talking about YOUTH & OLD AGE

A little twist on the subject of YOUTH & OLD AGE. Proceeded by a short vocabulary learning section, there goes a discussion on bucket lists with a real life story that to be honest made the ladies in my class sob a little. Enjoy!

WARM UP

Make a list of words that you can use to describe young people and old people.

IDIOMS

a ripe old age – a very old age

tender age of… – the young age of …

Act your age!– behave more maturely (when someone is acting like a child).

over the hill – another way of saying that someone is old

Use the expressions above to fill in the blanks in the sentences.

a. It’s said that being ___________________ is the end of the world. Well, is it?

b. It’s about time you started to _____________________. You’re over 40 and you’d better take life more seriously.

c. Although one may say that 80 is a ______________________, it doesn’t mean you can’t still be active and healthy.

d. She’s at _________________ 13 so she hates everything around her.

DISCUSSION POINTS

• Are you afraid of becoming old?
• What is the best age to be and why?
• Would you like to be immortal?
• Why do some people age before others?
• Would you like to go back to when you were a child?
• What are the good and bad things about today’s youth?
• What can old people teach to young people?
• What is your ideal old age to live to?
• Some people say that youth is a state of mind, do you agree?

READING

Read the text and match the capitalized words with their synonyms.

extend * fatal * fund * start * strange * with air

Stephen  Sutton was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 15 but this SPREAD ¹(____________) to other parts of his body.

He created a bucket-list of 46 ‘WEIRD ²(____________) and wonderful’ things he wanted to do before he died, SETTING UP ³(____________) a charity website and a blog on Facebook in January last year to keep people up to date with his progress.  He made the list on January 11, 2013, to provide him “with a focus to help come to terms with his INCURABLE ⁴(____________) diagnosis.”

The tasks ranged from learning to juggle, meeting comedian Jimmy Carr, getting a tattoo, and writing a book. Some of his ‘bucket list’ activities were filmed and posted on his Facebook page, including a sky-dive and crowd-surfing on a concert in an INFLATABLE ⁵(____________) dingy.

Before he died, he had achieved an impressive 34 of them including raising £1,000,000 for a teenage cancer TRUST ⁶(____________)!

At this point I'd recommend to make some sentences with the new vocabulary both by the teacher and the students.

VIDEO

Do you know what a BUCKET LIST is? Have you ever considered making one for yourself?

Watch a video and fill in the missing words in the sentences below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYM8H0_fd1g

…The old saying goes, when life gives you ____________ make lemonade.

…A teenager diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age 15 who decided to use the last few years of his life to raise money for other _____________ cancer victims.

…He played the ___________ in front of a vast crowd at Wembley.

…And he got a tattoo: a troll completed with __________ of operations.

…I think that the one thing that Stephen always stresses is: “I may have cancer but cancer doesn’t have _____________”

…In April he thought in his own words that  he was a gone-er and ___________ what he thought was his final picture.

…It’s the legacy that Stephen would have been most ___________ of.

…Cancer sucks but life is ________.

Here are some examples from Stephen’s Bucket List. What are yours? Make a list and discuss it.

1) Charity waxing and head shave.

2) Organize and be part of a flash mob.

3) Go to a carnival in Brazil.

4) Fly somewhere first class.

5) Hug an animal that is bigger than me.

6) Get my name into the Guinness World Book of Records somehow.

Christmas Wishes

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Hope you're all spending it in your own private Winter Wonderlands!

talking about DREAMS

A lesson on DREAMS may be a nice extension of the previously covered subject of SLEEP.

WARM UP
Are you tired at the moment?
What time did you go to bed last night?

      Have you ever fallen asleep in a class? 

      Do you easily remember your dreams?

VIDEO
Do you think our dreams have meanings?

Watch a video and write what dreams fit the interpretations below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=fr&gl=FR&v=w0ffwDYo00Q

__________________________ - you lack power and balance

__________________________ - you feel limitless

__________________________ - you are afraid of being exposed

__________________________ - you are worried you will fail

__________________________ - you are anxious about something

__________________________ - you are playing too much Tetris

SPEAKING

Write the following words on a separate pieces of paper. Students then pick one or two and answer the questions: If you're dreaming about___ (the word that they've picked), what do you think that means? Use FIRST CONDITIONAL sentences for this task.

BAD BREATH	BALLET SHOES
COUGH DROPS	DEW
DOLPHINS	ERASER
FBI	GODZILLA
HICCUP	IGLOO
KITCHEN	KNIFE
LEMONADE	LIP PIERCING
MOSQUITO	NAVEL
OBESE	OPERA
PYJAMAS	ROBOT
SALAMI	TOOTHPASTE

e.g. If you dream about a robot, it may mean that you have lost your ability to express your feelings or that you spend too much time at work doing some mechanical activities.

DISCUSSION POINTS

Write the following questions on separate pieces of paper and let the students pick one. They then answer it which may be followed by a group discussion.

