English_File_3rd_-_Teacher_Book_Extra_Resources / Resources / Weblink Mini-Projects

English File third edition Pre-intermediate Weblink Mini-Projects

File 1

1B

Activity type: Reading for specific information and for gist Language: Descriptions http://uk-dating-websites.no1reviews.com/

Put students into pairs and assign each pair one of the reviews to read, and tell them to click on the ‘Read the Full Review of …’ link. Tell them to make notes as they read (e.g. price, best features, number of members, etc.), and use their dictionaries to help them. They then feedback in class, describing their website, and promoting it as the best one. In the end the class votes for which they think is the best website and give reasons.

Extension: This could lead in to a design-your-own, or a role-play activity.

Note: You should tell students not to click on the ‘Click here to visit site’ button, as you only want them to read the reviews.

1C

Activity type: Speaking

Language: Clothing, describing photos http://www.vogue.co.uk/

Tell students to click on the ‘Today I’m wearing’ button on the left-hand menu, and click on photos that interest them, choosing their favourite outfits, trends, and fashions. Tell them to choose three or four photos. Then put them in pairs or small groups and get them to feedback and tell each other about the photos they chose. You might want to get students to answer questions to guide them, such as:

What can you see in the photo?

What are they wearing?

What accessories are they wearing?

Are they wearing any jewellery?

Why do you like it?

Is the outfit beautiful?

Would you wear it?

Who designed it?

Note: You might want to pre-teach some vocabulary such as ‘bling’ and ‘vintage’.

File 2

2A

Activity type: Reading for specific information

Language: Holidays http://www.traveleye.com/client/top100.php

Put students into pairs and tell them to choose a destination from the list on the first website, where they both would like to go on a two-week holiday together (they can find more information by clicking on the destinations). Then tell them to click on their chosen destination and click the ‘Things to do’ tab to find more information about things to do / experience in that place. When they have decided on a destination and what they will do on their holiday, put the pairs together into groups of four and feedback about their choice. Was it easy to agree on a destination? What are they going to do there? Do they think they will still be friends after the holiday? Why / why not?

File 3

3C

Activity type: Writing Language: New words

http://www.learn-english-today.com/new-words/new-words-in-english.html

Put students into pairs or small groups, and assign them a section of the alphabet (depending on class size, you could give them letters A-D, for example, or a page of the list, there are 5 in total). Tell them to read the list of words beginning with their letter. Working together, they choose five to ten words (depending on your class’s level), and on a fresh piece of paper, write a sentence using each word, but instead of writing the new words, they leave a blank space, and write the new words in a jumbled list on another part of the page, creating a ten-question gap-fill quiz. Swap the quizzes and get students to complete them in their groups. The writers of the quiz with the most correct answers wins. After the quiz, feedback in class: what’s the funniest word they found? Which is the most difficult to understand? Which also exist in their language?

Note: The gap-fill quiz would be similar to the Vocabulary exercise on p.34 of the Workbook. You might want to make an example exercise for students to do beforehand.

File 4

4B

Activity type: Information search

Language: Shopping http://www.amazon.co.uk/

Put students into pairs and tell them they are going to buy a present for their partner for Christmas or their birthday (or another occasion when your students give presents). Give them five to ten minutes to tell each other their age, favourite hobby, something they don’t like doing, the best present they’ve ever received and the worst. When the time is up, give each pair a budget of £25, £50, or £100 each, and tell them to search on separate computers for a gift for each other. They can search by category if they need inspiration, or type in the name of the product they want to buy. Give them a time limit, again five or ten minutes, and when the time is up, tell students to come back together with their partners and ‘give’ their gifts. Why did they choose that gift for their partner? Do they like what they’ve ‘received’ from their partner?

Alternative activity: You might want to do a ‘Secret Santa’ style activity, where students write their details, put them in a hat, and draw out a name at random. Students can choose and present and ‘give’ it in class, explaining what it is and why they chose it.

File 5

5B

Activity type: Reading and writing Language: Superlatives

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/explore-records/

Put students into pairs and tell them to explore the website and choose three records they find the most interesting / funny / surprising. They need to read about the records, and together write multiplechoice questions, one for each record (e.g. How long is the longest nose? A-7.7cm B-8.8cm C-9.9cm). Monitor and help students with word order, etc. Then divide the class into two teams, ensuring students in pairs together are on the same team, and collect their questions so that you have a set for each team. Then act as quiz master and ask each team in turn a question written by the other team. Students can decide on their answers as a group, and the team with the most correct answers wins.

Practical English Activity type: Role play

Language: Shopping, sport http://www.sportsdirect.com/sport

Put students into pairs and give student A a sport. They are the customer, and they want to take up this new sport. Student B is the sports shop assistant, and must help the customer find what they need to start doing their sport. Have they got the right size? How much money did they spend? They can then swap roles and change sports.

File 6

6C

Activity type: Reading for gist

Language: Dreams, adjectives and prepositions http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/tp/facts-about-dreams.htm

Tell students to read three sections that interest them, using their dictionaries to help. Then put students in pairs or small groups, and tell them to feedback what they read. What was most interesting? What was most surprising?

