Пятиминутные активности
методическая разработка по английскому языку на тему

Пятиминутные активности -

методические разработки активностей для детей всех уровней, которые служат мотивацией при обучении всем видам речевой деятельности, а также тренировке использования лексики и грамматики. Пятиминутные активности в игровой форме с использованием индивидуальных особенностей заставляют детей думать и общаться на английском языке, а также применять приобретенные знания, умения и навыки в новой ситуации.        

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        FIVE-MINUTE ACTIVITIES

There are activities that appeal to a child’s sense of fun. Such activities are enjoyable and motivate learners because they enable them to be successful according to their individual abilities. I have involved active participation and games. These activities enable children to think and to communicate in English. And they can apply their knowledge to new situations.

These tasks represent the lowest level:

1. Describing what we can do on a beach holiday

Language focus: Can

Skills focus: Speaking

Thinking focus: Listening and recalling

Teaching approach: Promote accuracy – correct mistakes

1) Name something you would like to take on a beach holiday.

        e.g. A ball

2) When a child responds, another child is appointed to ask.

        If you take a ball, what can you do?

3) The first child could respond:

        I can catch a ball.

                kick a ball

                throw a ball

                play a ball

BOX:    Holiday activities

What will you take?                What can you do?

books                        read stories

bicycle                        ride a bicycle

radio                        listen to music

basketball                        play basketball

guitar                        play/sing songs

camera                        take photos

2. The king and the dragon

Language focus: Description, prepositions of place

Skills focus: Listening for details

Thinking focus: Recalling

Teaching approach: Promote accuracy – correct errors

1) I am going to read a small description. Draw a picture as I read.

(The children draw what they hear)

There is a dragon which lives in a tree. Every day a king sits under the dragon’s tree. He reads stories to the dragon.

3. The pirate

Language focus: Description, Present simple tense

Skills focus: Reading for meaning

Thinking focus: Matching

Teaching approach: Promote accuracy – correct errors

1) I have written a small description of a pirate, but some words are missing from each sentence. Choose the correct word from under the description and help you to complete the sentences.

BOX:      Description of a pirate

Cloze activity                Answers

I (1) … on a boat.                1 I live on a boat.

I (2) … fish every day.        2  I eat fish every day

I (3) … on a wooden leg.        3  I walk on a wooden leg.

I (4) … a black hat.                        4  I wear a black hat.

I (5) … to my parrot.                5  I talk to my parrot.

eat   talk   wear   live   walk

4. Bad king good king

Language focus: Narrative, antonyms

Skills focus: Listening and speaking

Thinking focus: Contrasting

Teaching approach: Promote creativity – accept errors

1) I start to tell the story. In a faraway place there lives a good king.

When I emphasize a word, suggest an opposite word or something that has a negative meaning.

BOX:         Bad king story

Bad king                Good king              

In a faraway place there lives a good king.        bad

He is very young and handsome.        old and ugly

He wears beautiful, clean, new clothes.        ugly, dirty, old

For breakfast he eats eggs.        snakes

For lunch he eats bananas.        horse hair

For supper he eats rice.        children

All day he drinks orange juice.        onion juice

5. Grandma! What big eyes you’ve got!

Language focus: Vocabulary: parts of the body

Skills focus: Speaking: Fluency

Thinking focus: Combining ideas

Teaching approach: Promote creativity – accept errors

1) Act out part of a story of Little Red Riding Hood.

2) Divide into 2 teams. One half of the group will play a part of Little Red Riding Hood.

Oh, Grandma! What big eyes you’ve got!

3) The second team reads out what the wolf does with his eyes, e.g. All the better to see you, my dear. 

4) The first team chooses another part of the body.

BOX       Little Red Riding Hood chant

Little Red Riding Hood                        The Big Bad Wolf

Oh, Grandma! What big eyes you’ve got!        All the better to see you, my dear.

Oh, Grandma! What big ears you’ve got!        All the better to hear you, my dear.

6. A travel sociogram

Level: Beginner

Language focus: Language of location (next to, behind, in front of, between)

Skills focus: Listening, writing

Thinking focus: Giving reasons

Teaching approach: Promote creativity – accept errors

1) Some people are going on a holiday together in a car.

2) You can see a sociogram. The car has three rows of seats: two people can sit in the front, three can sit in the middle, and three can sit in the back raw.

3) Decide who is in the car and where everyone can sit. Write the names of the people on the lines.

4) Think why these people are placed in these seats. For example, Mum can sit in the front because Mum can drive the car.

BOX

7.  What animal am I?

Level: Beginner

Language focus: Information report: adjectives

Skills focus: Writing

Thinking focus: Classifying

Teaching approach: Promote creativity – accept errors

1) Write a name of a favourite animal.

2) Use questions to write clues about your favourite animal

3) Now read your clues. Guess the animal.

BOX

What do you look like?

Where do you live?

What do you eat?

What can you do?

Animal clues

I am yellow and hairy.

I live in grasslands.

I eat other animals.

Who am I? (a lion)

8.  Turned into a rabbit!

Level: Beginner

Language focus: Personal description

Skills focus: Writing

Thinking focus: Imagining

Teaching approach: Promote creativity – accept errors

1) Imagine that a wicked witch has turned you into a rabbit. Think about how your life is different now. Write a short paragraph describing your life as a rabbit. Use the questions to help you.

What do you look like?        I am furry and have very large ears.

Where do you live?                I live in a hole in the ground.

How big are you?                I am small.

What do you eat?                I eat carrots and lettuce.

