First lesson of the New Year
 

Happy New Year to all.
Right, that's the pleasantries over with, down to business.

Does anyone have any nice lesson ideas for the first back after the holidays? The break seems to have killed the little creativity that I had :-(

I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Levels: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Cheers guys!

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

Hi,
I was just surfing and I came across some good New Year's Resolution activity sheets for beginners and more advanced students on http://bogglesworldesl.com Have a look.
I really don't look forward to starting either. But will get more enthusiastic after the first week, I hope.
Manuela

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

how do you attach powerpoints?

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

Do you mean here at eslHQ? Just scroll down from the textarea where you type your message to the button that says "Manage Attachments". From there you'll be able to easily upload powerpoint presentations.

Eric

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

Ha list to you guy! I've been back teaching since Jan 2nd :(

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

It comes up an invalid file and won't upload Powerpoint. any ideas?

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

Thanks a lot.
I must say I'm pretty fed up at the thought of going back but like you say once the first week is out the way . . . .

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

please email me the file at eric at eslhq dot com and i will take a look at it.

thanks
eric

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

The obvious thing is to talk about what you all did over Xmas and/or resolutions/plans for the New Year, depending on whether you want to focus on past forms, future forms etc. To jazz it up a bit, you could :

- ask them to write it down, without including identifying details like their name etc. Monitor and correct as they work, then read out the paragraphs. The class vote on who was the writer.

- you (or a student) write on the board various ambiguous keywords describing your holidays. One of yours Clive could be Mario (based on your other post this week). the group then has to ask questions until they've found out why that word was relevant to your holiday.

- each student writes three (or five sentences abut their holiday/new year's resolutions of which one is untrue. the rest of the group decide which.

For more advanced classes, ask them to predict what will happen in 2007. Again you could write keywords on the board - America, Iraq, the environment, technology, sport, TV etc. Get them to write down at least three predictions and to read them out to the group. Note them on the board, then give out an article making predictions for 2007 and get them to read it to check : are any of the predictions the same? Opposite? Completely different?
For an article you could use, try :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/6175079.stm

Or in classes of only one or two students, get them to do the BBC end of year quiz : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/6199909.stm

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

That's great. especially the keywords idea - i'll be using that most Mondays in fact as a way to find out about the weekend.

I'll try all the ideas in any case.
Thanks a lot Susan - you've just made my day a lot easier :)

By the way, love the photos- It looks pretty cold!

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

The worst thing about vacations is having to go back to work.

Re: First lesson of the New Year
 

Surprisingly I've never really felt like that before, certainly not since I've been a teacher anyway. It's slightly worrying that so far this week I've got no desire to teach whatsoever - I hope it's just a passing phase :drama:

Susan, I used the keyword idea yesterday. Half of the group couldn't have been less interested (but they're like that anyway) but the other half got quite into it, especially as I refused to let it go until they'd nailed it.

These are the simple ideas that help to freshen lessons. Thanks again.