Niamh's classroom

This is a class on TV we used with 8th and 9th graders (13-15 years old). This actually had a more interactive aspect, which we facilitated through mentimeter . This is an interactive presentation tool that we've found to be invaluable for engaging students in online classes. Here are some examples of how we used it in the TV classes: Students listed their three favourite TV shows. Seems a lot of students like the news! Wording differs from presentation, but we had students vote on this. We've found that by giving students time to read and think about the statements, they later produce far better answers when you discuss it as a group. It also encourages students with differing opinions to share their thoughts. You'll notice that in the 'guess the show' activity as well as some other slides, we have featured Czech TV shows. This is because a number of students expressed their concern to us that they did not watch much English TV. This isn't an issue if you do y...

This is a tried and tested ESL conversation class about movies. We used it with three classes of mixed ability, from 7th-9th grade (approximately ages 12-15). It took around 45 minutes. All ages were able to play the genre connect four style game with the terms on the screen to match it. More advanced students could also provide examples of movies. 8th and 9th graders found the 'favourite movie' description straightforward, but the 7th graders needed a little more support.  The role-play works well with older students who are able to be a bit more imaginative.  To have a sense of the kind of movies students had seen, we created a word-cloud on mentimeter in a previous class, to allow the students to enter the titles of their 3 favourite movies. As always, if you would like a copy of this presentation, please get in touch and I will happily send it over.

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...