Auburn: Shopping Lesson and modified Transportation

On the second day of Auburn classes, I went with a different group to another school in town. We started the day by using the "Shopping" lesson and ended with the "Transportation lesson. Here's the rundown on the "shopping" lesson:

1. As a kind of introduction, complete this phrase: "My name is _____ and I like to shop for _____." You fill in the first blank with your name (obviously) and the second with an item that begins with the same letter as your name.

2. "Matching" game. This game is a little different than the usual matching game. For this game, there are category cards (shopping verbs, people, merchandise, patterns) and item cards (to exchange, cashier, socks, plaid). The students are to sort all the different item cards (there are quite a few that fall into each category) into the correct category. After the smaller groups sort through all of their cards, the students divide the items from each category amongst themselves and give clues to the other team (taking turns between teams), so that the other team can guess which word is being described.

3. American-Ukrainian comparison: The Auburn team brought sale papers for this lesson and let the student peruse them, comparing products and prices to those found here in Ukraine.

4. Following up on the sale papers, the students were given paper and colored pencils, with the aim of creating their own advertisements for the product of their choosing. After they created ads, they presented them to the rest of the class.

Example of one of the advertisements.

5. As a class closer, we played Hangman, using the vocabulary words from the "matching" game.

Transportation modification:

In our third class of the day, we ran into a few obstacles that required some quick and creative thinking. Our class was very reluctant to speak out, so we introduced the transportation vocabulary (using the pictures brought from the States) in small groups. The Americans divided the pictures among themselves and discussed a few at a time in their groups. After each team had finished their small stack, they rotated the pictures until all of the groups had seen and discussed all of them.

We ran into an unfortunate incident, wherein we had no markers for the white board (excluding our options of jeopardy and hangman). While the groups discussed vocabulary and played Transportation matching, I MacGyvered a game board, using strips of paper and crayons. I discovered that I could stick the papers underneath the top ledge of the board. I then bent the tops and bottoms of the papers to form a chain. Maybe you can see it in the picture. It was ridiculous but worked pretty well.

Auburn: Transportation Lesson

It's that time of year again: students from Auburn are here to lead English classes for a week! They always do an excellent job, and I love having them here.

Today was day 1 in the classes, and I went with one of the groups who did a lesson on transportation. Here's a rundown of the ideas they created:

1. Pictures from home. One of the girls in the group brought some really great pictures of vehicles she sees on a regular basis (bikes on campus, semis, cars, trucks, boats), as well as unique vehicles like a cruise ship and a hot air balloon. They went through all of the pictures (including one of a gas station, a speed limit sign, bumper sticker, and a crosswalk) and discussed the vocabulary.

2. Matching game! You know I'm a fan of the matching games. :)

Action shot of Melanie working with a group of Matchers.

3. Create-your-own-bumper-sticker. This was a fun one; they brought an Auburn University bumper sticker as an example and had the students design bumper stickers for their favorite sports teams. I'm including pictures of the winning bumper stickers from each class.

"Vorskla" is the local soccer team- ALL of the groups from both classes chose to make bumper stickers for Vorskla! This one copies the font used on the scarves that fans wear to the games.

The guys that drew this one were truly talented; this is the crest (for lack of a better word) for the team. The "f" and "c" stand for "football club."

4. Transportation Jeopardy. I'll do a separate post of how to construct and conduct a simple game of Jeopardy. I use it ALL the time and canNOT believe I don't already have a post of it!

5. When a time-filler was needed, we fell back to trusty ol' Hangman! Can't go wrong with that!

Bag of supplies for this lesson:
- pictures for vocabulary
- 4 sets of matching cards
- sample bumper sticker
- strips of paper cut to bumper sticker size for groups to design on
- several packs of colored pencils
- small prizes for winning group
- master copy of lesson plan, including the questions for Jeopardy
- list of supplemental activities in case of need

Travel brochures

This is an activity that I've used in a lot of different classes and situations. I live in Ukraine, and Ukrainians are VERY artistic and talented with their hands. Incredibly talented, on the whole. They really warm up to this activity.

This activity doesn't take much prep; you just need paper and markers. The assignment is for the students to create travel brochures. I usually divide the students into groups of 3 or 4. I like for them to choose a location in our city or in Ukraine to write about. Tri-fold the paper. The students decorate the front as much as they want. On the inside, I usually require that they choose at least 5 things that visitors should either see or do, describing (in one or two sentences) those activities. I also have them choose 5 phrases- in Ukrainian or Russian- that they think would be useful for visitors to know how to say (one time, I got a brochure back that had the phrase, "Could you please tell me where to find borsch?"- borsch is soup, by the way). They are also to translate those phrases into English. They really seem to warm up to that part.

This activity is usually very well-liked. Often, I'll have them write out their phrases on scratch paper first, and we'll correct them. They really enjoy presenting their brochures to the class, as well. Here are some examples. I have others, but I can't seem to find them...Some students really do a fantastic job on the insides. Hope it's as fun for you and your students as it has been for me and mine!

My mom, sister, and I participated with one class: we made a brochure about Huntsville, AL.

More with Adjectives!

Another activity to do with "travel" adjectives:

After having the students do the exercise of describing their assigned countries with their bags of adjective words, have them upgrade the activity. Ask the students to brainstorm a little about their given country. Ask them to think of famous landmarks or activities found in their assigned country (i.e. China: Great Wall, pandas, eating with chopsticks, etc.). After brainstorming, ask students to write a letter to a friend. The letter should be written as though the students are visiting their assigned country and writing about it to a friend. They should use 3 or so of their adjectives and write about some of the things they are "doing." After they write and edit their letter, have them design a postcard. They can draw pictures of their assigned country and then transfer their letter onto the postcard. Ukrainians really enjoy this activity.