Mary Beard. Meet the Romans

Are your students begging to watch a film at the end of the school year? Why not a bit of culture about the Roman Empire? 

Level: High

Length: about 60 min per Episode. 3 episodes in total 

Meet the Romans Professor Mary Beard looks beyond the stories of emperors, armies, guts, and gore to meet the everyday people at the heart of Ancient Rome's vast empire We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome - a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from Scotland to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. Professor Mary Beard puts aside the stories of emperors and armies, guts and gore, to meet the real Romans living at the heart of it all.

1/3 : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rggk_H3jEgw

1/2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JFw8M4PBUI

1/3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UvG0LDeYBA

If the online links do not work, you can download the videos by clicking HERE

Dr. Florianne Koechlin: Do tomatoes speak?

Level:upper 

Procedure: Students reflect on questions. The video (14 min) contains the insights of Dr. Koechlin in relation to plant dignity. 

Vocabulary:

You are going to hear the following words. You may want to know what they mean.
Names of insects: Carterpillar, parasitic wasp, spider mites, winter moth.
Flowers/plants: marigolds , birch tree.
Tits = Small bird (tit bird)
Scent = smell (pay attention to pronunciation)
Mycorrhiza =A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association between a green plant and a fungus

Before watching

Reflect on these questions 

• Can plants communicate? 

• Can a  scent/odor smell nasty to a plant?

• Can plants network?

• Do you know what the 5 human senses? Sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste 

• Do plants know about their past? 

Watch the video to compare your answers and Dr. Koechlin’s

Questions:

1. What does Dr.  Florianne Koechlin call a feat of communication?

2. What are some of the actions that plants can carry out?

3. Why is mycorrhiza important?

4. What is the proof that a tomato plant can learn from experience?

5. What is a plant, according to the speaker Dr. Koechlin?

6. What are the consequences of seeing the plant as a SHE?

7. Why does the comparison between animal and plant make sense?

8. What did the committee that discussed plant dignity agree on?

What prize did the committee receive for their research?

9.What examples are given on plant mistreatment?
 

To finish:

Has this talk changed the way you see plants? Justify your answer

To see the KEY or download the video, click HERE

Amazing Street Art : 15 artists

Level:  Advanced.  Particularly geared towards Art Students 
Video length: 21 minutes
Timing for full task: 1 hour 45 minutes. 
As the task has 15 sections you can adapt the length of the task to your needs 
Procedure: 

1. You are going to watch a video that features 15 famous street artists' work.You will hear these words in the video. Make sure you know what they mean.

Suffer a bad rap, Push the boundaries of, To be forged by, To be coy about, A myriad of emotions, Overlapping, Layers, Snarling wolf (dog), Bystander, Mundane, Whimsical, 
Electric meeters, Devious, Sewer drains, To crack a smile, Hold on to your hat ( An expression warning someone of a big surprise), Rubble, To be awash with (full), A quote ( pay attention to the meaning of this word in this video: David Bowie part), Cut-outs, Lurking, Blazing, To see a surge

Remember that using sophisticated vocabulary in your composition is a must. You may introduce some of these words in your future essays. 

2. Read the questions before you listen to the different sections. 

Concrete Canvas: Gregor Wosik.  

1. Use your own words to explain what “Optical Illusion” and “Concrete Canvas” are

2.  Who inspired Grogo Wosik? 

Sean Yoro: Tidal murals

3. What are tidal murals?

4. What is Sean Yoro aim? 

Stathis Tsavalias. Insane 51 Hidden Art

5. How does this artist create an optical 3D illusionary effect? 

6. .What is this method called? 

7. What does the bystander see? 

Tom Bob’s Reinventions

8. For Tom Bob nothing is useless. What type of elements does this artist choose to work with? 

9. According to the voice-over, What is the most common reaction to Tomb Bob artwork?

Ray Media Jaens. Dia de los muertos 

 10. What is the main material used to create this Dia de lo Muertos sculpture? 

M- Cities Kharkiv Mural 

         11.What are the objectives of Kharkiv murals?  

12.What events are shaping Ukraine’s modern society?  

Bowie Portrait 

13.What was the objective of these subway art pieces? 

14. What did the exhibition include, apart from realistic pictures?

Roa’s trapped creatures

15. What are the adjectives uses to describe Roa’s art?

Cosimo Cheone Lurking Giants 

16.What does  Cheone’s work suggest?  

WD  street art activism 

17. What is the objective of this art? 

The living wall by  Nikita Nomerz

18. What does Nikita Nomertz use to create his art? 

JCro’sMurals

19.What famous brand has JCro’s worked for? 

20.What is the range of JCro’s work? 

21.What is the only shape JCro’s uses in his work? 

