ask them to write them in alphabetical order) in the categories provided below. Award the group with the most words with pluses or points and let them choose their opponents for the second round (see Task 3). After you check your vocabulary lists together you may like to extend it using:

FOOD AND DRINKS - thematic dictionary

A recipe for good writing :)

Writing doesn’t have to be associated with something unpleasant and difficult. Students can practice writing even in the simplest way which is recipe. Each of us, no matter we are students, teachers, parents or children has written or will write a recipe. They may be written for your own needs, blog, recipe books or for your friends. That’s why it’s good to know some rules necessary to create a clear and well-organized recipe.

Top Tips for writing recipe:

Put the title first – name of a dish (the shorter the better to remember :) )

Don’t forget about two main parts of a recipe: INGREDIENT LIST and METHOD.

INGREDIENT LIST	METHOD
While listing ingredients, use the numbers or dashes.	Describe each step carefully, briefly and clearly.

Week No. 3

Hi there everyone!

Still haven’t got enough of us? We are about to begin a new week, which, of course, means a new topic and new ideas on day-to-day basis! What’s the subject for this incoming week, you may ask, and I am glad to answer that it’s going to be FOOD!:)

We are going to present a variety of exercises that you will be able to employ during your EFL classes.

Revision of the Sport's week

Woah! This was quite a week. Here you have the summary of what we have posted this week:

1. An Olympic blog - reading

The very first post of the Sport's week focuses on reading as well as introduces some more common vocabulary to familiarize your studdents with.





2. Let's get the ball rolling! Let's talk sports!

This one is about teaching speaking and vocab. There are a few basic ideas of what you can ask your students and what words are necessary for them to feel more confident at this subject.

Sporty idioms

Hello!
Since Ania's idea of presenting idioms was a full success and all of us enjoyed it, now it's time for somebody else to continue. I hope you have fun!

If you want to know where the idioms come from look for the sport disciplines in brackets.

the ball is in your court (tennis)	You need to answer or react		-What should I do now? * I don’t know, the ball is in your court.
blow the competition away (any sport)	win easily		If you do your best, you will blow the competition away.
get a head start (horse racing)	start earlier than the others/ have advantage over somebody		If you want to avoid traffic jams, leave at 3 o’clock – you will get a head start.

COMPETITION – can you lose the game?

Competition is an inevitable part of sport. I bet that almost all of our readers (and bloggers too) are keen on winning! But who doesn’t like that? J

However, when there is a winner, there also has to be a loser, which is especially painful when you play for a high stake. 

And how about you? How do you cope with losing?

Look at the words below – which of them collocate with play (P) and which with go (G)?

SURFING      BASKETBALL         RUNNING    BADMINTON          HORSE RACING JOGGING            RUGBY         CRICKET      CYCLING     VOLLEYBALL       SWIMMING SQUASH            ROLLERBADING   FOOTBALL  SKIING      WINDSURFING  TENNIS

Read the information about the video:

"TWO RONNIES - SQUASH GAME" presents the story of two friends Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker. In this episode both Ronnies have just had a game of squash. Barker has never played before but Corbett is the local squash champion. After the game Ronnie Corbett is a little bit nervous.

Why do you think he is finding it difficult to keep calm?

Narratives

Many students consider writing a narrative the easiest among all types of written assignments. But is this really the case?

In fact, narratives are the most difficult to write. First of all, they involve a lot of planning beforehand. What is even more important is the fact that narratives require the use of numerous adjectives and adverbs to make the story flow – the knowledge of which students usually lack. Nevertheless, we can definitely make it easier for our students to learn useful methods and strategies to write a gripping story.

Following are some useful tips concerning narratives as well as two exercises that will expand students’ knowledge of more sophisticated vocabulary items.

Vocabulary - sport

Sport is a universal topic to discuss. Surely all students will be eager to learn some new vocabulary which they need to talk about their favourite sport disciplines.

1. Match equipments with their names:

net        helmet     cap     racket     club      shin pads

Equipment pictures

2. Guess from the context what the underlined words mean. Write their Polish equivalents:

• We all cheered as the team came on to the field.
• He played well in the team’s 2–2 draw with Southampton.
• There were more skiers further up the slope.
• He missed a penalty in the last minute of the game.  (in soccer)
• The new football stadium will hold 75 000 spectators.
• He has knocked out 15 opponents in 20 fights.

Let's get the ball rolling! Let's talk sports!

Today we are going to move our students from their comfortable sofas and do some speaking push ups :) But don't worry, even if you are out of shape, you'll catch up with our pace easily.

