Burkini Ban: a conversation lesson

The burkini ban created some outrage last week and I thought it would be a good topic for a conversation lesson. The text I chose also touches on the subject of politics, which can be a good segue to talk about other events in Brazil.

This was originally used with a group of C1/C2 teachers, but I have shortened the text. Still, some of the language used in the text is complex and I’d recommend you use it with B2+ students. This discussion is also more appropriate for a group of adults or young adults.

Charity Water: a conversation lesson

 

Most of the ideas for lessons I post here come from either a video I come across on Facebook or something I read in online editions of newspapers. This one, however, comes from a podcast.

I’ve been doing a lot of driving recently and podcasts keep me entertained. The best one I listened to this year was an interview with Charity Water’s founder Scott Harrison, which you can find here. It really struck a chord with me and I thought it could generate meaningful conversation with my adult students.

This lesson is aimed at students who are B2 or above, but can be easily adapted for B1 students if you don’t use the podcast snippet.

Teaching Pronunciation with TV series – my Braz-Tesol presentation

Last month I had the pleasure to present two talks at the Braz-Tesol international conference. One of them was about pronunciation and TV series and it is now available here.

Olympic Games: a(nother) conversation lesson

If you live in Brazil, like I do, it seems that the Olympic Games is all everybody is talking about. Back in June, I posted a lesson based on this topic and it continues to be one of the most clicked posts on the blog after two months. Because of that, I’ve decided to post a new conversation lesson I used last Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony took place.

The idea behind this lesson is to explore two ideas: the first is that a picture is worth a thousand words and the other is that pictures can be deceiving. This was originally aimed at adult students, but could also be used with adolescents and young adults without making too many changes.

Post-vacation Blues: a conversation lesson

Whenever my wife and I travel during holidays we have these conflicted feelings at the end of the trip. We usually long to get home but, when we  do, there’s a little sadness to the fact that holidays are over and it’s time to get back to the routine.

With that in mind, this was a lesson for a student who was coming back from a trip to the USA earlier this year and one that I think is appropriate for the first week of classes. If you have a group of students it’s likely that some of them will have travelled in July, but even those who didn’t will already have experienced the feeling.

Two CELTA Courses, One Month

I had known for a while I’d spend July running one intensive CELTA course, similarly to what I did in January. However, I was later offered to run a second intensive course in July. I was interested, but before accepting I talked to the tutor who trained me and asked if he thought I could manage it. His answer was yes and I accepted the offer. This is how the month went.