Random Quote
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Vocabulary Learning Through Roleplay
Recently I’ve been reading Learning Vocabulary in Another Language by I.S.P. Nation (cambridge australia link) again - was reading this ages ago and didn’t finish. A few days ago there was some material in this book that I wanted to blog, but I didn’t make note of it and cannot find it now.
However today I found an interesting teaching activity that I think would go over very well in class. I’m going to copy directly from the bottom of page 136 to the top of 138.
There is much that comes before this section that is also very interesting, however as soon as I read this I wanted to try the activity out in my class. It not only sounds engaging but I can definitely see how it is promoting vocabulary acquisition. I highly recommend reading this book if you have the time.Role play
Role play activites can involve a written text on which the role play is based and many involve written instruction to the role players. The “Say it!” activity combines these features and is a simple introduction to roleplay. In Say it! learners read a short text such as a newspaper report containing the wanted vocabulary. They can read it and disucss it together i fthey wish. Then they look at a grid containing tshort tasks for them to permorm. The columns in the grid are labelled with the lettters A, B, C and the rows are numbered. The first learner in the group says the reference of a square, for example, B2, and the second learner in the has to perform the task contained in that square. After that the second learner says a square reference and the third learner has to perform that task. This continues around the group. The same task may be performed more than once by different learners in the group.Here is the newspaper report on which the following Say it! is based. The learners need to read the report carefully and discuss it before doing the activity.Castaways Survived on Shark’s Blood
Three fishermen who drifted on the Pacific for four months told yesterday how they drank shark’s blood to survive.
The fishermen from Kiribati told their story through an interpreter in the American Samoa capital of Pago Pago after being rescured by the ship Sakaria.Kautea Teaitoa, Veaieta Toanuea, and Tebwai Aretana drifted 400 kilometres from home after their outboard motor failed on February 8.
They said four ships had refused to help them during thier ordeal.
When they were picked up on June 4 they had eaten the last of a one-metre shark four days before and drunk all of its blod.
‘I have not prayed so much in all my life,’ Mr Aretana said.
You are Kautea. Say what helped you survive You are Tebwai Aretana. How did you feel when the ships refused to help you? You are a sailor on the Sakaria. What did you do to help the fishermen? You are Tebwai. Explain why you were in the boat and what happened after it broke down. You are Kautea. How did you feel when you caught the shark? You are the captain. Explain why you stopped. You are Veaieta. Explain what caused the problem. You are the interpreter. Describe the feelings and appearance of the three men. The journey was called an ordeal. Why was it an ordeal? Notice that the tasks in each square are designed to encourage use of the wanted vocabulary and that they require the learners to reshape what was in the text to suit the viewpoint of the task. If the text is read, discussed, understood and then put away beforedoing the activity, then retrieval is encouraged. The role play nature of the tasks encourages generative use of the vocabulary.
Larger problem solving rold play activities can involve substatial written input that needs to be processed in a similar way (Nation, 1991b). Learners need to read about the background to the problem, the problem, the constraints on the solution, and their own roles.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Jun 12, 2006 at 07:23 PM
Teaching | Lesson_Plans | teaching_application | Vocabulary |
Simon wrote 67 words on Tuesday Jun 13, 2006 at 10:20 AM
Hello!
I’ve used that activity with a couple of (fairly advanced) classes and the students really enjoyed it. To make the listening side a bit more active I asked the other group members to be journalists asking questions. It’s quite easy to make your own ‘Say it!’ activities as well, using some of the (tamer) strange / funny news stories you can find on sites like http://www.davesdaily.com
Sean. wrote 42 words on Tuesday Jun 13, 2006 at 10:29 PM
Simon,
Thanks for the comment. I’m happy to hear this activity was successful for you and I like your varient. I’m teaching a course during the summer vacation and am planning on using this activity if I get a high level class.