Unit 14 Comment adverbials

14.1. Snap, or Getting rid of phrases (PW)

Material: cards with comment adverbials, a blank card for each student (to write a theme)

The idea has been taken from a seminar at TTC by Ekaterina Sharuda

Each student writes a topic on a blank card (sport, weather, English, etc.). All the cards are put in one pile and shuffled. (Or you can take the theme of the unit; or it can be done as a feedback)

All students are given the same amount of cards with comment adverbials. They choose a card with the topic and speak on it, using the given phrases. The aim of the game is to get rid of the cards quicker than the partner, using them naturally in speech. Make sure that the students take turns allowing their partner to speak.

certainly	definitely	possibly	in all likelihood
undoubtedly	without a doubt	in theory	surprisingly
frankly	personally	unfortunately	to my surprise
in my opinion	quite honestly	generally speaking	strangely
cleverly	kindly	mistakenly	foolishly

Emphasis

14.2. Newspaper editors (PW)

Material: worksheet for each pair; (red pens)

The news has been taken from BBC.com

Tell the students that they got the chance to become editors. Ask them what the duties of newspaper editor include (e.g. making the news attractive for the readers, highlighting the most important parts – emphasizing). Let them choose an article and add as much emphasis as they can (for fronting, cleft sentences, using adverbs and other ways of emphasizing they can turn to the Grammar reference p. 163).

The winner is the pair with the biggest amount of corrections for the sake of adding emphasis.

14.2.1. Variation (PW)

As an extension or an independent task they can make up news of their own. Set the amount of sentences and the time limit, then they exchange the news and try to make their partner’s news more emphatic.

Newspaper editors Frosty relations over future of the Arctic

By Shaun LeyPresenter, BBC Radio 4

4 September 2015

O n Monday, President Obama flew to Anchorage in Alaska, to address GLACIER. The acronym stands for Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience.

The focus was on climate change. Evon Peter, from the Gwich'in nation, was in the audience. "In my short lifetime of four decades, I've seen the tundra drying up, an increase in the number of forest fires, lakes drying up," he told The World This Weekend on BBC Radio 4.

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Extra screen time 'hits gcse grades'

By Judith Burns BBC News

4 September 2015

An extra hour a day of television, internet or computer game time in Year 10 is linked to poorer grades at GCSE, a Cambridge University study suggests.

T he researchers recorded the activities of more than 800 14-year-olds and analysed their GCSE results at 16.

Those spending an extra hour a day on screens saw a fall in GCSE results equivalent to two grades overall.

"Reducing screen time could have important benefits," said co-author Dr Esther van Sluijs.