Activity 9- The Alphabet Game

    

                                                               picture credits: @Jim Davies (Flickr)

Here is an idea for teens and young learners!

Level: any
Device needed: camera (cellphone, tablet,digital camera or any other device that has a camera in it)
Aim: vocabulary review/awareness

Instructions: 

Students can work individually or in pairs/groups in case not everyone has a camera. Set a time limit of 10 minutes and ask them to go around the school taking pictures of different objects. However, tell them that there is a very important rule: They should take pictures of objects obeying the alphabetical order (the first picture should be of something beginning with letter "A" , the second picture should be of something beginning with letter "B", the third picture with letter "C"...). When the time is up, students get back to class, sit in small groups and show their pictures to their group members. That is a great opportunity for them to practice pronunciation and learn new vocabulary words. The student with more pictures in the correct alphabetical order is the winner.

Source: Vinicius Lemos

Activity 8- A Typical Week In My Life

                                          picture credits: corsa2012.blogspot.com

Here is a simple idea for a very communicative and meaningful activity.
 

Grammar point:Simple Present

 Level: Beginning
Language Skill: Speaking
Device needed: camera (cellphone, tablet,digital camera or any other device that has a camera in it)
Objective: Describing routine

Instructions:

This is a project that should be carried out outside the classroom for a period of a week. Explain that they should use their device to take pictures that can be used to illustrate their activities on a typical week (at school, playing sports, lunch, family, hanging out with friends, etc). Then, in the end of a week taking pictures, they should pick up 5 images that best represent their week. Reinforce the idea that those 5 images are the ones that are going to be used for the class activity.

On the day assigned by the teacher students should bring their devices with the 5 selected photos. Pair them up and ask them to show the pictures as they use the simple present to talk about their routine. Explain that they should not only make a sentence in the simple present as they show the picture but also give additional details about it. Partners should be encouraged to ask questions about details. After students have had a chance to show their pictures and talk to their partners invite some volunteers to talk about their routine to the whole group. As a follow-up students can write 3 new things they learned about their classmates`routine and share it with the whole group. 

Tip: Model the activity before students actually start working on it. A great way to do it is by showing students 5 of your own pictures to illustrate your weekly routine. 

Source: Vinicius Lemos

Activity 7- Whose eyes are these?

                                          picture credits:deekay130.deviantart.com

Grammar point: Genitive Case/Possessive Adjectives

App: Photo Crop

Operating System: iOS (iphone or ipad) 

Price: free 

Internet Status: online 

Website be used: Google Images 

Number of devices required : 1 per student, if available

Instructions:

Ask students to go to Google Images and search for the photo of any celebrity they want to. Tell them to save that photo into their device's library. Then, explain that they should open that saved picture in the app Photo Crop and crop it so that only a part of the body of that celebrity can be seen (Ex: nose, eyes, hair, mouth, legs, etc). Then, classmates should guess who that celebrity is by making sentences in the Genitive Case (ex: These are Angélica's eyes/This is Justin Bieber's nose/ This is Obama's mouth/etc). Then, students should reveal who the celebrity is by showing the original picture.

Tips:

Always model how to do it before the students actually start the activity.

Tell students to look for good quality photos, specially the one with a close-up on faces.

Make this activity more sophisticated by asking students to practice asking questions and giving complete answers so that they can practice the pertinent grammatical structures ( ex: Whose eyes are these?/ Whose nose is this?/ Whose hair is this?/ No, this isn't Justin's nose/No, these aren't Angélica's eyes/ No, This isn't his mouth/ Yes, this is her hair)

Transform it into a game by dividing class into 2 teams.

Source: Vinicius Lemos