• Do you often have the exact same dream?
• Do you often have the exact same nightmare?
• Do you easily remember their dreams?
• Do you believe that dreams are important?
• If you had to describe your dreams, what adjectives would you choose?
• What is the most terrifying dream you have ever had?
• What is the best dream you have ever had? What made it so great?
• What is the most recent dream you've had? Please explain.
• Have you ever had any strange dreams?
• What did you dream about last night?
• Have you ever dreamt about flying?
• Have you ever dreamt about your teachers?
• Have you ever dreamt about being rich?

ANSWER SHEET

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15SBEi64Co80iVbZWRmhTZ-emGLBggxJ4IGhAhg4raz8/edit?usp=sharing

talking about SLEEP

We start out with a lesson on our (well, at least for most of us) favourite activity which is good old fashined SLEEP:-)

WARM-UP

How many words can you think of connected to sleep? 

VOCABULARY

Match the idioms to their definitions.

hit the sack * not sleep a wink * recharge batteries

* sleep like a log * toss and turn

________________________ go to bed

________________________ be constantly moving in bed, unable to sleep

________________________ regain energy be sleeping or resting

________________________ not sleep at all

________________________ sleep soundly        

Fill in the blanks with the missing idioms in their correct forms.

a.  We spent all Sunday outdoors: we swam, rode a motorboat and went on a three-hour hike around the lake. My daughter _________________ that night.

b.  With itchy mosquito bites all over his body, he _________________ all night.

c.   There was power in the building, so we decided to _________________ early.

d.  We left for the airport at midnight. The plane took off at 2:30 a.m. and landed at 5:00 a.m. There was a crying baby and snoring man beside me on the plane. I could _________________ last night!

e.  I need to  _________________ after the sleepless night.

Answer the questions.

§  Are you a light sleeper or do you sleep like a log?

§  How long does it take you to recharge your batteries after a week at work?

§  What time do you usually hit the sack?

§  Do you sometimes toss and turn at night?

§  What would keep you wide awake at night?

§  Are you able to have a nap on a bus or subway?

VIDEO

Watch the video and write the missing words in the sentences you hear. In your opinion, what do the bolded words mean?
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/sleep-whisperer-sleep-22674182

…What if there was a simple way to drift off to ¹_____________ and for free.

…If just hearing her ²_____________ makes you suddenly to have a strong desire to doze off,  Ilse Blansert won’t be offended.  

…They tap, brush, ³_____________, and mostly whisper all to low people to sleep.

…Her videos have generated nearly 16 million ⁴_____________  and hers are among thousands of ASMR options.

…When Hansen saw her first ASMR video she found it ⁵_____________  to keep her eyes open.

…My brain relaxes so much that I just fall asleep. I ⁶_____________, I just conk out.

…It is quite believable to me that somebody’s saying that this works better than sleeping ⁷_____________ for me.

…Millions of people now rely on the Internet equivalent of ⁸ _____________  sheep.

_____________  - to drift off
_____________  - to doze off
_____________  - to keep your eyes open.

_____________  - to conk out.

READING

Read the short statements and match the missing sentences to the blanks.

1.    Sleeping well is so important.

2.    Then when I go upstairs to bed I find I can’t sleep and I usually listen to the radio for hours and hours during the night. 

3.    They always involve people I know in boats or aeroplanes!

4.    I can’t remember the last time I had a whole night’s sleep.

PHILIP – I have a strange habit of falling asleep when I watch the television and it usually happens when I am watching something I am really interested in! The television seems to hypnotise me and I doze off really easily.___

RACHEL – I love sleeping and really need to have about 9 hours sleep a night. I know some people survive on 4 or 5 but if I only have that much I am in a bad mood all day! ___I think most people don’t realise how important it is to being happy.

TONY – I usually sleep well but recently I’ve been having very strange dreams and they’re beginning to disturb me. ___ I didn’t mind travelling before but now it makes me nervous. 

DISCUSSION POINTS

• Do you always get enough sleep? How many hours per night do you usually sleep?
• Have you ever fallen asleep in a lesson or at work?
• Do you snore in your sleep? What can you do to stop it?
• Do you every talk in your sleep or sleepwalk? Do you know anyone who does?
• Do you like to read or watch TV in bed? Does this help you to sleep or keep you awake?
• Do you ever take naps during the day?
• Do you think sleep is a waste of time?
• What do you do if you cannot get to sleep?
• Where is the strangest place you have ever slept?
• Do you prefer to go to sleep late or wake up early?
• How do you feel if you don’t get your regular amount of sleep?
• What do you think causes insomnia?
• Is it possible to sleep too much?
• What do you do to prepare yourself for sleep?
• Why do you think your body needs sleep?

SPOT ON is a nice expression that works very well when you want to underline that something is perfect, precisely right or absolutely correct. Promoting fluency and accuracy in foreign language speaking is what I always try to achieve during my lessons. Let's face it, we don't want to teach incorrect English, do we? We all want our students' English to be spot on.
In my teaching practice I've learnt to appreciate integrated skills ideas for language lessons. Oddly enough, I've found out that they work excepionally well in speaking classes. A reading passage or a short video may serve as a great starting point for a discussion; much better than simple question asking. Sure, it consumes some time to prepare such a lesson but believe me, it's much more gratifying for both the teacher and the student. Try some of the materials I've prepared and gathered on this page. They've all passed their crash tests in real life learning. Enjoy!