Here's the lesson I've been doing for Listen and Talk page 76, "What makes you think so?" which has been quite a success in my classes.

I start with the PPT. Give them two animals. Ask which they think will win, then ask them why. This will help them for the activity later. Then show them a video of the fight. I use computer generated animal fights from "Animal Face Off", because I felt it was unethical to show real animals, but none of the students complained about it being fake. Also, I just skipped straight to the fight.

You can download the videos with keepvid from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9xVAkQmWi4 (Anaconda vs Jaguar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxG1NxQPorU (Alligator vs black bear)

Then do the textbook. While they practice the roleplay, draw a tournament elimination bracket on the board, like this: http://myexceltemplates.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Printable-Blank-PDF-NHL-Hockey-Playoffs-Stanley-Cup-Bracket.jpg

Then, each team draws one animal card (I've added "English teacher," so you might want to put a picture of yourself there. I originally used "Middle school student," which they also enjoyed). I have 9 teams, which means 8 fights. If you have fewer teams you'll have to change that. Give them the worksheet. At the top they should write their animal, and why they think it would win a fight. While they write, fill in the bracket with each team's animal.

To play, the two battling teams should first explain what makes them think their animal will win in a fight. Next, all the other teams write their answer. Then we vote. Make sure they only vote what they wrote. No changing answers. The animal with the most votes is the winner. I gave each team that guessed the winner correctly 2 points, and the winning animal 3 points (final winner got +5 points).

I used this in a mixed level class. Low level students just gave answers like "elephant is big. Strong. Long nose." Higher level students were more creative, with answers like "The octopus is slippery, so if the snake bites him, it'll just slip off." They all really got into it though.

Can you explain the tournament more?

So is each team assigned one animal and one fight?  If they lose, they're out? And the team that wins moves on?

So, teams are able to earn points by winning a fight (3 points) or guessing the winner (2 points) or being the champion (5 points), right?

And thanks for sharing the lesson!

Here's the lesson I've been doing for Listen and Talk page 76, "What makes you think so?" which has been quite a success in my classes.

I start with the PPT. Give them two animals. Ask which they think will win, then ask them why. This will help them for the activity later. Then show them a video of the fight. I use computer generated animal fights from "Animal Face Off", because I felt it was unethical to show real animals, but none of the students complained about it being fake. Also, I just skipped straight to the fight.

You can download the videos with keepvid from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9xVAkQmWi4 (Anaconda vs Jaguar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxG1NxQPorU (Alligator vs black bear)

Then do the textbook. While they practice the roleplay, draw a tournament elimination bracket on the board, like this: http://myexceltemplates.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Printable-Blank-PDF-NHL-Hockey-Playoffs-Stanley-Cup-Bracket.jpg

Then, each team draws one animal card (I've added "English teacher," so you might want to put a picture of yourself there. I originally used "Middle school student," which they also enjoyed). I have 9 teams, which means 8 fights. If you have fewer teams you'll have to change that. Give them the worksheet. At the top they should write their animal, and why they think it would win a fight. While they write, fill in the bracket with each team's animal.

To play, the two battling teams should first explain what makes them think their animal will win in a fight. Next, all the other teams write their answer. Then we vote. Make sure they only vote what they wrote. No changing answers. The animal with the most votes is the winner. I gave each team that guessed the winner correctly 2 points, and the winning animal 3 points (final winner got +5 points).

I used this in a mixed level class. Low level students just gave answers like "elephant is big. Strong. Long nose." Higher level students were more creative, with answers like "The octopus is slippery, so if the snake bites him, it'll just slip off." They all really got into it though.

Great, thanks!

I actually added another element to the game.  I assigned random HP (hit points) and AP (attack points) and let students "duke it out" via dice.  Some animals had 30HP and some as low as 5HP to make some fights comical.  AP was +0.5 to +3 that added to the dice points you use to deduct HP from the other team...if that makes sense.

It took students the first round to see that it'd be a fun/funny game and then they started to get into it.

Thanks for the idea!


 

Quote from: mogbert on May 17, 2015, 10:45:09 PM

Can you explain the tournament more?

So is each team assigned one animal and one fight?  If they lose, they're out? And the team that wins moves on?

So, teams are able to earn points by winning a fight (3 points) or guessing the winner (2 points) or being the champion (5 points), right?

And thanks for sharing the lesson!

That's correct. Each team gets one animal and if they lose they're out of the fight. But they should still fill in the worksheet for every round and vote, and they still get 2 points for guessing the winner of each round. So even if their animal is knocked out, they should still be participating.

Here's my listening class for L4, pages 76-77.

Lesson covers the textbook and workbook questions.

I took the animal fighting idea posted above, but changed it to animals racing humans. I downloaded 3 youtube vids that are attached to this - man vs dog, zebra, ostrich. I use this instead of the Talk 1 section.

The students work with their partner and have to guess whether the human or animal wins, and give a reason why. I keep track on the board and write down the reasons they give. The pair that guess the most correct are the winners.

For the talk 2 section I'll just get the students to choose their favourite k-pop video and say why, then the class gets to watch the most popular vid in the loast 5 mins.

Not tried this class yet, but it should fill a 45 min period (I hope.....)

As always, I only teach the Talk 1 & Talk 2 phrase.

For Talk 1 ("What makes you think so") I totally stole the idea for the animal tournament from above.  My boys loved it.  Super high energy.  I didn't use worksheets because worksheets often are duds in my class.  Instead, I wrote down random animals and distributed them to the teams and made a bracket on the board.  I also adapted how they play a bit and edited/changed the PPT.  It was AWESOMELY hilarious to see some students play.  I got lucky and some of my wildest kids got animals like "skunk" and getting to see them "act" how a skunk is?  I was crying.  It was fun!

For Talk 2 ("Speaking of...") I made a PPT and then played a game where they passed the paper and wrote a story.  Two of the students needed to utilize "Speaking of" in their story (see attachment). 

This had promise, but unfortunately, my students are WAYYYYYY TOOO LOW LEVEL for this.  I didn't think so but I was super wrong.  So, maybe it's good for level but mine are low.

Hello! Here is a PowerPoint covering the two expressions. We did some debate questions for "what makes you think so?"

For those that teach the grammar, I had an open class on this topic. It just made sense to teach both points at the same time (Present and past participle phrases).  They enjoyed the memory game at the end. I gave a busy picture and they had 2 minutes to memorize it.
After I gave a sentence using present participle phrases "The man wearing three watches is ______." They had to complete as many sentences as they could with what they could remember.