Encourage students to tell stories of their own experiences, for example have they ever had a lucid dream, what themes occur most in their dreams?

Extension: This could lead in to a pair-work activity, where students try to interpret the meaning of each other’s dreams. Student A describes a dream they had recently or remember vividly, and student B asks questions about their real life to try to determine why student A had that dream.

File 7

7A

Activity type: Reading and speaking Language: verbs + infinitive, instructions http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page

Tell students to choose a category that interests them, and then to click on a photo or subcategory that interests them. This will take them to step-by-step advice on how to do or make something. Tell them to read the instructions, using a dictionary and making notes if necessary. Then put them into pairs or small groups and get them to explain the process, using the photos in the article if there are any, and using verbs in the infinitive with to (as in the Grammar Bank).

Alternatively you can choose some articles for the students to read, which you know are the right level for your class. Here are some suggestions:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Conversation http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-House-Guest

Note- This website is in American English.

File 8

8B

Activity type: Reading for gist and speaking Language: Natural disasters

http://www.ehow.com/how_2066082_survive-monsoon.html http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Blizzard http://www.ehow.com/how_2082660_survive-forest-fire.html http://www.helium.com/items/2090108-how-to-survive-a-cyclone http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Flood http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-an-Earthquake#Steps http://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Tsunami

Put students into small groups and assign each group a different natural disaster as mentioned in the lesson. Tell them to research their disaster by following the appropriate link, using a dictionary if necessary. Then put the class into groups again, making sure each group contains students who have studied different disasters. Tell them to explain what they’ve learned, and discuss any other survival techniques or tips the group might know.

File 9

9B

Activity type: Reading and speaking Language: Phobias and words relating to fear

http://psychology.about.com/od/phobias/p/commonphobias.htm

Tell students to read about the ten most common phobias, helping them with pronunciation. When they have read, put them into pairs or small groups and tell them to feedback on what they read. What did they find most interesting? Did anything surprise them?

Encourage students to share their own experiences, for example what are they afraid of, do they know anyone who has an unusual phobia?

Practical English Activity type: Game

Language: Directions http://www.londontubemap.org.uk/london-tube-stations.html http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/standard-tube-map.pdf

Preparation: Before the lesson, print the list of tube stations from the first link, and cut them up and put them in a hat.

In the lesson, put students into pairs and tell one of them to take two stations from the hat, but only show one to their partner. Using the map from the second link, they must then direct their partner to the second station, with finally the partner saying the name of the second station.

Tip: You can either print out the tube map from the second link, or let students use it onscreen.

File 10

10A

Activity type: Game

Language: Inventions http://inventors.about.com/od/inventionsalphabet/Alphabetical_List_Famous_Invention.htm

Put students into pairs (or they could work individually if you have a smaller class), and assign each pair a section of the list. Tell them to read about 5 inventions, and to write down two facts about each of them, in the format of ‘Did you know …?’ questions. However, they must include one lie about each invention. Tell them to keep the lies fairly simple, for example a lie about where the object was invented, or how old the inventor was when they invented it. Then put pairs together into groups of four, and get them to read out their ‘Did you know …?’ questions. Each pair must guess which piece of information is false (but they don’t have to know what the real information is). If they guess the correct piece of information, they get a point, if they guess the wrong one, the other team get a point.

10C

Activity type: Reading for gist Language: Decision making

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-make-a-difficult-decision-30-tips-to-help-you-choose/

Tell students to read through the list of decision-making techniques. Give them about 10-15 minutes to do this. Then put them into pairs or small groups and get them to discuss the following questions:

-Which did they think was the most useful?

-Have they used any of these in their own life to make a decision? Give more information.

-Are there any in the list which they think are not useful?

-Can they think of any more to add to the list?

If you have a strong/confident class, you could get students to volunteer to describe a difficult decision they are facing at that time, and get the rest of the class to give them advice on how to make the best decision.

File 11

11A

Activity type: Reading for detail

Language: Sports http://www.topendsports.com/sport/unusual/list.htm

Put students into groups of three, and give them each a label A, B, or C. Tell them to work in their groups and read about unusual sports, whichever interest them, using their dictionaries to help them. After about ten minutes of reading, put students into new groups: group A, group B, and group C. Students then feedback in these new groups, describing to each other the sports they read about. Which was their favourite? Which was the strangest / most dangerous? Which do they think they would be best at?

11C

Activity type: Reading and speaking Language: Similarities

http://listverse.com/2007/11/12/top-15-amazing-coincidences/

Give each student a different story to read (you may want to print them and give them out). Then put them in pairs and get them to tell each other the stories they read, leaving out the ending. Their partner must listen and ask questions, and try to guess the ending.

File 12

12C

Activity type: Game

Language: Question forms http://www.pubquizreference.co.uk/

Divide students into two teams. Tell them to use the trivia (useless trivia, trivia reference, special sections) to write questions for a ‘pub’ quiz. Collect in the questions, and be the ‘Quiz Master’ by asking each team questions from the other team. The team with the most points wins.

Tip:- You could create a round yourself e.g. song intros, or British culture. You could also prepare prizes and forfeits.