Actually, no serious workout today (I hate push ups, what about you?). Let's start with some warming up activities that will encourage our students to use sport-related vocabulary in speaking. Besides, it is said that a good warm-up is the most important part of your workout and the key to success. I bet it is the same with speaking!

An Olympic blog - reading

We all know that exercising is important but these days most of young people aren’t getting enough. An average young person spends as much as thirty hours a week in front of TV. Researchers at the University of Tennessee have recently found out that 'couch potatoes' burn fewer calories when they watch TV than when they’re asleep!

Our BuildUpYourEnglishSuperpower team strongly opposes laziness and encourages you to keep in shape. Perhaps, if such an average 'couch potato' watched some Olympics he’d be motivated to get up and do some sport :)

But for now, let’s read the blogger's memories of the 2012 London Olympics (see below).

After reading, do some exercises to check if you understand the text correctly. Good luck! :)

New week - new challenges: sports!

Hi there everyone!

We're beginning the second week on our blog. This week's tasks will surely get to the hearts of the masculine part of your students as the topic is about SPORTS.

We're going to present you a wide range of materials that you'll be able to use during your English classes.

And, btw, thanks for so many visits in the very first week of our blog. We have surpassed the threshold of 1000 views since the launch. Thanks a lot and we're looking forward to more visits and comments.


See you!

"Health" week - revisited

Phew ... This was a busy week! We've just ended the first week on our blog. We hope you enjoy it and find the particular materials useful.

Below you'll find the recollection of all posts devoted to the topic of "Health".

1. Smoking - a good or bad habit?

Our very first post featured the topic of smoking and was mainly focused on developing listening skills.





2. Is your lifestyle healthy?


The lifestyle post was our second one. Use this in case you need any healthy lifestyle-related exercises that are focused on developing reading.

Saturday - a perfect day for revision

Everybody knows that learning a language without revising is not a good idea. Since we want your students to remember what they have learned, we have prepared some extra exercises. Ask them to do the tasks without any help. If they really don't remember some words or phrases they can always check the answer in the sections given in brackets.
Have fun and remember: revision done on Saturday means a free Sunday!:)

I.   Let's start with something easy. Fill in the gaps: (taken from: "Health-vocabulary")

1. sore ...................
2. .............. dizzy
3. come ........ with a cold
4. ................. a patient (badać)
5. ................ /............ your temperature (zmierzyć)
6. be allergic............ something
7. have a ............ ankle (skręcona)
8. suffer .............. something
9. heart ................. (zawał)
10. ............ nose (katar)

Time for some practice ;)

I have prepared some exercises which can be used for practising vocabulary, warm-up or revision. English does not have to be boring ;)

Speaking exercise

Work in pairs. Choose a quotation and tell your partner how you understand it and whether you agree with it or not.

Health - vocabulary

Assume you need to go to see a doctor. How would you describe your health condition without HEALTH VOCABULARY? Yes, it would be extremely difficult. 

This post is devoted to the vocabulary connected with illnesses, injuries, medicine and treatment.

Coming back to our appointment, let’s see what kind of vocabulary we should know to lead the conversation with a doctor.

Illnesses and injuries

ache	ból
backache	ból pleców
stomachache	ból brzucha
toothache	ból zęba
headache	ból głowy
earache	ból ucha
ill / sick	chory
sore throat	ból gardła
backache	ból pleców
broken	złamany
cut	skaleczenie
bruise	siniak
feeling sick	mdłości
injury	uraz
wound	rana
fever	gorączka
cold	przeziębienie
flu	grypa
heart attack	zawał serca
cough	kaszel
pneumonia	zapalenie płuc
stroke	udar
measles	odra
runny nose	katar

...and some more!

Body idioms

As a result of a complicated history, English has the most extensive vocabulary in the world. There are a myriad of different idioms and phrasal verbs which ESL students need to learn by heart. 

If this task is not approached skilfully,  the words can be a real pain in the neck!

How can you deal with that? Rote memorization rarely works, so we have to come up with some creative ideas to make this process more enjoyable for our students. All we have to do is to engage their brains in a meaningful practice that would help them to remember the material better and for a longer time. 

Here’s an example of how to create a meaningful personalized glossary of body-related idioms:

IDIOM	PICTURE/CARTOON	EXPLANATION & EXAMPLES
To be all ears		To listen to somebody carefully
To be all fingers and thumbs		Mieć dwie lewe ręce Can you thread this needle for me? I’m all thumbs today. When I get nervous I’m all fingers and thumbs.
To be all skin and bones		To be very thin e.g. I am no longer all skin and bones.
To bite one’s tongue		Ugryźć się w język I bit my tongue when she asked me about my sister’s boyfriend.