Sounds of the City

Back again. OTE has finally fixed the phone so I can do this from te comfort of home. Anyway here is the my thought /idea for the day. Recently, I have been using the Guardian's Sound of the City podcast series. This is a series of descriptions of six Mediterranean cities, aimed at visitors.Each one is about 25 minutes so it's not something you can do in class. Instead, I give them to my private students and ask them to compare and contrast say, Nice with Thessaloniki.

LESSON PLAN

1 If possible, use Google Earth to find the city you want to discuss. Ask students to see if they can find any differences between their own city and this one, for example it's near a river, not the sea, people live in houses, not flats etc.

2 Now ask students what they think it's like to live there. Encourage them to speak in general terms such as, "It must be hot in summer since it's in the South of France." etc

3 Give the podcast for students to listen at home and ask them to list all the similarities and differences between their town and this one.

4 Next lesson, discuss the answers with the students and ask them to say which place would be best to spend a weekend visit.

If students don't have access to a PC, then you can use a map and give them a CD/DVD with mp3s on them. Remember that most DVD players now play mp3 files. Alternatively, you could turn the podcasts into audio files and give them an audio CD.