Leo Keer’s Augmented reality

22.What feature distinguishes Leo Keer’s mural from other artists works?  T

Adam Fu’s Glow style 

23. What type of paint does Adam Fu use? 

24. What is the metaphor behind Adam Fu’s work? What does he use his work for? 

Johan Karlgren’s Suprise art

25. How do Kagreen’s colors interact with the palette of the Swedish cities? 

26. What is your favorite? Justify your reason 

Use the key to correct your answers: HERE 

If  the link/embedded video  is broken, please download the video file HERE

Introduction:

Everywhere you look, there’s a work of art to catch your eye. Whether we’re basking in the glory of Mother Nature, or standing awestruck at the metropolitan monoliths of modernity with some of the craziest installations in human history--the artist’s canvas has certainly shifted through the ages. Historically, street art has suffered a bad rap, particularly in the early days of Hip Hop and Graffiti, but now--both spray paint and latex are pushing the boundaries of the creative medium. From Optical Illusions to Moving Mannequins, here’s 15 Amazing Street Art That Is At Another Level

Ideas, history and culture with BBC Forum. Advanced listening

Discover wold history, culture and ideas with today's leading experts.
The Forum Podcasts

Level: advanced 
Procedure: download the podcasts and listen to news analysis anywhere
Length of podcasts: varied but most about 25 minutes.

For my students: these programs  may help you to prepare your presentation of a historical fact or a piece of news.



Click HERE to acces the Forum Podcasts

Politeness at work? What your colleagues really mean.

What nice office sentences really mean!

Just for fun!

instagram.com/verybritishproblemsofficial

Level: intermediate and upper
Task: students  match what colleagues said to the real meaning of their words
Materials: a printout per 3 or 4 students

Source: instagram.com/verybritishproblemsofficial

Procedure. 

Sentences are scrambled in the print out below. 

Give the handout to the students so that they match the sentence colleagues said with their real meaning

Click HERE to access the task 

Thanks to my colleague Iñaki Toufiño for providing me with the idea of this task.

Improving pronuciation with Lyricstraining

Level: any. Students choose the level of their task
Procedure: Students:

• Click the link below
• Choose a genre
• Pick a song
• Choose your  level
• Fill in the gaps in the lyrics. 

Click HERE to enter Lyricstraining

Show and Tell: Cultural Awareness. Culture with small C.

Aim:  Learn culture (with small C)  through language
Procedure: 

• Students choose a topic from provided list or suggest a topic of their interest
• Everyclass/week one or two students present their topic
• Teacher insists that these presentations should be short ( about 2 minutes) and to the point.  

This is a list of possible topics:
Jack'-o-Lantern      Simon says    Boxing day   Heckling   Peekaboo  Kermesse

Pancake day  (ShroveTuesday)   Nolliwood   Limerick (literature)   Club/ BLT (food)

M16   Lollipop Lady   Square Mile   Fracturing (geology)   A baker's dozen

Luddite   The Proms   Great British Bake off   Fear of FOMO   Toff Vs. Chavs

Glastonbury   Crumpet   Poppy day   Red Nose day   The Shard   Conkers

Big Issue   Ale   National Trust   Essex girl   Graceland    Geek  SAT exam

Ivy league   Black Friday   Sillicon Valley /Palo Alto   The ig noble prize

Uncle Sam,  The Hansard, Anna Wintour   John Doe  Ted Talks  Redneck  Hajj


Thanks to Maggie Hawes, my teacher Trainer in Barcelona, British Council 2015, for  inspiring me to start this task with my students.
Course I took: UK Today: Sharing Culture through Language

Autonomous Learning. Merriam Webster:Name that thing. Visual vocabulary test on line for advanced students

Name that Thing by Merriam Webster

Aim: identify the word you see in the picture/improve your reading speed and vocabulary
Level: advanced.Words range between middle advanced to advanced levels. See pictures to decide if this quizzes are within your reach!
Procedure:

• You have 15 seconds to answer each question.
• The faster you answer, the higher your score.
• The harder the question, the higher your score.
• At the end you can compare your score with other participants'  within your age range.

Access the quiz by clicking Here: Name that Thing

Pronunciation. How do you say...?

MORE WORDS ADDED TO THE LIST.
 IF YOU ARE A SPANISH NATIVE SPEAKER take a peek at the  list of words . New words have been added ! 

"How you say" is an on-line tool that will help you to learn how to pronounce words.
Aim: students introduce words they do not know how to pronounce in order to learn them with the sound Suggested procedure if you want to use this tool in your class

•  make a list of the words students mispronounce.
  
