Jesus Heals a Paralytic

"Jesus Heals a Paralytic "

One day while Jesus was teaching inside a friend's house, many, many people came to listen. They crowded around the tiny house. They tried to hear at least a few words of what Jesus was saying.

Four men carrying a stretcher pushed their way through the people. On the stretcher lay a very sick man. He could not move at all. His four friends had brought him to see Jesus. They knew Jesus could make him better.

"Let us by! Let us through to Jesus!" they called out. When they saw they would never make it through the door, two of the men climbed on top of the roof of the house. The other two threw them ropes so they could haul the stretcher onto the roof.

The four men began pulling tiles off the roof. They were making a hole! Inside the house, the people listening to Jesus heard a ripping sound above them. They looked up. Then suddenly, dirt and tiles fell on them. The next thing they knew, a stretcher was being lowered through the hole with a sick man strapped onto it!

Jesus saw how hard the man's friends had worked. He told the sick man all the bad things he might have done no longer mattered. He could start over. Jesus said, "Now get up and walk home."

The man did as he was told, just as if he had never been sick. "Glory to- God! This really is His Son!" He and his four friends shouted and sang the whole way home.

Vocabulary: paralytic, stretcher, haul, tiles, ripping, strapped, Glory to God

For grammar practice, you can have students put these words in the past tense: crowd, bring, see, make, throw, fall, know, tell, do, shout

Students can create sentences with the words for extra practice.

Ask students comprehension and follow-up questions to the story: describe what the friends did for their sick friend, how did Jesus respond?, etc.

Additional activity: have students make a list of character qualities that are important in a friend. Have them discuss why those qualities are the most important. They can also tell you about their friends and the qualities that they most love about their friends.

Auburn Activities #4

"Create a Travel Brochure"

This is definitely a more advanced activity. The original plan for this was to have the students pick anywhere in the world that they would want to travel. I modified it a little bit and required the students to pick a location somewhere here in Ukraine that they wanted to advertise.

We divided the class into groups of 4 or 5 and gave them the following requirements:
1. Decorate the front cover of a tri-fold piece of paper with a picture of their location, as well as the name.
2. Inside, they should include a description of the place, sites to see, things of interest.
3. Include a list of 10 helpful phrases and their English translations.

The students came up with some really creative brochures, and they loved it! They particularly liked picking helpful phrases. It's a winner.

Auburn Activities #3

"Speed Dating/ Mixer" game

I have used this game for several years now in several different situations. This week, though, we made some modifications, and it worked really well yet again.

The concept of speed dating is often joked about. Thankfully, this game is not actually providing the opportunity to find a date...it's a get-to-know-you game. Even if the students already know each other, it can be used as a class opener, just for fun.

1. Variant 1: have students sit in two lines facing each other. This can be across a table or just in two rows of chairs. I've done both. Explain that one side of the table/ line of chairs will stay in their chairs the whole game. The other side of chairs will rotate seats every time the teacher calls time. Give each student about 1-2 minutes to chat/ gather information with each person. Remind them to listen for interesting facts about each person they talk to (at least, they should remember everyone's name). This game can take as long or short as you want.

2. Variant 2: we used this variant this week- out of necessity. We had planned to use this game in one of the classrooms. Unfortunately, the setup of the classroom was beyond "unconducive." We figured out that the best variant for us would be to visually divide the class into 5 groups (there were 4,5,6 students in each group). The Americans then took turns rotating among the groups, spending 3 or 4 minutes with each group, learning the students' names and telling about themselves. The students loved getting to know them a little, even if they (the students) weren't actually getting to move. It worked out wonderfully.

Auburn Activities #2

"Activity Matching Game"

This activity requires some preparation. Create a set of matching cards (the sets that the Auburn group brought contain about 40 cards total). Half of the stack will have words/ activities written on them (i.e. go to the park, study with friends). The other half of the stack will have a picture. The cards we used this week have basic clip art pictures from a word processor. As the students are matching the cards (preferably in groups of 3 or 4), have them read the phrases out loud to practice pronunciation.

This game is fun for the students, can be used as competition (depending on how many sets you create) and boosts confidence for the students. It's a win-win game.

Mid-matching game

Brilliant Ideas from Auburn #1

This past week, we've been partnering with some friends and fellow workers from Auburn University in Auburn, AL. They've come in to the schools that we've been working with and done a super-elevated version of what we do on a regular basis. I'll be posting some of their great ideas.

"Who has done...?"

This game requires a little preparation but is great fun for the students. It's a "get-to-know-you"/ practice speaking/ competition game.

Supplies: prepared cards

Each card (size: half or 1/3 of a page) has a list of activities. It looks something like this:
_________ has been to a circus.
_________ has been to North America.
_________ likes to travel by train.
_________ likes to eat ice cream.
(Most cards have about 10-12 activities.)

The goal of the game is to have the students mingle with each other, speaking in English, and finding a person who has participated in each activity. They are to get a signature beside each activity. They should get a different signature for each activity.

This game works best for larger groups. After they complete their cards, you can discuss interesting facts discovered about the other students.

Students working hard to fill up their cards

Beginner Class #2

At the beginning of the second Beginner class, we played Alphabet BINGO to review phonetics. Then, partly to transition and partly to introduce new words, we played the tactile spelling game, using the following list of words: hello, think, glasses, purse, father, pants, after, put, computer, letters, like, family. You can define these words as you go; our students liked to scribble them down in their notebooks.

I then introduced “family” words. We learned/ reviewed family words: father, mother, daughter, son, husband, wife, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, granddaughter, grandson, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin.

To practice creating sentences, I drew my family tree (dad’s side), writing in names of my relatives. I asked questions about the relationships between different people on the tree (Who is Pam?), and the students practiced answering in English sentences (Pam is Erin’s mother). We did this for a while, writing the answers on the board, correcting pronunciation, and discussing “’s”, showing possession.

Before finishing the lesson, we discussed nominative pronouns, translating them into Russian: I, you (singular), he, she, it, we, you (plural), and they.

To wrap up the class, we played Hangman; this reviewed family vocabulary and spelling. Perfect!

Beginner Class #1

We began our Beginner night classes a few weeks ago. These lessons aren’t just terribly clever, but they might be helpful for someone.

For our first night of Beginner class, we worked on English phonetics. Not the most exciting of lessons but necessary, nonetheless. We went through the alphabet and discussed the sounds that each letter makes, including words that exemplify those sounds. After going through the alphabet, we played alphabet BINGO (big hit).

A:

1. apple

2. ankle

3. always

B: boy

C: makes the “s” sound when followed by “e” or “i” and the “k” sound when followed by “a,” “o”, or “u”

1. cat

2. circle

D: dog

E:

1. egg

2. evening

F: father

G: generally, makes the “j” sound when followed by “e” or “i” and the “gh” sound when followed by “a,” “o,” or “u”

1. go

2. giraffe

H: Hello

I:

1. in

2. I

J: juice

K: kitten

L: lemon

M: mother

N: never

O:

1. offer

2. open

3. do

P: please

Q: is almost always followed by a “u”

1. queen

R: rabbit

S: makes two sounds, “s” and “z”

1. sorry

2. knows

T: Tuesday.

U:

1. umbrella

2. Tuna

3. Put

V: very

W: water

X: very rarely used at the beginning of a word.

1. extra

Y:

1. Yellow

2. happy

3. Why

Z: zebra