Niamh's classroom

 Our current topic with my 8-9 year olds is 'around the world'. We've learnt about different countries, as well as their languages, food, and famous places.  To integrate the topics we've covered so far (food, transport, animals), I had them create a poster about their 'favourite country'. I created this template, but had the students copy it onto paper: The results were occasionally misguided (we somehow managed to have a footballer and Beijing listed as the capital of Japan!) but on the whole lovely and creative. We also create mini flags to play a 'guess the country' game in our virtual classes. Finally, some students created a hanging world with facts about the countries suspended with string as extra homework. These were so much more impressive than I could've ever imagined! The students are also waiting on replies from a British primary school. They wrote letters about their hobbies, interests, and life in Loja. The British class are learning a...

  I've been using this website in classes to have students guess a world location. It is great for all levels to discuss vocabulary about shops, the environment, the climate, fashion, and around town. The website places you in a random city with a person walking around. The goal is to guess where in the world is the city. You can have students observe what they can see, and use hedging language to make a guess.  You can even make it competitive by having two teams see who makes the closest guess.  There is also a monuments setting to have students speculate about famous world sites. This is great for modules on tourism! We even had one turn where some eagle-eyed students spotted the Eiffel Tower! City Guesser link

For Unit 5 of the B2 First for Students book, we have to discuss the topic 'learning and earning'. Here are some warm-up or fun activities I have used to make our virtual classes a little more exciting. Fake degrees I have the students read about these British university degrees and guess which one I have invented.* They can use a dictionary to help with any unfamiliar language. Prior to reading, I explain what 'BA' and 'BSc' mean. BSc Surf Science  During the programme you will study: the sport of surfing as well as surfing businesses; business planning relating to the surfing industry; event management; environmental science; human exercise science; principles of psychology; design and manufacture of surf boards; the environment and human impacts on it; the development of surfing culture and history; sport-related media and politics; the geographical and climatic influences on surfing. BA Fictional languages M'athchomaroon. Did you know this is how to say ...

I absolutely loved this article on IGN about the colour red in the Avengers Endgame trailer.  At the time it came out, I had a student who was crazy about Marvel and quite high English reading skills, so we did this activity. You can watch the trailer with the students, complete the gap-fill exercise, then match the explanations to the suggestions in the table.

This is a reading exercise to do with fans of Marvel movie with more advanced English. Have students complete the reading in groups, then match-up the stones to their picture, description, and first movie appearance. The reading is adapted from an article by  Games Radar .  

Introduction: Gap-fill Wow, do I love a gap-fill. A more interactive version of this activity can be found here . Basically, we're getting students to listen to the Avengers: Infinity War trailer and fill in the gaps. They will need to be somewhat familiar with the character's voices or names. Presentation Introduce some 'superpowers' to the students, and see if they can find an example of a superhero for each one. Make sure students know the word 'ability'. (For lower levels, this can be adapted to 'can' sentences, e.g. 'super-speed: you can run very quickly') Super-speed: the ability to move very quickly Flight: the ability to fly Teleportation: the ability to move from one place to another instantly Telepathy: the ability to hear what other people are thinking Invisibility: the ability to make yourself disappear, i.e. invisible Shapeshifting: the ability to look like someone - or something - else Super-strength: the ability to lift or move hea...