• group students in teams
• write the words on the board
• ask teams (in turns)  how a word is pronounced
• check the pronunciation by introducing the  in How j say
• give a point to the team that pronounces the word correctly

Access the HOWJSAY page by clicking HERE 

IF your students are Spanish speakers, you may start with some (or all) of these words:

• Problems with "I" or "AI" sound:  to determine, idea, opposite, to  examine, horizon, since, microphone,  to print, tiger, virus, compliance  /kəmˈplaɪəns/  
• Problems with stress pattern:  successful,  component (stress in "po"), foreigner, surface, insurance, hotel, interesting, incorregible (stree in KO), )
• Words with two stress patterns: to present/ a present, 
• The "able" words: vegetable, suitable (the "i" does not sound), able, comfortable, table, capable, removable, printable 
• Letter B  does not sound: debt, plumber, doubt
• Letter W does not sound:  sword,  answer, drawer. would, write, whiskey. awful, awesome 
• Other silent letters: mayor (no "y"), heir (no h), guard (no u), shepherd (no second h), sign (no g) , know (no k), listen (no t)
• The -es ending sounding as "iz"or "is". Most student ignore the ending: services, oranges, he fixes/watches, exercises, sizes
•  The ones they always get wrong:  biscuit (the "u" does not sound), receipt, recipe, architecture (the K), busy, , key, Pharaoh, choir, aisle,rare, archive (K), corps  /kɔː/ as in Peace Corps vs. corpse.
• The ones that are very similar to Spanish words and students pronounce in the Spanish: fashion: Jamaica, Arkansas, Zanzibar, Ottawa.Lancaster, Asia, South, Trafalgar  Square (stress on FAL)
• The ones with less syllables than we expect: chocolate, digital, restaurant,  basically
• Teasers (homophones or almost homophones): flour and flower,  guerrilla and gorilla, waist and  waste, pear and pair, heir and hair, write and right, four and for, hear and  here, no and know...  For more homophones in British English go to this page HERE
• -age words: beverages (also stress pattern), village, image, message, usage

Pair work: how to read Internet domains and punctuation symbols

Emoticon symbol dictation

Aim: students work in pairs to dictate internate domains and emoticons. Students learn and practice how to say difficult simbols such as: dot  (.), dash (-), Ampersand (&), percent sign (%)...

You can donwload the materials for the teacher and students by clicking here 

Domain dictation

These materials  have been prepared by Beatriz Papasseit and myself , María Zabala Peña

Factory tasks and vocabulary with a fun angle. Extension: Betty Botter Tongue Twister

This ad belongs to a series created by Anchor dairy. The slogan  of the campaign is “Made by Cows”, which advertisers take in a literal sense.

The spot provides a light-hearted look at butter production. Animals  are  making butter in a human fashion.

To download the materials, click the linkS below.

Aim 1: students watch a "fun" video of workers (cows actually) working at a factory.
Aim 2: extension. Students practice pronunciation by reading a buttery tongue twister NEW!!

Suggested procedure:

•  Elicit vocabulary related to factory tasks before watching the video. 
•  Students watch the video and describe the processes/write down the process. 

Sample language:
Cows cross the gate while supervised by the factory guard, who is at the lodge.
Cows clock on/ clock in.
Cow with white helmet pushes a lever and sets machine to work.


You can download the materials for the Ad  by clicking HERE

You can download the materials for the EXTENSION  by clicking HERE


Materials for the AD:

• The commercial:  You can watch the video online or donwload it to your USB.
• Teacher's help:  You can download the sequence of actions I have written to help you remember what the cows are doing throughout the ad.  

You can download the materials for the Ad by clicking HERE

Thanks to Stephanie Williams, speaker at the 2012 British Council Conference in Barcelona, for providing me with this idea.    


EXTENSION:  Aim: students have fun while listening and reading the Betty Botter bought some butter tongue twister

Click  HERE  to download the materials for the Extension

 Materials for the Extension : 

• The Better Botter tongue twister (you can just project it on the whiteboard)
• Teachers instructions
• Internet access if you want students to listen to the words using the Howjsay page or use the Teleprompter.Remember that you  should download the videos to your memory stick  from the link I provide.Do this if your school connection is not reliable or internet access to youtube is limited due to school policies.

Find below a summary of the instructions. Click HERE   if you want to download the materials for this extension. You can also download the videos from the link I provide. This is the tongue twister:

 

Suggested procedure.

Pre-reading tasks

A) Key words

If you are not a native speaker you may want your students to hear the similar sounding sounds by using the Howjsay page by clicking HERE and introducing the words:

Bitter, butter, batter, better,

You may want your students to be aware of the different IPA symbols:

 Bitter                  butter,          batter,             better,

  bɪtə                  bʌtə              ˈbætə             ˈbetə 

Go HERE if you need to transcribe any other words  

B) Model the pronunciation.

You may want to use this video for modelling the pronunciation. This teacher of English reads the poem several times at different speeds. I suggest you stop after the second  reading. 

Remember that if your connection is not reliable, you can download the videos by clicking HERE  

 

C) Students  practice the pronunciation in pairs

D) Students listen to a rap song based on this children's tongue twister . This song has been adapted by an English teacher called Henry III.

Allow the students to listen to the song. Student should join in in second 0:59, just after the singer says 'll get on with it.

If you wan to see the lyrics of the full song, remember that all materials for the Extension  are available by clicking  HERE

MORE POSSIBILITIES!!
Remember that  by using a teleprompter you can copy and paste any text so that the students read it at the speed you want them to!!
You may use this teleprompter  HERE



Thanks to Christine Wilson, our teacher trainier at the British Council 2013 workshop for providing me with this idea.