Thursday, March 19, 2020

Absolute Beginner English Basic Adjectives

Absolute Beginner English Basic Adjectives When absolute beginner students are able to identify a number of basic objects, that is a good time to introduce some basic adjectives to describe those objects. You will need to have some illustrations of similar objects that look slightly different. Its helpful to have them mounted on the same size of cardstock and have them big enough to show to everyone in the classroom. For Part III of this lesson, you will want to have, at minimum, one image per student. Preparation Prepare the lesson by writing a number of adjectives on the board. Use adjectives that are paired in opposites, such as the following: beautiful- uglyold- newhot- coldold- youngbig- smallcheap- expensivethick- thinempty- full Notice that you should use adjectives that describe the outward appearance of things because students have learned only basic everyday object vocabulary prior to this. Part I: Introducing Adjectives Teacher: (Take two illustrations that show similar things in different states.) This is an old car. This is a new car. Teacher: (Take two illustrations that show similar things in different states.) This is an empty glass. This is a full glass. Continue pointing out the differences between the various things. Part II: Getting Students to Describe Illustrations After you feel comfortable that students are familiar with these new adjectives, begin to ask students questions. Stress that students should answer in complete sentences.   Teacher: What is this? Student(s): That is an old house. Teacher: What is this? Student(s): That is a cheap shirt. Continue choosing between the various objects. Besides the traditional  calling on individual students for answers, you can also make a circle game out of this activity. Turn  over the images onto a table and have students each choose one from the pile (or hand them out facedown).  Then each student flips over the image and describes it. After each student has had a turn, mix up the images and have everyone draw again. Part III: Students Ask Questions For this circle game, hand out the various images to the students. The first student, student A, asks the student to his/her left, student B, about the image. Student B responds and then asks the student to his/her left, student C, about Bs image, and so on around the room. For additional practice, reverse the circle so that every student gets to ask and respond about two images. If it will take too long to go around a circle because of the class size, have students pair off and discuss their images. They can then switch pairs with people near them or trade images. Teacher: (Student A name), ask (student B name) a question. Student A: Is this a new hat? OR What is this? Student B: Yes, that is a new hat. OR No, that isnt a new hat. It is an old hat. Questions continue around the room. Part III: Alternative If you want to create a mingle with this activity, deal an image to each student, facedown. Students cannot show anyone their image and instead need to find the opposite of the one they have, like an interactive Go-Fish game. If you have an odd number of students, include yourself in the mingle. Alternates are listed in case students have not had do or where yet.  For  example: Student A: Do you have an old house? OR Where is the old house? OR Are you the old house? I have the new house OR I am the new house.   Student B: I have an expensive bag. I am not the old house.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Effective Reading Strategies For Textbooks

Effective Reading Strategies For Textbooks    Newsflash: Your teacher doesn’t care if you read the whole chapter. I know that this sounds like a lie that teachers use to make sure you fail in school and life in general, but I am not kidding. At all. In fact, if youre using effective reading strategies, youre not going to read every single word. You dont really have to. Do you know what your teacher wants, more than anything? For you to learn the material youre supposed to know, and if you use the following effective reading tips for textbooks, youll be sure to do that. Read to learn; dont just read to read. There is absolutely no guilt if you skip around as long as you understand what youre supposed to.   Effective Reading Strategies Involve Less Actual Reading The best way to spend your study hour when you get an assignment to read a chapter is to devote as little time as is humanly possible to actually putting your eyes across the words on the page and as much time as is humanly possible doing these things: Testing yourself on the contentOrganizing the contentReviewing the contentRelating new concepts in the book to ones you already knowIdentifying and memorizing technical terms, formulas, and vocabularyApplying the concepts in the textbook to real-world situations In other words, spend your time learning, not just hacking through the words on the page until they blur into a giant mass of indecipherable grayish figures. Effective Reading Strategies For Learning a Chapter As I said before, your teacher doesnt care if you read the whole chapter. He or she does care if you know the material. And you should, too. Heres how to minimize your reading and maximize your learning when you read a textbook. Just PEEK, ASK, ANSWER and QUIZ. Peek. Effective reading starts with dedicating the first part of your reading time to peeking through the chapter - look at chapter headings, view pictures, read the intro and conclusion, and browse through the study questions at the end. Get a feel for what you need to know.Ask Questions. On a sheet of paper, transform your chapter headings into questions, leaving spaces underneath. Change â€Å"Early Romantic Poets† into â€Å"Who were the Early Romantic Poets?† Change â€Å"The Lithograph† into â€Å"What THE HECK is The Lithograph?† And on and on. Do this for every heading and subheading. Seems like a waste of precious time. I assure you, it is not.Answer Questions. Read through the chapter to answer the questions you just created. Put the answers in your own words underneath the questions you’ve written on your paper. Paraphrasing what the book says is imperative because youll remember your own words much better than someone elses.Quiz. When yo u’ve found the answers to all of the questions, read back through your notes with the answers covered to see if you can answer the questions from memory. If not, reread your notes until you can. Effective Reading Summary If you practice these effective reading strategies, your test/quiz/and exam study time will decrease DRAMATICALLY because you will have learned the material as you go instead of cramming for your test right before exam time: Sample Reading Comprehension QuestionsLearn Those Facts With Mnemonic DevicesHow to Study For Any Test