High-Intermediate to Advanced

Speaking, listening (primary focus); writing, reading (secondary focus).

Students will practice using reported speech through a vacation-planning activity.

• Teacher: whiteboard/chalkboard, markers or chalk.
• Students: pencils or pens, notebooks or writing paper.

In this week’s Teacher’s Corner, students will practice phrasal verbs through a vacation-planning activity.

1. Read through all the materials carefully before starting the activity.
2. Print a copy of the Vacation Flyer in Appendix 1 for each pair or small group of students.
3. Print a copy of the Travel Phrasal Verbs card in Appendix 2. A card can be printed for each group or one can be printed and put on the chalkboard/whiteboard for the whole class.

Part 1 – In-Class Practice

1.     Begin the activity by having the students form pairs or small groups.

2.     Inform the students that today you will be discussing vacations.

3.     Next, give each pair or small group of students the Vacation Flyer in Appendix 1.

4.     Give the students time to read the flyer and ask any vocabulary questions they may have.

5.     Next, have the students discuss what they would like to do during the beach vacation shown on the flyer.

a.     Encourage the students to be creative and think of more activities than just those shown on the flyer.

6.     Have the students list the things they want to do on their beach vacation and things they need to do on their vacation.

a.     For example:

7. Give the students time to work on the list. Be sure to circulate among the students and check their work. Encourage them to include write complete sentences, or at least use a verb and a noun in their ideas. Later, students will replace these verbs with phrasal verbs.
8. Next, have the class come back together as a group and share the vacation ideas they brainstormed. List these ideas on the board in a format similar to the table in step 6.
9. Give each group the Phrasal Verbs Travel Card in Appendix 2 or place a copy of the card on the board. Review the phrasal verbs on the card and brainstorm other possible phrasal verbs with the students.
10. Ask the students which verbs can be replaced with phrasal verbs.
    
    1. For example:

i.     Note: Not every verb can be replaced with a phrasal verb.

11.  Encourage the students to be creative and think of more things they may want to do, or need to do, during their vacation. For example:

a.     We should dress up and take pictures at the beach.

b.     We must ask a friend to drop us off at the airport and pick us up when we come home.

c.     It is sunny at the beach, so we should put on sunscreen so we don’t get burned!

12.  Once students have some phrasal verbs to work with, have them write a short speech they can present to the class describing their beach vacation.

d.     Once all the pairs/small groups have presented, have the class vote on each presentation:

i.     Which pair/small group is the most practical and planned the best vacation?

ii.     Which pair/small group will have the most fun on their vacation?

Optional Activity

If time permits, have the students form new pairs/small groups based on the type of vacation they would like to take. For example: an adventure vacation in the mountains, a big-city vacation, a quiet vacation at the beach. Then have them create a new vacation plan that fits the type of vacation they would like to take.

Low-Intermediate to Advanced

Speaking, listening (primary focus); writing (secondary focus)

Students will practice using phrasal verbs through a dialogue practice and a speaking activity.

• Teacher: whiteboard/chalkboard, markers or chalk, computer with speakers, printer  
• Students: pencils or pens, notebooks or writing paper.

This week’s Teacher’s Corner is divided into three parts: a listening dialogue, a review activity, and a speaking activity. The listening dialogue will provide students vocabulary and sentence structure that they can use in the speaking activity. Before using the activity in class:

1. Read through all the materials carefully.
2. Print out the Listening Activity worksheet in Appendix 1. Make enough copies so that each student in class has a worksheet.
3. Print out (or have a digital copy of) the House Party worksheet answer key in Appendix 1 to check answers with the students.
4. Download the House Party Listening audio file included with this week’s materials. Listen to the audio before class.
   • If you do not have a computer to play the audio, you can read the dialogue to students. The listening transcript is in Appendix 4.
5. Print out the House Party worksheet in Appendix 3. Make enough copies so that each student in class has a worksheet.

Part 1 – Listening Activity

1.     Give each student a copy of the Listening Activity worksheet in Appendix 1.

2.     Next, read the directions with the students. The students will listen to the audio and fill in the blanks with the words they hear.

3.     Play the audio and have students fill in the blanks on the worksheet.

• For lower-level classes you may want to play the audio twice.

4.     Review the answers as a group. Have the students check their answers, or they can change papers with a partner and check their partner’s answers.

5.     Play the audio again so students can follow along with the corrected answers on their worksheets.

Part 2 – Phrasal Verbs Charades

1.     Review the phrasal verbs used in the listening activity by playing charades.

• Note: Charades is a guessing game. In charades, one student silently acts out a word or phrase and the rest of the class must guess the word of phrase.

2.     Act out one of the sentences from the listening activity and have the students guess which sentence is it is.

3.     Have students come to the front of the class and act out another sentence from the listening activity.

• For more competitive classes, award points to students who are the first to guess correctly. The student with the most points at the end wins.

Part 3 – House Party!

1.     Begin this part of the activity by having the students create their own sentences on a sheet of paper. Encourage the students to use the pattern used in the listening activity:

• (phrasal verb)  the  (noun)  in/at/on the (location).
• For example: Clean up the pizza boxes in the living room!

2.     Next, give each student a copy of the House Party! worksheet in Appendix 3. Read the directions on the worksheet as a class.

3.     Have the students form pairs. Each pair will have student A and student B.

• Note: This activity will be done in two rounds. During the first round, student A will read his/her sentences and student B will write them down on his/her worksheet. Then the pairs will switch roles.

4.     Next, have student A start a dialogue with student B. Encourage the students to use stress and intonation like they heard in the dialogue. Student A needs to instruct student B on how to clean up the house. Student B should write down on the worksheet the instructions he/she hears from student A.

5.     After they have finished sharing sentences and taking notes, have the students switch roles. Student B will now call student A and give instructions.

Optional Activities

1. If time permits, have the pairs come to the front of the class and act out their dialogue.
2. Another optional activity is charades. Now that students have had a chance to work with the phrasal verbs, have individual students come to the front of the class and act out the sentences they wrote for the House Party! activity.

Enjoy these three puzzles. One puzzle is a “word search” with a twist, involving synonyms and antonyms of common feelings. Our second puzzle is based on synonyms and antonyms and is available online only. Our third puzzle is an antonym word search, also only available online.

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