Buidling Workplace Vocabulary

Purpose: To practice talking about jobs

Preparation: None

Procedure:

1. Have students generate a list of jobs.
2. Choose two to three job titles and have students suggest typical activities for this type of employment.
3. Have students get in groups and pick one job and tell a story about a person, real or fictional. Example: Jenny is an assembly worker. Every day she puts things together. She must work very fast. She does the same job again and again. Sometimes her job is boring.
4. Have students illustrate the actions or difficult vocabulary words in the story by drawing stick pictures, cutting pictures out of magazines or taking photos of people on the job.

Extensions:

• Create a simple dialogue where one person asks basic questions about another person’s new job. Then have students practice the dialogue, pretending to be a nurse, or assembly worker or an accountant.

• Practice word processing skills by typing up a story, printing it in large font and making a poster picture story with it.

• Use a workforce Web site, such as www.iseek.org, to find information about average salaries, benefits and educational requirements for each job.

The Three Rs

Purpose: to help learners understand what recycling is and why it’s important, as well as to provide listening practice

Prep Time: time needed to view the video and think about how you’ll explain vocabulary

Materials: index cards, copies of worksheet, equipment needed to show video, realia needed to clarify examples of reducing, reusing and recycling

Prep: gather realia, locate index cards, make copies of worksheet

Procedure:

1) Setting the Context and Introducing New Vocabulary:

Start by giving students some examples of reducing, reusing and recycling and ask students if they have done any of these things or anything similar and why. It is not necessary at this point to use the terms reduce, reuse, or recycle. See below for some possible examples you could tell students.

Examples of reducing: using cloth grocery bags, using plastic containers to store food, use your own water bottle, write on both sides of a piece of paper, turn lights off when no one is in the room

Examples of reusing: giving clothing to a younger brother or sister, buying something that is used (a car, books, appliances), new uses for boxes or jars

Examples of recycling: using paper, plastic, glass, cans to make more of the same thing

Teach students the terms reduce, reuse, and recycle, referring to the examples that you discussed. Then elicit/discuss reasons why doing these actions are important.

Please note: If students aren’t familiar with recycling, avoid turning the lesson into the topic of how to recycle; this would make a good follow up lesson. Instead, focus on what it is and why it is important.

2) Practicing the New Language

For this portion of the lesson you will need access to the Three Rs video found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKdZYYmTT9A

You’ll also need copies of this fill-in-the-blanks worksheet.

Introduce the Three Rs video by telling students that they will be doing a listening activity called the Three Rs. Ask students to guess what the Three Rs are.

Play the video once and ask students what they remember.

Pass out the fill-in-the-blanks worksheet and, if necessary, watch the first part of the video and do a couple examples as a class. Then play the whole video a couple times while students fill in the rest of the blanks.

Check the answers for a couple of students and then refer other students to the ones who have the correct answers until every student has the answers. If there is interest, play the video again while students compare their answers to what they hear in the video.

3) Follow-Up Discussion

Students can work with partners or in small groups to come up with some more ideas about ways that people can reduce, reuse and recycle and then report their ideas to the rest of the class.

4) Wrap Up

Pass out an index card to each student. Write the following questions on the board for students to answer on their index cards.

1. Write your name

2. What are three things that you learned today?

3. What questions do you have about the Three Rs?

Read the cards and choose some questions from the cards to discuss/answer as a class.

Milling to Music

Purpose: There are many ways to pair students up for activities. Here’s one way to find
partners and get learners out of their seats at the same time.

Procedure:

1) Play a song or other piece of music.
2) Everyone gets up and walks around the room.
3) When the music stops, the person closest to you is your partner.
4) Now do an activity like Sentence Starters in pairs:

Each student has the beginning of a sentence. For beginners, it might be “Every day I _________________.”

For more advanced students, it might be “I have never _________________.”

Each partner shares the stem he/she has and the partner must complete the statement.

After reading an article in a higher level class, sentence starters can promote critical thinking: One example of an opinion in the article was ___________.

One thing I disagreed with in the article was ___________.

Repeat playing music, stopping to complete the activity with a new partner each time.

Out of Your Seats!

Purpose: Most of us can only sit for a limited period of time before our capacity to learn decreases. Some of us learn better using a multi-sensory approach. Plan at least one activity in every lesson where learners get out of their seats. In this way, you appeal to a variety of learning styles. All students will return to their seats more alert and energized. Here are two examples of activities that require little or no preparation.

I. Vote with Your Feet

Preparation Time: 5-10 minutes (to make signs the first time)

Materials: Make 3 signs for the classroom. Depending on level of students, signs read:
“strongly disagree”, “strongly agree”, and “neutral”
OR
“YES”, “NO”, and “?”.

Preparation: Place the signs along a wall or at either end of the room with the “neutral” or “?”sign in the middle.

Procedure:
1. Make a statement to the class. For example, if you are studying months of the year and seasons, you might say: I love winter. Then demonstrate what you want the students to do, by asking for volunteers to place themselves next to the sign that indicates their feeling or belief about winter. Teacher or tutor also participates, perhaps picking a position that hasn’t been chosen. Now each person explains his/her opinion.
2. Demonstrate a second time if necessary, with a different statement: Driving a car in the winter is very difficult.
3. Once instructions are clear, ask the students to arrange themselves along the spectrum in response to a new statement.
4. Encourage them to explain their position to the others in the group. One person from each group summarizes the reasons stated.

II. Line-Ups

Preparation Time: 0

Materials: none needed

Procedure:
1. Ask learners to line up sequentially: by month and day of birth, by height, in alphabetical order by first name, then last name, or by dates in U.S. history, for citizenship students.
2. Depending on the theme or grammar focus, ask students questions. For example, use “before” and “after” to talk about months of the year or where individual students are located in line. Use the comparative and superlative to talk about who is shorter, who is taller, who is shortest and tallest. For history, match an event with a date.
3. Have students ask questions of each other or make statements about the line-up, using the appropriate vocabulary or grammar point.

Variation:
Give each student a number and have them line up from smallest to biggest number. Students self-correct, then take turns reading the numbers, once the order is correct.