{egyéb} How to organize your office (space)

My long term goal is to organize the area where I keep my paperwork. As a teacher, I have a big paper pile. I'm pretty sure that some of you are in the same situation as me, but some of you are well organized.

Although I would  really like to belong to the second group, I know that it would be too much of a challenge to organize all my papers this coming weekend. So I've decided to only separate them. I've come up with seven different categories:

• English - Grammar
• English - Vocabulary
• English - Textbook 1
• English - Textbook 2
• Geography
• Other - School Related
• Other - Not School Related

Separating will take a long time... as every paper needs to be touched, read and dealt with. After this stage, I can start organizing them.

(I don't have a camera this weekend to get pictures of the progress. Maybe next week, I'll have the opportunity...)

{tananyag} Barcelona

One of my students is going to Barcelona in January, and asked me to help her develop her travel vocabulary . She's going to spend five days there and be the 'tour guide' for her friends. Therefore, she needed to know how to talk about different sights.

Preparation, Materials and Equipment

• For this activity, you will need a YouTube video clip titled Top 10 Travel Attractions of Barcelona. Decide how you are going to play the video clip. Possibilities include: mobile device, laptop, desktop or tablet computer.

• You will also need photos of different types of holiday and of the 10 attractions mentioned in the video clip. Print them in colour and make copies for each student/pair/group.

• Write short descriptions for each attraction without mentioning their names. I used a travel guide to do this.

Lesson Plan Outline

• Brainstorm and create a mind map. The process of brainstorming involves capturing a lot of ideas. Mapping the ideas helps your students to easily capture all the things that are put out and use them later on to structure the ideas into something more meaningful (e.g. writing task, exam prep). I'm a great fan of mind maps and use them quite a lot.

• Help your students with the following questions: Where can you go? (places/destinations); Who can you go with? (people); What should you take with you? (essentials); How can you get there? (transport); Where can you stay? (accommodation); What can you do there? (activities).

• You can come up with something like this or this. (None of them is my or my students' work.) 

•  Photos of different holidays. Encourage students to say what they see in each picture. Elicit some holiday locations and types (city/seaside/adventure holiday).

• Ask your students the following question: Which is most similar to the holidays you usually go on?

• I chose pictures which were taken in Spain. This helped me to easily make the transition to the next task.

•  Listen and watch the travel video. Ask students what they know about Spain and Barcelona. Encourage them to write down the 10 must see things in Barcelona. (This can be done as a pair/group work.)

• Play the video. Make sure that the students don't see the video this time. Students check if they mentioned the same tourist attractions. They complete their list accordingly.

• Play the video again. Now, students listen out for details. Hand out the pictures and ask them to identify the different places using the information they've just heard. Show the video and let students check if they did the exercise correctly.

• Hand out the descriptions. Let students read them and match them with the names and pictures. Ask for feedback. (Ask students which words/phrases helped them decide.) Go over unknow language.

• Students underline some adjectives for describing buildings, sights etc. They will use them to describe in detail the 10 attractions (with their own words). Take feedback for both tasks.

Follow up

•  Use these activities to help students to do a bigger project. Students can make a guide book or brochure (similar to this one; not my or my students' work.) using their own descriptions. Don't forget to specify your requirements (e.g. students should mention the name, location and at least one interesting fact about the sights; they should use descriptive adjectives to make their descriptions more interesting; they should do some research and write about accommodation, transport, events and activities that can be done in the city).

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I've just enlisted the tasks. Make sure you use transitions to do your lesson flow. Don't forget to give clear instructions - ask yourself the following questions: Is it a solo, pair or group work? How long should each task take? What exactly should students do? What is your aim with that task?