9. Animal advertisements

Level: Elementary

Language focus: Advertisement, must

Skills focus: Writing

Thinking focus: Considering multiple viewpoints

Teaching approach: Promote creativity -accept errors

1) Imagine what would happen is pets were able to advertise for a suitable owner. What type of person would the pet want? What would the pet expects from his owner?

Imagine you are a pet. Design your own advertisement for a pet owner.

BOX    Advertising for an animal owner

         WANTED

Clean, warm, quiet home

for a friendly young cat

Owner must supply my favourite food

and

interesting toys

10. Which dog has a better life?

Level: Elementary upwards

Language focus: debate, comparisons

Skill focus: Speaking

Thinking focus: arguing and justifying

Teaching approach: Promote creativity - accept errors

Divide the group into 3 teams and allocate one of the following working dogs to each team:

• A police dog
• A guide dog (for blind people)
• A farm dog

2) Discuss why their life is better than the life of the other 2 dogs. Use the sentence stems.

3) Each team has an opportunity to present their arguments to the group. In the end they decide which dog has a better life.

BOX p30

11. UFO

Level: Elementary upwards

Language focus: Personal recount, Past Simple, Past Continuous

Skills focus: Listening and speaking

Thinking focus: Paraphrasing and retelling

Teaching approach: Promote creativity

1) Listen for the gist of the text, but do not write at this stage.

2) Read the text again. This time, write down key vocabulary while I am reading.

3) In small groups reconstruct the original text. Note that this is not a dictation. The aim of the activity is to create a text which paraphrases the meaning of the original text, so children may use synonyms, or may omit parts of the text.

BOX: An alien took my dog!

I was walking my dog, Pluto, last night when I saw a strange light in the sky. I wondered if it could be a UFO. Then I saw it! It was a large flying saucer. Suddenly, an alien appeared at the door. I ran away, but where was Pluto? My poor dog had disappeared!

1. Holidays in space

Level: Elementary upwards

Language focus: Debate, modal expressions

Skills focus: Speaking

Thinking focus: Analyzing, contrasting and evaluating

Teaching approach: Creativity

1) Think of the advantages and disadvantages of having holidays in space.

2) Divide into teams, and each team has a turn to add one idea to the strengths and weaknesses grid. Team members discuss their answers first and then choose one idea to add to the grid. Use modal expressions could/couldn’t, might/may, would.

3) The tem to contribute the last idea is the winner.

BOX  Space travel: strengths and weaknesses grid

        Topic: Holidays in space

Strengths                Weaknesses

Questions about space travel

Strengths

Teacher:         What are the good things about going on a holiday into space?

        What would we enjoy? How would we benefit?

Children:        It’s a new experience. We could see things we’ve never seen before,

        e.g. Saturn’s rings, Mars’s volcano. We could see the Earth from space.

        We might learn about how the solar system was formed.

Weaknesses

Teacher:        What are some of the problems we could face? What would stop us

        from going on a holiday in space?

Children:         It’s too expensive. We would be away for a long time. We couldn’t eat

        our normal food. It’s too hot/too cold. There could be angry aliens in

        space. The space ship may break down.

13. My computer class

Level: Elementary upwards

Language focus: Instructions, vocabulary: computer

Skills focus: Listening for details

Thinking focus: Discriminating

Teaching approach: Promote accuracy – correct errors

1) Write numbers 1 to 8 on a piece of paper, leaving room to write in the missing words.

2) I am going to read out some instructions for using your computer. (Choose from the words in the box to complete the instructions.)

3) I am reading out the instructions. When I get to the first gap in the cloze exercise, I say Buzz. This is indicates that there is a gap in the sentence. Then I say Number 1. Write the missing word next to their number 1.

BOX    Computer instructions

Computer instructions                Computer instructions

cloze activity                                                            cloze answers

- To (1) … a new file, click        - To open a new file, click

(2) … the icon.                on the icon.

- (3) … your work                - Save your work before you turn

(4) … you turn off your computer.        off your computer.

- Cut the picture from the file and        -Cut the picture from the file and paste

(5) … it (6) … your sentence.        it below your sentence.

- Do a spell check (7) …        - Do a spell check before you

you send the (8) …                send the email.

Missing words: before, before, on

below, save, open, email, paste

14. Conditional string

Level: Intermediate

Language: 1st and 2d conditionals

1) I begin with a conditional sentence:

‘If I won the lottery, I’d buy a yacht.’

2) The next person in the sequence then changes the ‘would’ part of the sentence to a new ‘if’ clause:

‘If I bought a yacht, …’

and finishes the sentence in a suitable manner:

‘.. I’d sail to Australia’.

Possible opening sentences:

If I became president, I’d be in charge of the country.

If I met a genie, I’d have three wishes.

If I moved abroad, I’d live in France.

If I was richer, I’d buy a new house.

15. Puzzle story

Level: Intermediate-advanced

Language: Simple questions

1) You are given the situation at the end of the story as a prompt. Use this as the basis for yes/no questions and decide how the situation came about. If necessary a time limit or a maximum number of questions can be set.

Examples:

Clue: A dead man is found lying in the desert, completely naked, and holding a broken match. There are no footprints anywhere nearby.

Solution: The man had been travelling with friends in a hot air balloon, which had started dropping down the desert. They tried to reduce the weight in the balloon by taking their clothes off. When this didn’t work, they drew lots to select someone to jump from the balloon by taking their clothes off. When this didn’t work, they drew lots to select someone to jump from the balloon.

The one who drew the broken match had to jump.