Cracking Up

When I was younger I thought that the Jesus and Mary Chain were the best thing since sliced feedback, Noisy, rude and completely disrespectful of everyone, including their own audiences I just loved them. The raw, aggressive sound was everything an angry young twenty something could ask for. Absolutely guaranteed  to annoy anyone over thirty.

Still, Cracking Up was recorded in the 1998 but they still had it then.

Soul Meets Body

Music by Death Cab For Cutie, photos by Teacher Dude, video making software from PhotoStory 3.

Who am I?

Here is a teaching idea based on The Bourne Identity. In the film a man is pulled out of the Mediterranean with gunshot wounds, unable to remember anything about himself. The only clue as to who he might be is an account number for a bank in Zurich. Eventually, the mystery man manages to get access to the bank and a safe deposit box which contains lots of cash, several passports (all in different names) and a gun. Who he is and what had happened to him makes up the rest of the film, so I won't spoil the surprise for you.

The exercise is for more advanced students i.e upper intermediate and above and could be a great way to practice modal verbs and other phrases that express probability and possibility.

Lesson Plan

1 Write this sentence on the board;

"A man is found in the sea alive, but he has been shot twice. What happened?"

2 Students have a couple of minutes to write down a possible explanation.

3 They get in groups and decide which answer is the most suitable for action - adventure movie script.

4 Now explain the basic premise of the Bourne identity, if necessary write it up on the board or give it out on a handout.

5 Tell the students that they are Bourne and they are just about to open their safe deposit box in the bank. Give each group a box/bag with a lot of objects. They can be tickets leaflets, fake money, toy guns, photographs, in fact just about anything.

6 The students have 5 to 10 minutes to create their "own" identity.

7 Students then come to the front of the class, show the contents of their box and explain about who they are.

8 As a follow up students could;

a write a story based on the contents of the box.

b write a confidential CIA/FBI/MI6 etc report on the person.

c video their answers and post them via Youtube/ Google Video to the class/personal blog.

d create their own scene from the movie using a particular object from the box.

e watch the Bourne Identity and compare and contrast their answers with the film's.

Fasten Your Seatbelts - Pendulum

Probably my favourite song of all time, at least for this week. I just love the video. Check out Fevva's other work.

"The Seattle of the Balkans"

Photo by Puja

I promised Theodora that I would come up with a lesson for the New York Times article on Thessaloniki (click here). So here it is. Basically, it's for upper-intermediate and advanced EFL, ESL students.

Lesson plans

1 Ask you students where Seattle is. Ideally you should have access to a map of the States or the world.

2 Ask them what they know about the place. There's a god chance that they nothing, in which case ask them to write down some facts about the place based on the information in the map.

e.g. "It's near the sea"

or

"It must be quite cold in winter as it near Canada."


Alternatively, if you have access to the internet ask them to look at the place in Google Earth and ask them to comment on the layout, size and homes there.

3 Now ask students to quickly read the main part of the article and guess what Seattle must be like. What reminded them of Seattle?

e.g "Well, they talk about all the cafes and bars in Thessaloniki, so Seattle must have something simiar."

4 For homework ask the students to so some research on the internet to five five similarities and differences between the two cities.

Ideas for follow - up activities

1 Students create their own Thessaloniki tourist poster complete with slogan.

2 They create a magazine cover using either their own photos or ones from Flickr and this Flick Toys application.

3 They create their own 30 second ad for the city using either Windows Movie Maker or Photo Story 3. This can be done with photos (either their own or taken off the internet) or video recorded by digital camera or even mobile phones.

All of these suggestions can then be posted on the class or student's blog.

Teaching with music videos

I saw this video and a wonderful teaching idea came to me so I thought I'd blog about it before I forget it.

Lesson plan

1 Explain to students that they are going to see a music video - Walk into the Sun by Dirty Vegas. In the video they'll see the people shown labelled e.g brave, angry etc, their job is to copy down all the labels

2 Play the video. Students then get in pairs and check their answers.




3 Write down the list of labels on the board any deal with any unknown words.

4 Now explain that the students are going to see the video again and they have to choose two/three labels and explain in 50 words why the person was given them.

5 Play the video a second time and ask them to write down their answers. Give no more than 15 minutes.

6 Students the get into groups and read out their suggestions

7 For homework the students write a story based on the person they talked about.

Students producing great stuff

Last week I asked my student (check out his blog here) to create his own, updated introduction to Soylent Green (see here for the original lesson plan). Here is his version which I think is pretty amazing.

Teaching using film

I first posted this lesson plan a few months ago however, I decided to add a twist to it today with one of my students. As well as doing the discussion I've asked him to update the opening scene of 1973 film for a modern audience using Flickr and Photo Story 3.

Lesson plan


1 This is optional. If you can find the film Soylent Green on DVD/VHS.

2 Tell students that they're going to see part of a film that talks about the future and that they should say what they think is the meaning of the sequence. Play the first three minutes. (Basically, it's a photo-montage that shows how the pace of industrial life has quickened and the effects that is having on the planet).

3 Students discuss their answers in pairs and then report back to the teacher.

4 Give out the photocopy (see below).

5 Do the warm up questions from the photocopy. Students write down their answers then form groups to discuss them.

6 Elicit answers from the groups.

7 Go through the handout, deal with any problems with vocabulary.

8 Divide the class into five groups, one for each lobby and another group who will be judges.

9 Explain to students that each lobby has to talk for two minutes, presenting their opinions on why the mill should or should not be built. The judges think of questions to ask each group.

10 Then conduct a class debate; You could use the following format, if you wish.

Thessaloniki for newbies

I just thought I'd re-post these three videos which give a taste of what it is like to live in Thessaloniki, Greece. In each I tried to break through the cliches and stereotypes that seem to hold the city back and give a fresher sense of what the place offers. Let me play Virgil to your Dante.



The music is by Death in Vegas.



The music is from The Persuaders by John Barry.



The music is by The Crystal Method.

Enraptured

Over the last week or so I've been working on this video which is about ten minutes long, which in YouTube terms makes me David Lean, lol. Still, I have finally managed to finish it, yet a name alludes me. So I was thinking, can any of you think of a suitable title? I know what a creative bunch you are, so give it your best shot.



The music is Help Yourself, off the Scorpio Rising album by Death In Vegas .

Thanks to Kassandra for the name.

Dekita.org

Over the last week or so I've been asking my students to check out the Dekita.org site, which plays host to EFL/ESL student blogs from all over the world. Already many students from Brazil have started commenting on our class blogs and I'm hoping that my students reciprocate.

What I want to do next is set up a site or YouTube groups where students can post videos that show some aspect of their lives. In our last lesson I introduced the Proficiency 2c class to the idea of using photos to make a video. The idea is that they use a program such as Microsoft's Photo Story 3 or Windows Movie Maker to make a video about Thessaloniki, to give people from outside Greece a sense of what the city is like in two minutes or less. Think of it as a cross between a pop video and a TV ad. Also what I want to do is then invite students from other places to add theirs.

An Ending - Ascent by Brian Eno

Inspired by Brian Eno's 77 million paintings I decided to make this video using An Ending, also by Eno. All photographs used were taken in Thessaloniki over the last week or so. You can check out the originals at my Flickr page.

All this was done using Microsoft's Photo Story 3, which you can download free from their site. The only problem is that you need Windows Media Player 10 (but you can also download that as well, free from here).

Rammstein for beginners

I thought I'd share my latest creation. Most of the images are from Hughes Legalise - Batille's Flickr page.